Drug repositioning is the only feasible option to immediately address the COVID-19 global challenge. We screened a panel of 48 FDA-approved drugs against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus ...2 (SARS-CoV-2) which were preselected by an assay of SARS-CoV. We identified 24 potential antiviral drug candidates against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Some drug candidates showed very low 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC
s), and in particular, two FDA-approved drugs-niclosamide and ciclesonide-were notable in some respects.
Next‐generation Li‐ion batteries are being developed with high‐voltage cathodes to maximize their energy and power densities. However, the commercialization of high‐voltage cathodes has been delayed ...due to the degradations of active materials and electrolytes in long‐term cycling. Recent advances have made significant improvements in these issues; however, the corrosion of Al current collector and its effects on battery performances have not been studied in detail despite its importance. In this study, the compositional and morphological evolutions of the passivation layer formed on Al are examined. The ion fluxes of Al3+ and F− through the native oxide layer of Al play a critical role in the formation of the passivation film and the inhibition of further corrosion. However, the continuous diffusion of the ions during long‐term cycling at elevated temperature deteriorates the passivation ability of the film. An artificial diffusion barrier on the surface of Al effectively suppresses the ion fluxes to enhance the cyclability of LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4. This work contributes to improving the stability of the current collector at high voltages and serves as a benchmark for corrosion studies concerning advanced energy storage devices.
The formation and degradation mechanisms of a passivation layer on Al are elucidated in a LiPF6‐based electrolyte. It is clarified that the ion diffusions of Al3+ and F− and the following reactions play a critical role in the formation, degradation of the passivation film, and the corrosion of Al. An artificial diffusion barrier on the surface of Al suppresses the corrosion.
Boron-doped mesoporous graphene (BMG) was synthesized via a hydrothermal process (BMG-h), utilizing the soft-template route tri-block co-polymer P123. To control the porous structure and boron ...configuration (BCO2 and BC2O) of the graphitic domain, the obtained BMG-h was calcined at 1000 °C (BMG-c). The structural and compositional changes of the BMG were investigated by XRD, Raman, XPS, and N2 adsorption-desorption isotherm measurements. The materials obtained have high BET specific surface area of up to 1102 m2 g−1 for BMG-c, and 997 m2 g−1 for BMG-h. With the heat treatment, there was an increase in specific surface area, and a decrease in oxygen contents. Herein, calcination was introduced to control the boron configuration. From the XPS survey spectra, the atomic composition of the BMG-h was C (70.6 at%), O (16.4 at%), and B (12.9 at%), while that of the BMG-c was C (73.3 at%), O (15.1 at%), and B (11.5 at%). From B1s fitting analysis, BMG-h was dominant in the BCO2 configuration. However, on heat treatment, BCO2 peak reduction occurs during the thermal process, thus BC2O was prevalent in the graphene lattice of the BMG-c samples. We successfully controlled the specific surface area and configuration of boron in mesoporous graphene. BMG-h has more pseudo-capacitance behavior than BMG-c, because of the high boron and oxygen contents. Therefore, the control of porous structure and the boron configuration of BMG played an important role in providing the good specific capacitance of 336 F g−1 for the BMG-h, and 169 F g−1 for BMG-c, at a specific current density of 0.1 A g−1.
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•Hydrothermal synthesis of boron doped mesoporous graphene (BMG) using boric acid precursor.•The obtained BMGs show high specific surface area of 1102 m2 g-1 for BMG-c, and 997 m2 g-1 for BMG-h•The various boron configurations (BCO2 and BC2O) contribute to electrochemical performance differently.•BMG electrodes exhibited enhanced specific capacitance, (336 F g-1 and 169 F g-1) for the BMG-h, and BMG-c, at a specific current density of 0.1 A g-1.
This study analyzed the association between depressive symptoms and employment type, by considering both socioeconomic status and job stress factors.
We analyzed 27,369 participants (13,134 men and ...14,235 women) using data from the fifth Korean Working Conditions Survey. The participants were divided into regular and precarious workers. Depressive symptoms were defined using the World Health Organization-5 Well-Being Index. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to assess the association between depressive symptoms and employment type.
