Great efforts have been made to convert renewable biomass into transportation fuels. Herein, we report the novel properties of NbOx‐based catalysts in the hydrodeoxygenation of furan‐derived adducts ...to liquid alkanes. Excellent activity and stability were observed with almost no decrease in octane yield (>90 % throughout) in a 256 h time‐on‐stream test. Experimental and theoretical studies showed that NbOx species play the key role in CO bond cleavage. As a multifunctional catalyst, Pd/NbOPO4 plays three roles in the conversion of aldol adducts into alkanes: 1) The noble metal (in this case Pd) is the active center for hydrogenation; 2) NbOx species help to cleave the CO bond, especially of the tetrahydrofuran ring; and 3) a niobium‐based solid acid catalyzes the dehydration, thus enabling the quantitative conversion of furan‐derived adducts into alkanes under mild conditions.
Fueling fuel production: Biomass conversion into liquid fuel depends on the design of multifunctional catalysts. In the direct conversion of furan‐based aldol adducts into liquid alkanes over a Pd/NbOPO4 catalyst under mild conditions (see scheme), NbOx species played an important role in CO bond cleavage.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Seasonal breeding is a universal reproductive strategy in many animals. Hypothalamic genes, especially type 2 and 3 iodothyronine deiodinases (Dio2/3), RFamide‐related peptide 3 (Rfrp‐3), kisspeptin ...(Kiss‐1) and gonadotropin‐releasing hormone (GnRH), are involved in a photoperiodic pathway that encodes seasonal signals from day length in many vertebrate species. However, the seasonal expression patterns of these genes in wild mammals are less studied. Here, we present a four‐year field investigation to reveal seasonal rhythm and age‐dependent reproductive activity in male Brandt's voles (Lasiopodomys brandtii) and to detect relationships among seasonal expression profiles of hypothalamic genes, testicular activity, age and annual day length. From breeding season (April) to nonbreeding season (October), adult male voles displayed a synchronous peak in gonadal activity with annual day length around summer solstice, which was jointly caused by age structure shifts and age‐dependent gonadal development patterns. Overwintered males maintained reproductive activity until late in the breeding season, whereas most newborn males terminated gonadal development completely, except for a minority of males born early in spring. Consistently, the synchronous and opposite expression profiles of Dio2/3 suggest their central function to decode photoperiodic signals and to predict the onset of the nonbreeding season. Moreover, changes in Dio2/3 signals may guide the actions of Kiss‐1 and Rfrp‐3 to regulate the age‐dependent divergence of reproductive strategy in wild Brandt's vole. Our results provide evidence on how hypothalamic photoperiod genes regulate seasonal breeding in a natural rodent population.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Long-Term Efficacy of a Hepatitis E Vaccine Zhang, Jun; Zhang, Xue-Feng; Huang, Shou-Jie ...
The New England journal of medicine,
03/2015, Volume:
372, Issue:
10
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Hepatitis E virus is a common cause of illness worldwide and is associated with severe complications, especially in pregnant women. In this report, the long-term efficacy, immunogenicity, and safety ...of a hepatitis E vaccine are described.
Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a common cause of acute hepatitis worldwide.
1
,
2
HEV infection occurs in two distinct epidemiologic patterns.
3
The most common pattern is waterborne infection, which is caused by HEV genotype 1 or 2 and occurs mainly in resource-limited countries, often in large, protracted outbreaks or in sporadic cases associated with high mortality among pregnant women.
4
–
6
The other pattern is transmission from animals and humans, which is caused by HEV genotype 3 or 4 and occurs widely in both resource-limited and developed countries.
1
,
7
–
9
Rein et al.
10
estimated the incidence of hepatitis E in areas . . .
This paper focuses on designing an optimal attack energy allocation strategy to disrupt the performance of remote state estimation with unknown gains for cyber-physical systems (CPSs). To deal with ...the unknown gains, the Cramér-Rao Bound (CRB) is introduced to obtain a lower bound of the secondary moment of the estimate error. Then, by solving an optimization problem that maximizes the average CRB over a finite time horizon with energy constraint, an optimal attack energy allocation strategy is derived. Compared with the existing works, the rigorous assumption that the attacker has full knowledge of the system is removed, and the computational complexity of solving the optimization problem is significantly reduced. Finally, numerical results validate the presented strategy.
Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as important regulators of multiple cellular processes such as cell invasion, growth, apoptosis and differentiation. LncRNAs can function as competing ...endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) which sponge and sequester microRNA (miRNA) to regulate specific targets. Previously, we found that the target genes of several miRNAs, including FADD, Fas, Casp and Bax, are related to neuronal apoptosis and form a regulatory network. Among several factors, microRNA‐296‐5p expression was found to be negatively correlated with caspase activity and apoptosis. Here, we aimed to investigate the role of miR‐296‐5p in neuroblastoma (NB) cells. By performing quantitative real‐time PCR (qRT‐PCR), western blot and flow cytometry assays we analysed the expression of apoptotic markers in NB cells transfected with miR‐296‐5p mimics or inhibitor. Pathway‐specific PCR array allowed us to identify the target genes of miR‐296‐5p. Using LncBase online tool, we predicted lncRNA KCNQ1 opposite strand/antisense transcript 1 (KCNQ1OT1) as an upstream regulator of miR‐296‐5p. The binding of KCNQ1OT1 and miR‐296‐5p was validated via RNA immunoprecipitation and Biotin pull‐down assays. We also demonstrate that miR‐296‐5p suppresses apoptosis of NB cells in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, miR‐296‐5p directly bound the 3′UTR of Bax mRNA, thus repressing Bax at the mRNA and protein level. Moreover, through bioinformatic analysis and molecular experiments, we showed that KCNQ1OT1 sponged miR‐296‐5p and impaired its effect on NB cell apoptosis. In summary, KCNQ1OT1 is a potent promoting factor of cell apoptosis, which acts by sponging miR‐296‐5p and upregulating Bax. Our findings identify a regulatory axis of cell fate in NB cells.
