Water splitting is a promising technology for sustainable conversion of hydrogen energy. The rational design of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) bifunctional ...electrocatalysts with superior activity and stability in the same electrolyte is the key to promoting their large‐scale applications. Herein, an ultralow Ru (1.08 wt%) transition metal phosphide on nickel foam (Ru–MnFeP/NF) derived from Prussian blue analogue, that effectively drivies both the OER and the HER in 1 m KOH, is reported. To reach 20 mA cm−2 for OER and 10 mA cm−2 for HER, the Ru–MnFeP/NF electrode only requires overpotentials of 191 and 35 mV, respectively. Such high electrocatalytic activity exceeds most transition metal phosphides for the OER and the HER, and even reaches Pt‐like HER electrocatalytic levels. Accordingly, it significantly accelerates full water splitting at 10 mA cm−2 with 1.470 V, which outperforms that of the integrated RuO2 and Pt/C couple electrode (1.560 V). In addition, the extremely long operational stability (50 h) and the successful demonstration of a solar‐to‐hydrogen generation system through full water splitting provide more flexibility for large‐scale applications of Ru–MnFeP/NF catalysts.
Ru–MnFeP/NF, with a unique nanosheet structure, is synthesized by Ru loading and subsequent phosphation, derived from a metal–organic framework. The material exhibits both superior oxygen evolution reaction and hydrogen evolution reaction activities and stabilities in alkaline media.
Operation principle and design approach of a novel planar end-lire circularly polarized (CP) complementary antenna is proposed. A vertically polarized printed magnetic dipole and a horizontally ...polarized printed dipole are combined on the same substrate, and a planar CP antenna with end-lire beam in parallel with its plane is thus designed. Prototype antennas centered at 5.80 GHz are then fabricated and measured to validate the operation principle and the design approach. The experimental prototype reported that the impedance bandwidth (20 log |S 11 | ( <; -10 dB) is about 1.90%, from 5.75 to 5.86 GHz and the 3-dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth is about 14.48%, from 5.19 to 6.00 GHz. Therefore, the proposed design is applicable as a low-prolile handheld reader antenna in radio-frequency identilication (RFID) systems.
Abstract
Background
Emerging experimental and epidemiological evidence highlights a crucial cross-talk between the intestinal flora and the lungs, termed the “gut-lung axis”. However, the function of ...the gut microbiota in bronchiectasis remains undefined. In this study, we aimed to perform a multi-omics-based approach to identify the gut microbiome and metabolic profiles in patients with bronchiectasis.
Methods
Fecal samples collected from non-CF bronchiectasis patients (BE group, n = 61) and healthy volunteers (HC group, n = 37) were analyzed by 16 S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequencing. The BE group was divided into two groups based on their clinical status: acute exacerbation (AE group, n = 31) and stable phase (SP group, n = 30). Further, metabolome (lipid chromatography-mass spectrometry, LC-MS) analyses were conducted in randomly selected patients (n = 29) and healthy volunteers (n = 31).
Results
Decreased fecal microbial diversity and differential microbial and metabolic compositions were observed in bronchiectasis patients. Correlation analyses indicated associations between the differential genera and clinical parameters such as bronchiectasis severity index (BSI). Disease-associated gut microbiota was screened out, with eight genera exhibited high accuracy in distinguishing SP patients from HCs in the discovery cohort and validation cohort using a random forest model. Further correlation networks were applied to illustrate the relations connecting disease-associated genera and metabolites.
Conclusion
The study uncovered the relationships among the decreased fecal microbial diversity, differential microbial and metabolic compositions in bronchiectasis patients by performing a multi-omics-based approach. It is the first study to characterize the gut microbiome and metabolome in bronchiectasis, and to uncover the gut microbiota’s potentiality as biomarkers for bronchiectasis.
Trial registration:
This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT04490447.
