Hydrated Calcium Vanadate Nanoribbons with a Stable Structure and Fast Ion Diffusion as a Cathode for Quasi-Solid-State Zinc-Ion Batteries.

We demonstrated the use of hydrated calcium vanadate (CaV6O16·3H2O, denoted as CaVO-2) as a cathode for aqueous zinc-ion batteries (AZIBs). Nanoribbons of hydrated calcium vanadate facilitated shortening of the Zn2+ transport distance and accelerated zinc-ion insertion. The introduction of interlayer structure water increased the interlayer spacing of calcium vanadate and as a "lubricant". Ca2+ insertion also expanded the interlayer spacing and further stabilized the interlayer structure of vanadium-based oxide. The density functional theory results showed that the introduction of Ca2+ and structured water could effectively improve the diffusion kinetics, resulting in the rapid transport of zinc ions. As a result, AZIBs based on the CaVO-2 cathode offered high specific capacity (329.6 mAh g-1 at 200 mA g-1) and fast charge/discharge capability (147 mAh g-1 at 10 A g-1). Impressively, quasi-solid-state zinc-ion batteries based on the CaVO-2 cathode and polyacrylamide-cellulose nanofiber hydrogel electrolytes maintained an outstanding specific capacity and long cycle life (162 mAh g-1 over 10 000 cycles at 5 A g-1). This study provided a reliable strategy for metal-ion insertion and the structural water introduction of oxides to produce a high-quality cathode for ZIBs. Meanwhile, it provides ideas for the combination of vanadium-based materials and gel electrolytes to construct solid-state zinc-ion batteries.

Berberine inhibits SGIV replication by suppressing inflammatory response and oxidative stress.

Singapore grouper iridovirus (SGIV) is one of the major infectious diseases responsible for high mortality and huge economic losses in the grouper aquaculture industry. Berberine (BBR), a naturally occurring plant alkaloid, is a phytochemical having a variety of biological properties, such as antiviral, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory effects. In this work, we used an in vitro model based on Western blot, ROS fluorescence probe, and real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) to examine the antiviral qualities of BBR against SGIV. The outcomes demonstrated that varying BBR concentrations could significantly inhibit the replication of SGIV. In addition, BBR greatly inhibited the production of genes associated with pro-inflammatory cytokines in SGIV-infected or SGIV-uninfected GS cells based on qRT-PCR data. Subsequent investigations demonstrated that BBR suppressed the expression of the promoter activity of NF-κB and NF-κB-p65 protein. Additionally, BBR reduced the phosphorylation of ERK 1/2, JNK, and p38. Furthermore, BBR also inhibits SGIV-induced ROS production by upregulating the expression of antioxidant-related genes. In conclusion, BBR is a viable therapy option for SGIV infection due to its antiviral properties.

Sensitive and selective electrochemical aptasensing method for the voltammetric determination of dopamine based on AuNPs/PEDOT-ERGO nanocomposites.

In this study, the effects of phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and graphene oxide (GO) as supporting electrolytes and dopants on the electropolymerization process of 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) on glassy carbon electrode (GCE) were investigated. It was found that the PEDOT-ERGO nanocomposites obtained by a simple one-step electrochemical redox polymerization method using GO as the only supporting electrolyte and dopant possess excellent electrochemical properties. Then, the PEDOT-ERGO nanocomposites were used as electrode substrate to further modify with AuNPs, and an electrochemical aptasensor based on AuNPs/PEDOT-ERGO nanocomposites was successfully constructed for the sensitive and selective determination of dopamine (DA). Comparison of the cyclic voltammetric response of different neurotransmitters before and after aptamer assembly showed that the aptamer significantly improved the selectivity of the sensor for DA. The low detection limit of 1.0 µM (S/N = 3) indicated the good electrochemical performance of the PEDOT-ERGO nanocomposite film. Moreover, the aptasensor showed good recoveries in 50-fold diluted fetal bovine serum with RSD values all less than 5 % (n = 5), indicating that the PEDOT-ERGO nanocomposites and the electrochemical aptasensor have promising applications in other neurochemicals assay and biomedical analysis.

Interfacial Engineering of MoS2/V2O3@C-rGO Composites with Pseudocapacitance-Enhanced Li/Na-Ion Storage Kinetics.

