In Situ Fabrication of Mn-Doped NiMoO4 Rod-like Arrays as High Performance OER Electrocatalyst.

The slow kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is one of the significant reasons limiting the development of electrochemical hydrolysis. Doping metallic elements and building layered structures have been considered effective strategies for improving the electrocatalytic performance of the materials. Herein, we report flower-like nanosheet arrays of Mn-doped-NiMoO4/NF (where NF is nickel foam) on nickel foam by a two-step hydrothermal method and a one-step calcination method. The doping manganese metal ion not only modulated the morphologies of the nickel nanosheet but also altered the electronic structure of the nickel center, which could be the result of superior electrocatalytic performance. The Mn-doped-NiMoO4/NF electrocatalysts obtained at the optimum reaction time and the optimum Mn doping showed excellent OER activity, requiring overpotentials of 236 mV and 309 mV to drive 10 mA cm-2 (62 mV lower than the pure NiMoO4/NF) and 50 mA cm-2 current densities, respectively. Furthermore, the high catalytic activity was maintained after continuous operation at a current density of 10 mA cm-2 of 76 h in 1 M KOH. This work provides a new method to construct a high-efficiency, low-cost, stable transition metal electrocatalyst for OER electrocatalysts by using a heteroatom doping strategy.

Development of Automatic Portable Pathology Scanner and Its Evaluation for Clinical Practice.

Digital pathological scanners transform traditional glass slides into whole slide images (WSIs), which significantly improve the efficiency of pathological diagnosis and promote the development of digital pathology. However, the huge economic burden limits the spread and application of general WSI scanners in relatively remote and backward regions. In this paper, we develop an automatic portable cytopathology scanner based on mobile internet, Landing-Smart, to avert the above problems. Landing-Smart is a tiny device with a size of 208 mm × 107 mm × 104 mm and a weight of 1.8 kg, which integrates four main components including a smartphone, a glass slide carrier, an electric controller, and an optical imaging unit. By leveraging a simple optical imaging unit to substitute the sophisticated but complex conventional light microscope, the cost of Landing-Smart is less than $3000, much cheaper than general WSI scanners. On the one hand, Landing-Smart utilizes the built-in camera of the smartphone to acquire field of views (FoVs) in the section one by one. On the other hand, it uploads the images to the cloud server in real time via mobile internet, where the image processing and stitching method is implemented to generate the WSI of the cytological sample. The practical assessment of 209 cervical cytological specimens has demonstrated that Landing-Smart is comparable to general digital scanners in cytopathology diagnosis. Landing-Smart provides an effective tool for preliminary cytological screening in underdeveloped areas.

Electrochemical response of solidification Cu2+ contaminated soil influenced by red mud/fly ash ratio.

The main purpose of this work was to study a new method for evaluating the solidification of contaminated soil based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). To explore how the EIS parameters were affected by the pore structure and mesostructure of the cured system, the physical and mechanical properties, leaching toxicity, microstructure, and EIS of the stabilized contaminated soil were tested after 7, 28, 60, and 90 days of curing. Based on the EIS results, a physical and equivalent circuit model of the stabilized contaminated soil's impedance response was established to reveal the mechanism of binder-heavy metal ion-soil interaction. The results showed that as the red mud (RM)-fly ash (FA) mass ratio and curing age increased, the strength and structural compactness of the solidified body also increased. The best curing effect was achieved with an RM-FA mass ratio of 7:3 after curing for 90 days. The equivalent circuit model of the solidified body obtained by EIS was Rs (Q1 (Rct1W) Q2Rct2). The pore solution resistance Rs, solid-liquid interface ion transfer resistance Rct 1, and unconfined compressive strength (UCS) qu all showed an increasing trend with increasing RM-FA mass ratio and increasing curing time. Fitting the model demonstrated that both Rs and Rct1 were closely correlated with the strength of the solidified bodies. These conclusions were further verified by scanning electron microscope (SEM) experiments. Overall, this work demonstrates that the strength characteristics of solidified bodies can be evaluated by EIS and reveals the microscopic mechanism of the solidification of Cu2+-contaminated soil.

Accurate classification of white blood cells by coupling pre-trained ResNet and DenseNet with SCAM mechanism.

