Improved Thermo-Mechanical Fatigue Resistance of Al-Si-Cu 319 Alloys by Microalloying with Mo.

Thermo-mechanical fatigue (TMF) is one of the most detrimental failures of critical engine components and greatly limits their service life. In this study, the out-of-phase TMF (OP-TMF) behavior in Al-Si-Cu 319 cast alloys microalloyed with Mo was systematically investigated under various strain amplitudes ranging from 0.1-0.6% and temperature cycling at 60-300 °C and compared with the base 319 alloy free of Mo. Cyclic stress softening occurred in both experimental alloys when applying the TMF loading, resulting from the coarsening of θ'-Al2Cu precipitates. However, the softening rate of the Mo-containing alloy was lower than that of the base 319 alloy because of its lower θ'-Al2Cu precipitate coarsening rate per cycle. The Mo-containing alloy exhibited a longer TMF lifetime than the base alloy at the same strain amplitude. Microalloying 319 alloy with Mo enhanced the TMF resistance mainly by slowing the coarsening of θ'-Al2Cu precipitates and providing supplementary strengthening from thermally stable Mo-containing α-dispersoids distributed in the Al matrix. The energy-based model was successfully applied for predicting the TMF lifetime with a low life predictor factor, which agreed well with the experimentally measured fatigue cycles.

Dynamic immunogenicity after primary and booster inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in people living with HIV: A longitudinal observational study.

People living with HIV (PLWH) have poor outcomes from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2); vaccination reduces the associated mortality. The humoral immune response dynamics after booster inactivated vaccinations in PLWH remain unclear. In this longitudinal observational study, 100 PLWH after primary inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccination were consecutively recruited and followed up. After booster vaccination (BV), neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) were detected at 1 month from all the PLWH, and the titer increased sixfold compared to that associated with the primary vaccination (PV), similar to that in healthy controls after BV. The NAbs titer declined over time after BV, but remained higher at 6 months than after PV. The NAbs response was elevated after BV with CD4 count <200 cells/µL, it was the poorest among the different CD4 cell count subgroups. Similar results were observed for anti-RBD-IgG responses. Moreover, RBD-specific MBCs were significantly elevated after BV in PLWH. No serious AEs were observed after BV in PLWH. In conclusion, booster inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccination is well tolerated and can elicit robust and durable humoral responses in PLWH. PLWH may benefit from a third dose of the inactivated vaccine.

Grading Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma Grade Using Diffusion Relaxation Correlated MR Spectroscopic Imaging.

BACKGROUND: Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common subtype of RCC, and accurate grading is crucial for prognosis and treatment selection. Biopsy is the reference standard for grading, but MRI methods can improve and complement the grading procedure. PURPOSE: Assess the performance of diffusion relaxation correlation spectroscopic imaging (DR-CSI) in grading ccRCC. STUDY TYPE: Prospective. SUBJECTS: 79 patients (age: 58.1 +/- 11.5 years; 55 male) with ccRCC confirmed by histopathology (grade 1, 7; grade 2, 45; grade 3, 18; grade 4, 9) following surgery. FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: 3.0 T MRI scanner. DR-CSI with a diffusion-weighted echo-planar imaging sequence and T2-mapping with a multi-echo spin echo sequence. ASSESSMENT: DR-CSI results were analyzed for the solid tumor regions of interest using spectrum segmentation with five sub-region volume fraction metrics (VA , VB , VC , VD , and VE ). The regulations for spectrum segmentation were determined based on the D-T2 spectra of distinct macro-components. Tumor size, voxel-wise T2, and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were obtained. Histopathology assessed tumor grade (G1-G4) for each case. STATISTICAL TESTS: One-way ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis test, Spearman's correlation (coefficient, rho), multivariable logistic regression analysis, receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, and DeLong's test. Significance criteria: P < 0.05. RESULTS: Significant differences were found in ADC, T2, DR-CSI VB , and VD among the ccRCC grades. Correlations were found for ccRCC grade to tumor size (rho = 0.419), age (rho = 0.253), VB (rho = 0.553) and VD (rho = -0.378). AUC of VB was slightly larger than ADC in distinguishing low-grade (G1-G2) from high-grade (G3-G4) ccRCC (0.801 vs. 0.762, P = 0.406) and G1 from G2 to G4 (0.796 vs. 0.647, P = 0.175), although not significant. Combining VB , VD , and VE had better diagnostic performance than combining ADC and T2 for differentiating G1 from G2-G4 (AUC: 0.814 vs 0.643). DATA CONCLUSION: DR-CSI parameters are correlated with ccRCC grades, and may help to differentiate ccRCC grades. EVIDENCE LEVEL: 2 TECHNICAL EFFICACY STAGE: 2.

