In this study, carbon dioxide is one of the end products of combustion, and is not a benign component of the atmosphere. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has reached unprecedented levels ...and continues to increase owing to an escalating rate of fossil fuel combustion, causing concern about climate change and rising sea levels. In view of the inevitable depletion of fossil fuels, a possible solution to this problem is the recycling of carbon dioxide, possibly captured at its point of generation, to fuels. Researchers in this field are using solar energy for CO2 activation and utilization in several ways: (i) so-called artificial photosynthesis using photo-induced electrons; (ii) bulk electrolysis of a CO2 saturated solution using electricity produced by photovoltaics; (iii) CO2 hydrogenation using solar-produced H2; and (iv) the thermochemical reaction of metal oxides at extremely high temperature reached by solar collectors. Since the thermodynamics of CO2 at high temperature (> 1000 ºC) are quite different from those near room temperature, only chemistry below 200 ºC is discussed in this review.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
Electrochemical sulfonylation/cyclization of 2-alkynylthioanisoles with sodium sulfinates was developed under catalyst-, external oxidant- and metal-free conditions. The electrosynthesis provides ...sustainable and efficient access to 3-sulfonated benzothiophenes with good substrate scope and functional group tolerance. This cascade radical process has been triggered through a sulfonyl radical addition to alkynes using sodium sulfinates under electrochemical conditions.
Electrochemical sulfonylation/cyclization of 2-alkynylthioanisoles with sodium sulfinates was developed under catalyst-, external oxidant- and metal-free conditions.
In the study, papain was chosen from five proteases to hydrolyze proteins of monkfish swim bladders for effectively utilizing monkfish (
) processing byproducts, and the hydrolysis conditions of ...papain were optimized as hydrolysis temperature of 65 °C, pH 7.5, enzyme dose 2.5% and time 5 h using single-factor and orthogonal experiments. Eighteen peptides were purified from the swim bladder hydrolysate of monkfish by ultrafiltration and gel permeation chromatography methods and identified as YDYD, QDYD, AGPAS, GPGPHGPSGP, GPK, HRE, GRW, ARW, GPTE, DDGGK, IGPAS, AKPAT, YPAGP, DPT, FPGPT, GPGPT, GPT and DPAGP, respectively. Among eighteen peptides, GRW and ARW showed significant DPPH· scavenging activities with EC
values of 1.053 ± 0.003 and 0.773 ± 0.003 mg/mL, respectively; YDYD, QDYD, GRW, ARW and YPAGP revealed significantly HO· scavenging activities with EC
values of 0.150 ± 0.060, 0.177 ± 0.035, 0.201 ± 0.013, 0.183 ± 0.0016 and 0.190 ± 0.010 mg/mL, respectively; YDYD, QDYD, ARW, DDGGK and YPAGP have significantly O2-· scavenging capability with EC
values of 0.126 ± 0.0005, 0.112 ± 0.0028, 0.127 ± 0.0002, 0.128 ± 0.0018 and 0.107 ± 0.0002 mg/mL, respectively; and YDYD, QDYD and YPAGP showed strong ABTS
· scavenging ability with EC
values of 3.197 ± 0.036, 2.337 ± 0.016 and 3.839 ± 0.102 mg/mL, respectively. YDYD, ARW and DDGGK displayed the remarkable ability of lipid peroxidation inhibition and Ferric-reducing antioxidant properties. Moreover, YDYD and ARW can protect Plasmid DNA and HepG2 cells against H
O
-induced oxidative stress. Furthermore, eighteen isolated peptides had high stability under temperatures ranging from 25-100 °C; YDYD, QDYD, GRW and ARW were more sensitive to alkali treatment, but DDGGK and YPAGP were more sensitive to acid treatment; and YDYD showed strong stability treated with simulated GI digestion. Therefore, the prepared antioxidant peptides, especially YDYD, QDYD, GRW, ARW, DDGGK and YPAGP from monkfish swim bladders could serve as functional components applied in health-promoting products because of their high-antioxidant functions.