BACKGROUND: Via counting the different kinds of white blood cells (WBCs), a good quantitative description of a person's health status is obtained, thus forming the critical aspects for the early treatment of several diseases. Thereby, correct classification of WBCs is crucial. Unfortunately, the manual microscopic evaluation is complicated, time-consuming, and subjective, so its statistical reliability becomes limited. Hence, the automatic and accurate identification of WBCs is of great benefit. However, the similarity between WBC samples and the imbalance and insufficiency of samples in the field of medical computer vision bring challenges to intelligent and accurate classification of WBCs. To tackle these challenges, this study proposes a deep learning framework by coupling the pre-trained ResNet and DenseNet with SCAM (spatial and channel attention module) for accurately classifying WBCs. RESULTS: In the proposed network, ResNet and DenseNet enables information reusage and new information exploration, respectively, which are both important and compatible for learning good representations. Meanwhile, the SCAM module sequentially infers attention maps from two separate dimensions of space and channel to emphasize important information or suppress unnecessary information, further enhancing the representation power of our model for WBCs to overcome the limitation of sample similarity. Moreover, the data augmentation and transfer learning techniques are used to handle the data of imbalance and insufficiency. In addition, the mixup approach is adopted for modeling the vicinity relation across training samples of different categories to increase the generalizability of the model. By comparing with five representative networks on our developed LDWBC dataset and the publicly available LISC, BCCD, and Raabin WBC datasets, our model achieves the best overall performance. We also implement the occlusion testing by the gradient-weighted class activation mapping (Grad-CAM) algorithm to improve the interpretability of our model. CONCLUSION: The proposed method has great potential for application in intelligent and accurate classification of WBCs.

In situ fabrication of porous biochar reinforced W18O49 nanocomposite for methylene blue photodegradation.

In this paper, a novel cow dung based activated carbon (CDAC) was successfully modified by W18O49 nanowires as a photocatalyst using KOH activation and a hydrothermal method. The activity of photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) under full-spectrum light illumination shows great improvement, and the degradation rate of MB could reach 98% after 240 min (67% for W18O49), with a final degradation rate of 98%. The porous structure with specific surface area of CDAC (∼479 m2 g-1) increases the adsorption of W18O49 reactants and also raises the concentration of reactants in the photocatalytic region. The high electrical conductivity and good electron storage capacity of CDAC allow the electrons excited in the conduction band (CB) of W18O49 to migrate smoothly into CDAC, which are the keys to enhancing the photocatalytic activity. Moreover, the photocatalytic mechanism was proposed. The results show that the CDAC/W18O49 nanowire composite can be used as an efficient photocatalyst for removal of MB dye from wastewater and indicate remarkable future potential in dye wastewater treatment technologies.

The interplay between selective etching induced cation defects and active oxygen species for volatile organic compounds degradation.

Surface electronic structure of transition metal oxides plays a vital role in determining the catalytic performance. Herein, we present a selective etching strategy to tune the surface cation defect of the CuWO4 (CW) catalyst for improving the catalytic activity of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). HRTEM, SEM-EDS, EPR, and XPS show that the chelation of metal ions in acetic acid and ammonium hydroxide can help to remove a small number of surface cations in CW to form suitable W defects. Cu L-edge and O K-edge XAS, Raman, and O 1s XPS spectrum illustrate that cation defects can improve the hybrid orbits of metal-oxygen bonds, which increases the activity of surface lattice oxygen and metal sites. In-situ DRIFTS spectra reveal that CW with cation defects can easily adsorb toluene, cleave and oxidize benzene ring, and desorb CO2 because of more surface dangling bonds and active oxygen species. Therefore, the toluene conversion rates of CW-Aci and CW-Alk are much higher than CW in VOCs degradation and the catalytic performance improved 33 times and 22 times at 200 °C, respectively. This study offers a new pathway in engineering surface electronic structure and highlights the interplay between cation defects and active oxygen species.

Chemically activated core-shell structured IF-WS2@C nanoparticles enhance sugarcane-based carbon/epoxy nanocomposites.

Ternary composites have demonstrated better capability than binary composites in enhancing the mechanical properties of the modified epoxy resins and are, therefore, currently under intensive investigation. Herein, we report a novel ternary nanocomposite prepared by filling a binary BPF (bisphenol F epoxy resin)/SCPs (sugarcane-based carbon powders) matrix with C-coated inorganic fullerene-like tungsten disulfide (IF-WS2@C) nanoparticles, and the analysis of its interface synergetic effect using XPS/FTIR. This activated nano-carbon core-shell structure filler is considered an ideal nanofiller and shows the excellent mechanical performance of the ternary composites. XRD, IR, XPS, SEM, and TEM characterizations were applied in investigating this nanocomposite. The improvement of the thermal and mechanical properties demonstrated the enhancement effects of this nanofiller. The results show that the great improvement of the bending modulus of 39.4% increased with the addition of 0.5 wt% IF-WS2@C nanoparticles, while 34.1% enhancement of bending strength was obtained with the addition of 0.2 wt% IF-WS2@C nanoparticles. The hardness and thermal conductivity were also boosted up to 5.2% and 33.1% with 0.5 wt% addition, respectively. The incorporation of a chemically activated coating may provide a novel means for improving graphite crystallization, which could somehow expand the potential application of IF-WS2@C nanoparticles.