Diabetes mellitus monitoring and control among adults in Australian general practice: a national retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated whether the monitoring and control of clinical parameters are better among patients with newly compared with past recorded diabetes diagnosis. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: MedicineInsight, a national general practice database in Australia. PARTICIPANTS: 101 875 'regular' adults aged 18+ years with past recorded (2015-2016) and 9236 with newly recorded (2017) diabetes diagnosis. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Two different groups of outcomes were assessed in 2018. The first group of outcomes was the proportion of patients with clinical parameters (ie, glycated haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), blood pressure (BP), total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, estimated glomerular filtration rate and albumin-to-creatinine ratio) monitored at least once in 2018. The second group of outcomes were those related to diabetes control in 2018 (HbA1c ≤7.0%, (BP) ≤140/90 mm Hg, total cholesterol <4.0 mmol/L and LDL-C <2.0 mmol/L). Adjusted ORs (ORadj) and adjusted probabilities (%) were obtained based on logistic regression models adjusted for practice variables and patients' socio-demographic and clinical characteristics. RESULTS: The study included 111 111 patients (51.7% men; mean age 65.3±15.0 years) with recorded diabetes diagnosis (11.0% of all 1 007 714 adults in the database). HbA1c was monitored in 39.2% (95% CI 36.9% to 41.6%) of patients with newly recorded and 45.2% (95% CI 42.6% to 47.8%) with past recorded diabetes (ORadj 0.78, 95% CI 0.73 to 0.82). HbA1c control was achieved by 78.4% (95% CI 76.7% to 80.0%) and 54.4% (95% CI 53.4% to 55.4%) of monitored patients with newly or past recorded diabetes, respectively (ORadj 3.11, 95% CI 2.82 to 3.39). Less than 20% of patients with newly or past recorded diabetes had their HbA1c, BP and total cholesterol levels controlled (ORadj 1.08, 95% CI 0.97 to 1.21). CONCLUSIONS: The monitoring of clinical parameters was lower among patients with newly than past recorded diabetes. However, diabetes control was similarly low in both groups, with only one in five monitored patients achieving control of all clinical parameters.

Effectively removing gaseous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) by willow catkins: Do you still dislike the catkins floating?

The floating catkins generated by willow and poplar trees have been criticized for spreading germ and causing fire for decades. It has been found that catkins are with a hollow tubular structure, which made us wonder if the floating catkins can adsorb atmospheric pollutions. Thus, we conducted a project in Harbin, China to investigate whether and how willow catkins could adsorb atmospheric polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The results suggest that both the catkins floating in the air and on the ground preferred to adsorb gaseous PAHs rather than particulate PAHs. Moreover, 3- and 4-ring PAHs were the dominating compositions adsorbed by catkins, which significantly increased with exposure time. The gas/catkins partition (KCG) was defined, which explained why 3-ring PAHs are more easily adsorbed by catkins than by airborne particles when their subcooled liquid vapor pressure is high (log PL > -1.73). The removal loading of atmospheric PAHs by catkins were estimated as 1.03 kg/year in the center city of Harbin, which may well explain the phenomenon that levels of gaseous and total (particle + gas) PAHs are relatively low in the months with catkins floating reported in peer-reviewed papers.

Clinical features, treatment strategies and outcomes of craniocervical junction arteriovenous fistulas: a cohort study of 193 patients.

