Highly concentrated electrolytes (HCE) are intensively studied as electrolytes in energy storage devices, with a focus on lithium-metal batteries. Despite the numerous combinations of solvent and ...salt reported, the relationships between the HCE composition and their properties are not fully understood, which hinders the use of more systematic approaches to their development. In order to address this need, we present here a study of the impact of water on the properties of HCE composed of LiTFSI salt and acetonitrile solvent. The physicochemical properties (density, viscosity and ionic conductivity) and on the electrochemical windows were determined for three electrolytes of different concentrations (1, 3 and 4.1 M) of LiTFSI in acetonitrile with different water contents (20, 200 and 1000 ppm). While the physicochemical properties are only depend on the salt concentration and not the water content, the latter has a significant effect on the electrochemistry of the electrolyte as the electrochemical windows decreased by up to 1.25 V for the 4.1 M HCE with 1000 ppm of water. These results highlight the fact than physicochemical properties cannot be used to assess the water levels and that even 200 ppm decreases the electrochemical windows of the electrolyte.
•Peer victimization was shown to be a common phenomenon in South Korean middle schools.•Peer victimization was associated with more depressive symptoms during the same year.•This association was ...adjusted for prior mental health symptoms including depression.•Receiving support from a friend mitigated this association.•Victimized adolescents with higher friend support reported fewer depressive symptoms.•Friend support could be integrated in school-based prevention and intervention programs.
Peer victimization is associated with an increased risk for depression, but there is less evidence on how certain factors such as friend support can buffer this association. This study investigated the associations between friend support and depressive symptoms among victimized and non-victimized adolescent girls and boys from South Korea.
Participants includes 2258 students from the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey, a nationally representative sample of middle school students in South Korea. Self-reported perceived friend support, depressive symptoms and peer victimization were measured using validated scales during middle school year 3 (mean age= 15.7 years).
The association between peer victimization and depressive symptoms varied by sex (p for sex by peer victimization interaction<0.05). Peer victimization was more strongly associated with same year depressive symptoms in girls (β=0.55) than boys (β=0.24). After controlling for key confounders, including prior year mental health symptoms, higher levels of friend support were found to attenuate the association between peer victimization and depressive symptoms (p for friend support by peer victimization interaction <0.05). Peer victimization was associated with more depressive symptoms for adolescents with low and moderate friend support, but not those with high friend support.
Peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and friend support, were self-reported and measured the same year.
Friend support protects victimized South Korean adolescents from the negative effect of peer victimization on depressive symptoms, hence contributes to closing the gap in depression between victimized and non-victimized adolescents.
OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association between recurrent subthreshold depressive episodes and functioning in a prospective community sample of people with type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS ...A prospective community study in Quebec, Canada, was carried out between 2008 and 2013 (n = 1,064). Five yearly follow-up assessments (telephone interviews) were conducted. Baseline and the first three follow-up assessments were used to identify recurrent subthreshold depressive episodes (Patient Health Questionnaire PHQ-9). Functioning (World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule II WHODAS-II) and health-related quality of life (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC unhealthy days) at 4- and 5-year follow-up assessments were the outcome measures. RESULTS Nearly half of the participants suffered from at least one episode of subthreshold depressive symptoms. After adjusting for potentially confounding factors, the risk of poor functioning/impaired health-related quality of life was nearly three times higher (relative risk = 2.86) for participants with four subthreshold depressive episodes compared with participants with no/minimal depression. Results suggest a dose-response relationship: the risk of poor functioning/impaired health-related quality of life increased with the number of recurrent subthreshold depressive episodes even after controlling for potentially confounding variables (significant linear trend, P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Recurrent subthreshold depressive symptoms might be an important risk factor for poor health outcomes in type 2 diabetes. Early identification, monitoring, and treatment of recurrent subthreshold depressive symptoms might improve functioning and quality of life in people with type 2 diabetes.