Fusarium graminearum is a destructive wheat pathogen. No fully resistant cultivars are available. Knowledge concerning the molecular weapons of F. graminearum to achieve infection remains limited. ...Here, we report that deletion of the putative secondary metabolite biosynthesis gene cluster fg3_54 compromises the pathogen's ability to infect wheat through cell-to-cell penetration. Ectopic expression of fgm4, a pathway-specific bANK-like regulatory gene, activates the transcription of the fg3_54 cluster in vitro. We identify a linear, C- terminally reduced and D-amino acid residue-rich octapeptide, fusaoctaxin A, as the product of the two nonribosomal peptide synthetases encoded by fg3_54. Chemically-synthesized fusaoctaxin A restores cell-to-cell invasiveness in fg3_54-deleted F. graminearum, and enables colonization of wheat coleoptiles by two Fusarium strains that lack the fg3_54 homolog and are nonpathogenic to wheat. In conclusion, our results identify fusaoctaxin A as a virulence factor required for cell-to-cell invasion of wheat by F. graminearum.
In this study, we investigate the ameliorating functions of QDYD (MSP2), ARW (MSP8), DDGGK (MSP10), YPAGP (MSP13) and DPAGP (MSP18) from monkfish swim bladders on an FFA-induced NAFLD model of HepG2 ...cells. The lipid-lowering mechanisms revealed that these five oligopeptides can up-regulate the expression of phospho-AMP-activated protein kinase (
-AMPK) proteins to inhibit the expression of the sterol regulatory element binding protein-1c (SREBP-1c) proteins on increasing lipid synthesis and up-regulating the expression of the PPAP-α and CPT-1 proteins on promoting the β-oxidation of fatty acids. Moreover, QDYD (MSP2), ARW (MSP8), DDGGK (MSP10), YPAGP (MSP13) and DPAGP (MSP18) can significantly inhibit reactive oxygen species' (ROS) production, promote the activities of intracellular antioxidases (superoxide dismutase, SOD; glutathione peroxidase, GSH-PX; and catalase, CAT) and bring down the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) derived from lipid peroxidation. Further investigations revealed that the regulation of these five oligopeptides on oxidative stress was achieved through activating the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) pathway to raise the expression levels of the heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) protein and downstream antioxidant proteases. Therefore, QDYD (MSP2), ARW (MSP8), DDGGK (MSP10), YPAGP (MSP13) and DPAGP (MSP18) could serve as candidate ingredients to develop functional products for treating NAFLD.
Multivariate longitudinal data usually exhibit complex features such as the presence of censored responses due to detection limits of the assay and unavoidable missing values arising when ...participants make irregular visits that lead to intermittently recorded characteristics. A generalization of the multivariate linear mixed model constructed by taking into account impacts of censored and intermittent missing responses simultaneously, which is named as the MLMM‐CM, has been recently proposed for more precisely analyzing such kinds of data. This paper aims at presenting a fully Bayesian sampling‐based approach to the MLMM‐CM for addressing the uncertainties of censored and missing responses as well as unknown parameters. Two widely accepted Bayesian computational techniques based on the Markov chain Monte Carlo and the inverse Bayes formulas coupled with the Gibbs (IBF‐Gibbs) schemes are developed for carrying out posterior inference of the model. The proposed methodology is illustrated through a simulation study and a real‐data example from the Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group 388 study. Numerical results show empirically that the proposed Bayesian methodology performs satisfactorily and offers reliable posterior inference.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Aqueous Zn‐ion batteries (AZIBs) are promising for grid‐scale energy storage. However, conventional AZIBs face challenges including hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), leading to high local pH, and ...by‐product formation on the anode. Hereby the hydrogen bonds in the aqueous electrolyte are reconstructed by using a deep eutectic co‐solvent (DES) made of acetamide (H‐bond donor) and caprolactam (H‐bond acceptor), which effectively suppresses the reactivity of water and broadens the electrochemical voltage stability window. The coordination between Zn2+ and acetamide‐caprolactam in DES‐based electrolytes produces a unique solvation structure that promotes the preferential growth of Zn crystals along the (002) plane. This will inhibit the formation of Zn dendrites and ensure the uniform deposition of Zn‐ions on the anode surface. In addition, it is found that this DES‐based electrolyte can form a protective membrane on the anode surface, reducing the risks of Zn corrosion. Compared to conventional electrolytes, the DES‐based electrolyte shows a long‐term stable plating/stripping performance with a significantly improved Coulombic efficiency from 78.18% to 98.37%. It is further demonstrated that a Zn||VS2 full‐cell with the DES‐based electrolyte exhibits enhanced stability after 500 cycles with 85.4% capacity retention at 0.5 A g−1.