BACKGROUND: Craniocervical junction (CCJ) arteriovenous fistulas (AVFs) are rare. The current treatment strategies for AVFs with different angioarchitecture need to be clarified. The present study aimed to analyse the correlation between angioarchitecture and clinical characteristics, share our experience in treating this disease and identify risk factors associated with subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) and poor outcomes. METHODS: A total of 198 consecutive patients with CCJ AVFs from our neurosurgical centre were retrospectively reviewed. The patients were grouped according to their clinical manifestations, and their baseline clinical characteristics, angioarchitecture, treatment strategies and outcomes were summarised. RESULTS: The patients' median age was 56 years (IQR 47-62 years). The majority of patients were men with 166 (83.8%) patients. The most common clinical manifestation was SAH (52.0%), followed by venous hypertensive myelopathy (VHM) (45.5%). The most common CCJ AVFs type was dural AVF, with 132 (63.5%) fistulas. The most frequent fistula location was C-1 (68.7%) and dural branch of vertebral artery (70.2%) was the most involved arterial feeders for fistulas. The most common direction of venous drainage was descending intradural drainage (40.9%), followed by ascending intradural drainage (36.5%). Microsurgery was the most common treatment strategy applied for 151 (76.3%) patients, 15 (7.6%) patients were treated with interventional embolisation only, and 27 (13.6%) received both interventional embolisation and microsurgical treatment. The learning curve for microsurgery only was analysed by cumulative summation method, and the turning point was the 70th case, and blood loss in post-group was lower than that in pre-group (p=0.034). At the last follow-up, there were 155 (78.3%) patients with favourable outcomes (modified Rankin Scale(mRS)<3). Age≥56 (OR 2.038, 95% CI 1.039 to 3.998, p=0.038), VHM as the clinical manifestation (OR 4.102, 95% CI 2.108 to 7.982, p<0.001) and pretreatment mRS≥3 (OR 3.127, 95% CI 1.617 to 6.047, p<0.001) were significantly associated with poor outcomes. CONCLUSION: The arterial feeders and direction of the venous drainage were important factors in the clinical presentations. The location of fistula and drainage vein was essential for choosing different treatment strategies. Older age, VHM onset and poor pretreatment functional status predicted poor outcomes.

Novel Functionalized Boron Nitride Nanosheets Achieved by Radiation-Induced Oxygen Radicals and Their Enhancement for Polymer Nanocomposites.

Boron nitride nanosheets (BNNSs) exfoliated from hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) show great potential in polymer-based composites due to their excellent mechanical properties, highly thermal conductivity, and insulation properties. Moreover, the structural optimization, especially the surface hydroxylation, of BNNSs is of importance to promote their reinforcements and optimize the compatibility of its polymer matrix. In this work, BNNSs were successfully attracted by oxygen radicals decomposed from di-tert-butylperoxide (TBP) induced by electron beam irradiation and then treated with piranha solution. The structural changes of BNNSs in the modification process were deeply studied, and the results demonstrate that the as-prepared covalently functionalized BNNSs possess abundant surface hydroxyl groups as well as reliable structural integrity. Of particular importance is that the yield rate of the hydroxyl groups is impressive, whereas the usage of organic peroxide and reaction time is greatly reduced due to the positive effect of the electron beam irradiation. The comparisons of PVA/BNNSs nanocomposites further indicate that the hydroxyl-functionalized BNNSs effectively promote mechanical properties and breakdown strength due to the enhanced compatibility and strong two-phase interactions between nanofillers and the polymer matrix, which further verify the application prospects of the novel route proposed in this work.

SB Digestor: a tailored driver gene identification tool for dissecting heterogeneous Sleeping Beauty transposon-induced tumors.

Sleeping Beauty (SB) insertional mutagenesis has been widely used for genome-wide functional screening in mouse models of human cancers, however, intertumor heterogeneity can be a major obstacle in identifying common insertion sites (CISs). Although previous algorithms have been successful in defining some CISs, they also miss CISs in certain situations. A major common characteristic of these previous methods is that they do not take tumor heterogeneity into account. However, intertumoral heterogeneity directly influences the sequence read number for different tumor samples and then affects CIS identification. To precisely detect and define cancer driver genes, we developed SB Digestor, a computational algorithm that overcomes biological heterogeneity to identify more potential driver genes. Specifically, we define the relationship between the sequenced read number and putative gene number to deduce the depth cutoff for each tumor, which can reduce tumor complexity and precisely reflect intertumoral heterogeneity. Using this new tool, we re-analyzed our previously published SB-based screening dataset and identified many additional potent drivers involved in Brca1-related tumorigenesis, including Arhgap42, Tcf12, and Fgfr2. SB Digestor not only greatly enhances our ability to identify and prioritize cancer drivers from SB tumors but also substantially deepens our understanding of the intrinsic genetic basis of cancer.

Expression of Th1/2/17 Cytokines in CML with or without Pulmonary Bacterial and Fungal Coinfection.

