Cement-based coral aggregate concrete (CAC) and its structures reinforced with fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars suffer from low strength, poor anti-permeability resistance, and insufficient ...durability. To overcome these drawbacks, this study employs well-durable slag-based alkali-activated materials as alternatives to ordinary Portland cement to develop FRP bars reinforced alkali-activated coral aggregate concrete (AACAC) beams. The effects of the type of FRP bars (GFRP, BFRP, and CFRP bars), the longitudinal reinforcement ratio (0.48–1.12%), and the diameter of FRP bars (8 and 10 mm) on the flexural behavior of CAC and AACAC beams were evaluated. The results revealed that with the increased reinforcement ratio, the number of cracks in AACAC beams increased, and their crack height and crack spacing gradually lowered. Furthermore, the cracking load, ultimate load, and slope of load–deflection curves at the ascending stage (i.e., flexural stiffness) exerted a significant improvement with increasing reinforcement ratio, but the mid-span deflection and the strength utilization of internal FRP bars decreased. When the reinforcement ratio increased from 0.48 to 1.12%, the ultimate load capacity for BFRP bars reinforced AACAC beam was enhanced by about 47.8%, but the strength utilization of internal FRP bars reduced from 66.8 to 55.1%. Compared with cement-based CAC beams, AACAC beams exhibited a smaller crack width under the same concrete strength and load value, but contained a lower ultimate loading capacity and mid-span deflection, demonstrating that AACAC beams had a bigger brittleness than CAC beams.
This paper experimentally and numerically investigated the thermal performance of cementitious composites containing polystyrene/n-octadecane microcapsules (MPCM-CCs). The focus was placed on the ...passive cooling and heating, and the peak load reduction and shifting of MPCM-CCs subjected to extreme temperature conditions (10–50 °C). Adding microcapsules with a latent heat of 142.9 J/g effectively improved the heat storage and thermal insulation performance of MPCM-CCs, thereby mitigating the temperature fluctuations of inner surface and indoor air by up to 17.5 °C and 10.7 °C, respectively. The peak load was reduced and shifted by up to 260 W/m2 and 675 s in the heating process (1130 s), and 436 W/m2 and 465 s in the cooling process (1750 s). Further, this study evaluated the influence of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) scanning rate on the phase change properties of microcapsules and the consistency between the simulation and experimental results of MPCM-CCs. Due to the low thermal conductivity of polystyrene shell, the phase change temperatures of microcapsules varied significantly with DSC scanning rates. Consequently, the simulation results based on improper scanning rates deviated from the experimental results, which highlights the importance of considering the difference between the temperature change rates of building components and DSC analysis.
•MPCM was synthesized by nitrogen-free suspension polymerization.•Improved thermal energy storage and thermal insulation performance of MCPM-CCs.•Surface and indoor temperature fluctuations were reduced by 17.5 °C and 10.7 °C.•The peak load reduction and shifting of MPCM-CCs were quantified.•Improper DSC scanning rates of MPCM resulted in numerical deviations.
Enamine and iminium ion-mediated asymmetric organocatalysis was not successful in achieving highly stereoselective α-chlorination of acyclic α,α-disubstituted carbonyls. To address this limitation, ...an alternative method was developed, which involved the use of geometry-defined persubstituted enesulfinamides to intercept the electrophilic chlorinating reagent. This approach enables the asymmetric construction of challenging acyclic α,α-disubstituted α-chlorinated ketimines with a high degree of stereoselectivity. The use of chloramine-T, a cost-effective and stable chlorine source rarely utilized in asymmetric electrophilic chlorination, plays a crucial role in achieving superior stereocontrol.
Metallic nanowires (NWs) have attracted great attention in the frontiers of nanomaterial science due to their extraordinary properties, such as high thermal and electrical conductivity, high aspect ...ratio, good mechanical flexibility, and excellent optical transparency. The metallic NWs and their nanocomposites, as a promising alternative for conventional building materials, have been extensively studied recently, but review works on these novel versatile nanostructures and their various uses in the building and construction industry are still lacking. We present a comprehensive review on current state-of-the-art research and progress regarding multifunctional metallic NWs and their specific building applications, including thermal energy storage (TES), thermal transport, electrochromic windows (ECW), as well as photovoltaic (PV) cells. The nanosynthesis techniques and nanocharacterization of silver nanowires (AgNWs) and copper nanowires (CuNWs) are overviewed and compared with each other. In addition, the fundamentals of different NWs for advanced building applications are introduced. Further discussion is presented on the improved performance of base materials by using these nanostructures, highlighting the key factors exhibiting their superior performance. Finally, the key benefits and limitations of metallic NWs for new generation building materials are obtained.
