Abstract
Na-ion cathode materials operating at high voltage with a stable cycling behavior are needed to develop future high-energy Na-ion cells. However, the irreversible oxygen redox reaction at ...the high-voltage region in sodium layered cathode materials generates structural instability and poor capacity retention upon cycling. Here, we report a doping strategy by incorporating light-weight boron into the cathode active material lattice to decrease the irreversible oxygen oxidation at high voltages (i.e., >4.0 V vs. Na
+
/Na). The presence of covalent B–O bonds and the negative charges of the oxygen atoms ensures a robust ligand framework for the NaLi
1/9
Ni
2/9
Fe
2/9
Mn
4/9
O
2
cathode material while mitigating the excessive oxidation of oxygen for charge compensation and avoiding irreversible structural changes during cell operation. The B-doped cathode material promotes reversible transition metal redox reaction enabling a room-temperature capacity of 160.5 mAh g
−1
at 25 mA g
−1
and capacity retention of 82.8% after 200 cycles at 250 mA g
−1
. A 71.28 mAh single-coated lab-scale Na-ion pouch cell comprising a pre-sodiated hard carbon-based anode and B-doped cathode material is also reported as proof of concept.
Mitofusin-2 (MFN2) is a dynamin-like GTPase that plays a central role in regulating mitochondrial fusion and cell metabolism. Mutations in MFN2 cause the neurodegenerative disease Charcot-Marie-Tooth ...type 2A (CMT2A). The molecular basis underlying the physiological and pathological relevance of MFN2 is unclear. Here, we present crystal structures of truncated human MFN2 in different nucleotide-loading states. Unlike other dynamin superfamily members including MFN1, MFN2 forms sustained dimers even after GTP hydrolysis via the GTPase domain (G) interface, which accounts for its high membrane-tethering efficiency. The biochemical discrepancy between human MFN2 and MFN1 largely derives from a primate-only single amino acid variance. MFN2 and MFN1 can form heterodimers via the G interface in a nucleotide-dependent manner. CMT2A-related mutations, mapping to different functional zones of MFN2, lead to changes in GTP hydrolysis and homo/hetero-association ability. Our study provides fundamental insight into how mitofusins mediate mitochondrial fusion and the ways their disruptions cause disease.
Nationwide nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been effective at mitigating the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), but their broad impact on other diseases remains ...under-investigated. Here we report an ecological analysis comparing the incidence of 31 major notifiable infectious diseases in China in 2020 to the average level during 2014-2019, controlling for temporal phases defined by NPI intensity levels. Respiratory diseases and gastrointestinal or enteroviral diseases declined more than sexually transmitted or bloodborne diseases and vector-borne or zoonotic diseases. Early pandemic phases with more stringent NPIs were associated with greater reductions in disease incidence. Non-respiratory diseases, such as hand, foot and mouth disease, rebounded substantially towards the end of the year 2020 as the NPIs were relaxed. Statistical modeling analyses confirm that strong NPIs were associated with a broad mitigation effect on communicable diseases, but resurgence of non-respiratory diseases should be expected when the NPIs, especially restrictions of human movement and gathering, become less stringent.
Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a pivotal reaction in many technologies for renewable energy, such as water splitting, metal–air batteries, and regenerative fuel cells. However, this reaction is ...known to be kinetically sluggish and proceeds at rather high overpotential due to the universal scaling relationship, namely, the adsorption energies of intermediates are linearly correlated and cannot be optimized simultaneously. Several approaches have been proposed to break the scaling relationship by introducing additional active sites; however, positive experimental results are still absent. Herein, a different solution is suggested on the basis of dynamic tridimensional adsorption of the OER intermediates at NiO/NiFe layered double hydroxide intersection, by which the adsorption energy of each intermediate can be adjusted independently, so as to bypass the scaling relationship and achieve high catalytic performance. Experimentally, the OER overpotential is reduced to ≈205 mV at current density of 30 mA cm−2, which represents the best performance achieved by state‐of‐the‐art OER catalysts.
The oxygen evolution reaction (OER), a key reaction for energy conversion and storage, is kinetically sluggish due to the limits of the scaling relationship. A strategy to bypass the scaling relationship through dynamic tridimensional adsorption of OER intermediates is reported, and OER overpotential is reduced to 205 mV at current density of 30 mA cm−2.
Pathological angiogenesis is a critical component of diseases, such as ocular disorders, cancers, and atherosclerosis. It is usually caused by the abnormal activity of biological processes, such as ...cell proliferation, cell motility, immune, or inflammation response. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as critical regulators of these biological processes. However, the role of lncRNA in diabetes mellitus-induced microvascular dysfunction is largely unknown.
To elucidate whether lncRNA-myocardial infarction-associated transcript (MIAT) is involved in diabetes mellitus-induced microvascular dysfunction.
Using quantitative polymerase chain reaction, we demonstrated increased expression of lncRNA-MIAT in diabetic retinas and endothelial cells cultured in high glucose medium. Visual electrophysiology examination, TUNEL staining, retinal trypsin digestion, vascular permeability assay, and in vitro studies revealed that MIAT knockdown obviously ameliorated diabetes mellitus-induced retinal microvascular dysfunction in vivo, and inhibited endothelial cell proliferation, migration, and tube formation in vitro. Bioinformatics analysis, luciferase assay, RNA immunoprecipitation, and in vitro studies revealed that MIAT functioned as a competing endogenous RNA, and formed a feedback loop with vascular endothelial growth factor and miR-150-5p to regulate endothelial cell function.