Debugging a genome sequence is imperative for successfully building a synthetic genome. As part of the effort to build a designer eukaryotic genome, yeast synthetic chromosome X (synX), designed as ...707,459 base pairs, was synthesized chemically. SynX exhibited good fitness under a wide variety of conditions. A highly efficient mapping strategy called pooled PCRTag mapping (PoPM), which can be generalized to any watermarked synthetic chromosome, was developed to identify genetic alterations that affect cell fitness ("bugs"). A series of bugs were corrected that included a large region bearing complex amplifications, a growth defect mapping to a recoded sequence in
, and a loxPsym site affecting promoter function of
PoPM is a powerful tool for synthetic yeast genome debugging and an efficient strategy for phenotype-genotype mapping.
As a promising tool, PCR in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) has not been accepted as a diagnostic criterion for PJP.
We undertook a systematic review of published studies to evaluate the ...diagnostic accuracy of PCR assays in BALF for PJP.
Eligible studies from PubMed, Embase and Web of Science reporting PCR assays in BALF for diagnosing PJP were identified. A bivariate meta-analysis of the method's sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative likelihood ratios with a 95% confidence interval (CI) were analyzed. The post-test probability was performed to evaluate clinical usefulness. A summary receiver operating characteristics (SROC) curve was used to evaluate overall performance. Subgroup analyses were carried out to analysis the potential heterogeneity.
Sixteen studies published between 1994 and 2012 were included. The summary sensitivity and specificity values (95% CI) of PCR in BALF for diagnosis of PJP were 98.3% (91.3%-99.7%) and 91.0% (82.7%-95.5%), respectively. The positive and negative likelihood ratios were 10.894 (5.569-21.309) and 0.018 (0.003-0.099), respectively. In a setting of 20% prevalence of PJP, the probability of PJP would be over 3-fold if the BALF-PCR test was positive, and the probability of PJP would be less than 0.5% if it was negative. The area under the SROC curve was 0.98 (0.97-0.99).
The method of PCR in BALF shows high sensitivity and good specificity for the diagnosis of PJP. However, clinical practice for the diagnosis of PJP should consider the consistent respiratory symptoms, radiographic changes and laboratory findings of the suspected patients.
The role of corticosteroids in acute lung injury (ALI) remains uncertain. This study aims to determine the underlying mechanisms of corticosteroid treatment for lipopolysaccharide (LPS)‐induced ...inflammation and ALI. We used corticosteroid treatment for LPS‐induced murine ALI model to investigate the effect of corticosteroid on ALI in vivo. Moreover, LPS‐stimulated macrophages were used to explore the specific anti‐inflammatory effects of corticosteroids on NLRP3‐inflammasome in vitro. We found corticosteroids attenuated LPS‐induced ALI, which manifested in reduction of the alveolar structure destruction, the infiltration of neutrophils and the inflammatory cytokines release of interleukin‐1β (IL‐1β) and interleukin‐18 (IL‐18) in Lung. In vitro, when NLRP3‐inflammasome was knocked out, inflammatory response of caspase‐1 activation and IL‐1β secretion was obviously declined. Further exploration, our results showed that when corticosteroid preprocessed macrophages before LPS primed, it obviously inhibited the activation of caspase‐1 and the maturation of IL‐1β, which depended on inhibiting the nuclear factor‐κB (NF‐κB) signal pathway activation. However, when corticosteroids intervened the LPS‐primed macrophages, it also negatively regulated NLRP3‐inflammasome activation through suppressing mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS) production. Our results revealed that corticosteroids played a protection role in LPS‐induced inflammation and ALI by suppressing both NF‐κB signal pathway and mtROS‐dependent NLRP3 inflammasome activation.
In vitro DNA SCRaMbLE Wu, Yi; Zhu, Rui-Ying; Mitchell, Leslie A ...