The artificial intelligence-assisted cytology diagnostic system in large-scale cervical cancer screening: A population-based cohort study of 0.7 million women.

BACKGROUND: Adequate cytology is limited by insufficient cytologists in a large-scale cervical cancer screening. We aimed to develop an artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted cytology system in cervical cancer screening program. METHODS: We conducted a perspective cohort study within a population-based cervical cancer screening program for 0.7 million women, using a validated AI-assisted cytology system. For comparison, cytologists examined all slides classified by AI as abnormal and a randomly selected 10% of normal slides. Each woman with slides classified as abnormal by either AI-assisted or manual reading was diagnosed by colposcopy and biopsy. The outcomes were histologically confirmed cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or worse (CIN2+). RESULTS: Finally, we recruited 703 103 women, of whom 98 549 were independently screened by AI and manual reading. The overall agreement rate between AI and manual reading was 94.7% (95% confidential interval [CI], 94.5%-94.8%), and kappa was 0.92 (0.91-0.92). The detection rates of CIN2+ increased with the severity of cytology abnormality performed by both AI and manual reading (Ptrend  < 0.001). General estimated equations showed that detection of CIN2+ among women with ASC-H or HSIL by AI were significantly higher than corresponding groups classified by cytologists (for ASC-H: odds ratio [OR] = 1.22, 95%CI 1.11-1.34, P < .001; for HSIL: OR = 1.41, 1.28-1.55, P < .001). AI-assisted cytology was 5.8% (3.0%-8.6%) more sensitive for detection of CIN2+ than manual reading with a slight reduction in specificity. CONCLUSIONS: AI-assisted cytology system could exclude most of normal cytology, and improve sensitivity with clinically equivalent specificity for detection of CIN2+ compared with manual cytology reading. Overall, the results support AI-based cytology system for the primary cervical cancer screening in large-scale population.

N-Docosahexaenoylethanolamide promotes development of hippocampal neurons.

DHA (docosahexaenoic acid, C22:6,n-3) has been shown to promote neurite growth and synaptogenesis in embryonic hippocampal neurons, supporting the importance of DHA known for hippocampus-related learning and memory function. In the present study, we demonstrate that DHA metabolism to DEA (N-docosahexaenoylethanolamide) is a significant mechanism for hippocampal neuronal development, contributing to synaptic function. We found that a fatty acid amide hydrolase inhibitor URB597 potentiates DHA-induced neurite growth, synaptogenesis and synaptic protein expression. Active metabolism of DHA to DEA was observed in embryonic day 18 hippocampal neuronal cultures, which was increased further by URB597. Synthetic DEA promoted hippocampal neurite growth and synaptogenesis at substantially lower concentrations in comparison with DHA. DEA-treated neurons increased the expression of synapsins and glutamate receptor subunits and exhibited enhanced glutamatergic synaptic activity, as was the case for DHA. The DEA level in mouse fetal hippocampi was altered according to the maternal dietary supply of n-3 fatty acids, suggesting that DEA formation is a relevant in vivo process responding to the DHA status. In conclusion, DHA metabolism to DEA is a significant biochemical mechanism for neurite growth, synaptogenesis and synaptic protein expression, leading to enhanced glutamatergic synaptic function. The novel DEA-dependent mechanism offers a new molecular insight into hippocampal neurodevelopment and function.

Docosahexaenoic acid promotes hippocampal neuronal development and synaptic function.

