: To evaluate prognostic significance of DKK1 for hepatocelluar carcinoma.
: We enrolled a test cohort consisting of 266 hepatitis virus B-related hepatocelluar carcinoma patients who had undergone ...hepatectomy and a validation cohort of 95. Associations of DKK1 with overall survival and time to recurrence were determined by Cox proportional hazards regression model.
: High levels of preoperative serum DKK1 were associated with poor overall survival and higher recurrence rate and DKK1 was an independent prognostic predictor. Moreover, DKK1 maintained ability to predict recurrence for patients with low recurrence risk. Double positives of DKK1 and AFP indicated the worst overall survival and the highest recurrence rate compared with either used alone. Patients with preoperatively and 1-day postoperatively positive DKK1 had higher recurrence rates than those whose values were both negative. Similar results were found in the validation cohort.
: Serum DKK1 could predict prognosis of hepatocelluar carcinoma after hepatectomy.
Recently, the emergence of pre-trained models (PTMs) has brought natural language processing (NLP) to a new era. In this survey, we provide a comprehensive review of PTMs for NLP. We first briefly ...introduce language representation learning and its research progress. Then we systematically categorize existing PTMs based on a taxonomy from four different perspectives. Next, we describe how to adapt the knowledge of PTMs to downstream tasks. Finally, we outline some potential directions of PTMs for future research. This survey is purposed to be a hands-on guide for understanding, using, and developing PTMs for various NLP tasks.
There is considerable heterogeneity in immunological parameters between individuals, but its sources are largely unknown. To assess the relative contribution of heritable versus non-heritable ...factors, we have performed a systems-level analysis of 210 healthy twins between 8 and 82 years of age. We measured 204 different parameters, including cell population frequencies, cytokine responses, and serum proteins, and found that 77% of these are dominated (>50% of variance) and 58% almost completely determined (>80% of variance) by non-heritable influences. In addition, some of these parameters become more variable with age, suggesting the cumulative influence of environmental exposure. Similarly, the serological responses to seasonal influenza vaccination are also determined largely by non-heritable factors, likely due to repeated exposure to different strains. Lastly, in MZ twins discordant for cytomegalovirus infection, more than half of all parameters are affected. These results highlight the largely reactive and adaptive nature of the immune system in healthy individuals.
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•Non-heritable influences explain much of the variation in immune measurements•Immune parameters become more divergent between MZ twins with increasing age•A single non-heritable factor affects more than 50% of all cell subsets and serum proteins•Heritable and non-heritable immune measurements are largely interdependent
An extensive analysis of the immune systems of healthy humans shows that non-heritable factors such as infections, vaccines, and nutrition largely determine immune system variation and that the influence of such non-heritable factors can be both broad and cumulative, overshadowing most heritable influences with time.
Self-powered PEC immunoassays (AgAu/ZIF-8@ZnS@CdS), derived from MOFs-based semiconductor coupling with plasmonic AgAu bimetallic nanoshells, are designed and nano-engineered. The immunoassays ...exhibit superior detection ability for prostate-specific antigen because of the synergistic effect of the multi-heterostructure interfaces of ZIF-8@ZnS@CdS and enhanced electromagnetic field enabled by the MOFs-shells-encapsulated plasmonic AgAuNSs.
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•A plasmonic hierarchical structure (AgAu/ZIF-8@ZnS@CdS) was designed.•Plasmon-promoted MOFs-based PEC immunoassays were constructed.•The PEC performance was significantly boosted due to the synergistic effect.•The immunoassays exhibited excellent sensitivity, reproducibility and stability.
Benefiting from the large specific areas and versatile designability, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) based materials open a new avenue for the design of superior catalysts, whereas their applications in sensitive detection are still in their infancy. Herein, plasmon-promoted MOFs-based photoelectrochemical (PEC) immunoassays with hierarchical structures (AgAu/ZIF-8@ZnS@CdS) are prepared via a MOFs-engaged directional deposition method and ion-exchange reaction. As a result, the hierarchical structures exhibit excellent PEC performance with reinforced light absorption and charge separation efficiency. Reaction dynamics at the electron level and spatial-resolved simulations clarify that the multi-heterostructure interfaces of ZIF-8@ZnS@CdS and the plasmonic effect of AgAu nanoshells can synergistically improve the light absorption efficiency and promote the spatial separation of the electron-hole pairs. Notably, the MOFs shells are found to dramatically enhance the electromagnetic field and prevent the decay along the radial direction, which is favorable to the charge separation and transfer. Taking prostate-specific antigen as a representative analyte, both label-free and sandwich-type self-powered immunoassays exhibit superior detection performance with limits of detection (LODs) as low as 0.11 pg·mL−1 and 0.9 fg·mL−1, respectively. This study offers a promising platform for the construction of ultrasensitive immunoassays and provides methodologies for the mechanism investigation beyond the PEC detection performance.
Multi-sensor fusion system has many advantages, such as reduce error and improve filtering accuracy. The observability of the system state is an important index to test the convergence accuracy and ...speed of the designed Kalman filter. In this paper, we evaluate different multi-sensor fusion systems from the perspective of observability. To adjust and optimize the filter performance before filtering, in this paper, we derive the expression form of estimation error covariance of three different fusion methods and discussed both observable degree of fusion center and local filter of fusion step. Based on the ODAEPM, we obtained their discriminant matrix of observable degree and the relationship among different fusion methods is given by mathematical proof. To confirm mathematical conclusion, the simulation analysis is done for multi-sensor CV model. The result demonstrates our theory and verifies the advantage of information fusion system.
