Objective
To assess the efficacy of intensive acupuncture (3 times weekly for 8 weeks) versus sham acupuncture for knee osteoarthritis (OA).
Methods
In this multicenter, randomized, sham‐controlled ...trial, patients with knee OA were randomly assigned to receive electroacupuncture (EA), manual acupuncture (MA), or sham acupuncture (SA) 3 times weekly for 8 weeks. Participants, outcome assessors, and statisticians were blinded with regard to treatment group assignment. The primary outcome measure was response rate, which is the proportion of participants who simultaneously achieved minimal clinically important improvement in pain and function by week 8. The primary analysis was conducted using a Z test for proportions in the modified intent‐to‐treat population, which included all randomized participants who had ≥1 post‐baseline measurement.
Results
Of the 480 participants recruited in the trial, 442 were evaluated for efficacy. The response rates at week 8 were 60.3% (91 of 151), 58.6% (85 of 145), and 47.3% (69 of 146) in the EA, MA, and SA groups, respectively. The between‐group differences were 13.0% (97.5% confidence interval 97.5% CI 0.2%, 25.9%; P = 0.0234) for EA versus SA and 11.3% (97.5% CI −1.6%, 24.4%; P = 0.0507) for MA versus SA. The response rates in the EA and MA groups were both significantly higher than those in the SA group at weeks 16 and 26.
Conclusion
Among patients with knee OA, intensive EA resulted in less pain and better function at week 8, compared with SA, and these effects persisted though week 26. Intensive MA had no benefit for knee OA at week 8, although it showed benefits during follow‐up.
The flexibility in structural design of organic semiconductors endows organic solar cells (OSCs) not only great function-tunabilities, but also high potential toward practical application. In this ...work, simple non-fused-ring electron acceptors are developed through two-step synthesis from single aromatic units for constructing efficient OSCs. With the assistance of non-covalent interactions, these rotatable non-fused acceptors (in solution) allow transiting into planar and stackable conformation in condensed solid, promoting acceptors not only feasible solution-processability, but also excellent film characteristics. As results, decent power conversion efficiencies of 10.27% and 13.97% can be achieved in single and tandem OSCs consisting of simple solution-cast blends, in which the fully unfused acceptors exhibit exceptionally low synthetic complexity index. In addition, the unfused acceptor and its based OSCs exhibit promising stabilities under continuous illumination. Overall, this work reveals valuable insights on the structural design of simple and effective electron acceptors with great practical perspectives.
Constrained multiobjective optimization problems (CMOPs) are frequently encountered in real-world applications, which usually involve constraints in both the decision and objective spaces. However, ...current artificial CMOPs never consider constraints in the decision space (i.e., decision constraints) and constraints in the objective space (i.e., objective constraints) at the same time. As a result, they have a limited capability to simulate practical scenes. To remedy this issue, a set of CMOPs, named DOC, is constructed in this paper. It is the first attempt to consider both the decision and objective constraints simultaneously in the design of artificial CMOPs. Specifically, in DOC, various decision constraints (e.g., inequality constraints, equality constraints, linear constraints, and nonlinear constraints) are collected from real-world applications, thus making the feasible region in the decision space have different properties (e.g., nonlinear, extremely small, and multimodal). On the other hand, some simple and controllable objective constraints are devised to reduce the feasible region in the objective space and to make the Pareto front have diverse characteristics (e.g., continuous, discrete, mixed, and degenerate). As a whole, DOC poses a great challenge for a constrained multiobjective evolutionary algorithm (CMOEA) to obtain a set of well-distributed and well-converged feasible solutions. In order to enhance current CMOEAs' performance on DOC, a simple and efficient two-phase framework, named ToP, is proposed in this paper. In ToP, the first phase is implemented to find the promising feasible area by transforming a CMOP into a constrained single-objective optimization problem. Then in the second phase, a specific CMOEA is executed to obtain the final solutions. ToP is applied to four state-of-the-art CMOEAs, and the experimental results suggest that it is quite effective.
