Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), especially Chinese herbal medicines and acupuncture, has been traditionally used to treat patients with cancers in China and other East Asian countries. Numerous ...studies have indicated that TCM not only alleviates the symptoms (e.g., fatigue, chronic pain, anorexia/cachexia, and insomnia) of patients with cancer and improves their quality of life (QOL) but also diminishes adverse reactions and complications caused by chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or targeted-therapy. Therefore, Chinese herbal medicines and acupuncture and other alternative therapies need to be understood by TCM physicians and other health care providers. This review mainly summarizes the experimental results and conclusions from literature published since 2010, and a search of the literature as been performed in the PubMed, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, Springer, ScienceDirect, and China Hospital Knowledge Database (CHKD) databases. Some Chinese herbal medicines (e.g., Panax ginseng, Panax quinquefolius, Astragali radix, Bu-zhong-yi-qi-tang (TJ-41), Liu-jun-zi-tang (TJ-43), Shi-quan-da-bu-tang (TJ-48), and Ban-xia-xie-xin-tang (TJ-14)) and some acupuncture points (e.g., Zusanli (ST36), Zhongwan (CV12), Neiguan (PC6) and Baihui (GV20)) that are commonly used to treat cancer-related symptoms and/or to reduce the toxicity of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or targeted-therapy are highlighted and summarized. Through a review of literature, we conclude that TCM can effectively alleviate adverse gastrointestinal reactions (including diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting) to these anti-cancer therapies, decrease the incidence of bone marrow suppression, alleviate cardiotoxicity, and protect against chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy and radiation-induced pneumonitis. Moreover, TCM can alleviate epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI)-related acneiform eruptions, diarrhea, and other adverse reactions. The hope is that this review can contribute to an understanding of TCM as an adjuvant therapy for cancer and that it can provide useful information for the development of more effective anti-cancer therapies. However, more rigorously designed trials involving cancer treatment must be conducted in the future, including complete quality control and standardized models at the cellular, organic, animal and clinical levels, in order to study TCM in multiple forms and at multiple levels.
Covalent organic framework (COF) represents an emerging class of porous materials that have exhibited great potential in various applications, particularly in catalysis. In this work, we report a ...newly designed 2D COF with incorporated Re complex, which exhibits intrinsic light absorption and charge separation (CS) properties. We show that this hybrid catalyst can efficiently reduce CO2 to form CO under visible light illumination with high electivity (98%) and better activity than its homogeneous Re counterpart. More importantly, using advanced transient optical and X-ray absorption spectroscopy and in situ diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, we unraveled three key intermediates that are responsible for CS, the induction period, and rate limiting step in catalysis. This work not only demonstrates the potential of COFs as next generation photocatalysts for solar fuel conversion but also provide unprecedented insight into the mechanistic origins for light-driven CO2 reduction.
Although the smart home industry is rapidly emerging, it faces the risk of privacy security that cannot be neglected. As this industry now has a complex combination system involving multiple ...subjects, it is difficult for the traditional risk assessment method to meet these new security requirements. In this study, a privacy risk assessment method based on the combination of system theoretic process analysis-failure mode and effect analysis (STPA-FMEA) is proposed for a smart home system, considering the interaction and control of 'user-environment-smart home product'. A total of 35 privacy risk scenarios of 'component-threat-failure-model-incident' combinations are identified. The risk priority numbers (RPN) was used to quantitatively assess the level of risk for each risk scenario and the role of user and environmental factors in influencing the risk. According to the results, the privacy management ability of users and the security state of the environment have significant effects on the quantified values of the privacy risks of smart home systems. The STPA-FMEA method can identify the privacy risk scenarios of a smart home system and the insecurity constraints in the hierarchical control structure of the system in a relatively comprehensive manner. Additionally, the proposed risk control measures based on the STPA-FMEA analysis can effectively reduce the privacy risk of the smart home system. The risk assessment method proposed in this study can be widely applied to the field of risk research of complex systems, and this study can contribute to the improvement of privacy security of smart home systems.
Developing efficient water oxidation catalysts made of earth-abundant elements is a demanding challenge that should be met to fulfill the promise of water splitting for clean energy. Herein we report ...an annealing approach to synthesize binder-free, self-supported heterogeneous copper oxide (CuO) on conductive electrodes for oxygen evolution reaction (OER), producing electrodes with excellent electrocatalytic properties such as high efficiency, low overpotential, and good stability. The catalysts were grown in situ on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) by electrodeposition from a simple Cu(II) salt solution, followed by annealing at a high temperature. Under optimal conditions, the CuO-based OER catalyst shows an onset potential of <0.58 V (vs Ag/AgCl) in 1.0 M KOH at pH 13.6. From the Tafel plot, the required overpotentials for current densities of 0.1 and 1.0 mA/cm2 are only 360 and 430 mV, respectively. The structure and the presence of a CuO motif in the catalyst have been identified by high-energy X-ray diffraction (HE-XRD), Cu K-edge X-ray absorption (XAS) spectra including X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES), and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS). To the best of our knowledge, this represents the best catalytic activity for CuO-based OER catalysts to date.
