A series of low-cost, magnetic, and high-efficiency CuNiCoB amorphous alloy catalysts were developed by the chemical reduction method for selective hydrogenation of butyl levulinate (BL) to ...γ-valerolactone (GVL). The catalysts were characterized by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and hydrogen temperature-programmed desorption techniques. The results indicated that the CuNiCoB amorphous alloy nanosheets with well-dispersed Cu nanoparticles played an important role in enhancing the hydrogenation activity. The reaction temperature, pressure, time, and substrate concentration were optimized. The maximum GVL yield of 89.5% with BL conversion of 99.7% was achieved over the best Cu0.5Ni1Co3B catalyst using 3 wt % dosage relative to BL at 473 K under 3.0 MPa H2 after 3 h. The considerable stability of Cu0.5Ni1Co3B during catalytic recovery and reuse experiments (5 cycles) was exhibited as a result of the transformation of CuNiCoB amorphous alloy active sites to a Cu–Ni–Co ternary alloy. The stable and magnetic catalyst was demonstrated to be a promising candidate to produce more value-added compounds from biomass-derived raw materials.
Region intensity complexity active contours Li, Xu; Liu, Hairong; Yang, Xiaoping
Multidimensional systems and signal processing,
07/2020, Volume:
31, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The segmentation of intensity inhomogeneity images is always a challenging problem. There are two kinds of intensity inhomogeneities, one associated with the imaging devices and illumination ...variations, and the other associated with the essential characteristics of the intensities in objects and backgrounds. We name the second kind of intensity inhomogeneity as intensity complexity. In this paper, we focus on the segmentation of the images with intensity complexity. Our main argument is to quantify the complex intensities and convert them into useful features to improve segmentation accuracy. Two new quantities called the region intensity complexity index (RIC-Index) and factor (RIC-Factor) are introduced to quantify the intensity complexity. Then the quantified intensity complexity is incorporated into a variational level set framework. The total energy functional of the proposed framework consists of the following three items: a region intensity complexity term, a local region fitting energy term, and an edge-based energy term. The first term is defined by exploiting the region intensity complexity factor of the images. Mean and variance are utilized in the local region fitting energy to describe the image texture information. The last term of the energy functional, which is also derived from the region intensity complexity factor, incorporates the significant edge information. By integrating these three terms, the proposed model can handle intensity complexity images, especially two kinds of images: one with complex intensities in the objects, and the other with complex intensities in the backgrounds. The experimental results on 40 intensity complexity images and 1000 natural images from the Extended Complex Scene Saliency Dataset have indicated that our proposed algorithm can produce satisfactory segmentation results in comparison with five state-of-the-art methods and a deep learning approach.
Impairment of innate immune cell function and metabolism underlies immunosuppression in sepsis; however, a promising therapy to orchestrate this impairment is currently lacking. In this study, high ...levels of NOD-like receptor family CARD domain containing-3 (NLRC3) correlated with the glycolytic defects of monocytes/macrophages from septic patients and mice that developed immunosuppression. Myeloid-specific NLRC3 deletion improved macrophage glycolysis and sepsis-induced immunosuppression. Mechanistically, NLRC3 inhibits nuclear factor (NF)-κB p65 binding to nuclear factor of activated T cells 5 (NFAT5), which further controls the expression of glycolytic genes and proinflammatory cytokines of immunosuppressive macrophages. This is achieved by decreasing NF-κB activation—co-induced by TNF-receptor-associated factor 6 (TRAF6) or mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)—and decreasing transcriptional co-activator p300 activity by inducing NLRC3 sequestration of mTOR and p300. Genetic inhibition of NLRC3 disrupted the NLRC3-mTOR-p300 complex and enhanced NF-κB binding to the NFAT5 promoter in concert with p300. Furthermore, intrapulmonary delivery of recombinant adeno-associated virus harboring a macrophage-specific NLRC3 deletion vector significantly improved the defense of septic mice that developed immunosuppression upon secondary intratracheal bacterial challenge. Collectively, these findings indicate that NLRC3 mediates critical aspects of innate immunity that contribute to an immunocompromised state during sepsis and identify potential therapeutic targets.
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This study connects NLRC3 expression in myeloid cells to the mechanism of sepsis-induced immunosuppression, where NLRC3 inhibits the binding of NF-kB to NFAT5 in concert with p300, thereby regulating metabolic reprogramming of macrophages, and shows that NLRC3 gene therapy targeting intrapulmonary macrophage improves lung defenses against secondary infections.