Despite the remarkable progress achieved in recent years, organic photovoltaics (OPVs) still need work to approach the delicate balance between efficiency, stability, and cost. Herein, two fully ...non‐fused electron acceptors, PTB4F and PTB4Cl, are developed via a two‐step synthesis from single aromatic units. The introduction of a two‐dimensional chain and halogenated terminals for these non‐fused acceptors plays a synergistic role in optimizing their solid stacking and orientation, thus promoting an elongated exciton lifetime and fast charge‐transfer rate in bulk heterojunction blends. As a result, PTB4Cl, upon blending with PBDB‐TF polymer, has enabled single‐junction OPVs with power conversion efficiencies of 12.76 %, representing the highest values among the reported fully unfused electron acceptors so far.
Two new non‐fused‐ring acceptors (NFRAs), denoted as PTB4F and PTB4Cl, are developed via a two‐step synthesis from simple phenyl and thiophene units. The corresponding organic photovoltaics based on PTB4Cl:PBDB‐TF have impressively achieved a power conversion efficiency of 12.76 %, representing the highest value among the fully non‐fused NFRAs reported so far.
2D layered materials have sparked great interest from the perspective of basic physics and applied science in the past few years. Extraordinarily, many novel stacked structures that bring versatile ...properties and applications can be artificially assembled, as exemplified by vertical van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures, twisted multilayer 2D materials, hybrid dimensional structures, etc. Compared with the ordinary synthesis process, the stacking technique is a powerful strategy to achieve high‐quality and freely controlled 2D material stacked structures with atomic accuracy. This review highlights the most advanced stacking techniques involving the preparation, transfer, and stacking of high‐quality single crystal 2D materials. Apart from the 2D–2D stacked structures, 2D–0D, 2D–1D, and 2D–3D structures offer a prospective platform for the increasing application of 2D materials. The assembly strategy and physical properties of these stacked structures strongly depend on the factors in the stacking process, including the surface quality, angle control, and sample size. In addition, comparative analysis tables on the techniques involved are also available. The summary of these strategies and techniques will hopefully provide a valuable reference for relevant work.
2D stacked structures are being rapidly developed. However, the assembly and integration techniques of 2D material‐based devices are still subject to many restrictions, seriously hindering the design and development of new functional devices. As one of the most important aspects, 2D material stacking techniques are systematically summarized and analyzed in this review.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, non-coding RNAs (~22 nt) that play important roles in the pathogenesis of human diseases by negatively regulating gene expression. Although miR-196a has been implicated ...in several other cancers, its role in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is unknown. The aim of the present study was to examine the expression pattern of miR-196a in NSCLC and its clinical significance, as well as its biological role in tumor progression.
Expression of miR-196a was analyzed in 34 NSCLC tissues and five NSCLC cell lines by quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The effect of DNA methylation on miR-196a expression was investigated by 5-aza-2-deoxy-cytidine treatment and bisulfite sequencing. The effect of miR-196a on proliferation was evaluated by MTT and colony formation assays, and cell migration and invasion were evaluated by transwell assays. Analysis of target protein expression was determined by western blotting. Luciferase reporter plasmids were constructed to confirm the action of miR-196a on downstream target genes, including HOXA5. Differences between the results were tested for significance using Student's t-test (two-tailed).
miR-196a was highly expressed both in NSCLC samples and cell lines compared with their corresponding normal counterparts, and the expression of miR-196a may be affected by DNA demethylation. Higher expression of miR-196a in NSCLC tissues was associated with a higher clinical stage, and also correlated with NSCLC lymph-node metastasis. In vitro functional assays demonstrated that modulation of miR-196a expression affected NSCLC cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Our analysis showed that miR-196a suppressed the expression of HOXA5 both at the mRNA and protein levels, and luciferase assays confirmed that miR-196a directly bound to the 3'untranslated region of HOXA5. Knockdown of HOXA5 expression in A549 cells using RNAi was shown to promote NSCLC cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Finally, we observed an inverse correlation between HOXA5 and miR-196a expression in NSCLC tissues.
Our findings indicate that miR-196a is significantly up-regulated in NSCLC tissues, and regulates NSCLC cell proliferation, migration and invasion, partially via the down-regulation of HOXA5. Thus, miR-196a may represent a potential therapeutic target for NSCLC intervention.
