Aqueous rechargeable zinc-ion hybrid supercapacitors are considered to be a promising candidate for large-scale energy storage devices owing to their high safety, long life, and low price. In this ...paper, a nitrogen doped hierarchical porous carbon is evaluated as the cathode for aqueous rechargeable zinc-ion hybrid supercapacitors. Benefiting from the synergistic merits of excellent structural features of N-HPC and tiny zinc dendrite of Zn anode in ZnSO
4
electrolyte, the zinc-ion hybrid supercapacitor exhibits excellent energy storage performance including high capacity of 136.8 mAh·g
−1
at 0.1·Ag
−1
, high energy density of 191 Wh·kg
−1
, large power density of 3,633.4 W·kg
−1
, and satisfactory cycling stability of up to 5,000 cycles with a capacity retention of 90.9%. This work presents a new prospect of developing high-performance aqueous rechargeable zinc ion energy storage devices.
Background and Aims
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) is a new infectious disease. To reveal the hepatic injury related to this disease and its clinical significance, we conducted a multicenter ...retrospective cohort study that included 5,771 adult patients with COVID‐19 pneumonia in Hubei Province.
Approach and Results
We reported the distributional and temporal patterns of liver injury indicators in these patients and determined their associated factors and death risk. Longitudinal liver function tests were retrospectively analyzed and correlated with the risk factors and death. Liver injury dynamic patterns differed in alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and total bilirubin (TBIL). AST elevated first, followed by ALT, in severe patients. ALP modestly increased during hospitalization and largely remained in the normal range. The fluctuation in TBIL levels was mild in the non‐severe and the severe groups. AST abnormality was associated with the highest mortality risk compared with the other indicators of liver injury during hospitalization. Common factors associated with elevated liver injury indicators were lymphocyte count decrease, neutrophil count increase, and male gender.
Conclusion
The dynamic patterns of liver injury indicators and their potential risk factors may provide an important explanation for the COVID‐19‐associated liver injury. Because elevated liver injury indicators, particularly AST, are strongly associated with the mortality risk, our study indicates that these parameters should be monitored during hospitalization.
Currently, emerging battery technologies are being studied intensively. The lack of ideal electrode materials remains a key hindrance to further development of new batteries. The novel MXene ...material, due to its unique structural characteristics and physicochemical properties, shows the ability to enhance the electrochemical performance of the electrode. In addition to the adjustable layer spacing, because of excellent electrical conductivity, rich chemical composition, and controllable surface chemistry, MXene has the potential for use in diverse applications as an ideal electrode material in various battery systems. This review covers the recent progress achieved in research of the zinc‐ion energy storage of MXenes, including MXene‐based cathodes, MXene‐derived cathodes, MXene‐modified zinc anodes, and electrolyte additives. Moreover, further structural design and reaction mechanisms of MXenes in zinc‐ion storage are explored.
MXenes, as emerging two‐dimensional (2D) materials with unique structural characteristics and physical and chemical properties, have been successfully applied in zinc‐ion energy storage to improve the electrochemical performance of the electrode. In this review, the authors summarize the recent advances of research on 2D MXenes for zinc‐ion energy storage and further discuss the structural design and reaction mechanisms of MXenes. This review provides valuable insights into the challenges in the use of MXenes in zinc‐ion energy storage and aims to study practical applications of zinc‐ion energy storage.
Sodium‐ion batteries (SIBs), which are an alternative to lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs), have attracted increasing attention due to their low cost of Na resources and similar Na storage mechanism to ...LIBs. Compared with anode materials and electrolytes, the development of cathode materials lags behind. Therefore, the key to improving the specific energy and promoting the application of SIBs is to develop high‐performance sodium intercalation cathode materials. Transition‐metal oxides are one of the most promising cathode materials for SIBs owing to their excellent energy density, high specific discharge capacity, and environmentally friendly nature. In the present work, the latest progress in the research of transition‐metal oxides is summarized. Moreover, the existing challenges are discussed, and a series of strategies are proposed to overcome these drawbacks. This review aims at providing guidance for the development of metal oxides in the next stage.
Transition‐metal oxide is one of the most promising cathode materials in sodium‐ion batteries. In this review, Tao Chen, Baixue Ouyang et al. review the method of transition‐metal ion doping and their effects on the electrode's performance. Current challenges and further research directions in this field are also summed up.
Objectives
To take advantage of the deep learning algorithms to detect and calculate clot burden of acute pulmonary embolism (APE) on computed tomographic pulmonary angiography (CTPA).