Nature communications,
05/2018, Volume:
9, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The power of synthetic biology has enabled the expression of heterologous pathways in cells, as well as genome-scale synthesis projects. The complexity of biological networks makes rational de novo ...design a grand challenge. Introducing features that confer genetic flexibility is a powerful strategy for downstream engineering. Here we develop an in vitro method of DNA library construction based on structural variation to accomplish this goal. The "in vitro SCRaMbLE system" uses Cre recombinase mixed in a test tube with purified DNA encoding multiple loxPsym sites. Using a β-carotene pathway designed for expression in yeast as an example, we demonstrate top-down and bottom-up in vitro SCRaMbLE, enabling optimization of biosynthetic pathway flux via the rearrangement of relevant transcription units. We show that our system provides a straightforward way to correlate phenotype and genotype and is potentially amenable to biochemical optimization in ways that the in vivo system cannot achieve.
Pyrolysis is a promising technology to reclaim glass fibers from end-of-life wind turbine blades (WTBs), while the pyrolysis atmosphere has significant effects on the depolymerization of WTBs and the ...mechanical properties of recovered fibers. In this study, the pyrolysis performance of commercial end-of-life WTBs under different atmospheres was investigated as well as their effects on the mechanical properties of recovered fibers. The results showed that the pyrolysis gas in N2 atmosphere mainly consisted of CO2, CH4, and CO, and its calorific value was 22.53 MJ/Nm3. Various phenolic compounds were also recovered in the pyrolysis oil. After the post-oxidation of pyrolysis solid products, clean glass fibers could be reclaimed successfully. H2O was an effective gasifying agent in accelerating the decomposition of epoxy resins at 500 °C, which increased the yields of pyrolysis gas and phenolic products while inhibited the formation of char. Besides, the reactivity of residual char was improved, thereby promoting their oxidization in the post-oxidization process but causing the thermal-oxidative diffusion of surface flaws, which slightly degraded the tensile strength of recovered fibers by 5.97%. CO2 suppressed the cracking of epoxy resins and contributed to the simultaneous accumulation of uncracked resins and pyrolysis char, which then aggravated the diffusion of surface flaws by thermal oxidization and uneven heating in the post-oxidation, thereby degrading the tensile strengths of recovered fibers by 16.02%.
Display omitted
•End-of-life wind turbine blades were pyrolyzed under different atmospheres.•Phenolic compounds were recovered in the pyrolysis oil of wind turbine blades.•H2O promoted the cracking of epoxy resins and improved the reactivity of char.•CO2 inhibited the cracking of resins and accumulated organic residuals over fibers.•Diffusion of surface flaws degraded the tensile strength of the recovered fibers.
Bronchoscopic lung volume reduction (BLVR) is a feasible, safe, effective and minimally invasive technique to significantly improve the quality of life of advanced severe chronic obstructive ...pulmonary disease (COPD). In this study, three‐dimensional computed tomography (3D‐CT) automatic analysis software combined with pulmonary function test (PFT) was used to retrospectively evaluate the postoperative efficacy of BLVR patients. The purpose is to evaluate the improvement of lung function of local lung tissue after operation, maximize the benefits of patients, and facilitate BLVR in the treatment of patients with advanced COPD. All the reported cases of advanced COPD patients treated with BLVR with one‐way valve were collected and analysed from 2017 to 2020. Three‐dimensional‐CT image analysis software system was used to analyse the distribution of low‐density areas <950 Hounsfield units in both lungs pre‐ and post‐ BLVR. Meanwhile, all patients performed standard PFT pre‐ and post‐operation for retrospective analysis. We reported six patients that underwent unilateral BLVR with 1 to 3 valves according to the range of emphysema. All patients showed a median increase in forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) of 34%, compared with baseline values. Hyperinflation was reduced by 16.6% (range, 4.9%‐47.2%). The volumetric measurements showed a significant reduction in the treated lobe volume among these patients. Meanwhile, the targeted lobe volume changes were inversely correlated with change in FEV1/FEV1% in patients with heterogeneous emphysematous. We confirm that 3D‐CT analysis can quantify the changes of lung volume, ventilation and perfusion, to accurately evaluate the distribution and improvement of emphysema and rely less on the observer.
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