Genome-wide analysis of genomic signatures might reveal novel mechanisms for gastric cancer (GC) tumorigenesis. Here, we analysis structural variations (SVs) and mutational signatures via ...whole-genome sequencing of 168 GCs. Our data demonstrates diverse models of complex SVs operative in GC, which lead to high-level amplification of oncogenes. We find varying proportion of tandem-duplications (TDs) among individuals and identify 24 TD hotspots involving well-established cancer genes such as CCND1, ERBB2 and MYC. Specifically, we nominate a novel hotspot involving the super-enhancer of ZFP36L2 presents in approximately 10% GCs from different cohorts, the oncogenic role of which is further confirmed by experimental data. In addition, our data reveal a mutational signature, specifically occurring in noncoding region, significantly enriched in tumors with cadherin 1 mutations, and associated with poor prognoses. Collectively, our data suggest that TDs might serve as an important mechanism for cancer gene activation and provide a novel signature for stratification.
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is one of the functional gastrointestinal disorders characterized by chronic and/or recurrent symptoms of abdominal pain and irregular defecation. Changed gut ...microbiota has been proposed to mediate IBS; however, contradictory results exist, and IBS-specific microbiota, metabolites, and their interactions remain poorly understood. To address this issue, we performed metabolomic and metagenomic profiling of stool and serum samples based on discovery (n = 330) and validation (n = 101) cohorts. Fecal metagenomic data showed moderate dysbiosis compared with other diseases, in contrast, serum metabolites showed significant differences with greater power to distinguish IBS patients from healthy controls. Specifically, 726 differentially abundant serum metabolites were identified, including a cluster of fatty acyl-CoAs enriched in IBS. We further identified 522 robust associations between differentially abundant gut bacteria and fecal metabolites, of which three species including Odoribacter splanchnicus, Escherichia coli, and Ruminococcus gnavus were strongly associated with the low abundance of dihydropteroic acid. Moreover, dysregulated tryptophan/serotonin metabolism was found to be correlated with the severity of IBS depression in both fecal and serum metabolomes, characterized by a shift in tryptophan metabolism towards kynurenine production. Collectively, our study revealed serum/fecal metabolome alterations and their relationship with gut microbiome, highlighted the massive alterations of serum metabolites, which empower to recognize IBS patients, suggested potential roles of metabolic dysregulation in IBS pathogenesis, and offered new clues to understand IBS depression comorbidity. Our study provided a valuable resource for future studies, and would facilitate potential clinical applications of IBS featured microbiota and/or metabolites.
Abstract
The adaptive immune receptor repertoire (AIRR), consisting of T- and B-cell receptors, is the core component of the immune system. The AIRR sequencing is commonly used in cancer ...immunotherapy and minimal residual disease (MRD) detection of leukemia and lymphoma. The AIRR is captured by primers and sequenced to yield paired-end (PE) reads. The PE reads could be merged into one sequence by the overlapped region between them. However, the wide range of AIRR data raises the difficulty, so a special tool is required. We developed a software package for IMmune PE reads merger of sequencing data, named IMperm. We used the k-mer-and-vote strategy to pin down the overlapped region rapidly. IMperm could handle all types of PE reads, eliminate adapter contamination and successfully merge low-quality and minor/non-overlapping reads. Compared with existing tools, IMperm performed better in both simulated and sequencing data. Notably, IMperm was well suited to processing the data of MRD detection in leukemia and lymphoma and detected 19 novel MRD clones in 14 patients with leukemia from previously published data. Additionally, IMperm can handle PE reads from other sources, and we demonstrated its effectiveness on two genomic and one cell-free deoxyribonucleic acid datasets. IMperm is implemented in the C programming language and consumes little runtime and memory. It is freely available at https://github.com/zhangwei2015/IMperm.
