Macrophages play an important role in a wide variety of physiologic and pathologic processes. Plasticity and functional polarization are hallmarks of macrophages. Macrophages commonly exist in two ...distinct subsets: classically activated macrophages (M1) and alternatively activated macrophages (M2). M2b, a subtype of M2 macrophages, has attracted increasing attention over the past decade due to its strong immune‐regulated and anti‐inflammatory effects. A wide variety of stimuli and multiple factors modulate M2b macrophage polarization in vitro and in vivo. M2b macrophages possess both protective and pathogenic roles in various diseases. Understanding the mechanisms of M2b macrophage activation and the modulation of their polarization might provide a great perspective for the design of novel therapeutic strategies. The purpose of this review is to discuss current knowledge of M2b macrophage polarization, the roles of M2b macrophages in a variety of diseases and the stimuli to modulate M2b macrophage polarization.
Review outlines the current knowledge of the stimuli of M2b macrophage polarization and the roles of these cells in diseases.
The platooning of autonomous vehicles has the potential to significantly improve traffic capacity, enhance highway safety, and reduce fuel consumption. This paper studies the scalability limitations ...of large-scale vehicular platoons moving in rigid formation, and proposes two basic ways to improve stability margins, i.e., enlarging information topology and employing asymmetric control. A vehicular platoon is considered as a combination of four components: 1) node dynamics; 2) decentralized controller; 3) information flow topology; and 4) formation geometry. Tools, such as the algebraic graph theory and matrix factorization technique, are employed to model and analyze scalability limitations. The major findings include: 1) under linear identical decentralized controllers, the stability thresholds of control gains are explicitly established for platoons under undirected topologies. It is proved that the stability margins decay to zero as the platoon size increases unless there is a large number of following vehicles pinned to the leader and 2) the stability margins of vehicular platoons under bidirectional topologies using asymmetric controllers are always bounded away from zero and independent of the platoon size. Simulations with a platoon of passenger cars are used to demonstrate the findings.
Simple sequence repeats (SSRs), also referred to as microsatellites, are highly variable tandem DNAs that are widely used as genetic markers. The increasing availability of whole-genome and ...transcript sequences provides information resources for SSR marker development. However, efficient software is required to efficiently identify and display SSR information along with other gene features at a genome scale. We developed novel software package Genome-wide Microsatellite Analyzing Tool Package (GMATA) integrating SSR mining, statistical analysis and plotting, marker design, polymorphism screening and marker transferability, and enabled simultaneously display SSR markers with other genome features. GMATA applies novel strategies for SSR analysis and primer design in large genomes, which allows GMATA to perform faster calculation and provides more accurate results than existing tools. Our package is also capable of processing DNA sequences of any size on a standard computer. GMATA is user friendly, only requires mouse clicks or types inputs on the command line, and is executable in multiple computing platforms. We demonstrated the application of GMATA in plants genomes and reveal a novel distribution pattern of SSRs in 15 grass genomes. The most abundant motifs are dimer GA/TC, the A/T monomer and the GCG/CGC trimer, rather than the rich G/C content in DNA sequence. We also revealed that SSR count is a linear to the chromosome length in fully assembled grass genomes. GMATA represents a powerful application tool that facilitates genomic sequence analyses. GAMTA is freely available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/gmata/?source=navbar.
We report a vinyl cyanation reaction of vinyl triflates and readily available 1,4‐dicyanobenzene through a nickel‐catalyzed reductive coupling process. The reaction is operated under mild conditions ...with remarkable functional‐group compatibility. Cyclic vinyl triflates with various ring sizes and substituents at different positions all reacted smoothly. The synthetic utility is demonstrated by the derivatization of pharmaceutical and natural compounds, a scale‐up synthesis, and various functional group transformations. Preliminary mechanistic studies demonstrate that vinyl triflates are more reactive than 1,4‐dicyanobenzene towards the oxidative addition to nickel catalyst.
Recent advances in the carbonylative synthesis of heterocycles by using diverse CO surrogates as sources of CO are summarized and discussed. The merger of carbonylative transformations involving CO ...surrogates with heterocyclic compound syntheses provides a powerful and promising tool for the construction of a series of carbonyl-containing heterocyclic compounds. In contrast to toxic and flammable gaseous carbon monoxide, most of the CO surrogates are readily available, bench-stable, harmless and easy to handle. This feature article will mainly focus on heterocycle syntheses involving CO surrogates, including formic acid, formates, molybdenum hexacarbonyl,
etc.
Recent advances in the carbonylative synthesis of heterocycles by using diverse CO surrogates as sources of CO are summarized and discussed.
Multi‐component carbonylation of olefins, a reaction that installs both a carbon–carbon(heteroatom) bond and a carbonyl group across the double bond, is an attractive strategy for alkene ...functionalization. Herein, we developed a novel nickel‐catalyzed four‐component carbonylation of olefins with ethers under low CO gas pressure. Using alcohols and amines as the reaction partner, diverse γ‐oxy‐substituted esters and amides were produced in good yields with excellent functional group tolerance. Notably, Naftidrofuryl, a medicine for the treatment of cerebrovascular disease (CVD), can be synthesized by this process straightforwardly.