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3), the major polyunsaturated fatty acid accumulated in the brain during development, has been implicated in learning and memory, but underlying cellular mechanisms are not clearly understood. Here, we demonstrate that DHA significantly affects hippocampal neuronal development and synaptic function in developing hippocampi. In embryonic neuronal cultures, DHA supplementation uniquely promoted neurite growth, synapsin puncta formation and synaptic protein expression, particularly synapsins and glutamate receptors. In DHA-supplemented neurons, spontaneous synaptic activity was significantly increased, mostly because of enhanced glutamatergic synaptic activity. Conversely, hippocampal neurons from DHA-depleted fetuses showed inhibited neurite growth and synaptogenesis. Furthermore, n-3 fatty acid deprivation during development resulted in marked decreases of synapsins and glutamate receptor subunits in the hippocampi of 18-day-old pups with concomitant impairment of long-term potentiation, a cellular mechanism underlying learning and memory. While levels of synapsins and NMDA receptor subunit NR2A were decreased in most hippocampal regions, NR2A expression was particularly reduced in CA3, suggesting possible role of DHA in CA3-NMDA receptor-dependent learning and memory processes. The DHA-induced neurite growth, synaptogenesis, synapsin, and glutamate receptor expression, and glutamatergic synaptic function may represent important cellular aspects supporting the hippocampus-related cognitive function improved by DHA.

Chronic daily administration of ethyl docosahexaenoate protects against gerbil brain ischemic damage through reduction of arachidonic acid liberation and accumulation.

Recently, we reported that dietary ethyl docosahexaenoate (Et-DHA) intake decreases the level of membrane arachidonic acid (AA), which reduces the generation of AA metabolites in ischemic gerbil brain. As an extended study, we further investigated the influence of the chronic administration of Et-DHA on free AA levels after ischemia. In addition, Na,K-ATPase activity, cation content, cerebral edema and brain damage were also evaluated. Weanling male gerbils were orally pretreated with either Et-DHA (200 mg/kg) or vehicle, once a day for 10 weeks, and subjected to transient forebrain ischemia by bilateral common carotid occlusion for 30 min. Time-course analyses revealed that pretreatment with Et-DHA, compared with pretreatment with the vehicle, significantly decreased the brain's free AA levels during ischemia (5, 15 and 30 min) and after reperfusion (5, 10, 15 and 30 min), and attenuated the decline of Na,K-ATPase activity at examined time points. Pretreatment with Et-DHA significantly prevented an increase in Na(+) concentration and a decrease in K(+) concentration after 24 h of reperfusion, which resulted in lower cerebral water content. Reduced brain infarct volume and low animal mortality were also observed in Et-DHA-treated animals. These data suggest that the reduction of ischemia-induced AA liberation and accumulation by Et-DHA pretreatment may be attributable to (a) protection against the decline of Na,K-ATPase activity, (b) postischemic cerebral edema and brain damage and (c) animal mortality.

New lignan glycosides from Cupressus duclouxian (Cupessaceae).

From the branches and leaves of Cupressus duclouxiana two new lignan glycosides named cupressoside A (1) and cupressoside B (2), together with matairesinoside (3), dihydrodehydrodiconiferyl alcohol (4), dihydrodehydrodiconiferyl alcohol-9-O-alpha-L-rhamnopyranoside (5), dihydrodehydrodiconiferyl alcohol-4-O-alpha-L-rhamnopyranoside (6), ( - )-isolariciresinol (7) and ( - )-isolariciresinol-9-O-beta-D-xylopyranoside (8), were isolated. The structures of these compounds were determined on the basis of their HR-FAB-MS, IR, UV, 1H and 13C NMR (DEPT), and 2D NMR (HMQC, HMBC, COSY, NOESY) spectral data.

Chronic administration of ethyl docosahexaenoate reduces gerbil brain eicosanoid productions following ischemia and reperfusion.

Arachidonic acid (AA) and its vasoactive metabolites have been implicated in the pathogenesis of brain damage induced by cerebral ischemia. The membrane AA concentrations can be reduced by changes in dietary fatty acid intake. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of chronic ethyl docosahexaenoate (E-DHA) administration on the generation of eicosanoids of AA metabolism during the period of reperfusion after ischemia in gerbils. Weanling male gerbils were orally pretreated with either E-DHA (100, 200 mg/kg) or vehicle, once a day, for 10 weeks, and subjected to transient forebrain ischemia by bilateral common carotid occlusion for 10 min. E-DHA (200 mg/kg) pretreatment significantly decreased the content of brain lipid AA at the termination of treatment, prevented postischemic impaired regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and reduced the levels of brain prostaglandin (PG) PGF(2alpha) and 6-keto-PGF(1alpha), and thromboxane B(2) (TXB(2)), as well as leukotriene (LT) LTB(4) and LTC(4) at 30 and 60 min of reperfusion compared with the vehicle, which was well associated with the attenuated cerebral edema in the E-DHA-treated brain after 48 h of reperfusion. These data suggest that the E-DHA (200 mg/kg) pretreatment reduces the postischemic eicosanoid productions, which may be due to its reduction of the brain lipid AA content.

