Lithium‐ion batteries with routine carbonate electrolytes cannot exhibit satisfactory fast‐charging performance and lithium plating is widely observed at low temperatures. Herein we demonstrate that ...a localized high‐concentration electrolyte consisting of 1.5 M lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide in dimethoxyethane with bis(2,2,2‐trifluoroethyl) ether as the diluent, enables fast‐charging of working batteries. A uniform and robust solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) can be achieved on graphite surface through the preferential decomposition of anions. The established SEI can significantly inhibit ether solvent co‐intercalation into graphite and achieve highly reversible Li+ intercalation/de‐intercalation. The graphite | Li cells exhibit fast‐charging potential (340 mAh g−1 at 0.2 C and 220 mAh g−1 at 4 C), excellent cycling stability (ca. 85.5 % initial capacity retention for 200 cycles at 4 C), and impressive low‐temperature performance.
The unique solvation structure in a localized high‐concentration electrolyte can suppress co‐intercalation of ether solvent into the graphite interlayers and render fast‐charging of practical lithium‐ion batteries.
Solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) has been widely employed to describe the new phase formed between anode and electrolyte in working batteries. Significant advances have been achieved on the ...structure and composition of SEI as well as on the possible ion transport mechanism. However, the nucleation and growth mechanism of SEI catches little attention, which requires the establishment of isothermal electrochemical crystallization theory. Herein we explore the virgin territory of electrochemically crystallized SEI. By using potentiostatic method to regulate the decomposition of anions, an anion‐derived SEI forms on graphite surface at atomic scale. After fitting the cur‐rent‐time transients with Laviron theory and Avrami formula, we conclude that the formation of anion‐derived interface is surface reaction controlled and obeys the two‐dimensional (2D) progressive nucleation and growth model. Atomic force microscope (AFM) images emphasize the conclusion, which reveals the mystery of isothermal electrochemical crystallization of SEI.
The nucleation and growth behavior of anion‐derived SEI on graphite electrode is revealed, the number of nucleation sites increases progressively, and each nucleus undergoes 2D growth before overlapping with others. Only when the whole electrode surface is completely covered by reduced products, an ion‐conducting but electron‐insulating polycrystalline film forms, which marks the end of SEI growth.
The intricate charge–discharge reactions and bad conductivity nature of sulfur determine the extreme importance of cathode engineering for Li–S batteries. Herein, spinel ZnCo2O4 porous ...particles@N‐doped reduced graphene oxide (ZnCo2O4@N‐RGO) are prepared via the combined procedures of refluxing and hydrothermal treatment, consisting of interconnected uniform ZnCo2O4 nanocubes with an average size of 5 nm anchored on graphene nanosheets. The as‐obtained composite can act as an inimitable cathode scaffold to suppress the shuttling of polysulfides by chemical confinement of ZnCo2O4 and N‐RGO for the first time, as demonstrated by the adsorption energy of ZnCo2O4 to Li2S4 via the strong chemical bonding between Zn or Co and S. The RGO nanosheets with a relatively high specific surface area provide a good conductive network and structural stability. The introduction of doped N atoms and numerous ZnCo2O4 porous nanoparticles can inhibit the transfer of lithium polysulfides between the cathode and anode. Due to the unique structural and compositional features, the as‐obtained hybrid materials with the high sulfur loading of 71% and even 82% still deliver high specific capacity, good rate capability, and enhanced cycling stability with exceptionally high initial Coulombic efficiency, which displays a high utilization of sulfur.
A unique ZnCo2O4 porous particles@N‐doped reduced graphene oxide (ZnCo2O4@N‐RGO) hybrid is composed of interconnected spinel ZnCo2O4 nanocubes anchored on graphene nanosheets. Due to the advantages of the ZnCo2O4@N‐RGO hybrid with a high electrical conductivity and strong immobilization/blocking ability for polysulfides, the ZnCo2O4@N‐RGO‐based electrode displays high sulfur utilization, long cycling life, and high rate performance in Li–S batteries.
The enthusiasm for immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), an efficient tumor treatment model different from traditional treatment, is based on their unprecedented antitumor effect, but the occurrence ...of immune-related adverse events (irAEs) is an obstacle to the prospect of ICI treatment. IrAEs are a discrete toxicity caused by the nonspecific activation of the immune system and can affect almost all tissues and organs. Currently, research on biomarkers mainly focuses on the gastrointestinal tract, endocrine system, skin and lung. Several potential hypotheses concentrate on the overactivation of the immune system, excessive release of inflammatory cytokines, elevated levels of pre-existing autoantibodies, and presence of common antigens between tumors and normal tissues. This review lists the current biomarkers that might predict irAEs and their possible mechanisms for both nonspecific and organ-specific biomarkers. However, the prediction of irAEs remains a major clinical challenge to screen and identify patients who are susceptible to irAEs and likely to benefit from ICIs.