Materials and ...methods
The training set in this retrospective study consisted of 590 patients (460 with APE and 130 without APE) who underwent CTPA. A fully deep learning convolutional neural network (DL-CNN), called U-Net, was trained for the segmentation of clot. Additionally, an in-house validation set consisted of 288 patients (186 with APE and 102 without APE). In this study, we set different probability thresholds to test the performance of U-Net for the clot detection and selected sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve (AUC) as the metrics of performance evaluation. Furthermore, we investigated the relationship between the clot burden assessed by the Qanadli score, Mastora score, and other imaging parameters on CTPA and the clot burden calculated by the DL-CNN model.
Results
There was no statistically significant difference in AUCs with the different probability thresholds. When the probability threshold for segmentation was 0.1, the sensitivity and specificity of U-Net in detecting clot respectively were 94.6% and 76.5% while the AUC was 0.926 (95% CI 0.884–0.968). Moreover, this study displayed that the clot burden measured with U-Net was significantly correlated with the Qanadli score (
r
= 0.819,
p
< 0.001), Mastora score (
r
= 0.874,
p
< 0.001), and right ventricular functional parameters on CTPA.
Conclusions
DL-CNN achieved a high AUC for the detection of pulmonary emboli and can be applied to quantitatively calculate the clot burden of APE patients, which may contribute to reducing the workloads of clinicians.
Key Points
• Deep learning can detect APE with a good performance and efficiently calculate the clot burden to reduce the physicians’ workload.
• Clot burden measured with deep learning highly correlates with Qanadli and Mastora scores of CTPA.
• Clot burden measured with deep learning correlates with parameters of right ventricular function on CTPA.
Silicon‐based (Si) materials are promising anodes for lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) because of their ultrahigh theoretical capacity of 4200 mA h g−1. However, commercial applications of Si anodes have ...been hindered by their drastic volume variation (∼300%) and low electrical conductivity. Here, to tackle the drawbacks, a hierarchical Si anode with double‐layer coatings of a SiOx inner layer and a nitrogen (N), boron (B) co‐doped carbon (C–NB) outer layer is elaborately designed by copyrolysis of Si–OH structures and a H3BO3‐doped polyaniline polymer on the Si surface. Compared with the pristine Si anodes (7 mA h g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 after 340 cycles and 340 mA h g−1 at 5 A g−1), the modified Si‐based materials (Si@SiOx@C–NB nanospheres) present superior cycling stability (reversible 1301 mA h g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 after 340 cycles) as well as excellent rate capability (690 mA h g−1 at 5 A g−1) when used as anodes in LIBs. The unique double‐layer coating structure, in which the inner amorphous SiOx layer acts as a buffer matrix and the outer defect‐rich carbon enhances the electron diffusion of the whole anode, makes it possible to deliver excellent electrochemical properties. These results indicate that our double‐layer coating strategy is a promising approach not only for the development of sustainable Si anodes but also for the design of multielement‐doped carbon nanomaterials.
The mechanism illustration about the preparation of Si@SiOx@C–NB materials.
Highlights
Double‐layer coatings are generated on the surface of Si nanoparticles via the pyrolysis of surficial Si‐OH structures and PANI–H3BO3 precoatings.
The amorphous SiOx inner‐layer can effectively promote the wettability of Si anodes with electrolyte and the combination between Si particles and the binder.
The N,B co‐doped carbon outer‐layer shows a defect‐rich nature and can enhance the conductivity of the whole Si anode.
The Si@SiOx@C–NB anode exhibits excellent rate capability and cycling stability.
As the master regulator in utero, the placenta is core to the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis but is historically understudied. To identify placental gene-trait ...associations (GTAs) across the life course, we perform distal mediator-enriched transcriptome-wide association studies (TWAS) for 40 traits, integrating placental multi-omics from the Extremely Low Gestational Age Newborn Study. At Formula: see text, we detect 248 GTAs, mostly for neonatal and metabolic traits, across 176 genes, enriched for cell growth and immunological pathways. In aggregate, genetic effects mediated by placental expression significantly explain 4 early-life traits but no later-in-life traits. 89 GTAs show significant mediation through distal genetic variants, identifying hypotheses for distal regulation of GTAs. Investigation of one hypothesis in human placenta-derived choriocarcinoma cells reveal that knockdown of mediator gene EPS15 upregulates predicted targets SPATA13 and FAM214A, both associated with waist-hip ratio in TWAS, and multiple genes involved in metabolic pathways. These results suggest profound health impacts of placental genomic regulation in developmental programming across the life course.