The majority of cancers arise from malignant epithelial cells. We report the design of synthetic oligonucleotides (aptamers) that are only internalized by epithelial cancer cells and can be precisely ...activated by light to kill such cells. Specifically, phototoxic DNA aptamers were selected to bind to unique short O-glycan-peptide signatures on the surface of breast, colon, lung, ovarian and pancreatic cancer cells. These surface antigens are not present on normal epithelial cells but are internalized and routed through endosomal and Golgi compartments by cancer cells, thus providing a focused mechanism for their intracellular delivery. When modified at their 5' end with the photodynamic therapy agent chlorin e₆ and delivered to epithelial cancer cells, these aptamers exhibited a remarkable enhancement (>500-fold increase) in toxicity upon light activation, compared to the drug alone and were not cytotoxic towards cell types lacking such O-glycan-peptide markers. Our findings suggest that these synthetic oligonucleotide aptamers can serve as delivery vehicles in precisely routing cytotoxic cargoes to and into epithelial cancer cells.
Having acquired near infrared (NIR) hyperspectral images of intact pork loin samples through an NIR hyperspectral imaging system, the efficiency of a variety of image processing techniques including ...texture pattern analysis techniques were applied to process hyperspectral images so as to determine the intramuscular fat (IMF) content non-destructively. After the segmentation of region of interest (ROI), the raw spectral, texture-based spectral and textural characteristics of pork images were extracted by spectral averaging and pattern recognition techniques namely Gabor filter and improved gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM), respectively. First derivatives of the non-filtered and the Gabor filtered spectra were also investigated. Full waveband partial least squares regression (PLSR) was employed to determine the optimal parameters of Gabor filter and GLCM, and to select optimal wavelengths for IMF prediction. A stepwise procedure was applied to the optimal wavelengths to further optimize them to key wavelengths. Multiple linear regression (MLR) models were built based on the key wavelengths. Mean spectra and the Gabor filtered spectra outperformed GLCM. The best result, represented by correlation coefficients of calibration (Rc), cross validation (Rcv) and prediction (Rp) of 0.89, 0.89, and 0.86, respectively, was achieved using the first derivative of Gabor filtered spectra at 1193 and 1217nm. To visualize the IMF content in pork, the distribution maps of IMF content in pork were drawn using a mean spectra-based MLR model. These promising results highlight the great potential of NIR hyperspectral imaging for non-destructive prediction of IMF content of intact pork.
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•NIR hyperspectral imaging system at 900–1700nm was used.•Intramuscular fat content in pork was non-destructively determined using NIR hyperspectral imaging.•The distribution of intramuscular fat content in pork was visualized using NIR images.•Key wavelengths for the non-invasive analysis of intramuscular fat content of pork were identified.•Image processing algorithms including spectral averaging, Gabor filter, and gray-level co-occurrence matrix were studied and compared.
Reimmunizing patients who had an adverse event following immunization (AEFI) is sometimes a challenge because there are limited data on the risk and severity of AEFI recurrence.
To summarize the ...literature on the risk of AEFI recurrence.
PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane library.
We included articles in English or French published before September 30, 2016. Articles were selected if they estimated the risk of AEFI recurrence in at least 5 individuals. Studies with experimental vaccines were excluded.
Data on study design, setting, population, vaccines, and AEFI recurrence were extracted.
Twenty-nine articles were included. Among patients with a history of hypotonic hyporesponsive episode (
= 398), anaphylaxis (
= 133), or seizures (
= 60) who were reimmunized, events recurred in 0% to 0.8%. Allergic-like events recurred in 30 of 594 reimmunized patients. Fever recurred in 0% to 84% of 836 reimmunized patients, depending on the vaccine and dose number. Among children with extensive limb swelling after the fourth dose of diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis vaccine, recurrence was higher when the fifth dose was given withthe full-antigen formulation (78%) compared with the reduced-antigen formulation (53%,
= .02) LIMITATIONS: Many studies, included few patients, and those with severe AEFIs were often not reimmunized.
Despite vaccines being administered to millions of people annually, there are few studies in which researchers evaluated AEFI recurrence. Published studies suggest that reimmunization is usually safe. However in these studies, severe cases were often not reimmunized.
•An active surveillance found the 4CMenB vaccine to frequently cause fever and injection site reactions.•These adverse events resulted in absenteeism or medical consultations in 6.2% to 9.2% after ...dose 1 and 2.•Among children <10 years old, acetaminophen prophylaxis significantly reduced fever incidence.