The rural urban income gap in China ranks as one of the largest in the world. This imbalanced rural urban relationship and the associated socioeconomic disparity have caused a weak and inefficient ...resource allocation, harmed the country's long-term economic development, and led to scores of socioeconomic problems. Concurrent with the widening rural urban income gap, China has been transformed by rapid urbanization. However, to date, there is limited understanding of the links between urbanization forces and this rural urban income disparity. This study uses the dynamic panel data model to investigate the influence of both economic and institutional urbanization forces and other socioeconomic factors on China's rural urban income disparity. Our results show that two economic urbanization factors—rural productivity and urban productivity—have contrasting effects on this income disparity. While rural productivity can significantly narrow the rural urban income disparity, urban productivity can positively contribute to widening the rural urban income disparity. We also find that the hukou openness policy negatively affects the rural urban income disparity with a one-year lag. Finally, consistent with the Kuznets theory, per capita GDP and urban population size both negatively correlate with the rural urban income disparity. Our findings provide insights into why rapid urbanization and the widening of the rural urban income gap coexist in China. Moreover, our results provide clear policy implications on how to mitigate the disparity. The most compelling suggestion is that sustainable agricultural productivity improvement is critical to achieving the goal of mitigating the income gap between rural and urban areas.
•Rapid urbanization and a wide rural urban income gap coexist in China.•Rural productivity narrows the rural urban income gap.•Urban productivity widens the rural urban income gap.•Agricultural productivity improvement is critical to mitigate the gap.
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated malignancy with a complex tumor ecosystem. How the interplay between tumor cells, EBV, and the microenvironment contributes to ...NPC progression and immune evasion remains unclear. Here we performed single-cell RNA sequencing on ~104,000 cells from 19 EBV
NPCs and 7 nonmalignant nasopharyngeal biopsies, simultaneously profiling the transcriptomes of malignant cells, EBV, stromal and immune cells. Overall, we identified global upregulation of interferon responses in the multicellular ecosystem of NPC. Notably, an epithelial-immune dual feature of malignant cells was discovered and associated with poor prognosis. Functional experiments revealed that tumor cells with this dual feature exhibited a higher capacity for tumorigenesis. Further characterization of the cellular components of the tumor microenvironment (TME) and their interactions with tumor cells revealed that the dual feature of tumor cells was positively correlated with the expression of co-inhibitory receptors on CD8
tumor-infiltrating T cells. In addition, tumor cells with the dual feature were found to repress IFN-γ production by T cells, demonstrating their capacity for immune suppression. Our results provide new insights into the multicellular ecosystem of NPC and offer important clinical implications.
Recent advances in the pathophysiologic understanding of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has indicated that patients with severe coronavirus disease 2019 ...(COVID-19) might experience cytokine release syndrome (CRS), characterized by increased interleukin (IL)-6, IL-2, IL-7, IL-10, etc. Therefore, the treatment of cytokine storm has been proposed as a critical part of rescuing severe COVID-19. Several of the cytokines involved in COVID-19 employ a distinct intracellular signaling pathway mediated by Janus kinases (JAKs). JAK inhibition, therefore, presents an attractive therapeutic strategy for CRS, which is a common cause of adverse clinical outcomes in COVID-19. Below, we review the possibilities and challenges of targeting the pathway in COVID-19.
Recent advances in the pathophysiologic understanding of COVID-19 infection have suggested a critical role of cytokine release syndrome (CRS) in severe COVID-19 patients.Several inflammatory cytokines that are involved in CRS and correlate with adverse clinical outcomes in COVID-19 employ a distinct intracellular signaling pathway mediated by Janus kinases (JAKs).JAK-STAT signaling may be an excellent therapeutic target for the development of much needed therapies for COVID-19.
The increasing penetration of renewable energy makes the traditional N-1 contingency screening highly challenging when a large number of uncertain scenarios need to be combined with contingency ...screening. In this letter, a novel data-driven method, similar to image-processing technique, is proposed for accelerating N-1 contingency screening of power systems based on the deep convolutional neural network (CNN) method for calculating AC power flows under N-1 contingency and uncertain scenarios. Once the deep CNN is well trained, it has high generalization and works in a nearly computation-free fashion for unseen instances, such as topological changes in the N-1 cases and uncertain renewable scenarios. The proposed deep CNN is implemented on several standard IEEE test systems to verify its accuracy and computational efficiency. The proposed study constitutes a solid demonstration of the considerable potential of the data-driven deep CNN in future online applications.
The Extended Distribution of Baryons around Galaxies Bregman, Joel N.; Anderson, Michael E.; Miller, Matthew J. ...
Astrophysical journal/The Astrophysical journal,
07/2018, Volume:
862, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We summarize and reanalyze observations bearing on missing galactic baryons, where we propose a consistent picture for halo gas in L L* galaxies. The hot X-ray-emitting halos are detected to 50-70 ...kpc, where typically Mhot(<50 kpc) ∼ 5 × 109 M , and with density n ∝ r−3/2. When extrapolated to R200, the gas mass is comparable to the stellar mass, but about half of the baryons are still missing from the hot phase. If extrapolated to 1.7R200-3R200, the ratio of baryon to dark matter approaches the cosmic value. Significantly flatter density profiles are unlikely for R < 50 kpc, and they are disfavored but not ruled out for R > 50 kpc. For the Milky Way, the hot halo metallicity lies in the range 0.3-1 solar for R < 50 kpc. Planck measurements of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect toward stacked luminous galaxies (primarily early type) indicate that most of their baryons are hot, are near the virial temperature, and extend beyond R200. This stacked SZ signal is nearly an order of magnitude larger than that inferred from the X-ray observations of individual (mostly spiral) galaxies with M* > 1011.3 M . This difference suggests that the hot halo properties are distinct for early- and late-type galaxies, possibly due to different evolutionary histories. For the cooler gas detected in UV absorption line studies, we argue that there are two absorption populations: extended halos, and disks extending to ∼50 kpc, containing most of this gas, and with masses a few times lower than the stellar masses. Such extended disks are also seen in 21 cm H i observations and in simulations.