Background: Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are the standard therapy for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). While their use greatly increases patient survival rates and can lead to normal life expectancy, bacterial infections in the lungs continue to play a significant role in determining patient outcomes. Methods: In this study, the medical records of 272 CML and 53 healthy adults were analyzed. Information on age, sex, body temperature, procalcitonin (PCT), C-reactive protein (CRP), and cytokine levels were collected from patients. Since the data belonged to a nonstate distribution, we used the Mann-Whitney U test to examine differences between groups. Cut-off values were analyzed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results: No significant differences in the Th1/2/17 levels were observed in relation to TKI treatment. Further analysis showed that the levels of the interleukins IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-22, IL-12p70, IL-17A, IL-17F, and IL-1ß, interferon (IFN-γ), and tumor necrosis factors (TNF α and ß) were higher in patients with pulmonary bacterial infections compared with uninfected patients. IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10 levels in CML patients with bacterial and fungal coinfection were higher than those in patients without infection. The areas under the ROC curves (AUCs) were found to be 0.73 for IL-5, 0.84 for IL-6, 0.82 for IL-8, 0,71 for IL-10, and 0.84 for TNF-α. AUC values were higher for patients with pulmonary bacterial infection, especially IL-6 (AUC = 0.84, cut-off = 13.78 pg/ml) and IL-8 (AUC = 0.82, cut-off = 14.35 pg/ml), which were significantly better than those for CRP (AUC = 0.80, cut-off = 6.18 mg/l), PCT (AUC = 0.71, cut-off = 0.25 ng/ml), and body temperature (AUC = 0.68, cut-off = 36.8°C). In addition, according to the cut-off values, we found that 83.33% of patients with pulmonary bacterial infections had IL-6 ≥ 13.78 pg/ml, while when IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10 levels simultaneously exceeded the cut-off values, the probability of pulmonary bacterial infection was 93.55%. Conclusions: TKI treatment did not appear to affect cytokine expression in CML patients. However, CML patients with pulmonary bacterial infection had significantly higher levels of Th1/2/17 cytokines. In particular, abnormally elevated IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10 levels were associated with a pulmonary bacterial infection in patients with CML.

Development of a new cellular immunological detection method for tuberculosis based on HupB protein induced IL-6 release test.

Objective: As a virulence factor, HupB plays important roles in the survival of MTB after infection and modulates the host immune response. In the current study, we aim to explore a new cellular immunological detection method for tuberculosis infection detection based on HupB protein. Methods: HupB was used to stimulate PBMCs extracted from pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients, and secreted cytokines was examined. Then, we constructed a single center and a multi-center clinical trials to collect PBMCs from PTB patients, nPTB patients, or healthy volunteers to verify our findings. Results: Cytokine's screening illustrated that IL-6 was the only cytokine released after HupB stimulation. Single-center and multi-center clinical trials showed that HupB stimulation significantly increased the level of IL-6 in the supernatant of PBMCs from PTB patients. Then we compared the specificity and sensitivity of HupB induced IL-6 release assay with ESAT-6 and CFP10 induced interferon γ release assay (IGRA), and found in smear positive PTB patients, the specificity and sensitivity of HupB induced IL-6 release assay was better than IGRA, and in smear negative PTB patients, the sensitivity was better. Combination of both assays provided an improved specificity and sensitivity for tuberculosis diagnosis. Conclusion: This study explored an immunological detection method for tuberculosis infection cells based on HupB protein-induced IL-6 release test, which can be used to enhance the diagnosis diagnostic accuracy of TB.

Genome-wide characterization of ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme gene family explores its genetic effects on the oil content and yield of Brassica napus.

Ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (UBC) is a critical part of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and plays crucial roles in growth, development and abiotic stress response in plants. Although UBC genes have been detected in several plant species, characterization of this gene family at the whole-genome level has not been conducted in Brassica napus. In the present study, 200 putative BnUBCs were identified in B. napus, which were clustered into 18 subgroups based on phylogenetic analysis. BnUBCs within each subgroup showed relatively conserved gene architectures and motifs. Moreover, the gene expression patterns in various tissues as well as the identification of cis-acting regulatory elements in BnUBC promoters suggested further investigation of their potential functions in plant growth and development. Furthermore, three BnUBCs were predicted as candidate genes for regulating agronomic traits related to oil content and yield through association mapping. In conclusion, this study provided a wealth of information on the UBC family in B. napus and revealed their effects on oil content and yield, which will aid future functional research and genetic breeding of B. napus.

Cross-Modal Retrieval with Partially Mismatched Pairs.