During an aircraft taxiing on a water-contaminated runway, the worn tires with shallower grooves will significantly deteriorate the safety of take-off and landing. The hydrodynamics generated by the ...tire-water-pavement interaction is numerically studied using the coupling method of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics and Finite Element Method. By comparing a completely worn tire with a new tire, the effects of tire wear on water spray and water displacement drag are analyzed. With the increasing tire speed and water film depth, the water spray composed of bow wave and side plume increases, and the water displacement drag decomposed of wave- and film-generated components also increases. The effects of tire wear depend on the relative height of tire grooves to the water film depth. For the shallow water film with a depth smaller than the grooves height, the water spray and water displacement drag of new tire is much smaller than those of worn tire, because the groove drainage effect can work very well. While for the deep water film that completely floods the grooves, the water spray and water displacement drag of new tire are similar with those of worn tires, because the groove drainage effect cannot be fully utilized.
During the taxiing of an aircraft on a water-contaminated runway, the rolling tires impact water film resulting in a considerable water displacement drag and a large amount of spray, which will ...affect the safety of take-off and landing. The characteristics and flow mechanism of the water displacement drag generated by an elastic tire are numerically studied based on the coupling method of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics and Finite Element Method. The water displacement drag is divided into wave-generated drag and film-generated drag based on flow mechanism for the first time, and the former is much larger than the latter. The water displacement drag satisfies the Gaussian distribution along the rotation axis. The longitudinal grooves cause a significant increase in the wave-generated drag and a reduction in the film-generated drag. A simple potential flow model around a semi-infinite bluff body is proposed to reveal the flow physics of film-generated drag. Two drag formulas are proposed to quickly predict the wave-generated drag and film-generated drag.
Abstract
Chemical doping through heteroatom substitution is often used to control the Fermi level of semiconductor materials. Doping also occurs when surface adsorbed molecules modify the Fermi level ...of low dimensional materials such as carbon nanotubes. A gradient in dopant concentration, and hence the chemical potential, across such a material generates usable electrical current. This opens up the possibility of creating asymmetric catalytic particles capable of generating voltage from a surrounding solvent that imposes such a gradient, enabling electrochemical transformations. In this work, we report that symmetry-broken carbon particles comprised of high surface area single-walled carbon nanotube networks can effectively convert exothermic solvent adsorption into usable electrical potential, turning over electrochemical redox processes in situ with no external power supply. The results from ferrocene oxidation and the selective electro-oxidation of alcohols underscore the potential of solvent powered electrocatalytic particles to extend electrochemical transformation to various environments.
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•A plasmon-enhanced Z-Scheme heterostructure (TiO2/Au/ZnIn2S4OS) is prepared.•A significantly improved PEC performance of TiO2/Au/ZnIn2S4OS is achieved.•The multifunctionality of Au ...nanodots in boosting the PEC catalytic performance is clarified.
The Z-scheme photoelectrochemical (PEC) catalytic system that mimics natural photosynthesis is considered an encouraging method to improve the catalytic activities of the catalysts and finally address the global energy crisis. Herein, a plasmon-enhanced Z-Scheme heterostructure is synthesized via interface-structure-designing and defect-engineering. The optimized TiO2/Au/ZnIn2S4OS exhibits an excellent PEC catalytic activity with a photocurrent density of 3.80 mA/cm2 at 1.23 V (vs RHE), which is 2.1 times higher than that of TiO2 nanorod arrays. The density functional theory (DFT) calculation results demonstrate that the synergy of O, S-defects can tailor the charge density distribution and electronic structure of ZnIn2S4, which effectively improves the electrical conductivity of the photocatalyst. The kinetic and thermodynamic behavior investigation, as well as theoretical simulations, indicate that the successful construction of the Z-scheme system can significantly improve the redox capacity and photo-excited electron-hole separation efficiency of the catalysts, thereby promoting the water oxidation activity. Furthermore, the Au nanodots sandwiched between TiO2 and ZnIn2S4OS are found to play multifunctional roles in boosting the PEC catalytic performance. This work provides a valuable approach to constructing defects-dominated Z-scheme systems at the atomic scale and sheds light on new insight into the LSPR effect for improving the catalytic performance in Z-scheme systems.
Abstract
Spontaneous oscillations on the order of several hertz are the drivers of many crucial processes in nature. From bacterial swimming to mammal gaits, converting static energy inputs into ...slowly oscillating power is key to the autonomy of organisms across scales. However, the fabrication of slow micrometre-scale oscillators remains a major roadblock towards fully-autonomous microrobots. Here, we study a low-frequency oscillator that emerges from a collective of active microparticles at the air-liquid interface of a hydrogen peroxide drop. Their interactions transduce ambient chemical energy into periodic mechanical motion and on-board electrical currents. Surprisingly, these oscillations persist at larger ensemble sizes only when a particle with modified reactivity is added to intentionally break permutation symmetry. We explain such emergent order through the discovery of a thermodynamic mechanism for asymmetry-induced order. The on-board power harvested from the stabilised oscillations enables the use of electronic components, which we demonstrate by cyclically and synchronously driving a microrobotic arm. This work highlights a new strategy for achieving low-frequency oscillations at the microscale, paving the way for future microrobotic autonomy.
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