Of the participants, 71.53% (N = 19578) were regular workers and 28.47% (N = 7791) were precarious workers. The weighted frequencies of participants with depressive symptoms (42.50%) were significantly higher than those of precarious workers (32.54%, p < 0.001). In the univariate and multivariate analyses, precarious workers had a significantly higher risk of depressive symptoms than regular workers (odds ratio OR 1.53, 95% confidence interval CI 1.42-1.64; OR 1.16, 95% CI 1.07-1.26, respectively). The significant association between depressive symptoms and precarious workers has also been reflected in propensity score matched participants through crude and multivariate analysis (OR 1.54 95% CI 1.43-1.66 and OR 1.15 95% CI 1.04-1.26, respectively).
The findings suggest that precarious workers may have a higher risk of depressive symptoms than regular workers. However, this is only a cross-sectional study. Therefore, further study is required to investigate the relevance association between depressive symptoms and employment types.
This study examines journalists' language in their reporting and what their word choices reveal about their cognitive mindsets. Reporters on the campaign trail often cannot afford to engage in ...systematic information processing as they distill complex political situations under deadline pressures. Twitter's emphasis on speed and informal cultural milieu can further lead journalists to rely on heuristics and emotions. Drawing upon insights from theories of the mind, memory, and language, this study explores how cognitive biases are embodied in journalistic work across different media. We built a large-scale dataset of text corpora that consisted of more than 220,000 news articles, broadcast transcripts, and tweets generated over a year by 73 campaign reporters in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Leveraging this unique dataset of journalistic outputs from a campaign season, we conducted automated text analyses. Results suggest that heuristics and intuitive thinking played a significant role in the generation of content on Twitter. Journalists infused their tweets with more emotion, compared to when they appeared in traditional media such as newspapers and broadcasts. Journalists' tweets contained fewer words related to analytical and long-term thinking than their writing. Journalists also used informal language in their tweets to connect with their audiences in more personal and casual manners. Across all media examined in the study, journalists described the current race by drawing upon their experience of covering prior presidential elections, a form of anchoring heuristic. This study extends the use of cognitive biases in politics to a new realm, reporting, and shows how journalists' use of language on the campaign trail reflects cognitive biases that arise when individuals make decisions under time pressure and uncertainty.
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•Hydrothermal-assembly process to modify electrode with 3D NMG electrocatalyst.•Significant enhancement of VO2+/VO2+ and V2+/V3+ kinetics and redox reversibility.•Excellent ...performance ascribed to 3D N-doped mesoporous structures.•Increased surface area, oxygen-containing groups and electrical conductivity.•NMG-CF-7 improves VRFB EE from 61.2% to 75.1% at 150 mA cm−2.
We demonstrate the synthesis of three-dimensional (3D) nitrogen doped mesoporous graphene-functionalized carbon felt (NMG-CF) via a facile hydrothermal process. These NMG-CF act as electrocatalysts in an all-vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB). NMG-CF exhibits a uniform distribution of nitrogen atoms and spectroscopic studies indicate successful N-doping in the form of pyridinic-N, pyrrolic-N, quaternary-N and oxidic-N configurations. NMG-CFs show superior electrocatalytic activity towards V2+/V3+ and VO2+/VO2+ redox couples than activated-CF (A-CF) and mesoporous graphene-CF (MG-CF). Furthermore, NMG-CF exhibits 14–16% greater energy and voltage efficiencies than A-CF at 150 mA cm−2, with an excellent rate capability and cycling stability at current densities of 50–275 mA cm−2. These enhancements are attributed to improved hydrophilicity, 3D N-doped mesoporous structures, enhanced specific surface area and rapid charge/electron transfer. Moreover, N-doping generates defects acting as active sites and alters the electronic and chemisorption properties of NMG due to the large electronegativity difference between C and N atoms, making NMG-CFs more electrochemically accessible than A-CF and MG-CF. Notably, electrocatalytic activity is dependent not only on N-doping content but also on nitrogen configuration. The above results reveal the great potential of NMG-CFs as advanced electrode materials for VRFB.