Chronic administration of ethyl docosahexaenoate decreases mortality and cerebral edema in ischemic gerbils.

Dietary docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) intake can decrease the level of membrane arachidonic acid (AA), which is liberated during cerebral ischemia and implicated in the pathogenesis of brain damage. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated the effects of chronic ethyl docosahexaenoate (E-DHA) administration on mortality and cerebral edema induced by transient forebrain ischemia in gerbils. Male Mongolian gerbils were orally pretreated with either E-DHA (100, 150 mg/kg) or vehicle, once a day, for 4 weeks and were subjected to transient forebrain ischemia by bilateral common carotid occlusion for 30 min. The content of brain lipid AA at the termination of treatment, the survival ratio, change of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), brain free AA level, thromboxane B(2) (TXB(2)) production and cerebral edema formation following ischemia and reperfusion were evaluated. E-DHA (150 mg/kg) pretreatment significantly increased survival ratio, prevented post-ischemic hypoperfusion and attenuated cerebral edema after reperfusion compared with vehicle, which was well associated with the reduced levels of AA and TXB(2) in the E-DHA treated brain. These data suggest that the effects of E-DHA pretreatment on ischemic mortality and cerebral edema could be due to reduction of free AA liberation and accumulation, and its metabolite synthesis after ischemia and reperfusion by decreasing the content of membrane AA.

Effects of docosahexaenoic acid on the survival and neurite outgrowth of rat cortical neurons in primary cultures.

Effects of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) on survival and neurite outgrowth were investigated in primary cultures of rat cortical neurons. Cell cultures were prepared from cortex on embryonic day 18 (E-18) for treatment with a series of DHA concentrations (12.5, 25, 50, 75, 100 and 200 microM). Docosahexaenoic acid (25-50 microM) significantly enhanced neuronal viability, but lower concentration of DHA (12.5 microM) did not show an obvious effect. In contrast, higher concentrations of DHA (100-200 microM) exerted the significant opposite effects by decreasing neuronal viability. Furthermore, treatment with 25 microM DHA significantly prevented the neurons from death after different culture days in vitro (DIV). Moreover, measurements from the cultures exposed to 25 microM DHA immediately after plating showed significant increases in the percentage of cells with neurites, the mean number of neurite branches, the total neuritic length per cell and the length of the longest neurite in each cell after 24 and 48 h in vitro (HIV). The DHA-treated neurons had greater growth-associated protein-43 (GAP-43) immunoactivity and higher phosphatidylserine (PS) and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) contents, but lower phosphatidylcholine (PC) content than control neurons. The significant increased DHA contents were also observed in both PE and PS in the treated neurons. These findings suggest that optimal DHA (25 microM) may have positive effects on the survival and the neurite outgrowth of the cultured fetal rat cortical neurons, and the effects probably are related to DHA-stimulating neuron-specific protein synthesis and its enhancing the discrete phospholipid (PL) content through enrichment of DHA in the PL species.

Protective effect of chronic ethyl docosahexaenoate administration on brain injury in ischemic gerbils.

There is evidence that the excessive generation of reactive oxygen free radicals contributes to the brain injury associated with cerebral ischemia. In the present study, the protective effect of chronic administration of ethyl docosahexaenoate (E-DHA) against oxidative brain injury was evaluated in the gerbil model of transient cerebral ischemia. Weanling male gerbils were orally pretreated with either E-DHA (200 mg/kg) or vehicle, once a day, for 10 weeks and subjected to bilateral occlusion of common carotid arteries for 10 min. At the different reperfusion times, E-DHA pretreatment significantly inhibited the increases in the production of brain salicylate-derived 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,5-DHBA) and content of brain malonildialdehyde (MDA). The superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity was not modified; however, pretreatment with E-DHA significantly prevented the level of brain-reduced glutathione (GSH) and activities of brain glutathione peroxidase (GSH-P(X)) and catalase (CAT) from declines caused by cerebral ischemia. Moreover, ischemia and reperfusion-induced delayed neuronal loss in the hippocampus CA1 sector and locomotor hyperactivity were also significantly attenuated by pretreatment with E-DHA. These results suggested that the neuroprotective effect of E-DHA might be due to its antioxidant property.