A new solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) PEO-LiTFSI-1%LGPS-10%SN is successfully prepared via a convenient method with low cost. The effect of SN on the ionic conductivity of PEO-based electrolyte is ...systematically investigated. It presents a maximum conductivity of 9.10×10−5S·cm−1 at 25°C, and a 15-fold ion conductivity enhancement in PEO-LiTFSI. It exhibits wide electrochemical window (0–5.5V) and excellent compatibility with metallic Li. The LiFePO4/Li batteries exhibit a good cycling and rate performance under 40°C, whose maximum discharge specific capacity at 0.1 C is 160.6mAh·g−1, and 94.7% can be retained after 60 cycles. At 0.5C, the maximum discharge specific capacity is 138.4mAh·g−1, and capacity retention close to 90% even after 100 cycles. The reasons of activation process are discussed. This new SPE with outstanding electrochemical performance is a promising solid electrolyte candidate for applications in all-solid-state lithium battery.
This study used all-journal data and systematic random sampling data to primarily determine the average number of issues per year and the average number of articles per issue among the Science ...Citation Index (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD) (China), and Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) (China) journals. The random sampling data were based on 5% SCI and SSCI samples and 10% CSCD and CSSCI samples. The objectives were to have a 2018–2019 record of the journal publication frequency detailing the number of articles per issue and the number of issues per year for the journals on the lists, as well as to compare Chinese journals’ data with those of international journals, in the perspective of scholarly publishing transformations in the world as well as in China during the past two decades. The study found that the average number of issues per year for SCI, SSCI, CSCD, and CSSCI journals was 10.95, 5.18, 9.17, and 7.87, respectively, and that CSCD/CSSCI journals publish more articles than SCI/SSCI, with CSSCI journals publishing significantly more articles per year than SSCI journals. The author fees for non-OA journals in China could play a role in the higher number of articles. The “mega journal” phenomenon does not seem to be a common practice among all the journal lists studied.
Bad meteorological conditions may reduce the reliability of power communication equipment, which can increase the distortion possibility of fault information in the communication process, hence ...raising its uncertainty and incompleteness. To address the issue, this paper proposes a fault diagnosis method for transmission networks considering meteorological factors. Firstly, a spiking neural P system considering a meteorological living environment and its matrix reasoning algorithm are designed. Secondly, based on the topology structure of the target power transmission network and the action logic of its protection devices, a diagnosis model based on the spiking neural P system considering the meteorological living environment is built for each suspicious fault transmission line. Following this, the action messages of protection devices and corresponding temporal order information are used to obtain initial pulse values of input neurons of the diagnosis model, which are then modified with the gray fuzzy theory. Finally, the matrix reasoning algorithm of each model is executed in a parallel manner to obtain diagnosis results. Experiment results achieved out on IEEE 39-bus system show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.
Abstract
Background
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)-associated dysbiosis is characterized by a loss of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, whose supernatant exerts an anti-inflammatory effect. However, ...the anti-inflammatory substances in F. prausnitzii supernatant and the mechanism in ameliorating colitis in IBD have not yet been fully investigated.
Methods
Experimental colitis models were induced and evaluated by clinical examination and histopathology. Levels of cytokines and ratio of T cells were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and flow cytometry analysis, respectively. F. prausnitzii supernatant was separated by macroporous resins. After extraction, the substances in supernatant were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometer. T-cell differentiation assay was conducted in vitro. Changes in signaling pathways were examined by immunoblot, immunohistochemistry, and immunofluorescent staining.
Results
We found that the supernatant of F. prausnitzii could regulate T helper 17 cell (Th17)/regulatory T cell (Treg) differentiation. Then, we identified butyrate produced by F. prausnitzii that played the anti-inflammatory effects by inhibiting interleukin (IL)-6/signal transducer and the activator of transcription 3 (STAT3)/IL-17 pathway and promoting forkhead box protein P3 (Foxp3). Finally, we demonstrated that the target of butyrate was histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1).
Conclusions
It is butyrate, instead of other substances produced by F. prausnitzii, that maintains Th17/Treg balance and exerts significant anti-inflammatory effects in colorectal colitis rodents, by inhibiting HDAC1 to promote Foxp3 and block the IL-6/STAT3/IL-17 downstream pathway. F. prausnitzii could be an option for further investigation for IBD treatment. Targeting the butyrate-HDAC1-T-cell axis offers an effective novel approach in the treatment of inflammatory disease.
Magnetic flux leakage (MFL) testing has been widely used as a non-destructive testing method for various materials. However, it is difficult to separate the influences of the defect geometrical ...parameters such as depth, width, and length on the received leakage signals. In this paper, a “near-field” MFL method is proposed to quantify defect widths. Both the finite element modelling (FEM) and experimental studies are carried out to investigate the performance of the proposed method. It is found that that the distance between two peaks of the “near-field” MFL is strongly related to the defect width and lift-off value, whereas it is slightly affected by the defect depth. Based on this phenomenon, a defect width assessment relying on the “near-field” MFL method is proposed. Results show that relative judging errors are less than 5%. In addition, the analytical expression of the “near-field” MFL is also developed.