To address a high incidence of serogroup B invasive meningococcal disease (IMD-B) in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region, Quebec, Canada, a mass vaccination campaign targeting nearly 60,000 individuals ≤20 years old was launched in May 2014. Because of the limited clinical experience with the four-component meningococcal B vaccine (4CMenB), active surveillance for adverse events following immunization (AEFI) was conducted. This paper reports 4CMenB AEFI surveillance findings.
Active surveillance assessed AEFIs with acute onset within 7-days post-immunization, AEFI-associated absenteeism and medical consultations, impact of antipyretic prophylaxis and coadministration of other vaccines.
By July 17, 2015, 83% and 77% of the 59,098 individuals targeted by the campaign had received a first and a second dose of 4CMenB. The incidence of fever on days1-2 was highest in children <2 years old but only 0.6% reported a temperature ≥40◦C. Among children <10 years old, ≥2doses of acetaminophen prophylaxis significantly reduced fever incidence on days1-2 after dose1&2. Absenteeism or a medical consultation during the 7 days following vaccination was reported by 6.2% of vaccinees post-dose1 and 9.2% post-dose2 and was most often reported in association with fever/malaise (4.2%) or injection site reactions (3.6%).
Large-scale population-based surveillance identified a 7-day reactogenicity profile consistent with earlier clinical trials with the 4CMenB vaccine but indicating frequent AEFI-associated absenteeism and medical consultations affecting the societal cost of this vaccine. We conclude acceptable vaccine safety and risk-benefit profile overall on the short term, particularly as an intervention to address a high regional incidence of IMD-B.
Household food insecurity (HFI) is a persistent public health issue in Canada that may have disproportionately affected certain subgroups of the population during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose ...of this systematic review is to report on the prevalence of HFI in the Canadian general population and in subpopulations after the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
Sixteen databases were searched from 1 March 2020 to 5 May 2021. Abstract and full-text screening was conducted by one reviewer and the inclusions verified by a second reviewer. Only studies that reported on the prevalence of HFI in Canadian households were included. Data extraction, risk of bias and certainty of the evidence assessments were conducted by two reviewers.
Of 8986 studies identified in the search, four studies, three of which collected data in April and May 2020, were included. The evidence concerning the prevalence of HFI during the COVID-19 pandemic is very uncertain. The prevalence of HFI (marginal to severe) ranged from 14% to 17% in the general population. Working-age populations aged 18 to 44 years had higher HFI (range: 18%-23%) than adults aged 60+ years (5%-11%). Some of the highest HFI prevalence was observed among households with children (range: 19%-22%), those who had lost their jobs or stopped working due to COVID-19 (24%-39%) and those with job insecurity (26%).
The evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic may have slightly increased total household food insecurity in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in populations that were already vulnerable to HFI. There is a need to continue to monitor HFI in Canada.
Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) are in the spotlight because of their potential use in large-scale energy storage devices due to the abundance and low cost of sodium-based materials. There are many SIB ...cathode materials under investigation but only a few candidate materials such as carbon, oxides and alloys were proposed as anodes. Among these anode materials, hard carbon shows promising performances with low operating potential and relatively high specific capacity. Unfortunately, its low initial coulombic efficiency and high cost limit its commercial applications. In this study, low-cost maple tree-biomass-derived hard carbon is tested as the anode for sodium-ion batteries. The capacity of hard carbon prepared at 1400 °C (HC-1400) reaches 337 mAh/g at 0.1 C. The initial coulombic efficiency is up to 88.03% in Sodium trifluoromethanesulfonimide (NaTFSI)/Ethylene carbonate (EC): Diethyl carbonate (DEC) electrolyte. The capacity was maintained at 92.3% after 100 cycles at 0.5 C rates. The in situ X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed that no peak shift occurred during charge/discharge, supporting a finding of no sodium ion intercalates in the nano-graphite layer. Its low cost, high capacity and high coulombic efficiency indicate that hard carbon is a promising anode material for sodium-ion batteries.
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