Lineage-specific epigenomic changes during human corticogenesis have been difficult to study owing to challenges with sample availability and tissue heterogeneity. For example, previous studies using ...single-cell RNA sequencing identified at least 9 major cell types and up to 26 distinct subtypes in the dorsal cortex alone
. Here we characterize cell-type-specific cis-regulatory chromatin interactions, open chromatin peaks, and transcriptomes for radial glia, intermediate progenitor cells, excitatory neurons, and interneurons isolated from mid-gestational samples of the human cortex. We show that chromatin interactions underlie several aspects of gene regulation, with transposable elements and disease-associated variants enriched at distal interacting regions in a cell-type-specific manner. In addition, promoters with increased levels of chromatin interactivity-termed super-interactive promoters-are enriched for lineage-specific genes, suggesting that interactions at these loci contribute to the fine-tuning of transcription. Finally, we develop CRISPRview, a technique that integrates immunostaining, CRISPR interference, RNAscope, and image analysis to validate cell-type-specific cis-regulatory elements in heterogeneous populations of primary cells. Our findings provide insights into cell-type-specific gene expression patterns in the developing human cortex and advance our understanding of gene regulation and lineage specification during this crucial developmental window.
The present study aimed to investigate the efficacy and toxicity of pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD) in preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy for patients with breast cancer by comparing with ...conventional anthracycline. This study is a non-randomized controlled trial. Prospective analysis was conducted after matching as required. A total of 146 patients with confirmed diagnosis of breast cancer by histopathological examinations were enrolled into the observation group and control group in 1:1 ratio. Each of the cases in the observation group was required to correspond to another in the control group according to the requirements including age, molecular subtype, axillary node status, and regimen of the preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The chemotherapy was based on regimens consisting of anthracyclines, paclitaxel or docetaxel, and/or platinum. PLD was used at least twice in the observation group, with traditional anthracycline as a contrast in the control group. Clinical responses as well as cardiac side effects and other adverse reactions were evaluated by clinical and imaging examinations such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and color Doppler ultrasound during the chemotherapy. Pathologic examinations were performed following the surgeries after preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy. All the patients in both groups completed the preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy according to their original regimens. The postoperative pathological evaluation revealed a higher pathologic complete response (PCR) rate and significantly more patients of grade V of the Miller-Payne grading system in the observation group as compared to the control group (p = 0.047). In addition, the observation group recorded an evidently lower occurrence of the adverse cardiac events (p = 0.014), ECG changes (p = 0.048), and the relatively severe adverse reactions such as myelosuppression. Compared with conventional anthracycline drugs, PLD has a better pathologic response and safety performance, as well as a similar clinical effectiveness in preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer.
YKL-40 is a secreted glycoprotein that can promote invasion, angiogenesis and inhibit apoptosis, and was highly expressed in a variety of tumours. In this paper, we investigated the impacts of YKL-40 ...on proliferation and invasion in HTR-8/SVneo cells during placenta accreta spectrum disorders (PAS) development. The levels of YKL-40 protein in late-pregnant placental tissue were detected using immunohistochemistry and Western blotting, and gene expression using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The proliferation, migration, invasion and apoptosis abilities of HTR-8/SVneo cells were detected by cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8), Transwell, scratch assay, and flow cytometry, respectively. Our current results showed that YKL-40 was significantly increased in the PAS group compared to the normal control group (P < 0.01). Biological function experiments showed that YKL-40 significantly promoted the proliferation, migration and invasion of HTR-8/SVneo cells, and inhibited cell apoptosis. Knockdown of YKL-40 inhibited the activation of Akt/MMP9 signalling in trophoblast cells. These data suggested that YKL-40 might be involved in the progression of PAS, which may be attributed to the regulation of Akt/MMP9 signalling pathway.
IMPACT STATEMENT
What is already known on this subject? YKL-40 is a secretory glycoprotein that can promote invasion, angiogenesis, and inhibit apoptosis and was highly expressed in a variety of tumours. Trophoblast cells resemble tumour cells in their migration and invasion.
What the results of this study add? YKL-40 expression was significantly up-regulated in PAS. CCK-8 assays showed that YKL-40 remarkably enhanced the viability of HTR-8/SVneo cells. Scratch and Transwell assays demonstrated that YKL-40 significantly promoted the migration and invasion of HTR-8/SVneo cells. Additionally, YKL-40 attenuated apoptosis in HTR-8/SVneo cells.
What the implications are of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? Akt/MMP9 was involved in the regulation of YKL-40 on trophoblast invasion, which may provide theoretical basis and new ideas for the drug blocking intervention of placenta accreta.
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