Covalent Bonding of MXene/COF Heterojunction for Ultralong Cycling Li-Ion Battery Electrodes.

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have emerged as promising renewable electrode materials for LIBs and gained significant attention, but their capacity has been limited by the densely packed 2D layer structures, low active site availability, and poor electronic conductivity. Combining COFs with high-conductivity MXenes is an effective strategy to enhance their electrochemical performance. Nevertheless, simply gluing them without conformal growth and covalent linkage restricts the number of redox-active sites and the structural stability of the composite. Therefore, in this study, a covalently assembled 3D COF on Ti3C2 MXenes (Ti3C2@COF) is synthesized and serves as an ultralong cycling electrode material for LIBs. Due to the covalent bonding between the COF and Ti3C2, the Ti3C2@COF composite exhibits excellent stability, good conductivity, and a unique 3D cavity structure that enables stable Li+ storage and rapid ion transport. As a result, the Ti3C2-supported 3D COF nanosheets deliver a high specific capacity of 490 mAh g-1 at 0.1 A g-1, along with an ultralong cyclability of 10,000 cycles at 1 A g-1. This work may inspire a wide range of 3D COF designs for high-performance electrode materials.

Is periodontal disease a risk indicator for urogenital cancer? A systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies.

Objectives: The objective of the present work was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the association between periodontal disease (PD) and urogenital cancer (UC) risk. Materials and methods: An electronic search in PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Science was conducted using MeSH terms to identify cohort studies published before May 17, 2022. Cohort studies examining the association between PD and UC risk were included. We used a random-effects model to summarize the effect sizes with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of the included studies with PD as the indicator and UC as the outcome. Results: Eleven cohort studies met the inclusion criteria. Our results suggest that PD patients increases the risk of UC by 1.24-fold (hazard ratio (HR), 1.24; 95% CI, 1.17-1.31; I2, 22.4%). The strength of the sensitivity analysis and cumulative meta-analysis confirmed the reliability of the results. Conclusion: We found that PD is a potential risk factor for UC. Our results indicate that along with the decrease in the incidence of PD,PD treatment may help prevent UC. We hope that our study will raise awareness of periodontal health, thereby reducing the incidence of UC. Systematic Review Registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier CRD42021244405.

In Situ Monitored (N, O)-Doping of Flexible Vertical Graphene Films with High-Flux Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition for Remarkable Metal-Free Redox Catalysis Essential to Alkaline Zinc-Air Batteries.

Rechargeable zinc-air batteries (ZABs) have attracted great interests for emerging energy applications. Nevertheless, one of the major bottlenecks lies in the fabrication of bifunctional catalysts with high electrochemical activity, high stability, low cost, and free of precious and rare metals. Herein, a high-performance metal-free bifunctional catalyst is synthesized in a single step by regulating radicals within the recently invented high-flux plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (HPECVD) system equipped with in situ plasma diagnostics. Thus-derived (N, O)-doped vertical few-layer graphene film (VGNO) is of high areal population with perfect vertical orientation, tunable catalytic states, and configurations, thus enabling significantly enhanced electrochemical kinetic processes of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with reference to milestone achievements to date. Application of such VGNO to aqueous ZABs (A-ZABs) and flexible solid-state ZABs (S-ZABs) exhibited high discharge power density and excellent cycling stability, which remarkably outperformed ZABs using benchmarked precious-metal based catalysts. The current work provides a solid basis toward developing low-cost, resource-sustainable, and eco-friendly ZABs without using any metals for outstanding OER and ORR catalysis.

Lithium-Sulfur Batteries Meet Electrospinning: Recent Advances and the Key Parameters for High Gravimetric and Volume Energy Density.

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have been regarded as a promising next-generation energy storage technology for their ultrahigh theoretical energy density compared with those of the traditional lithium-ion batteries. However, the practical applications of Li-S batteries are still blocked by notorious problems such as the shuttle effect and the uncontrollable growth of lithium dendrites. Recently, the rapid development of electrospinning technology provides reliable methods in preparing flexible nanofibers materials and is widely applied to Li-S batteries serving as hosts, interlayers, and separators, which are considered as a promising strategy to achieve high energy density flexible Li-S batteries. In this review, a fundamental introduction of electrospinning technology and multifarious electrospinning-based nanofibers used in flexible Li-S batteries are presented. More importantly, crucial parameters of specific capacity, electrolyte/sulfur (E/S) ratio, sulfur loading, and cathode tap density are emphasized based on the proposed mathematic model, in which the electrospinning-based nanofibers are used as important components in Li-S batteries to achieve high gravimetric (WG ) and volume (WV ) energy density of 500 Wh kg-1 and 700 Wh L-1 , respectively. These systematic summaries not only provide the principles in nanofiber-based electrode design but also propose enlightening directions for the commercialized Li-S batteries with high WG and WV .

