Objectives
To evaluate the effectiveness of the Chinese version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Basic (MoCA‐BC) as a screening tool for detecting mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in Chinese ...elderly adults.
Design
Cross‐sectional.
Setting
Huashan Hospital, Shanghai, China.
Participants
Individuals with MCI (n = 264) and mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) (n = 160) were recruited from the Memory Clinic, Huashan Hospital; cognitively normal controls were recruited from Jinshan Community, Shanghai, China (n = 280).
Measurements
MoCA‐BC scores.
Results
The MoCA‐BC had good criterion‐related validity (Pearson correlation coefficient MoCA‐BC vs MMSE = 0.787) and reliable internal consistency (Cronbach alpha = 0.807). The optimal cutoff scores for MCI screening were 19 for individuals with no more than 6 years of education, 22 for individuals with 7 to 12 years of education, and 24 for individuals with more than 12 years of education. The MoCA‐BC was superior to the MMSE for detecting MCI, with optimal sensitivity and specificity across all education groups using the above cutoff scores.
Conclusion
The MoCA‐BC is a reliable cognitive screening test across all education levels in Chinese elderly adults, with high acceptance and good reliability.
To assess the benefits of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors as neoadjuvant/adjuvant therapies in locally advanced
mutation-positive non-small-cell lung cancer.
This ...was a multicenter (17 centers in China), open-label, phase II, randomized controlled trial of erlotinib versus gemcitabine plus cisplatin (GC chemotherapy) as neoadjuvant/adjuvant therapy in patients with stage IIIA-N2 non-small-cell lung cancer with
mutations in exon 19 or 21 (EMERGING). Patients received erlotinib 150 mg/d (neoadjuvant therapy, 42 days; adjuvant therapy, up to 12 months) or gemcitabine 1,250 mg/m
plus cisplatin 75 mg/m
(neoadjuvant therapy, two cycles; adjuvant therapy, up to two cycles). Assessments were performed at 6 weeks and every 3 months postsurgery. The primary end point was objective response rate (ORR) by Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) version 1.1; secondary end points were pathologic complete response, progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival, safety, and tolerability.
Of 386 patients screened, 72 were randomly assigned to treatment (intention-to-treat population), and 71 were included in the safety analysis (one patient withdrew before treatment). The ORR for neoadjuvant erlotinib versus GC chemotherapy was 54.1% versus 34.3% (odds ratio, 2.26; 95% CI, 0.87 to 5.84;
= .092). No pathologic complete response was identified in either arm. Three (9.7%) of 31 patients and zero of 23 patients in the erlotinib and GC chemotherapy arms, respectively, had a major pathologic response. Median PFS was significantly longer with erlotinib (21.5 months) versus GC chemotherapy (11.4 months; hazard ratio, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.23 to 0.67;
< .001). Observed adverse events reflected those most commonly seen with the two treatments.
The primary end point of ORR with 42 days of neoadjuvant erlotinib was not met, but the secondary end point PFS was significantly improved.
The ever‐increasing demands for batteries with high energy densities to power the portable electronics with increased power consumption and to advance vehicle electrification and grid energy storage ...have propelled lithium battery technology to a position of tremendous importance. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene, known with many appealing properties, are investigated intensely for improving the performance of lithium‐ion (Li‐ion) and lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries. However, a general and objective understanding of their actual role in Li‐ion and Li–S batteries is lacking. It is recognized that CNTs and graphene are not appropriate active lithium storage materials, but are more like a regulator: they do not electrochemically react with lithium ions and electrons, but serve to regulate the lithium storage behavior of a specific electroactive material and increase the range of applications of a lithium battery. First, metrics for the evaluation of lithium batteries are discussed, based on which the regulating role of CNTs and graphene in Li‐ion and Li–S batteries is comprehensively considered from fundamental electrochemical reactions to electrode structure and integral cell design. Finally, perspectives on how CNTs and graphene can further contribute to the development of lithium batteries are presented.
The regulating role of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene in Li‐ion and Li–S batteries is comprehensively discussed from the viewpoints of fundamental electrochemical reactions to electroactive materials, electrode structure, and integral cell design. Perspectives on how CNTs and graphene can further contribute to the development of lithium batteries are presented.
This paper aims to find operational decisions and financing strategies in a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of a financially constrained manufacturer and a retailer. Based on a benchmark ...model without financing, three different financing strategies for the capital-constrained manufacturer, bank financing (BF), retailer credit financing (RCF), and hybrid financing (HF), are respectively incorporated and investigated. Analytical results show that: (a) Depending on the initial working capital /and the increased cost of financing from the bank, the manufacturer will change remanufacturing strategy from Partial remanufacturing to Complete remanufacturing for capital constrained CLSC when the relative unit cost of the remanufactured product is moderate; RCF strategy only revises and charges a higher wholesale price of new and remanufactured products; (b) For a financially constrained manufacturer in the CLSC, it holds the prerequisite to implement external financing and a higher financing rate to bank clearly cuts down the profits of the manufacturer and the channel but improves the retailer's profit under certain conditions; RCF strategy always redistributes the channel profit compared with the non-capital-constrained CLSC;
c)
A feasible financing rate to the bank of the manufacturer and an appropriate interest rate threshold of the retailer are potentially confirmed.