In this paper, we study a challenging but less-touched problem in cross-modal retrieval, i.e., partially mismatched pairs (PMPs). Specifically, in real-world scenarios, a huge number of multimedia data (e.g., the Conceptual Captions dataset) are collected from the Internet, and thus it is inevitable to wrongly treat some irrelevant cross-modal pairs as matched. Undoubtedly, such a PMP problem will remarkably degrade the cross-modal retrieval performance. To tackle this problem, we derive a unified theoretical Robust Cross-modal Learning framework (RCL) with an unbiased estimator of the cross-modal retrieval risk, which aims to endow the cross-modal retrieval methods with robustness against PMPs. In detail, our RCL adopts a novel complementary contrastive learning paradigm to address the following two challenges, i.e., the overfitting and underfitting issues. On the one hand, our method only utilizes the negative information which is much less likely false compared with the positive information, thus avoiding the overfitting issue to PMPs. However, these robust strategies could induce underfitting issues, thus making training models more difficult. On the other hand, to address the underfitting issue brought by weak supervision, we present to leverage of all available negative pairs to enhance the supervision contained in the negative information. Moreover, to further improve the performance, we propose to minimize the upper bounds of the risk to pay more attention to hard samples. To verify the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method, we carry out comprehensive experiments on five widely-used benchmark datasets compared with nine state-of-the-art approaches w.r.t. the image-text and video-text retrieval tasks. The code is available at https://github.com/penghu-cs/RCL.

Single-Cell RNA-Seq Debiased Clustering via Batch Effect Disentanglement.

A variety of single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) clustering methods has achieved great success in discovering cellular phenotypes. However, it remains challenging when the data confounds with batch effects brought by different experimental conditions or technologies. Namely, the data partitions would be biased toward these nonbiological factors. Meanwhile, the batch differences are not always much smaller than true biological variations, hindering the cooperation of batch integration and clustering methods. To overcome this challenge, we propose single-cell RNA-seq debiased clustering (SCDC), an end-to-end clustering method that is debiased toward batch effects by disentangling the biological and nonbiological information from scRNA-seq data during data partitioning. In six analyses, SCDC qualitatively and quantitatively outperforms both the state-of-the-art clustering and batch integration methods in handling scRNA-seq data with batch effects. Furthermore, SCDC clusters data with a linearly increasing running time with respect to cell numbers and a fixed graphics processing unit (GPU) memory consumption, making it scalable to large datasets. The code will be released on Github.

Identification of Bone Metastatic and Prognostic Alternative Splicing Signatures in Prostate Adenocarcinoma.

As the most common nonepithelial malignancy, prostate adenocarcinoma (PRAD) is the fifth chief cause of cancer mortality in men. Distant metastasis often occurs in advanced PRAD and most patients are dying from it. However, the mechanism of PRAD progression and metastasis is still unclear. It's widely reported that more than 94% of genes are selectively splicing in humans and many isoforms are particularly related with cancer progression and metastasis. Spliceosome mutations occur in a mutually exclusive manner in breast cancer, and different components of spliceosomes are targets of somatic mutations in different types of breast cancer. Existing evidence strongly supports the key role of alternative splicing in breast cancer biology, and innovative tools are being developed to use splicing events for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. In order to identify if the PRAD metastasis is associated with alternative splicing events (ASEs), the RNA sequencing data and ASEs data of 500 PRAD patients were retrieved from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and TCGASpliceSeq databases. By Lasso regression, five genes were screened to construct the prediction model, with a good reliability by ROC curve. Additionally, results in both univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis confirmed the well prognosis efficacy of the prediction model (both P < 0.001). Moreover, a potential splicing regulatory network was established and after multiple-database validation, we supposed that the signaling axis of HSPB1 up-regulating the PIP5K1C - 46,721 - AT (P < 0.001) might mediate the tumorigenesis, progression and metastasis of PRAD via the key members of Alzheimer's disease pathway (SRC, EGFR, MAPT, APP and PRKCA) (P < 0.001).

Single-shot 3D photoacoustic tomography using a single-element detector for ultrafast imaging of hemodynamics.