The evaluation of tourism competitiveness is an important tool for analyzing the potential of tourism in a specific context. Enshi Autonomous Prefecture (EAP) in China is selected as a case through ...which to explore the potential of mountain tourism and its competitiveness in the tourism industry. This study develops EAP's mountain tourism competitiveness model focusing on three criteria: core competitiveness of mountain tourism, the economic environment's competitiveness, and infrastructure competitiveness. Context-specific customized evaluation index has been applied to data collected from EAP Statistical Yearbook for 2005-2014. The study reveals that the value of EAP's mountain tourism core competitiveness, economic and environmental competitiveness, and infrastructure competitiveness are 84.292, 13.4, and 2.308%, respectively. When tourism core competitiveness is increased by one unit, EAP's mountain tourism competitiveness will increase by 0.84292 units. Similarly, when economic environment competitiveness is increased by one unit, EAP's mountain tourism competitiveness will increase by 0.134 units. EAP's mountain tourism competitiveness increases by 0.02308 units when infrastructure competitiveness increases by one unit. The major reasons for low levels of competitiveness were lack of awareness of the county authority, a low level of cooperation, and weak infrastructure. The recommendations from the study's findings are as follows. Firstly, the county authority should appropriately improve the relationship between competition and cooperation, maintaining cooperation in competition, and competition in cooperation. Secondly, the county authority should strengthen communication by establishing an effective coordinated mechanism. Thirdly, the county authority should improve the sense of cooperation and jointly develop the mountain tourism market. Fourthly, the county authority should improve the construction of tourism infrastructure and break down the barriers to tourism cooperation. The study's findings help develop a "win-win" cooperation mechanism within the competition and support the sustainable development of the mountain tourism industry while reducing poverty and promoting the revitalization of the mountains of China.
Background In recent years, with the continuous development of fluorescence imaging technology, research on its application in pancreatic diseases has surged. This area is currently of high research ...interest and holds the potential to become a non-invasive and effective tool in the diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic diseases. The objective of this study is to explore the hotspots and trends in the field of fluorescence imaging technology applications in pancreatic diseases from 2003 to 2023 through bibliometric and visual analysis. Methods This study utilized the Web of Science (core collection) to identify publications related to the application of fluorescence imaging technology in pancreatic diseases from 2003 to 2023. Tools such as CiteSpace (V 6.2.R6), VOSviewer (v1.6.20), and R Studio (Bibliometrix: R-tool version 4.1.4) were employed to analyze various dimensions including publication count, countries, institutions, journals, authors, co-cited references, keywords, burst words, and references. Results A comprehensive analysis was conducted on 913 papers published from January 1, 2003, to December 1, 2023, on the application of fluorescence imaging technology in pancreatic diseases. The number of publications in this field has rapidly increased, with the United States being the central hub. The University of California, San Diego emerged as the most active institution. “Biomaterials” was identified as the most influential journal. Authors with the most publications and the highest average citations per article are Hoffman, Robert M. and Luiken, George A., respectively. Keywords such as pancreatic cancer, cancer, expression, indocyanine green, and nanoparticles received widespread attention, with indocyanine green and nanoparticles being current active research hotspots in the field. Conclusion This study is the first bibliometric analysis in the field of fluorescence imaging technology applications in pancreatic diseases. Our data will facilitate a better understanding of the developmental trends, identification of research hotspots, and direction in this field. The findings provide practical information for other scholars to grasp key directions and cutting-edge insights.
This study aims at analyzing the thermal performance improvement of a gray tintable electrochromic window (EC window) under Singapore's tropical climate. Two climate chambers were experimentally ...studied, one with a double-glazed EC window and another with a single-glazing window, the most common in the considered region, as the reference. The indoor thermal environment and air conditioning energy consumption were compared respectively to investigate the thermal performance improvement of the EC window. The results, under the sunny outdoor weather condition, showed that the EC window could achieve an interior surface temperature reduction of 4.4 °C under the tinted state and 3.0 °C under the clear state, compared to the reference window. Moreover, the bleached EC window achieved up to 37% improvement in peak Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) over the reference window, while the fully tinted EC window achieved a 50% improvement in peak PMV. Finally, the EC window under the fully tinted state could achieve up to 19% energy savings compared to the reference window. Using the EC window under Singapore's tropical climate can improve the occupant thermal comfort during the daytime and reduce air conditioning energy consumption.
•Climate chambers installed with EC window were built.•The gray tintable largescale EC window was studied under tropical climate.•EC window could improve thermal comfort by 50% compared to the single-glazing.•19% energy-saving achieved by the tinted EC window compared to the single-glazing.
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