Clinical efficacy of vitamin B in the treatment of mouth ulcer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Our study sought to determine the efficacy of vitamin B in treating mouth ulcers. METHODS: The databases PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang were comprehensively searched to identify relevant articles published between 2010 and 2021. Subsequently, the clinical efficacy of vitamin B in the treatment of mouth ulcers was comprehensively and quantitatively evaluated through meta-analysis. RESULTS: Totally, 16 studies were finally included in the meta-analysis, including 1,534 patients. Patients who did not receive treatment were taken as controls, while those who were treated with vitamin B alone or vitamin B combined with pantothenic acid were included in the treatment group. In comparison with the control group, the effective rate was higher [odds ratio (OR) =5.24, 95% confidence interval (CI): 3.72 to 7.37, P<0.001] while the recurrence rate was lower (OR =0.194, 95% CI: 0.128 to 0.295, P<0.001) in the treatment group. Additionally, both the ulcer healing time [standardized mean difference (SMD) =-2.15, 95% CI: -2.80 to -1.50, P<0.001] and treatment time (SMD =-2.31, 95% CI: -2.67 to -1.96, P<0.001) in the treatment group were shorter than those of the control group. DISCUSSION: Vitamin B enables a higher effective rate and lower recurrence rate, accelerates ulcer healing, and shortens the course of treatment. Collectively, vitamin B has a high clinical value in treating patients with mouth ulcers.

In Situ Electrochemical Intercalation-Induced Phase Transition to Enhance Catalytic Performance for Lithium-Sulfur Battery.

Accelerating the conversion of polysulfide to inhibit shutting effect is a promising approach to improve the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries. Herein, the hollow titanium nitride (TiN)/1T-MoS2 heterostructure nanospheres are designed with efficient electrocatalysis properties serving as a sulfur host, which is formed by in situ electrochemical intercalation from TiN/2H-MoS2 . Metallic, few-layered 1T-MoS2 nanosheets with abundant active sites decorated on TiN nanospheres enable fast electron transfer, high adsorption ability toward polysulfides, and favorable catalytic activity contributing to the conversion kinetics of polysulfides. Benefiting from the synergistic effects of these favorable features, the as-developed hollow TiN/1T-MoS2 nanospheres with advanced architecture design can achieve a high discharge capacity of 1273 mAh g-1 at 0.1 C, good rate performance with a capacity retention of 689 mAh g-1 at 2 C, and long cycling stability with a low-capacity fading rate of 0.051% per cycle at 1 C for 800 cycles. Notably, the TiN/1T-MoS2 /S cathode with a high sulfur loading of up to 7 mg cm-2 can also deliver a high capacity of 875 mAh g-1 for 50 cycles at 0.1 C. This work promotes the prospect application for TiN/1T-MoS2 in lithium-sulfur batteries.

Decreased renal vitamin K-dependent gamma-glutamyl carboxylase activity in calcium oxalate calculi patients.

OBJECTIVE: To study the activity of vitamin K-dependent gamma-glutamyl carboxylase in patients with calcium oxalate (CaOx) urolithiasis compared with healthy individuals and to assess its relationship to the renal calcium oxalate urolithiasis. METHODS: Renal parenchymas were harvested from urolithic patients and renal tumor patients undergoing nephrectomy. The renal carboxylase activity was evaluated as the radioactivity of [(14)C] labeled sodium bicarbonate in carboxylic reactions in vitro using beta-liquid scintillation counting. RESULTS: Significantly reduced activity of renal vitamin K-dependent gamma-glutamyl carboxylase was observed in the urolithic group as compared with normal controls (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: It suggests that the reduced carboxylase activity observed in the urolithic patients may play an important role in the course of renal calcium oxalate urolithiasis.