As a vital element affecting economic efficiency, the impact of marine industrial structure upgrading on marine economy has become a hot topic, and China is not an exception. This paper analyzed the ...dynamic relationship of marine industrial structure upgrading and marine economy efficiency to verity the “structural bonus” and “cost disease” effects. The results confirmed the existence of cost disease in China’s marine economy, although occasionally it illustrated structural bonus effects with the improvement of the regional marine economy efficiency. The spatial Durbin model (SDM) was introduced to study the spillover effect of local marine industrial structure upgrading (MISU) on the adjacent regions’ marine economy efficiency, and this spillover effect was verified to have agglomerate characteristics in China’s coastal areas. Then several countermeasures were proposed to realize marine ecological civilization and promote regional cooperation in the development of China’s marine economy.
Previous research has predominantly focused on the biomechanical effects of anterior–posterior foot motion during running, with comparatively less attention given to medial–lateral foot motion and ...its impact on lower limb biomechanical characteristics. We recruited 18 healthy runners who wore five different types of running shoes: regular shoes (NS), those with a 6 mm and 9 mm medial–lateral height difference in the forefoot (M6, M9), and those with a 6 mm and 9 mm lateral–medial height difference (L6, L9). Biomechanical parameters of lower limb joints during the stance phase of running, including range of motion, peak angular velocity, peak moment, power, and work, were analyzed. We used paired-sample t-tests and one-dimensional statistical parametric mapping (SPM1D) to compare joint biomechanics between shoes with varying height differences and NS. Under the L6 condition, notable differences occurred in the hip and knee flexion–extension moments during landing and push-off, accompanied by a significant increase in ankle dorsiflexion work and a significant decrease in inversion–eversion work. In contrast, the M9 condition resulted in decreased hip flexion–extension peak moment, power, and work in the sagittal plane. These findings indicate that varying forefoot medial–lateral height differences in running shoes significantly impact lower limb joint dynamics during the stance phase, particularly the L6 condition, potentially reducing knee injury risk and aiding gait improvement for overpronators. The findings offer valuable insights for sports injury prevention and athletic footwear design. However, further research is needed to understand the underlying mechanisms and practical implications for sports injury prevention and performance enhancement.
Comprehensive previous studies on electrocatalysts have found that increasing the active area of the catalyst as well as increasing the conductivity are effective methods to enhance the catalytic ...activity of oxygen evolution reaction (OER). In this work, we hydrothermally synthesized an innovative coral-acicular core-shell heterojunction nanomaterial with an overpotential of ∼150 mV and a Tafel slope of ∼78.6 mV dec−1 at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 by doping appropriate amounts of Fe and coupling g-C3N4. It is found that the specific surface area is 13 times higher than that of precursor Ni0.85Se, and the catalytic performance is increased by 200 %. The heterostructure of this material is demonstrated to improve the electron transport properties through energy band analysis and density functional theory (DFT) simulations, and it is found to have the best theoretical overpotential. The coral-acicular core-shell heterostructure in this work provides a valuable theoretical and practical basis for the design and development of efficient catalysts in terms of morphology and structure.
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•Fe0.09Ni0.76Se@g-C3N4 is a novel coral-acicular core-shell heterojunction structure.•This structure greatly increases the specific surface area of the catalyst.•It is proved by calculation that Fe doping introduces more electrons to react in concert with nickel.•The construction of heterojunction improves the electron transport characteristics.•Fe0.09Ni0.76Se@g-C3N4 only requires an overpotential of 150 mV at 10 mA cm−2.
In this paper, we propose a framework to investigate the collective dynamics in ensembles of globally coupled phase oscillators when higher-order modes dominate the coupling. The spatiotemporal ...properties of the attractors in various regions of parameter space are analyzed. Furthermore, a detailed linear stability analysis proves that the stationary symmetric distribution is only neutrally stable in the marginal regime which stems from the generalized time-reversal symmetry. Moreover, the critical parameters of the transition among various regimes are determined analytically by both the Ott-Antonsen method and linear stability analysis, the transient dynamics are further revealed in terms of the characteristic curves method. Finally, for the more general initial condition the symmetric dynamics could be reduced to a rigorous three-dimensional manifold which shows that the neutrally stable chaos could also occur in this model for particular parameters. Our theoretical analysis and numerical results are consistent with each other, which can help us understand the dynamical properties in general systems with higher-order harmonics couplings.