Although ether‐based electrolytes have been extensively applied in anode evaluation of batteries, anodic instability arising from solvent oxidability is always a tremendous obstacle to matching with ...high‐voltage cathodes. Herein, by rational design for solvation configuration, the fully coordinated ether‐based electrolyte with strong resistance against oxidation is reported, which remains anodically stable with high‐voltage Na3V2(PO4)2O2F (NVPF) cathode under 4.5 V (versus Na+/Na) protected by an effective interphase. The assembled graphite//NVPF full cells display superior rate performance and unprecedented cycling stability. Beyond that, the constructed full cells coupling the high‐voltage NVPF cathode with hard carbon anode exhibit outstanding electrochemical performances in terms of high average output voltage up to 3.72 V, long‐term cycle life (such as 95 % capacity retention after 700 cycles) and high energy density (247 Wh kg−1). In short, the optimized ether‐based electrolyte enriches systematic options, the ability to maintain oxidative stability and compatibility with various anodes, exhibiting attractive prospects for application.
By rational design of the solvation configuration, a cation–solvent fully coordinated ether‐based electrolyte with strong oxidation resistance up to 4.5 V (versus Na+/Na) was developed and applied in graphite//NVPF and LHC//NVPF full cells which showed superior rate performance and unprecedented cycling stability.
Urea electrolysis is a prospective technology for simultaneous H2 production and nitrogen suppression in the process of water being used for energy production. Its sustainability is currently founded ...on innocuous N2 products; however, we discovered that prevalent nickel‐based catalysts could generally over‐oxidize urea into NO2− products with ≈80 % Faradaic efficiencies, posing potential secondary hazards to the environment. Trace amounts of over‐oxidized NO3− and N2O were also detected. Using 15N isotopes and urea analogues, we derived a nitrogen‐fate network involving a NO2−‐formation pathway via OH−‐assisted C−N cleavage and two N2‐formation pathways via intra‐ and intermolecular coupling. DFT calculations confirmed that C−N cleavage is energetically more favorable. Inspired by the mechanism, a polyaniline‐coating strategy was developed to locally enrich urea for increasing N2 production by a factor of two. These findings provide complementary insights into the nitrogen fate in water–energy nexus systems.
A systematic investigation of the nitrogen network during the nickel‐catalyzed urea oxidation reaction was carefully performed. It revealed a dominant NO2− production rather than innocuous N2 present on various nickel‐based catalysts. Accordingly, polymer‐surface modification was put forward to increase the efficiency of harmless N2 products.
Photo-degradation of organic semiconductors remains as an obstacle preventing their durable practice in optoelectronics. Herein, we disclose that volume-conserving photoisomerization of a unique ...series of acceptor-donor-acceptor (A-D-A) non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) acts as a surrogate towards their subsequent photochemical reaction. Among A-D-A NFAs with fused, semi-fused and non-fused backbones, fully non-fused PTIC, representing one of rare existing samples, exhibits not only excellent photochemical tolerance in aerobic condition, but also efficient performance in solar cells. Along with a series of in-depth investigations, we identify that the structural confinement to inhibit photoisomerization of these unique A-D-A NFAs from molecular level to macroscopic condensed solid helps enhancing the photochemical stabilities of molecules, as well as the corresponding OSCs. Although other reasons associating with the photostabilities of molecules and devices should not excluded, we believe this work provides helpful structure-property information toward new design of stable and efficient photovoltaic molecules and solar cells.
In total, 0.5 wt% CuZnAl memory particles with the diameters (2–6 μm) were added into Sn–58Bi solder in order to enhance the properties of solder joints in electronic packaging. The interface ...reaction and the growth kinetics of intermetallic compounds at Sn–58Bi/Cu interface and Sn–58Bi–0.5CuZnAl/Cu interface were studied systematically at 250 °C, 230 °C and 210 °C, the results indicate that the growth rate of intermetallic compounds (IMC) at both interfaces at 250 °C was higher than that at 230 °C, the addition of CuZnAl memory particles can reduce the diffusion coefficient of interfacial IMC, and however, at 210 °C the inhibition effect of CuZnAl particles was so small. Based on the transient liquid phase bonding, it is demonstrated that Cu/Sn–58Bi–0.5CuZnAl/Cu-bonded joints can achieve the chip stacking in 3D packaging with 10 μm thickness with obvious superiority.
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