•CSE decreased the proliferation of mouse lung fibroblasts, which is essential for the maintenance of extracellular matrix.•CSE caused an abnormal inflammatory response and ROS/RNS-mediated stress by ...an imbalance in the cellular antioxidant defense system (GSH recycling and SOD activity), leading to the apoptosis of lung parenchymal fibroblasts.•The apoptosis of lung fibroblasts, through the phosphorylation of STAT1 at Tyr701/Ser727 and the up-regulation of the MAPK pathway by CSE, contributes to the pathogenesis of COPD.
Cigarette smoking is the major aetiologic factor in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Lung fibroblasts are key participants in the maintenance of the extracellular matrix within the lung parenchyma. However, it still remains unknown how pulmonary fibroblasts are affected by cigarette smoking. Therefore, in this study, we isolated lung fibroblasts from mice and determined the apoptotic mechanism in response to cigarette smoke extract (CSE). When the lung fibroblasts were exposed to CSE, the generation of ROS was increased as shown by H2-DCFDA staining and Flow Cytometry. By immunocytochemistry, Ki67 expressing cells gradually decreased in a dose-dependent manner. The nitrite concentration in the supernatants increased, while the SOD activity and GSH recycling decreased in response to CSE. CSE increased the mRNA levels of TNF-α and COX-2, and the secretory proteins TNF-α and IL-6 increased as measured by ELISA. We next determined whether this inflammatory process is associated with the Bax/Bcl-2 apoptosis pathway. The Bax/Bcl-2 mRNA ratio increased, and cleaved caspase-3 protein was activated in the lung fibroblasts treated with CSE. Moreover, CSE induced the phosphorylation of STAT1 at Tyr701/Ser727 and increased the activation of ERK1/2, p38, and JNK in the MAPK pathway. Taken together, these data suggest that CSE-mediated inflammation alters the redox regulation via the MAPK-STAT1 pathway, leading to intrinsic apoptosis of lung fibroblasts.
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•Nitrogen-incorporated nanoporous carbon polyhedron is derived from MOF.•Hierarchically open-porous structure is constructed for capacitive deionization.•MOF derived carbons exhibits ...a high capacity of 24.4 mg/g in saline water.•Carbon polyhedron shows enhanced salt adsorption rate performance.
Capacitive deionization (CDI) is considered as a simple, robust, and environmentally favorable technology for water treatment. High performance electrode materials beyond commercial activated carbons (AC) should be developed for the practical application of CDI. Herein, we demonstrate hierarchically open-porous nitrogen-incorporated activated nanoporous carbon polyhedron (A-NCP) derived from metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for high performance CDI electrodes. Owing to the 3D morphology with open nanoporous surface, macroporous channels by interlinked polyhedron particles, and electric conductivity by doped nitrogen, A-NCP delivers a high desalination capacity of 24.4 mg/g with a low concentration of 100 mg/mL at 1.2 V, revealing faster kinetic performance than that of commercial AC in the batch-mode CDI. Varying operating conditions such as applied voltage, concentration, and feed rate of saline water in a single-pass experiment, high salt adsorption capacity and fast ion removal of A-NCP are obtained, achieving high position of CDI Ragone plot.
Carbazole‐ and triazine‐derived thermally activated delayed fluorescent (TADF) emitters, with three donor units and an even distribution of the highest occupied molecular orbital, achieve high ...external quantum efficiencies of above 25% in blue and green TADF devices.
High quantum efficiency above 18% and extended lifetime three times longer than that of phosphorescent organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs) are demonstrated in blue thermally activated delayed ...fluorescent OLEDs.
Hydantoin, imidazolidine-2,4-dione, is a non-aromatic five-membered heterocycle, which is considered a valuable, privileged scaffold in medicinal chemistry. The importance of the hydantoin scaffold ...in drug discovery has been reinforced by several medicines in clinical use, such as phenytoin, nitrofurantoin, and enzalutamide. Hydantoin has five potential substituent sites, including two hydrogen bond acceptors and two hydrogen bond donors. Two additional attractive features of hydantoin scaffolds are their synthetic feasibility for core scaffolds via established cyclization reactions and their ease of accepting various substituents. Because of these characteristics, many hydantoin derivatives with different substituents have been designed and synthesized and exhibit a broad spectrum of biological and pharmacological activities against, for example, cancers, microbial infections, metabolic diseases, and epilepsy. In this review, recent contributions of hydantoin, thiohydantoin, and selenohydantoin scaffolds to medicinal chemistry are described; some major compounds are presented to emphasize their importance, and their structure-activity relationships (SARs) are briefly addressed. Major discussions are devoted to the structural features or novelty of each scaffold and its SAR. The publications in this review encompass those from 2012 to 2018.
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•Recent applications of (thio)hydantoin scaffold in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery.•(Thio)hydantoins as useful scaffold in medicinal chemistry due to their synthetic feasibility and versatility of substituents.•Brief structure-activity relationship for each biological activity.