Hirschsprung's disease (HSCR) is a birth defect that causes a failure of the enteric nervous system to cover the distal gut during early embryonic development. Evidence shows that long non‐coding ...RNAs (lncRNA) play important roles in HSCR. The MIR31 host gene (MIR31HG), also known as Loc554202, is a long non‐coding RNA (lncRNA), which acts as the host gene of (microRNA) miR‐31 and miR‐31*. There have been no studies regarding its function in early developmental defects during pregnancy, and its downstream genetic receptors. We report that downregulation of MIR31HG inhibited migration and proliferation in 293T and SH‐SY5Y cell lines, by suppressing miR‐31 and miR‐31*. Moreover, the downregulation of miR‐31 and miR‐31* enhanced inter‐α‐trypsin inhibitor heavy chain 5 (ITIH5) and the phosphatidylinositol‐4, 5‐bisphosphate 3‐kinase catalytic gamma subunit (PIK3CG), respectively with reductions of cell migration and proliferation in 293T and SH‐SY5Y cell lines. In addition, synergistic actions were observed between miR‐31 and miR‐31* in cell migration and proliferation. Our results demonstrated that the MIR31HG‐miR‐31/31*‐ITIH5/PIK3CG pathway plays a role in the pathogenesis of HSCR.
Down‐expressed MIR31HG inhibited cell migration and proliferation in HSCR. MIR31HG plays the celluar fuction via negative regulation of miR‐31 and miR‐31* The MIR31HG‐miR‐31/31*‐ITIH5/PIK3CG pathway might act in the pathogenesis of HSCR.
Eosinophilic enteritis (EE) is an immune-mediated antigen-driven disease that may lead to clinical symptoms and organ dysfunction and characterized by the presence of extensive eosinophilic ...infiltrates on histopathological examination of the intestinal mucosa.
A 29-year-old man presented with a half-month duration of paroxysmal upper abdominal pain that gradually evolved into continuous pain accompanied by the urge to defecate.
Pathological findings of enteroscopy showed acute and chronic inflammation accompanied by eosinophilic infiltration (>20/ high-power field).
The patient was initially treated with IV infusion of dexamethasone 10 mg per day for 3 days, which was reduced to 7.5 mg per day for 2 days once pain relief was achieved. Upon discharged from our hospital, the patient was prescribed with oral prednisolone 30 mg per day, which was reduced by 5 mg per week for 6 weeks until discontinuation.
The patient was relieved from the pain after receiving dexamethasone for 5 days, and he was maintained on oral prednisolone 30 mg per day upon discharge from the hospital. On the day of discharge, the eosinophil count and derived ratios were normal.
In patients with EE, the dynamic changes of the eosinophil count should be monitored. Clinicians must be aware that not all patients with EE have a history of allergies. In the management and treatment of the disease, multisite biopsies should be carried out if EE is suspected, and EE is responsive to steroid therapy.
Tiny 2D silicon quantum sheets were explored as a brain photonic nanoagent for the management of orthotopic glioma tumors across blood-brain tumor barrier, depicting precise tumor location by ...photoacoustic imaging and effective orthotopic glioma inhibition by photothermal effect.
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We report that atomically thin two-dimensional silicon quantum sheets (2D Si QSs), prepared by a scalable approach coupling chemical delithiation and cryo-assisted exfoliation, can serve as a high-performance brain photonic nanoagent for orthotopic glioma theranostics. With the lateral size of approximately 14.0 nm and thickness of about 1.6 nm, tiny Si QSs possess high mass extinction coefficient of 27.5 L g−1 cm−1 and photothermal conversion efficiency of 47.2% at 808 nm, respectively, concurrently contributing to the best photothermal performance among the reported 2D mono-elemental materials (Xenes). More importantly, Si QSs with low toxicity maintain the trade-off between stability and degradability, paving the way for practical clinical translation in consideration of both storage and action of nanoagents. In vitro Transwell filter experiment reveals that Si QSs could effectively go across the bEnd.3 cells monolayer. Upon the intravenous injection of Si QSs, orthotopic brain tumors are effectively inhibited under the precise guidance of photoacoustic imaging, and the survival lifetime of brain tumor-bearing mice is increased by two fold. Atomically thin Si QSs with strong light-harvesting capability are expected to provide an effective and robust 2D photonic nanoplatform for the management of brain diseases.
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