In this article, an improved slime mould algorithm (SMA-CSA) is proposed for solving global optimization and the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP). This improvement is based on the ...mixed-strategy optimization of Cauchy mutation and simulated annealing to alleviate the lack of global optimization capability of the SMA. By introducing the Cauchy mutation strategy, the optimal solution is perturbed to increase the probability of escaping from the local extreme value; in addition, the annealing strategy is introduced, and the Metropolis sampling criterion is used as the acceptance criterion to expand the global search space to enhance the exploration phase to achieve optimal solutions. The performance of the proposed SMA-CSA algorithm is evaluated using the CEC 2013 benchmark functions and the capacitated vehicle routing problem. In all experiments, SMA-CSA is compared with ten other state-of-the-art metaheuristics. The results are also analyzed by Friedman and the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. The experimental results and statistical tests demonstrate that the SMA-CSA algorithm is very competitive and often superior compared to the algorithms used in the experiments. The results of the proposed algorithm on the capacitated vehicle routing problem demonstrate its efficiency and discrete solving ability.
Improving the reaction kinetics of hydrogen evolution and oxidation reactions (HER/HOR) in alkaline media is critical to promote the development of alkaline fuel cells and electrolyzers. Here, we ...prepared Pd3Ru alloy nanocatalysts with Ru segregated on the surfaces, forming adatoms and clusters. This structure dramatically lowered the overpotential of Pd toward HER in 1 M KOH by 104 mV at 10 mA cm–2. The HER activity was even higher than that of Pt (6 mV improvement at 10 mA cm–2). Theoretical simulation results revealed that Ru adatoms/clusters on the surface could weaken the hydrogen-binding energy and promote the OH adsorption, consequently lowering the reaction barrier of the rate-determining step in HER. Our findings are of significance for clarifying the role of Ru in bimetallic catalysts and rational design of more active catalysts for HER/HOR.
Sodium-ion batteries are promising alternatives to lithium-ion batteries for large-scale applications. However, the low capacity and poor rate capability of existing anodes for sodium-ion batteries ...are bottlenecks for future developments. Here, we report a high performance nanostructured anode material for sodium-ion batteries that is fabricated by high energy ball milling to form black phosphorus/Ketjenblack–multiwalled carbon nanotubes (BPC) composite. With this strategy, the BPC composite with a high phosphorus content (70 wt %) could deliver a very high initial Coulombic efficiency (>90%) and high specific capacity with excellent cyclability at high rate of charge/discharge (∼1700 mAh g–1 after 100 cycles at 1.3 A g–1 based on the mass of P). In situ electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, synchrotron high energy X-ray diffraction, ex situ small/wide-angle X-ray scattering, high resolution transmission electronic microscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance were further used to unravel its superior sodium storage performance. The scientific findings gained in this work are expected to serve as a guide for future design on high performance anode material for sodium-ion batteries.
We present a general method for obtaining conservation laws for integrable PDE at negative regularity and exhibit its application to KdV, NLS, and mKdV. Our method works uniformly for these problems ...posed both on the line and on the circle.
Conductive metal organic frameworks (MOFs) represent a promising class of porous crystalline materials that have demonstrated potential in photo-electronics and photocatalytic applications. However, ...the lack of fundamental understanding on charge transport (CT) mechanism as well as the correlation of CT mechanism with their structure hampered their further development. Herein, we report the direct evidence of CT mechanism in 2D Cu-THQ MOFs and the correlation of temporal and spatial behaviors of charge carriers with their photoconductivity by combining three advanced spectroscopic methods, including time resolved optical and X-ray absorption spectroscopy and terahertz spectroscopy. In addition to Cu-THQ, the CT in Cu/Zn-THQ after incorporating Zn2+ guest metal was also examined to uncover the contribution of through space pathway, as the presence of the redox inactive 3d10 Zn2+ is expected to perturb the long range in-plane CT. We show that the hot carriers in Cu-THQ generated after photoexcitation are highly mobile and undergo fast localization to a lower energy state (cool carriers) with electrons occupying Cu center and holes in ligands. The cool carriers, which have super long lifetime (>17 ns), are responsible for the long-term photoconductivity in Cu-THQ and transport through the O–Cu–O motif with negligible contribution from interlayer ligand π–π stacking, as incorporation of Zn2+ in Cu-THQ significantly reduced photoconductivity. These unprecedented results not only demonstrate the capability to experimentally probe CT mechanism but also provide important insight in the rational design of 2D MOFs for photoelectronic and photocatalytic applications.
Lithium titanate and titanium dioxide are two best-known high-performance electrodes that can cycle around 10,000 times in aprotic lithium ion electrolytes. Here we show there exists more lithium ...titanate hydrates with superfast and stable cycling. That is, water promotes structural diversity and nanostructuring of compounds, but does not necessarily degrade electrochemical cycling stability or performance in aprotic electrolytes. As a lithium ion battery anode, our multi-phase lithium titanate hydrates show a specific capacity of about 130 mA h g
at ~35 C (fully charged within ~100 s) and sustain more than 10,000 cycles with capacity fade of only 0.001% per cycle. In situ synchrotron diffraction reveals no 2-phase transformations, but a single solid-solution behavior during battery cycling. So instead of just a nanostructured intermediate to be calcined, lithium titanate hydrates can be the desirable final destination.Water is usually not favorable in high-voltage window aprotic electrolytes. Here the authors discover some lithium titanate hydrates that allow superior power rate and ultralong cycle life in aprotic electrolytes.
PDF