This study highlights the involvement of lncRNA-MIAT in pathological angiogenesis and facilitates the development of lncRNA-directed diagnostics and therapeutics against neovascular diseases.
AIM To investigate the clinical significance of preoperative systemic immune-inflammation index(SII) in patients with colorectal cancer(CRC). METHODS A retrospective analysis of 1383 cases with CRC ...was performed following radical surgery. SII was calculated with the formula SII =(P × N)/L, where P, N, and L refer to peripheral platelet, neutrophil, and lymphocyte counts, respectively. The clinicopathological features and follow-up data were evaluated to compare SII with other systemic inflammation-based prognostic indices such as the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio(NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio(PLR) in patients with CRC.RESULTS The optimal cut-off point for SII was defined as 340. The overall survival(OS) and disease-free survival(DFS) were better in patients with low NLR, PLR, and SII(P < 0.05). The SII was an independent predictor of OS and DFS in multivariate analysis. The area under the receiver-operating characteristics(ROC) curve for SII(0.707) was larger than those for NLR(0.602) and PLR(0.566). In contrast to NLR and PLR, SII could effectively discriminate between the TNM subgroups. CONCLUSION SII is a more powerful tool for predicting survival outcome in patients with CRC. It might assist the identification of high-risk patients among patients with the same TNM stage.
Aim
Up‐to‐date epidemiological studies on the global burden of severe periodontitis is scarce. This study aimed to present the latest estimates for prevalence of severe periodontitis from 1990 to ...2019, by region, age, and level of socio‐demographic development.
Materials and Methods
Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study 2019 were used to investigate burden and trends of prevalence of severe periodontitis and its association with socio‐demographic development at global, regional, and national level. Decomposition analysis was performed to explore the contribution of demographic and epidemiological factors to the evolving burden of severe periodontitis.
Results
In 2019, there were 1.1 billion (95% uncertainty interval: 0.8–1.4 billion) prevalent cases of severe periodontitis globally. From 1990 to 2019, age‐standardized prevalence rate of severe periodontitis increased by 8.44% (6.62%–10.59%) worldwide. Prevalence of severe periodontitis is higher among less developed countries/regions. Global population growth accounted for 67.9% of the increase in the number of prevalent cases of severe periodontitis from 1990 to 2019.
Conclusions
The global burden of severe periodontitis has been substantial and increasing over the past three decades. Upstream policy changes are urgently needed to address the global public health challenge of severe periodontitis.
Engineering non‐noble metal–based electrocatalysts with superior water oxidation performance is highly desirable for the production of renewable chemical fuels. Here, an atomically thin ...low‐crystallinity Fe–Mn–O hybrid nanosheet grown on carbon cloth (Fe–Mn–O NS/CC) is successfully synthetized as an efficient oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst. The synthesis strategy involves a facile reflux reaction and subsequent low‐temperature calcination process, and the morphology and composition of hybrid nanosheets can be tailored conveniently. The defect‐rich Fe–Mn–O ultrathin nanosheet with uniform element distribution enables exposure of more catalytic active sites; moreover, the atomic‐scale synergistic action of Mn and Fe oxide contributes to an enhanced intrinsic catalytic activity. Therefore, the optimized Fe–Mn–O hybrid nanosheets, with lateral sizes of about 100–600 nm and ≈1.4 nm in thickness, enable a low onset potential of 1.46 V, low overpotential of 273 mV for current density of 10 mA cm−2, a small Tafel slope of 63.9 mV dec−1, and superior durability, which are superior to that of individual MnO2 and FeOOH electrode, and even outperforming most reported MnO2‐based electrocatalysts.
A defect‐rich Fe–Mn–O hybrid ultrathin nanosheet obtained by simple reflux and low‐temperature calcination route exhibits superior oxygen evolution reaction activity at alkaline media. The ultrathin nanosheets of ≈1.4 nm thick make it possible to expose more catalytic active sites; moreover, the atomic‐scale synergistic action of Mn and Fe oxide and defect‐rich structure contributes to an enhanced intrinsic catalytic activity.
•A novel hybrid modeling method is proposed for short-term wind speed forecasting.•Support vector regression model is constructed to formulate nonlinear state-space framework.•Unscented Kalman filter ...is adopted to recursively update states under random uncertainty.•The new SVR–UKF approach is compared to several conventional methods for short-term wind speed prediction.•The proposed method demonstrates higher prediction accuracy and reliability.
Accurate wind speed forecasting is becoming increasingly important to improve and optimize renewable wind power generation. Particularly, reliable short-term wind speed prediction can enable model predictive control of wind turbines and real-time optimization of wind farm operation. However, this task remains challenging due to the strong stochastic nature and dynamic uncertainty of wind speed. In this study, unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is integrated with support vector regression (SVR) based state-space model in order to precisely update the short-term estimation of wind speed sequence. In the proposed SVR–UKF approach, support vector regression is first employed to formulate a nonlinear state-space model and then unscented Kalman filter is adopted to perform dynamic state estimation recursively on wind sequence with stochastic uncertainty. The novel SVR–UKF method is compared with artificial neural networks (ANNs), SVR, autoregressive (AR) and autoregressive integrated with Kalman filter (AR-Kalman) approaches for predicting short-term wind speed sequences collected from three sites in Massachusetts, USA. The forecasting results indicate that the proposed method has much better performance in both one-step-ahead and multi-step-ahead wind speed predictions than the other approaches across all the locations.
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