With increasing demand for portable, flexible, and even wearable electronic devices, flexible energy storage systems have received increasing attention as a key component in this emerging field. ...Among the options, supercapacitors, commonly referred to as ultracapacitors or electrochemical capacitors, are widely recognized as a potential energy storage system due to their high power, fast charge/discharge rate, long cycling life‐time, and low cost. To date, considerable effort has been dedicated to developing high‐performance flexible supercapacitors based on various electrode materials; including carbon nanomaterials (e.g., carbon nanotubes, graphene, porous carbon materials, carbon paper, and textile), conducting polymers (e.g., polyaniline, polypyrrole, polythiophene), and hybrid materials. A brief introduction to the field is provided and the state‐of‐the‐art is reviewed with special emphasis on electrode materials and device configurations.
Flexible electrochemical capacitors have been considered as one of the most promising candidates for lightweight, flexible, and wearable electronic devices in our society. The growing field of flexible electrochemical capacitors is reviewed with a focus on electrode materials and device configurations. In addition, the most promising advances and future challenges are identified.
The critical applications of vanadium in metallurgical field and the growth in commercialization of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) have led to the increased demand of vanadium. It is thus ...important to ensure the sustainability of vanadium production. Vanadium bearing slags, the solid byproducts in iron- and steel-making plants, are the principal source of vanadium production, accounting for more than 69% of total vanadium in terms ofthe raw material types. Academic researches and engineering investigations have been addressed to develop such metallurgical processes for treating the vanadium bearing slags. This article presents a comprehensive review on the metallurgical treatments of vanadium bearing slags. The composition and phase/mineralogical characterization of vanadium bearing slags from various sources are given. Literature review shows that the vanadium bearing slags have been traditionally treated through the roasting-assisted leaching with the recent efforts of integrating the state-of-the arts technologies in extractive metallurgy and developing direct leaching methodologies. Some promising methods are worth discussing and quite encouraging, and expected to be the future focuses of this area. Discussion also highlights the separation of vanadium from silica, phosphorus and chromium as the major interfering elements/metal in the leach solutions of vanadium slags. Recommendation is made for taking up future works in order to develop a sustainable metallurgical process for vanadium bearing slag.
The fabrication and design principles for using silver‐nanowire (AgNW) networks as transparent electrodes for flexible film heaters are described. For best practice, AgNWs are synthesized with a ...small diameter and network structures of the AgNW films are optimized, demonstrating a favorably low surface resistivity in transparent layouts with a high figure‐of‐merit value. To explore their potential in transparent electrodes, a transparent film heater is constructed based on uniformly interconnected AgNW networks, which yields an effective and rapid heating of the film at low input voltages. In addition, the AgNW‐based film heater is capable of accommodating a large amount of compressive or tensile strains in a completely reversible fashion, thereby yielding an excellent mechanical flexibility. The AgNW networks demonstrated here possess attractive features for both conventional and emerging applications of transparent flexible electrodes.
A scalable and facile method of preparing highly transparent and flexible electrodes for film heaters based on solution‐ processed silver‐nanowire (AgNW) networks is presented. By optimizing the network structure of AgNWs, highly transparent and conductive AgNW films are demonstrated, which can yield the effective and rapid heating of the film at low input voltages.
This study aimed to assess the immediate stress and psychological impact experienced by healthcare workers and other personnel during the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
The sample consisted ...of 2554 hospital workers (i.e., physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, and auxiliary staff members) who were working in Yeungnam University Hospital in Daegu, South Korea. The Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) was administered to the hospital workers twice over a 2 week interval. A high-risk group, identified on the basic of first total IES-R, was assessed further with the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) and the Clinical Global Impressions-Severity (CGIS) scale and was offered periodic psychiatric consultations on a telephone.
The participating nurses and auxiliary staff members had significantly higher IES-R scores (p < 0.01) than the physicians. During the second evaluation, the IES-R scores of the high-risk participants had decreased by 13.67 ± 16.15 points (p < 0.01), and their CGI-S scores had decreased by 1.00 ± 0.74 points (p < 0.01). The psychological symptoms of the high-risk group who received telephone-based psychiatric consultation showed improvement after 2 weeks.
The present findings suggest that hospital workers experience high levels of emotional stress during a pandemic. In particular, the present findings underscore the need to provide more information and support to nurses and other administrative workers. There is a need for greater awareness about the importance of mental health care among hospital workers, and rapid and ongoing psychiatric interventions should be provided to workers during the pandemic period.
•The healthcare workers reported experiencing high levels of psychological stress during the pandemic period.•Higher levels of stress were reported by the nonmedical staff workers than by the physicians.•These findings underscore the need to provide sufficient information and support to nurses, other staff members.•Psychiatrists will play an important role in implementing rapid and effective psychiatric interventions during a pandemic.
Inflammatory bowel disease is known as the most chronic inflammatory disorder in colon, which subsequently progresses to intestinal obstruction and fistula formation. Many studies to date for the ...treatment of IBD have been focused on inflammation. However, most of the anti-inflammatory agents do not have anti-fibrotic effects and could not relieve intestinal stricture in IBD patients. Because preventing or reversing intestinal fibrosis in IBD is a major therapeutic target, we analyzed the papers focusing on TGF-β signaling in intestinal fibrosis. TGF-β is a good candidate to treat the intestinal fibrosis in IBD which involves TGF-β signaling pathway, EMT, EndMT, ECM, and other regulators. Understanding the mechanism involved in TGF-β signaling will contribute to the treatment and diagnosis of intestinal fibrosis occurring in IBD as well as the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis.
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