Increasing evidence shows that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) can function as competing endogenous RNAs by sponging microRNAs in a sequence‐specific manner and impairing their functions of binding and suppressing target mRNAs. Through bioinformatic analysis and subsequent molecular experiments, we implied that lncRNA KCNQ1 opposite strand/antisense transcript 1 promotes Bax expression and neuroblastoma cells apoptosis by direct binding with miR‐296‐5p.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, DOBA, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
As a renewable, abundant, and eco-friendly bio-based compound, phytic acid (PA) possesses high phosphorus content, which is a potential flame retardant for cellulosic fibers. Generally, PA is not ...efficient for cellulosic fibers due to strong acidity that results in greatly reduced strength and lack of soft hand. As proved elsewhere, the compounds with phosphorous and nitrogen was reported to be an efficient flame retardant and exhibited synergistic effect for cellulosic fibers. Therefore, PA was firstly reacted with urea to synthesize a novel green flame retardant containing a high level of phosphorus and nitrogen elements, i.e., phytic acid ammonium, then it was employed for lyocell fibers through pad-dry-cure finishing process. As expected, flame retardancy and durability of finished lyocell fabrics were considerably improved, as evidenced by an increase of limiting oxygen index value up to 39.2% and still 29.7% after 30 laundering cycles. TG–MS and TG–FTIR coupled techniques demonstrate that the formation of carbonaceous residue and non-combustion gases preferably generated during thermal pyrolysis process of finished lyocell fibers.
Full text
Available for:
EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
The prevalence of central obesity in the total population has been reported in numerous studies. However, information on the prevalence of central obesity within normal-category BMI is scant. In the ...present study, we examined the profiles of central obesity among normal-weight children and adolescents. A total of 29 516 (14 226 boys and 15 290 girls) normal-weight children and adolescents (excluding underweight, overweight and obesity) aged 7–18 years were included in the final analysis. Central obesity was defined by the international age- and sex-specific cut-offs of waist circumference (WC) and threshold of waist:height ratio (WHtR ≥ 0·5). All subjects were classified into four groups (Q1–Q4) according to the age- and sex-specific quartiles of BMI, those in the upper fourth (Q4) were defined as ‘high-normal BMI’ and those in the lower fourth (Q1) were defined as ‘low-normal BMI’. The prevalence of central obesity as measured by WC was 9·90 (95 % CI 9·41, 10·39) % for boys and 8·11 (95 % CI 7·68, 8·54) % for girls; by WHtR was 2·97 (95 % CI 2·69, 3·25) % for boys and 2·44 (95 % CI 2·20, 2·68) % for girls. Subjects in the Q4 group had a much higher prevalence of central obesity than their counterparts in the Q1 group (P < 0·01). Our findings suggest that the health risks of children with normal-weight central obesity may be missed when BMI is used alone as a measure; it is meaningful to include WC in clinical practice and to include the simple message ‘Keep your waist to less than half your height’.
Abstract
Although general relativity (GR) has been precisely tested at the solar system scale, precise tests at a galactic or cosmological scale are still relatively insufficient. Here, in order to ...test GR at the galactic scale, we use the newly compiled galaxy-scale strong gravitational lensing (SGL) sample to constrain the parameter
γ
PPN
in the parameterized post-Newtonian (PPN) formalism. We employ the Pantheon sample of Type Ia supernova observations to calibrate the distances in the SGL systems using the Gaussian Process method, which avoids the logical problem caused by assuming a cosmological model within GR to determine the distances in the SGL sample. Furthermore, we consider three typical lens models in this work to investigate the influences of the lens-mass distributions on the fitting results. We find that the choice of lens models has a significant impact on the constraints on the PPN parameter
γ
PPN
. By using a minimum
χ
2
comparison and the Bayesian information criterion as evaluation tools to make comparisons for the fitting results of the three lens models, we find that the most reliable lens model gives the result of
γ
PPN
=
1.065
−
0.074
+
0.064
, which is in good agreement with the prediction of
γ
PPN
= 1 by GR. As far as we know, our 6.4% constraint result is the best result so far among recent works using the SGL method.
A new tetrapyrazole-modified tetraphenylethene (TPE) ligand
L
was designed and found to display "turn-on" fluorescence when it combines with Ag
+
ions in dilute solution by restricting intramolecular ...rotation of TPE. A series of Ag complexes
1-7
were obtained, and they exhibit excellent fluorescence properties in the solid state. Compared with PF
6
−
, the silver complex with the CF
3
SO
3
−
anion can further enhance its fluorescence due to the transformation of its structure from Ag
2
L
(
2
) to Ag
4
L
2
(
3
). As zero-dimensional complexes,
1
and
3
have excellent piezochromic properties with a color change from blue to green. Furthermore, structural changes of
1
and
3
to the corresponding three-dimensional frameworks
4
and
5
occur upon immersing in ethanol. In addition,
1
can act as a potential fluorescent probe for sensing nitrile compounds.
A series of Ag complexes
1-7
with pyrazole-tetraphenylethene ligands were fabricated and their fluorescence and sensing properties were examined.
PDF
