Recently it has been shown that the cosmological dynamics of covariant
f
(
Q
) gravity depend on different affine connections. In this paper, two specific
f
(
Q
) models are investigated with ...SNe+CC+BAO+QSO observational data, and the spatial curvature of the universe is studied in covariant
f
(
Q
) gravity. It is found that the parameters
X
0
and
X
0
′
characterizing affine connections significantly affect the behavior of the effective equation of state
w
Q
and may drive it across the phantom divide line. These results imply some inertial effects of the universe change the cosmic dynamics. However based on the Bayesian evidence, the zero inertial effect is more favored in the flat universe. Moreover, a closed universe is favored not only in the
Λ
CDM model but also in covariant
f
(
Q
) gravity. The
f
(
Q
) models have less support evidence than the
Λ
CDM model in the non-flat universe.
The association between childhood bullying victimization and depression has been well-explored among young adults, but little is known about whether this relationship persists into later life stages, ...specifically during middle-aged and older phases. Moreover, the intricate mechanisms underpinning this association and the potential existence of gender differences within this context remain inadequately elucidated. To address this gap in knowledge, this study aims to investigate the association between childhood bullying victimization and depression in later life, with a focus on exploring the mediating role of social isolation and the moderating roles of gender. A nationally representative sample of 5,070 individuals (mean age = 61.02, SD = 9.48; male = 55%) was drawn from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. By employing the bootstrapping analysis method, the mediating role of social isolation was examined, and the moderating role of gender was tested through the generation of interaction items. The results reveal a significant association between childhood bullying victimization and severe depression in later life. Additionally, social isolation plays a mediating role in this association between childhood bullying victimization and social isolation, and the association between social isolation and depression, as well as the relationship between social isolation and depression, are both moderated by gender, presenting stronger effects for female groups than for male groups. However, no moderating role of gender is found in terms of the direct association between childhood bullying victimization and depression. These findings highlight the fact that childhood bullying is not only a problem in the immediate term but also a concern that affects individuals across entire life course. This study has implications for healthcare in proactively investigating, diagnosing, and treating depression by inquiring about childhood bullying victimization experiences. Furthermore, intervention policies that aim to reduce social isolation may be particularly beneficial in mitigating the negative associations, especially for female individuals.
In this paper, we discuss about the possibility to enhance the tensor-to-scalar ratio r under the condition of Trans-Planckian censorship conjecture (TCC), thus r∼O(10−3) could be observable within ...the sensitivity of future experiments. We make use of the scalar-tensor theory where inflaton is nonminimally coupled to gravity. After demonstrating that the TCC condition could be modified in scalar-tensor theory, we show that due to the effects of modified gravity at the end of inflation, a large r∼O(10−3) could be allowed without violating the TCC. Moreover, the modification can give rise to a weak coupling of gravity to the inflation field. If such an effect has been present as early as inflation starts, it would imply that in our case, the Universe might have experienced an asymptotically safe period at its early time.
Nanoarchitectonics has emerged as a post-nanotechnology concept. As one of the applications of nanoarchitectonics, this review paper discusses the control of stem cell fate and function as an ...important issue. For hybrid nanoarchitectonics involving living cells, it is crucial to understand how biomaterials and their nanoarchitected structures regulate behaviours and fates of stem cells. In this review, biomaterials for the regulation of stem cell fate are firstly discussed. Besides multipotent differentiation, immunomodulation is an important biological function of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). MSCs can modulate immune cells to treat multiple immune- and inflammation-mediated diseases. The following sections summarize the recent advances of the regulation of the immunomodulatory functions of MSCs by biophysical signals. In the third part, we discussed how biomaterials direct the self-organization of pluripotent stem cells for organoid. Bioactive materials are constructed which mimic the biophysical cues of in vivo microenvironment such as elasticity, viscoelasticity, biodegradation, fluidity, topography, cell geometry, and etc. Stem cells interpret these biophysical cues by different cytoskeletal forces. The different cytoskeletal forces lead to substantial transcription and protein expression, which affect stem cell fate and function. Regulations of stem cells could not be utilized only for tissue repair and regenerative medicine but also potentially for production of advanced materials systems. Materials nanoarchitectonics with integration of stem cells and related biological substances would have high impacts in science and technology of advanced materials.