The acetamide‐caprolactam deep eutectic solvent‐based electrolyte achieves excellent electrochemical performance by reconstructing the solvation structure of Zn2+, suppressing HER, forming a solid electrolyte interface, and minimizing the formation of undesirable by‐products.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The Multivariate Contaminated Normal (MCN) distribution which contains two extra parameters with respect to parameters of the multivariate normal distribution, one for controlling the proportion of ...mild outliers and the other for specifying the degree of contamination, has been widely applied in robust statistics in the case of elliptically heavy-tailed empirical distributions. This article extends the MCN model to data with possibly censored values due to limits of quantification, referred to as the MCN with censoring (MCN-C) model, and further establishes the censored multivariate linear regression model where the random errors have the MCN distribution, named as the MCN censored regression (MCN-CR) model. Two computationally feasible Expectation Conditional Maximization (ECM) algorithms are developed for maximum likelihood estimation of MCN-C and MCN-CR models. An information-based method is used to approximate the standard errors of location parameters and regression coefficients. The capability and effectiveness of the MCN-C and MCN-CR models are illustrated via two real-data examples. A simulation study is conducted to investigate the superiority of the proposed models in terms of fit, accuracy of parameter estimation and censored data recovery as compared with classical approaches.
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for this article are available online.
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BFBNIB, GIS, IJS, KISLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
The prognostic role of inflammation index like neutrophil‐to‐lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in colorectal cancer (CRC) remains controversial. We conduct a meta‐analysis to determine the predictable value of ...NLR in the clinical outcome of CRC patients. The analysis was carried out based on the data from 16 studies (19 cohorts) to evaluate the association between NLR and overall survival (OS) and progression‐free survival (PFS) in patients with CRC. In addition, the relationship between NLR and clinicopathological parameters was assessed. Hazard ratio (HR) or odds ratio (OR) with its 95% confidence interval (CI) was used as the effect size estimate. Our analysis results indicated that elevated pretreatment NLR predicted poorer OS (HR: 1.813, 95% CI: 1.499–2.193) and PFS (HR: 2.102, 95% CI: 1.554–2.843) in patients with CRC. Increased NLR is also significantly associated with the poorer differentiation of the tumor (OR: 1.574, 95% CI: 1.226–2.022) and higher carcino‐embryonie antigen (CEA) level (OR: 1.493, 95% CI: 1.308–1.705). By these results, we conclude that NLR gains a prognostic value for patients with CRC. NLR should be monitored in CRC patients for rational stratification of the patients and adjusting the treatment strategy.
What's new?
Although correlated with the severity of disease course, the impact of neutrophil‐to‐lymphocyte ratio (NLR) on survival and tumor characteristics in cancer patients remains unclear. In the meta‐analysis presented here, elevated pre‐treatment NLR was found to predict poor overall survival in patients with colorectal cancer. NLR was also associated with unfavorable biologic behavior in colorectal cancer. The findings suggest that NLR, as an inexpensive and widely available index, should be routinely monitored in colorectal cancer patients.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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