Imaging hemodynamics is crucial for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of vascular diseases. However, current imaging techniques are limited due to the use of ionizing radiation or contrast agents, short penetration depth, or complex and expensive data acquisition systems. Photoacoustic tomography shows promise as a solution to these issues. However, existing photoacoustic tomography methods collect signals either sequentially or through numerous detector elements, leading to either low imaging speed or high system complexity and cost. To address these issues, here we introduce a method to capture a 3D photoacoustic image of vasculature using a single laser pulse and a single-element detector that functions as 6,400 virtual ones. Our method enables ultrafast volumetric imaging of hemodynamics in the human body at up to 1 kHz and requires only a single calibration for different objects and for long-term operations. We demonstrate 3D imaging of hemodynamics at depth in humans and small animals, capturing the variability in blood flow speeds. This concept can inspire other imaging technologies and find applications such as home-care monitoring, biometrics, point-of-care testing, and wearable monitoring.

A flexible framework for regionalization of base flow for river habit maintenance and its thresholds.

Information on base flow for river habit maintenance (BFRH) and its thresholds is necessary for water resource utilization and protection. BFRH and its thresholds have significant spatial differences; however, it is still unclear how to identify and assess these characteristics. In this study, a technical framework was proposed to clarify the specific procedures and methods for regionalization of BFRH and its thresholds in large-scale areas. The framework includes four parts: construction of controlling factor system, sub-region division, identification of dominant factors, and determination of the thresholds in sub-regions. The framework was then applied to China to analyzed the regionalized characteristics of BFRH and its thresholds from a national perspective. The results illustrate the following: (1) the country is divided into nine sub-regions, and the controlling factors and their action paths to BFRH vary greatly. The elements of climate, vegetation, soil, topography and morphology are satisfactory in explaining the variance of BFRH and its thresholds, as R2 of the partial least squares structural equation modeling is between 0.503 and 0.848. (2) The value of BFRH/MAF (i.e. the proportion of BFRH to mean annual natural flow) differs greatly among sub-regions. The mean value is the largest in the Northwest Region, reaching 20 %, while it is only 1.7 % in the Northeast Cold Region. (3) The dynamic and static thresholds are obtained by using the precipitation and other indices as the explanatory variables in the sub-regions. In general, the more abundant the water resources, the higher may be the threshold. Moreover, attention should be paid to the positive and negative effects of vegetation restoration on this threshold. The case study proves that the framework can guide the determination of BFRH, especially for ungagged rivers. Importantly, the framework is flexible and highly adaptable in different regions.

Humoral responses after primary and booster SARS-CoV-2 inactivated vaccination in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection: A longitudinal observational study.

Given the pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 Omicron variants, booster vaccination (BV) using inactivated virus vaccines (the third dose) has been implemented in China. However, the immune responses after BV, especially those against Omicron, in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection (CHB) are unclear. In this prospective longitudinal study, 114 patients with CHB and 68 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited after receiving inactivated vaccination. The anti-receptor-binding domain (RBD) immunoglobulin G (IgG), neutralizing antibodies (NAbs), neutralization against Omicron (BA2.12.1, BA.4/5), and specific B/T cells were evaluated. In patients, anti-RBD IgG was elevated significantly after BV; the titers were as high as those in HCs. Similar results were obtained for the NAbs. However, compared with that against wild type (WT), the neutralization against Omicron was compromised after BV. The frequency of RBD+ atypical memory B cells increased, but spike-specific cluster of differentiation 4+ /8+ T cells remained unchanged after BV. Moreover, no serious adverse events or HBV reactivation were observed after BV. These results suggest that BV significantly enhanced antibody responses against WT; however, it resulted in compromised antibody responses against Omicron in patients with CHB. Hence, new all-in-one vaccines and optimal vaccination strategies should be studied promptly.

Vanadium Oxide: Phase Diagrams, Structures, Synthesis, and Applications.

Vanadium oxides with multioxidation states and various crystalline structures offer unique electrical, optical, optoelectronic and magnetic properties, which could be manipulated for various applications. For the past 30 years, significant efforts have been made to study the fundamental science and explore the potential for vanadium oxide materials in ion batteries, water splitting, smart windows, supercapacitors, sensors, and so on. This review focuses on the most recent progress in synthesis methods and applications of some thermodynamically stable and metastable vanadium oxides, including but not limited to V2O3, V3O5, VO2, V3O7, V2O5, V2O2, V6O13, and V4O9. We begin with a tutorial on the phase diagram of the V-O system. The second part is a detailed review covering the crystal structure, the synthesis protocols, and the applications of each vanadium oxide, especially in batteries, catalysts, smart windows, and supercapacitors. We conclude with a brief perspective on how material and device improvements can address current deficiencies. This comprehensive review could accelerate the development of novel vanadium oxide structures in related applications.