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•Highly active Ru/NiFe-LDH is prepared by ultrasound-assisted reduction method.•–OH on the NiFe-LDH is excited into H radicals (H) as reductant via ultrasound.•Ultrafine Ru NPs show ...excellent catalytic performance for NEC hydrogenation.•The complexation of Ru with O-contained groups on NiFe-LDH improves its stability.
Highly active Ru nanoparticles (Ru NPs) supported on NiFe layered double hydroxide (Ru/NiFe-LDH) are prepared easily using ultrasound-assisted reduction method without chemical reductants and stabilizers. The plentiful hydroxyls on NiFe-LDH are excited into hydrogen radicals (H) under the action of ultrasound for reducing Ru3+ to Ru0. Ru NPs with an average particle size of 1.26 nm highly disperse on the mesopore-like surface of NiFe-LDH, which improve the catalytic performance for N-ethylcarbazole (NEC) hydrogenation. The experimental results show that 5Ru/NiFe-LDH-300–60 exhibits the best catalytic performance with 100% conversion of NEC, 98.88% yield of dodecahydro-N-ethylcarbazole (12H-NEC) and 5.77 wt% mass hydrogen storage capacity under the reaction conditions of 110 ℃, 6 MPa and mRu:mNEC = 0.15 wt% for 80 min. The kinetics study shows that the apparent activation energy is only 25.15 kJ/mol, which is the lowest in the reported literatures. Ru complexes with O-contained groups on NiFe-LDH, improving the catalytic stability in NEC hydrogenation.
•Evaluation of ozonation is needed for applications to impaired water qualities.•Bulk parameters (UV, EDC, HRMS) elucidate changes in DOM during ozonation.•Ozone-reactive organic moieties are ...assessed for kinetics and mechanisms.•Evaluated organic moieties: Olefins, aromatic, nitrogen or sulfur compounds.•Inactivation of antibiotic resistant bacteria/genes by ozone are evaluated.
Ozonation has been applied in water treatment for more than a century, first for disinfection, later for oxidation of inorganic and organic pollutants. In recent years, ozone has been increasingly applied for enhanced municipal wastewater treatment for ecosystem protection and for potable water reuse. These applications triggered significant research efforts on the abatement efficiency of organic contaminants and the ensuing formation of transformation products. This endeavor was accompanied by developments in analytical and computational chemistry, which allowed to improve the mechanistic understanding of ozone reactions. This critical review assesses the challenges of ozonation of impaired water qualities such as wastewaters and provides an up-to-date compilation of the recent kinetic and mechanistic findings of ozone reactions with dissolved organic matter, various functional groups (olefins, aromatic compounds, heterocyclic compounds, aliphatic nitrogen-containing compounds, sulfur-containing compounds, hydrocarbons, carbanions, β-diketones) and antibiotic resistance genes.
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Cellular metabolism involves complex sequences of controlled biochemical reactions and many chemical compounds or metabolites. The quantification of these metabolites will provide information on the ...dynamic cellular metabolism and the effect of environmental conditions. There have been extensive studies in this field since the last few decades, including the recent developments in microfluidic-based technologies. The article aims to provide a review on the current microfluidic detection techniques for quantifying the levels of main metabolites, including glucose, lactate, pyruvate, dissolved oxygen, pH and reactive oxygen species, with a focus on continuous and/or long-term detections. Most of the current developments are towards single metabolite detection and single-point or short-time detection techniques. There is increasing effort in the detection of multiple metabolites in microfluidics with integrated cell culturing. The future developments should address several major challenges such as cell culturing, long-term and sensitive detection of multiple metabolites in the dynamic cell environment.
•Increasing developments of microfluidic devices for cell metabolomic analysis.•Limited developments in sensitive and fast detection for multiple metabolites.•Urgent need for continuous and long-term detection systems.
