Studies of interfacial reactions and mass transport may allow safe use of lithium metal anodes
Conventional rechargeable lithium (Li)–ion batteries generally use graphite as the anode, where Li ions ...are stored in the layered graphite. However, the use of Li metal as the anode is now being reconsidered. These next-generation battery technologies could potentially double the cell energy of conventional Li-ion batteries (
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). Rechargeable Li metal batteries were commercialized more than four decades ago but were in use only briefly because of safety concerns (
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). With the advancements of electrolyte (
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,
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), electrode architecture (
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), and characterization techniques (
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) in recent years, a better fundamental understanding of the interfacial reactions during charging and discharging that dictate cell performance has developed and inspired a reevaluation of the use of Li metal anodes in rechargeable batteries.
In recent years, composite structures have been used in a large number of applications in aerospace, machinery, marine, and civil engineering. However, there are inevitably many uncertainties in the ...whole life cycle of composite structures, which can easily lead to structural damage and failure. Therefore, it is important to analyze the reliability and sensitivity of composite structures. At present, most of the contributions use the first-order reliability method (FORM) and the second-order reliability method (SORM) to study the reliability of composite structures and compare them with the results of the Monte Carlo simulation. However, both methods have their limitations. FORM cannot guarantee the calculation accuracy for the highly nonlinear limit state equation, and the calculation efficiency of SORM is too low. Therefore, this paper proposes to use importance sampling (IS) and backpropagation neural network-based Monte Carlo (MC-BPNN) to study the reliability, sensitivity, and dispersion of delamination growth of composite laminates. The results show that compared with FORM and SORM, IS and MC-BPNN have higher calculation accuracy and efficiency and can more accurately evaluate the failure degree of composite structures and ensure their safe operation in the field of aerospace equipment. The universality of this method can make it being widely used in the reliability and sensitivity analysis of different composite materials as well as dispersion analysis.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies and is a serious threat to people's health worldwide. The prognosis of advanced HCC is dim if left untreated. In the clinic, the ...treatment options for advanced HCC include surgery, radiotherapy, transcatheter arterial chemoembolization, and so forth. In recent years, molecular targeted therapy and immunotherapy have also made great progress, bringing new hope to patients with advanced HCC. In this study, therapeutic advances, current dilemma, and future directions of advanced HCC are reviewed, which might serve as a summary for clinicians and may stimulate future research.
The prognosis of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is dim if left untreated. In the clinic, the treatment options for advanced HCC include surgery, radiotherapy, transcatheter arterial chemoembolization, and so forth. In recent years, molecular targeted therapy and immunotherapy have also made great progress, bringing new hope to patients with advanced HCC.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Critical patients with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), even those whose nucleic acid test results had turned negative and those receiving maximal medical support, have been noted to progress ...to irreversible fatal respiratory failure. Lung transplantation (LT) as the sole therapy for end-stage pulmonary fibrosis related to acute respiratory distress syndrome has been considered as the ultimate rescue therapy for these patients.
From February 10 to March 10, 2020, three male patients were urgently assessed and listed for transplantation. After conducting a full ethical review and after obtaining assent from the family of the patients, we performed three LT procedures for COVID-19 patients with illness durations of more than one month and extremely high sequential organ failure assessment scores.
Two of the three recipients survived post-LT and started participating in a rehabilitation program. Pearls of the LT team collaboration and perioperative logistics were summarized and continually improved. The pathological results of the explanted lungs were concordant with the critical clinical manifestation, and provided insight towards better understanding of the disease. Government health affair systems, virology detection tools, and modern communication technology all play key roles towards the survival of the patients and their rehabilitation.
LT can be performed in end-stage patients with respiratory failure due to COVID-19-related pulmonary fibrosis. If confirmed positive-turned-negative virology status without organ dysfunction that could contraindicate LT, LT provided the final option for these patients to avoid certain death, with proper protection of transplant surgeons and medical staffs. By ensuring instant seamless care for both patients and medical teams, the goal of reducing the mortality rate and salvaging the lives of patients with COVID-19 can be attained.
This paper addresses a well-posedness of the weak solution to the transport equation (describing how a scalar quantity is transported in a space) with an initial data in the scaling invariant Besov ...or Essén–Janson–Peng–Xiao space via the boundedness of the left and right compositions acting on each space.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Novel poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide)‐clay (PNIPAM‐clay) nanocomposite (NC) hydrogels with both excellent responsive bending and elastic properties are developed as temperature‐controlled manipulators. ...The PNIPAM‐clay NC structure provides the hydrogel with excellent mechanical property, and the thermoresponsive bending property of the PNIPAM‐clay NC hydrogel is achieved by designing an asymmetrical distribution of nanoclays across the hydrogel thickness. The hydrogel is simply fabricated by a two‐step photo polymerization. The thermoresponsive bending property of the PNIPAM‐clay NC hydrogel is resulted from the unequal forces generated by the thermoinduced asynchronous shrinkage of hydrogel layers with different clay contents. The thermoresponsive bending direction and degree of the PNIPAM‐clay NC hydrogel can be adjusted by controlling the thickness ratio of the hydrogel layers with different clay contents. The prepared PNIPAM‐clay NC hydrogels exhibit rapid, reversible, and repeatable thermoresponsive bending/unbending characteristics upon heating and cooling. The proposed PNIPAM‐clay NC hydrogels with excellent responsive bending property are demonstrated as temperature‐controlled manipulators for various applications including encapsulation, capture, and transportation of targeted objects. They are highly attractive material candidates for stimuli‐responsive “smart” soft robots in myriad fields such as manipulators, grippers, and cantilever sensors.
Poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide)‐clay nanocomposite hydrogels with responsive bending property are successfully developed as temperature‐controlled manipulators by designing an asymmetrical distribution of nanoclays across the hydrogel thickness. The hydrogels show rapid, reversible, and repeatable thermoresponsive bending characteristics, and are demonstrated as temperature‐controlled soft manipulators for applications of encapsulating, grapping, and transporting target objects in aqueous environments.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Smart polymeric materials with dynamically tunable physico‐chemical characteristics in response to changes of environmental stimuli, have received considerable attention in myriad fields. The diverse ...combination of their micro‐/nano‐structural and molecular designs creates promising and exciting opportunities for exploiting advanced smart polymeric materials. Engineering micro‐/nano‐structures into smart polymeric materials with elaborate molecular design enables intricate coordination between their structures and molecular‐level response to cooperatively realize smart functions for practical applications. In this review, recent progresses of smart polymeric materials that combine micro‐/nano‐structures and molecular design to achieve designed advanced functions are highlighted. Smart hydrogels, gating membranes, gratings, milli‐particles, micro‐particles and microvalves are employed as typical examples to introduce their design and fabrication strategies. Meanwhile, the key roles of interplay between their micro‐/nano‐structures and responsive properties to realize the desired functions for their applications are emphasized. Finally, perspectives on the current challenges and opportunities of micro‐/nano‐structured smart polymeric materials for their future development are presented.
Smart polymeric materials with elaborate micro‐/nano‐structural and molecular designs to achieve designed functions for myriad applications are summarized. The smart materials, including responsive hydrogels, gating membranes, gratings, milli‐particles, micro‐particles and microvalves, can achieve intricate coordination between their micro‐/nano‐structures and responsive properties to cooperatively achieve desired functions.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
In cancer, T cells become dysfunctional owing to persistent antigen exposure. Dysfunctional T cells are characterized by reduced proliferative capacity, decreased effector function, and ...overexpression of multiple inhibitory receptors. Due to the presence of various inhibitory signals in the complex tumor microenvironment, tumor-specific T cells have distinct dysfunction states. Therapeutic reactivation of tumor-specific T cells has yielded good results in cancer patients. Here, we review the hallmarks of T cell dysfunction in cancer. Also, we discuss the relationship between T cell dysfunction and cancer immunotherapy.
In this paper, the modification methods of the Chinese Christian painting created by the missionaries in the late Ming Dynasty (1573–1644) were analyzed with the Chinese Catholic studies of the “Song ...nianzhu guicheng” and the “Tianzhu Jiangsheng Chuxiang Jingjie”. After carefully studying the differences between the Chinese Christian painting and the original European version, the study shows that these Chinese Christian paintings were integrated with the Chinese literati paintings’ elements and literati symbols, which include the “Yudiancun” (raindrop texture stroke), “Pimacun” (hemp-fiber texture stroke), “landscape screen” (painted screens with natural landscapes), and the mark of Chinese famous literati such as Dong Qichang. These adjustments conducted by missionaries aimed to make religious paintings more in line with literati aesthetics, which could build connections between the missionaries and the literati community for proselytization. However, the missionaries neglected that the literati community certainly would not sacrifice the existing social order and the vested interest brought by the current Confucian culture to support new ideas of “liberty” and “equality” in the Catholic doctrine, which caused a huge setback in the missionary work since the Nanjing Teaching Case in 1616. This research makes significant contributions to the understanding of cultural exchanges in the 17th century through a detailed exploration of the adjustments made by missionaries in the visual representations within Chinese Catholic literature.
This paper examines the aperiodic sampled‐data consensus control problems for nonlinear homogeneous and heterogeneous multi‐agent systems (MASs). For homogeneous MASs, the consensus conditions, with ...and without time delays are derived by using a two‐sided‐looped functional. This less conservative approach takes full account of the information on the intervals δ(t)$$ \delta (t) $$ to δ(tk)$$ \delta \left({t}_k\right) $$ and δ(t)$$ \delta (t) $$ to δ(tk+1)$$ \delta \left({t}_{k+1}\right) $$. On this basis, two aperiodic sampled‐data controllers are designed, and additional results on the estimate for the upper bound of the maximum allowable sampling interval are given as well. For heterogeneous MASs, the bounded consensus tracking criterion is derived based on the improved looped functional method. In addition, a corresponding heterogeneous sampled‐data controller is designed for each follower to ensure that the consensus tracking error exponentially converges to a bounded ellipsoid region. Finally, three illustrative examples are provided to show the efficiency and superiority of the proposed results.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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