By targeted introduction of 6-nitrobenzimidazole into polymolybdate, two new polymolybdate-based copper-organic complexes were successfully synthesized, namely {Cu
2
(6-nbm)
4
β-Mo
8
O
26
(H
2
O)
2
...}·(6-nbm)
2
·4H
2
O (
1
) and H
2
{Cu
2
(6-nbm)
4
TeMo
6
O
24
(H
2
O)
4
}·(6-nbm)
2
·4H
2
O (
2
) (6-nbm = 6-nitrobenzimidazole), and structurally characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, IR spectroscopy and powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD). Complexes
1
and
2
are both one-dimensional (1D) chain structures, in which 6-nbm hangs on the 1D chain in a monodentate coordination mode, appearing with a butterfly-like configuration. Complexes
1
and
2
both display bifunctional electrocatalytic activity toward the reduction of KNO
2
, as well as the oxidation of ascorbic acid (AA). The title complexes, used to prepare bulk-modified carbon paste electrodes (
1
-CPE and
2
-CPE), can be used as electrochemical sensors, which show lower detection limit, good selectivity and anti-interference ability. In addition, the carbon cloth-based electrode modified with complex
1
(
1
-CC) exhibits ideal capacitance and long-term cycle stability, indicating that complex
1
can be a potential candidate for a pseudocapacitive material. In addition, complexes
1
and
2
show catalytic activity for the CO
2
reduction reaction.
6-Nitrobenzimidazole ligand was first introduced into polyoxometalate-based metal-organic architecture, and two unique butterfly-like complexes were obtained. Their applications in electrochemical energy storage and electrocatalysis were studied.
Particle swarm optimization (PSO), which is inspired by social behaviors of individuals in bird swarms, is a nature-inspired and global optimization algorithm. The PSO method is easy to implement and ...has shown good performance for many real-world optimization tasks. However, PSO has problems with premature convergence and easy trapping into local optimum solutions. In order to overcome these deficiencies, a chaotic dynamic weight particle swarm optimization (CDW-PSO) is proposed. In the CDW-PSO algorithm, a chaotic map and dynamic weight are introduced to modify the search process. The dynamic weight is defined as a function of the fitness. The search accuracy and performance of the CDW-PSO algorithm are verified on seventeen well-known classical benchmark functions. The experimental results show that, for almost all functions, the CDW-PSO technique has superior performance compared with other nature-inspired optimizations and well-known PSO variants. Namely, the proposed algorithm of CDW-PSO has better search performance.
Graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) heterostructures assembled by van der Waals (vdW) interactions show numerous unique physical properties such as quantum Hall effects and exotic correlated ...states, which have promising potential applications in the design of novel electronic devices. Understanding thermal transport in such junctions is critical to control the performance and stability of prospective nanodevices. In this work, using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, we systematically investigate the thermal transport in asymmetric graphene/h-BN vdW heterostructures. It is found that the heat prefers to flow from the monolayer to the multilayer regions, resulting in a significant thermal rectification (TR) effect. To determine the optimum conditions for TR, the influences of sample length, defect density, asymmetric degree, ambient temperature, and vdW interaction strength are studied. Particularly, we found that the TR ratio could be improved by about 1 order of magnitude via increasing the coupling strength from 1 to 10, which clearly distinguishes from the commonly held notion that the TR ratio is practically insensitive or even decreasing with the interaction strength. Detailed spectral analysis reveals that this unexpected increase of the TR ratio can be attributed to heavily modified phonon properties of encased graphene due to enhanced interlayer coupling. Our results elucidate the importance of vdW interactions to heat conduction in nanostructures.
Summary
The Wnt1‐Cre transgenic mouse line is widely used to express the CRE recombinase in neural crest lineages, but it overexpresses WNT1 itself, which can cause undesired phenotypes. To address ...this, we and others previously developed a Wnt1‐Cre2 line based on the same regulatory elements as Wnt1‐Cre but without ectopic Wnt1 expression. However, while Wnt1‐Cre2 exhibits normal activity when transmitted from female mice, it exhibits unexpected activity in the male germline. The Wnt1‐Cre2 transgene was previously mapped to the E2f1 locus. Several genes in this genomic region exhibit significant expression in spermatogonia or spermatocytes, suggesting that local regulatory elements may be driving ectopic transgene expression. The Wnt1‐Cre2 line can therefore be used both as a neural crest specific and a general deleter, and care should be taken when setting up genetic crosses.
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