Pancreatic cancer, as one of the neoplasms with the highest degree of malignancy, has become a main disease of concerns in recent years. BHLHE40, a critical transcription factor for remodeling of the ...tumor immune microenvironment, has been described to be substantially increased in a variety of tumor-associated immune cells. Nevertheless, the pro-cancer biological functions and underlying molecular mechanisms of BHLHE40 for pancreatic cancer and its unique microenvironment are unclear. Hereby, we investigated the pro-oncogenic role of BHLHE40 in the pancreatic cancer microenvironment by bioinformatics analysis and cell biology experiments and determined that the expression of BHLHE40 was obviously elevated in pancreatic cancer tissues than in adjacent normal tissues. In parallel, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis unveiled that lower expression of BHLHE40 was strongly associated with better prognosis of patients. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis confirmed the accuracy of the BHLHE40-related prediction model. Subsequent, spearman correlation analysis observed that higher expression of BHLHE40 might be involved in immunosuppression of pancreatic cancer. Silencing of BHLHE40 could inhibit proliferation, invasion, and apoptosis of pancreatic cancer in vitro and in vivo, implying that BHLHE40 is expected to be a potential therapeutic target for pancreatic cancer. In addition, we explored and validated the FGD5-AS1/miR-15a-5p axis as a potential upstream regulatory mode for high expression of BHLHE40 in pancreatic cancer. In summary, our data showed that ceRNA involved in the regulation of BHLHE40 contributes to the promotion of immunosuppressive response in pancreatic and is expected to be a diagnostic marker and potential immunotherapeutic target for pancreatic cancer.
Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) aerogels are emerging as very attractive scaffolds for high-performance electromagnetic wave absorption materials (EWAMs) due to their intrinsic conductive networks and ...intricate interior microstructure, as well as good compatibility with other electromagnetic (EM) components. Herein, we realized the decoration of rGO aerogel with Mo
2
C nanoparticles by sequential hydrothermal assembly, freeze-drying, and high-temperature pyrolysis. Results show that Mo
2
C nanoparticle loading can be easily controlled by the ammonium molybdate to glucose molar ratio. The hydrophobicity and thermal insulation of the rGO aerogel are effectively improved upon the introduction of Mo
2
C nanoparticles, and more importantly, these nanoparticles regulate the EM properties of the rGO aerogel to a large extent. Although more Mo
2
C nanoparticles may decrease the overall attenuation ability of the rGO aerogel, they bring much better impedance matching. At a molar ratio of 1:1, a desirable balance between attenuation ability and impedance matching is observed. In this context, the Mo
2
C/rGO aerogel displays strong reflection loss and broad response bandwidth, even with a small applied thickness (1.7 mm) and low filler loading (9.0wt%). The positive effects of Mo
2
C nanoparticles on multifunctional properties may render Mo
2
C/rGO aerogels promising candidates for high-performance EWAMs under harsh conditions.
To make safe road-crossing decisions, it is necessary for pedestrians to accurately estimate the speed and stopping distance of approaching vehicles. Accordingly, the objective of our study was to ...examine the effects of multiple factors, such as weather conditions, context time (day or night), and illuminance of the roads, on older pedestrians’ (>60 years old) speed perception and stopping distance estimation of approaching vehicles. The participants in this study included 48 older participants who were asked to estimate the speed and stopping distance of approaching vehicles based on 12 s video clips that were selected from natural conditions. The results revealed that actual speeds, weather, context time, and lighting conditions played important roles in the performance of the participants. Compared with young adults, older pedestrians were found to have smaller accurate estimation intervals that varied by multidimensional influencing factors and thus resulted in missing road-crossing opportunities at lower vehicles’ speeds and increasing road-crossing dangers at higher speeds. The older pedestrians’ performance with respect to speed perception and stopping distance estimation is modeled using a regression model with a complex level of tasks. These models can be used by engineers when establishing speed limits and lighting conditions in the areas with senior residents.
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