A new nickel‐catalyzed four‐component carbonylation of ethers with olefins to synthesize γ‐substituted carbonyl compounds has been developed. A variety of γ‐substituted carbonyl compounds were produced in excellent yields under 1 atm pressure of CO. Notably, this strategy has been successfully applied to the one‐step synthesis of the drug molecule Naftidrofuryl, which is a medicine for the treatment of cerebrovascular disease (CVD).
The near-infrared phosphor-converted light-emitting diodes (NIR pc-LEDs) have great potential in food industry and medical fields. For applications based on NIR spectroscopy, the next generation of ...NIR pc-LEDs is in a high demand of a spectrum with a much broader full width at half-maximum (fwhm), which triggers the discovery of novel broadband NIR phosphors. In this work, the Cr3+-doped La2MgZrO6 (LMZ) was successfully synthesized by a conventional solid-state method in a reducing atmosphere, and the double-perovskite oxide LMZ with two distorted octahedral sites finally led to an ultra-broadband Cr3+ emission centered at 825 nm with an extremely large fwhm of 210 nm and an internal quantum efficiency of ∼58%. The experimental data and theoretical calculation confirmed that two available Cr3+ sites with different crystal field environments contributed to the broadband emission. The crystal field parameters, decay time, and temperature-dependent photoluminescence properties were investigated and discussed to further understand the luminescence of Cr3+ in LMZ:Cr. The suitability of the title NIR phosphor in multifunctional pc-LEDs was demonstrated by pumping it with blue, green, and/or red LED chips.
An unprecedented base-promoted multi-component one-pot dearomatization of N -alkyl activated azaarenes was developed, which enabled the synthesis of complex and diverse bridged cyclic polycycles with ...multiple stereocenters in a highly regio- and diastereoselective manner. Besides, we realized the step-controlled dearomative bi- and trifunctionalization of quinolinium salts. These transformations not only achieved the maximization of the reaction sites of pyridinium, quinolinium and isoquinolinium salts to enhance structural complexity and diversity, but also opened up a new reaction mode of these N -activated azaarenes. A unique feature of this strategy is the use of easily accessible and bench-stable N -alkyl activated azaarenes to provide maximum reactive sites for dearomative cascade cyclizations. In addition, the salient characteristics including high synthetic efficiency, short reaction time, mild conditions and simple operation made this strategy particularly attractive.
•A novel method is proposed to determine the OCV-SoC relationship with much less time.•The proposed method is compared with traditional OCV tests under various tests.•The parameters and SoC can be ...update by using the dual H infinity filters.•The proposed method can result in accurate SoC estimation with a maximum error of 1%.
The open circuit voltage (OCV) is an essential variable for accurate state of charge (SoC) estimation of lithium ion batteries in electric vehicles (EVs). OCV test must be performed periodically to calibrate the OCV-SoC relationship after battery aging. Furthermore, due to pronounced hysteresis effects and wide flat regions in the OCV-SoC curves of LiFePO4 batteries, the traditional OCV tests often take three to five days to obtain data on one or more fully charge and discharge cycles, which are time-consuming and become unreliable under changing driving cycles and operating conditions. In addition, the OCV-SoC relationship determined in a certain aging stage cannot be used for the full life cycle and whole operating conditions. In this paper, the OCV-SoC relationship is extracted from any existing current-voltage measurements by using an H infinity filter within several seconds, which is verified under constant current conditions and dynamic conditions. Our results show that the estimated OCV can result in accurate SoC estimation with a maximum error of 1%.
Background
High incidence of asymptomatic venous thromboembolism (VTE) has been observed in severe COVID‐19 patients, but the characteristics of symptomatic VTE in general COVID‐19 patients have not ...been described.
Objectives
To comprehensively explore the prevalence and reliable risk prediction for VTE in COVID‐19 patients.
Methods/Results
This retrospective study enrolled all COVID‐19 patients with a subsequent VTE in 16 centers in China from January 1 to March 31, 2020. A total of 2779 patients were confirmed with COVID‐19. In comparison to 23,434 non‐COVID‐19 medical inpatients, the odds ratios (ORs) for developing symptomatic VTE in severe and non‐severe hospitalized COVID‐19 patients were 5.94 (95% confidence interval CI 3.91–10.09) and 2.79 (95% CI 1.43–5.60), respectively. When 104 VTE cases and 208 non‐VTE cases were compared, pulmonary embolism cases had a higher rate for in‐hospital death (OR 6.74, 95% CI 2.18–20.81). VTE developed at a median of 21 days (interquartile range 13.25–31) since onset. Independent factors for VTE were advancing age, cancer, longer interval from symptom onset to admission, lower fibrinogen and higher D‐dimer on admission, and D‐dimer increment (DI) ≥1.5‐fold; of these, DI ≥1.5‐fold had the most significant association (OR 14.18, 95% CI 6.25–32.18, p = 2.23 × 10−10). A novel model consisting of three simple coagulation variables (fibrinogen and D‐dimer levels on admission, and DI ≥1.5‐fold) showed good prediction for symptomatic VTE (area under the curve 0.865, 95% CI 0.822–0.907, sensitivity 0.930, specificity 0.710).
Conclusions
There is an excess risk of VTE in hospitalized COVID‐19 patients. This novel model can aid early identification of patients who are at high risk for VTE.
PDF