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•Design of hydrocracking catalysts for Polyaromatics conversion into BTX is studied.•Metallic functions in the hydrocracking catalysts should have a moderate hydrogenation ...activity.•Zeolitic functions with a high dealkylation activity is preferred for high per-pass yield of BTX.•Hence, sulfide-metals/hybrid zeolites (H-Beta+H-ZSM-5) catalyst show promise for high BTX yield.
Various metallic components (Ni, NiSn, NiW-S, CoMo-S and NiMo-S) with different hydrogenation (HYD) activities were supported on H-Beta or hybrid zeolites (BZ(x), where x denotes the weight percentage of H-ZSM-5 in the physical mixture of H-Beta and H-ZSM-5). These bifunctional catalysts were applied to the hydrocracking (HYC) of tetralin in a fixed-bed down-flow reactor at 4MPa as a model reaction for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) conversion to high-value benzene, toluene, and xylenes (BTX). From the HYC of tetralin over the series of metals/H-Beta catalysts, it was found that CoMo-S/H-Beta and NiMo-S/H-Beta, whose metallic components show moderate activities in the HYD of tetralin, exhibit higher BTX yields than the other catalysts whose metals have excessively high or low HYD activities. However, these catalysts show limited BTX yield (∼47.3wt% at 425°C) owing to the large coproduction of alkylbenzenes other than BTX. When metals with moderate HYD activities are supported on the hybrid zeolites, the BTX yield is significantly enhanced by the effect of H-ZSM-5 in the dealkylation of alkylbenzenes into BTX. NiMo-S/BZ(10) provides a BTX yield of 54.3wt% and a total 1-ring aromatic yield as high as 63.8wt% (corresponding to 94.4% of the theoretical maximum of 67.6wt%) at 425°C. Therefore, the NiMo-S/BZ(10) catalyst, where the metallic and acidic functions and structural properties of the zeolite are well balanced, show promise as an HYC catalyst for the hydroconversion of PAHs into high-value BTX mixtures.
We obtain a Serrin-type symmetry of the solutions to various overdetermined boundary value problems in annular domains with a spherical-boundary component in space forms by using the maximum ...principle for suitable subharmonic functions and integral identities.
The advancement of quantum computing threatens the security of conventional public-key cryptosystems. Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) was introduced to ensure data confidentiality in communication ...channels, and various algorithms are being developed. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has initiated PQC standardization, and the selected algorithms for standardization and round 4 candidates were announced in 2022. Due to the large memory footprint and highly repetitive operations, there have been numerous attempts to accelerate PQC on both hardware and software. This paper introduces the RISC-V instruction set extension for NIST PQC standard algorithms and round 4 candidates. The proposed programmable crypto-processor can support a wide range of PQC algorithms with the extended RISC-V instruction set and demonstrates significant reductions in code size, the number of executed instructions, and execution cycle counts of target operations in PQC algorithms of up to 79%, 92%, and 87%, respectively, compared to RV64IM with optimization level 3 (-O3) in the GNU toolchain.
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a subset of the tumor population that play critical roles in tumorigenicity, metastasis, and relapse. A key feature of CSCs is their resistance to numerous therapeutic ...strategies which include chemotherapy, radiation, and immune checkpoint inhibitors. In recent years, there is a growing body of literature that suggests a link between CSC maintenance and autophagy, a mechanism to recycle intracellular components during moments of environmental stress, especially since CSCs thrive in a tumor microenvironment that is plagued with hypoxia, acidosis, and lack of nutrients. Autophagy activation has been shown to aid in the upkeep of a stemness state along with bolstering resistance to cancer treatment. However, recent studies have also suggested that autophagy is a double-edged sword with anti-tumorigenic properties under certain circumstances. This review summarizes and integrates what has been published in the literature in terms of what role autophagy plays in stemness maintenance of CSCs and suggests that there is a more complex interplay between autophagy and apoptosis which involves multiple pathways of regulation. Future cancer therapy strategies are needed to eradicate this resistant subset of the cell population through autophagy regulation.
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