Molybdenum sulfide has been widely investigated as a prospective anode material for Li+/Na+ storage because of its unique layered structure and high theoretical capacity. However, the enormous volume variation and poor conductivity limit the development of molybdenum sulfide. The rational design of a heterogeneous interface is of great importance to improve the structure stability and electrical conductivity of electrode materials. Herein, a high-temperature mixing method is implemented in the hydrothermal process to synthesize the hybrid structure of MoS2/V2O3@carbon-graphene (MoS2/V2O3@C-rGO). The MoS2/V2O3@C-rGO composites exhibit superior Li+/Na+ storage performance due to the construction of the interface between the MoS2 and V2O3 components and the introduction of carbon materials, delivering a prominent reversible capacity of 564 mAh g-1 at 1 A g-1 after 600 cycles for lithium-ion batteries and 376.3 mAh g-1 at 1 A g-1 after 450 cycles for sodium-ion batteries. Theoretical calculations confirm that the construction of the interface between the MoS2 and V2O3 components can accelerate the reaction kinetics and enhance the charge-ionic transport of molybdenum sulfide. The results illustrate that interfacial engineering may be an effective guide to obtain high-performance electrode materials for Li+/Na+ storage.

Low volume expansion hierarchical porous sulfur-doped Fe2O3@C with high-rate capability for superior lithium storage.

Ingenious morphology design and doping engineering have remarkable effects on enhancing conductivity and reducing volume expansion, which need to be improved by transition metal oxides serving as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Herein, S0.15-Fe2O3@C nano-spindles with a hierarchical porous structure are obtained by carbonizing MIL-88B@PDA and subsequent high-temperature S-doping. Kinetic analysis showed that S-doping increases capacitive contribution, enhances charge transfer capability and accelerates Li+ diffusion rate. Therefore, the S0.15-Fe2O3@C electrode exhibits superior lithium storage performance with a remarkable specific capacity of 1014.4 mA h g-1 at 200 mA g-1, ultrahigh rate capability of 513.1 mA h g-1 at 5.0 A g-1, and excellent cycling stability of 842.3 mA h g-1 at 1.0 A g-1 after 500 cycles. Moreover, the size of S0.15-Fe2O3@C particles barely changed after 50 cycles, indicating an extremely low volume expansion, related to the carbon shell, fine Fe2O3 nanoparticles, abundant voids inside, and improved kinetics. This strategy can be applied to other metal oxides for synthesizing anodes with high-rate capability and low volume expansion.

Predicting Drug-Target Interaction Via Self-Supervised Learning.

Recent advances in graph representation learning provide new opportunities for computational drug-target interaction (DTI) prediction. However, it still suffers from deficiencies of dependence on manual labels and vulnerability to attacks. Inspired by the success of self-supervised learning (SSL) algorithms, which can leverage input data itself as supervision,we propose SupDTI, a SSL-enhanced drug-target interaction prediction framework based on a heterogeneous network (i.e., drug-protein, drug-drug, and protein-protein interaction network; drug-disease, drug-side-effect, and protein-disease association network; drug-structure and protein-sequence similarity network). Specifically, SupDTI is an end-to-end learning framework consisting of five components. First, localized and globalized graph convolutions are designed to capture the nodes' information from both local and global perspectives, respectively. Then, we develop a variational autoencoder to constrain the nodes' representation to have desired statistical characteristics. Finally, a unified self-supervised learning strategy is leveraged to enhance the nodes' representation, namely, a contrastive learning module is employed to enable the nodes' representation to fit the graph-level representation, followed by a generative learning module which further maximizes the node-level agreement across the global and local views by learning the probabilistic connectivity distribution of the original heterogeneous network. Experimental results show that our model can achieve better prediction performance than state-of-the-art methods.

High resolution imaging and quantification of the nailfold microvasculature using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and capillaroscopy: a preliminary study in healthy subjects.

Background: A wide range of diseases, such as systemic sclerosis, can be diagnosed by imaging the nailfold microcirculation, which is conventionally performed using capillaroscopy. This study applied optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) as a novel high resolution imaging method for the qualitative and quantitative assessment of the nailfold microvasculature, and compared OCTA imaging with capillaroscopy. Methods: For qualitative assessment, high resolution OCTA imaging was used to achieve images that contained a wide field of view of the nailfold microvasculature through mosaic scanning. OCTA imaging was also used to observe the characteristic changes in the microvasculature under external compression of the upper arm. For quantitative evaluation, the capillary density and the capillary diameter of the nailfold microvasculature were assessed with both OCTA and capillaroscopy by repeated measurements over 2 days in 13 normal subjects. The results were analyzed using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Results: OCTA imaging showed the typical nailfold microvasculature pattern, part of which was not directly seen with the capillaroscopy. OCTA imaging revealed significant changes in the nailfold microvasculature when a large external pressure was applied via arm compression, but no significant changes were observed using capillaroscopy. The capillary density measured by OCTA and capillaroscopy was 6.8±1.5 and 7.0±1.2 loops/mm, respectively, which was not significantly different (P=0.51). However, the capillary diameter measured by OCTA was significantly larger than that measured using capillaroscopy (19.1±2.5 vs. 13.3±2.3 µm, P<0.001). The capillary diameter measurements using OCTA and capillaroscopy were highly reproducible (ICC =0.926 and 0.973, respectively). While the capillary diameter measured with OCTA was significantly larger, it was rather consistent with the diameter measured using capillaroscopy (ICC =0.705). Conclusions: This study demonstrated that OCTA is a potentially viable and reproducible tool for the imaging and quantification of the capillaries in the nailfold microvasculature. The results of this study provide a solid basis for future applications of OCTA in qualitative and quantitative assessment of nailfold microcirculation in vivo.