Soil heavy metal pollution is one of the most serious environmental problems in China, especially cadmium (Cd), which has the most extensive contaminated soil coverage. Therefore, more economical and ...efficient remediation methods and measures are needed to control soil Cd contamination. In this study, different amendments (biochar (B), organic fertilizer (F), lime (L)) and actinomycetes (A) inoculants were applied to Cd contaminated farmland to explore their effects on wheat growth. Compared with Control, all treatments except A treatment were able to significantly increase the underground parts dry mass of wheat, with the highest increase of 57.19 %. The results showed that the B treatment significantly increased the plant height of wheat by 3.45 %. All treatments increased wheat SOD activity and chlorophyll content and reduced the MDA, which contributes to wheat stress resistance under Cd contamination. F, L and AF treatments can significantly reduce the Cd content in wheat above- and underground parts by up to 56.39 %. Soil amendments can modify the physical and chemical properties of the soil, which in turn affects the absorption of Cd by wheat. Moreover, the addition of soil amendments significantly affects the composition and structure of the rhizospheric soil bacterial community at the wheat jointing stage. The application of organic fertilizer increases the richness and diversity of the bacterial community, while lime makes it significantly decreases it. T-test and microbiome co-occurrence networks show that actinomycetes could not only effectively colonize in local soil, but also effectively enhance the complexity and stability of the rhizosphere microbial community. Considering the practical impact of different treatments on wheat, soil microorganisms, economic benefits and restoration of soil Cd contamination, the application of organic fertilizer and actinomycetes in Cd contaminated soil is a more ideal remediation strategy. This conclusion can be further verified by studying larger repair regions and longer consecutive repair cycles to gain insight into the repair mechanism.
•The application of organic fertilizer combined with actinomycetes inoculants performs well in promoting wheat dry mass of underground parts, reducing Cd accumulation in this parts and improving wheat stress resistance.•The addition of actinomycetes can effectively increase the complexity of the microbial network structure and contribute to the stability of the inter-root microecology of the plant.•The combination of actinomycetes and organic fertilizer may be an effective method to control heavy metals in soil.
Aim: β-actin (ACTB) participates in the vascular remodeling and contributes to the cardiovascular diseases. Herein, we investigated the associations of ACTB with hypertension and stroke.Methods: ...Three single-nucleotide polymorphisms in ACTB were selected for genotyping in 2,012 hypertension cases and 2,210 controls. The associations of ACTB with hypertension and stroke were examined in another follow-up study. Logistic and Cox regression were performed in a case-control study and a follow-up study, respectively. Additive scale interaction was examined by calculating the relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI), attributable proportion due to interaction (AP) and synergy index (SI). The multiplicative interaction hazard ratio was calculated by fitting the Cox regression model. ACTB mRNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells was measured in ischemic stroke (IS) cases and in controls.Results: The associations of rs852426 with hypertension and stroke had statistical significance in drinkers but not after Bonferroni correction. An additive interaction of rs852426 and drinking was observed for stroke incidence, the adjusted RERI was −0.907 (p=4.108×10－4), and the multiplicative interaction was still sound (HR=0.541, p=0.048). Furthermore, the significant interaction was further replicated in a nested case-control study. In the drinking population, the relative expression of ACTB mRNA in IS was lower (0.99±0.26) than that in controls (1.13±0.20), with a p value of 0.026.Conclusions: ACTB rs852426 was significantly associated with alcohol consumption on stroke risk, and the expression of ACTB mRNA in IS who had a drinking habit was significantly down-regulated. This finding will provide a novel insight into the prevention of stroke.
This article summarizes the two sides of the Sci-Hub debate, and raises awareness of the rights of journal article authors to post a certain version online that one is legally allowed to share, with ...no embargo.
R2R3-MYB, bHLH, and WD40 proteins have been shown to control multiple enzymatic steps in the biosynthetic pathway responsible for the production of flavonoids, important secondary metabolites in ...Camellia sinensis. Few related transcription factor genes have been documented. The presence of R2R3-MYB, bHLH, and WD40 were statistically and bioinformatically analyzed on 127,094 C. sinensis transcriptome unigenes, resulting in identification of 73, 49, and 134 genes, respectively. C. sinensis phylogenetic trees were constructed for R2R3-MYB and bHLH proteins using previous Arabidopsis data and further divided into 27 subgroups (Sg) and 32 subfamilies. Motifs in some R2R3-MYB subgroups were redefined. Furthermore, Sg26 and Sg27 were expanded compared to Arabidopsis data, and bHLH proteins in C. sinensis were grouped into nine subfamilies. According to the functional annotation of Arabidopsis, flavonoid biosynthesis in C. sinensis was predicted to include R2R3-MYB genes in Sg4 (6), Sg5 (2), and Sg7 (1), as well as bHLH genes in subfamily 2 (2) and subfamily 24 (5). The wide evolutionary gap prevented phylogenetic analysis of WD40s; however, a single gene, CsWD40-1, was observed to share 80.4 % sequence homogeny with AtTTG1. Analysis of CsMYB4-1, CsMYB4-2, CsMYB4-3, CsMYB4-4, CsMYB5-1, and CsMYB5-2 revealed the interaction motif DELx2RKx3Lx6Lx3R, potentially contributing to the specificity of the bHLH partner in the stable MYB–bHLH complex. Full-length end-to-end polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and quantitative reverse transcriptase (qRT)-PCR were used to validate selected genes and generate relative expression ratio profiles in C. sinensis leaves by developmental stage and treatment conditions, including hormone and wound treatments. Potential target binding sites were predicted.
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