Spin and valence isomerism in cyanide-bridged {FeMII} (M = Fe and Co) clusters.

Two cyanide-bridged V-shaped isostructural trinuclear complexes [{(Tp*)FeIII(CN)3}2MII(bztpen)]·Sol (M = Fe, Sol = CH3OH·3H2O, 1; M = Co, Sol = 2CH3OH·2H2O, 2; bztpen = N-benzyl-N,N',N'-tris(2-methylpyridyl)ethylenediamine; Tp* = hydrotris(3,5-dimethylpyrazolyl)borate) were synthesized and characterized. The bztpen ligand serves as a tetradentate capping ligand around the inner metal ion, leaving one pyridyl group intact. Complex 1 exhibits a spin crossover (SCO) behavior between the {FeIIILSFeIIHSFeIIILS} and {FeIIILSFeIILSFeIIILS} spin isomers, while 2 shows both thermally- and photo-induced electron-transfer coupled spin transition (ETCST) property between the {FeIIILSCoIIHSFeIIILS} and {FeIIILSCoIIILSFeIILS} valence isomers. The total entropy changes for 1 and 2 between their corresponding two electronic states were found to be very close with the values of 87.46 and 84.49 J mol-1 K-1, respectively, indicating the comparable thermal energy barriers necessary for either an SCO or ETCST event for such a given system. Furthermore, both complexes undergo desolvation-induced irreversible and sharp magnetic change at high temperatures.

Manipulating the spin crossover behavior in a series of {FeFeII} complexes.

Three cyanide-bridged {Fe2Fe} complexes of formula {[(TpR)Fe(CN)3]2[Fe(bnbpen)]}·S (TpR = Tp for 1·S, Tp3-Me for 2·S, and Tp* for 3·S, respectively; bnbpen = N,N'-bis-(2-naphthylmethyl)-N,N'-bis(2-picolyl)-ethylenediamine) have been prepared and characterized here. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that all compounds feature right angled trinuclear structures with two [(TpR)Fe(CN)3]- units at the ends and one [Fe(bnbpen)]2+ at the centre. Besides the rich hydrogen bonds, remarkable π-π interactions are evidenced in all compounds between the intermolecular naphthyl and pyrazolyl rings. As a result, compounds 1·S and 2·S exhibit irreversible two-step and one-step spin-transitions, respectively, during the process of removing solvents, with T1/2 at 314 K and 376 K for 1·S and 350 K for 2·S, while compound 3·S shows a reversible one-step spin transition at relatively lower temperatures with T1/2 = 250 K, and what's more, an irreversible small magnetic change accompanied by the loss of lattice solvents was observed. The solvent-free compounds show SCO properties at lower temperatures than the corresponding solvated ones; however, the solvent-free compound 1 maintains an unexpected high-spin state and does not follow the trend that their transition temperatures decrease with the enhancement of the electron donor properties of the TpR ligands (Tp* < Tp3-Me < Tp), likely due to the more compact π-π stacking mode in comparison with those for compounds 2·S and 3·S.

[Small partial laryngectomy without tracheotomy for T1-2 stage glottic carcinoma].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the feasibility and clinical characteristics of small partial laryngectomy without tracheotomy for T1-2 stage glottic carcinoma. METHOD: Forty-five patients with laryngeal squamaous cell carcinoma in T1-2 stage received small partial laryngectomy without tracheotomy. RESULT: All patients were primarily healed and were hospitalized for an average of 11.5 days post-operatively. In all patients, the function of respiration and the reflection of cough were normal, and laryngeal obstruction did not happen. The only postoperative complication was subcutaneous emphysema noted in 29 patients. Among them, subcutaneous emphysema extincted after 4-6 days in 26 patiens, only 3 patiens suffered from delayed healing because the subcutaneous emphysema extincted after 2 weeks. Mild subcutaneous emphysema did not affect the function of respiration and deglutition, healing of wound, and psychology of patients. All patients had been followed-up for 1-13 years. Only 2 patients died of tumor recurrence or metastasis. The function of respiration and deglutition were normal in the living patients, and no implanting metastasis on surface of trachea were found. CONCLUSION: The theoretical foundation of small partial laryngectomy without tracheotomy for T1-2 stage glottic carcinoma has been well established. This surgical technique is feasible, safe and effective. It can significantly improve clinical outcome of T1-2 stage glottic carcinoma with minimal invasiveness. Furthermore, it can obviously abate the surgical, physiological and psychological trauma on patients.