Acute kidney injury (AKI) can progress to renal fibrosis and chronic kidney disease (CKD), which reduces quality of life and increases the economic burden on patients. However, the molecular ...mechanisms underlying renal fibrosis following AKI remain unclear. This study tested the hypothesis that the Krüppel-like factor 4 (KLF4)/miR-101/Collagen alpha-1X (COL10A1) axis could inhibit epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and renal fibrosis after AKI in a mouse model of ischemia-reperfusion (I/R)-induced renal fibrosis and HK-2 cells by gene silencing, overexpression, immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry, real-time quantitative PCR, Western blotting, dual-luciferase reporter assay, fluorescence
hybridization (FISH) and ELISA. Compared with the Sham group, I/R induced renal tubular and glomerular injury and fibrosis, and increased the levels of BUN, serum Scr and neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), Col10a1 and Vimentin expression, but decreased E-cadherin expression in the kidney tissues of mice at 42 days post-I/R. Similarly, hypoxia promoted fibroblastic morphological changes in HK-2 cells and enhanced NGAL, COL10A1, Vimentin, and α-SMA expression, but reduced E-cadherin expression in HK-2 cells. These pathological changes were significantly mitigated in COL10A1-silenced renal tissues and HK-2 cells. KLF4 induces miR-101 transcription. More importantly, hypoxia upregulated Vimentin and COL10A1 expression, but decreased miR-101, KLF4, and E-cadherin expression in HK-2 cells. These hypoxic effects were significantly mitigated or abrogated by KLF4 over-expression in the HK-2 cells. Our data indicate that KLF4 up-regulates miR-101 expression, leading to the downregulation of COL10A1 expression, inhibition of EMT and renal fibrosis during the pathogenic process of I/R-related renal fibrosis.
The PandaX-4T experiment, a 4-ton scale dark matter direct detection experiment, is being planned at the China Jinping Un- derground Laboratory. In this paper we present a simulation study of the ...expected background in this experiment. In a 2.8-ton fiducial mass and the signal region between 1–10 keV electron equivalent energy, the total electron recoil background is found to be 4:9 × 10
−5
kg
−1
d
−1
keV
−1
. The nuclear recoil background in the same region is 2:8 × 10
−7
kg
−1
d
−1
keV
−1
. With an exposure of 5.6 ton-years, the sensitivity of PandaX-4T could reach a minimum spin-independent dark matter-nucleon cross section of 6 × 10
−48
cm
2
at a dark matter mass of 40 GeV/
c
2
.
Aiming at the distributed resources of electric vehicles with photovoltaics (PVs) on the user side, a trading mode of surplus energy sharing for electric vehicles based on the user-side PVs is ...proposed by utilizing the bidirectional mobility of information and energy. Power transfer can be implemented between different electric vehicle users through vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology with a reasonable distribution of benefits taken into account. First, the operational framework of electric energy trading is presented, and the transmission architecture of each body of interest in the system is analyzed. Second, the portraits of EV users’ charging behaviors are established considering their different charging habits, and electric vehicle users are divided into electricity buyers and sellers in each trading time period. An electricity transaction model based on “multi-seller–multi-buyer” is established, and all electricity transactions are realized through blockchain-based decentralized technology. Finally, the benefit to each interest group is maximized using the improved Northern Goshawk Optimization (NGO) algorithm. Simulation results of a sample system indicate that the new power trading mode proposed in this study could lead to reasonable reuse of the electric energy of private electric vehicles and can achieve a win–win situation for all stakeholders.
Various sized ZnS nanocrystals were prepared by treatment under H(2)S atmosphere. Resonance Raman spectra indicate that the electron-phonon coupling increases with increasing the size of ZnS. Surface ...and interfacial defects are formed during the treatment processes. Blue, green and orange emissions are observed for these ZnS. The blue emission (430 nm) from ZnS without treatment is attributed to surface states. ZnS sintered at 873 K displays orange luminescence (620 nm) while ZnS treated at 1173 K shows green emission (515 nm). The green luminescence is assigned to the electron transfer from sulfur vacancies to interstitial sulfur states, and the orange emission is caused by the recombination between interstitial zinc states and zinc vacancies. The lifetimes of the orange emission are much slower than that of the green luminescence and sensitively dependent on the treatment temperature. Controlling defect formation makes ZnS a potential material for photoelectrical applications.
Therapeutic interventions of hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury to attenuate liver dysfunction or multiple organ failure following liver surgery and transplantation remain limited. Here we present ...an innovative strategy by integrating a platinum nanoantioxidant and inducible nitric oxide synthase into the zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 based hybrid nanoreactor for effective prevention of ischemia-reperfusion injury. We show that platinum nanoantioxidant can scavenge excessive reactive oxygen species at the injury site and meanwhile generate oxygen for subsequent synthesis of nitric oxide under the catalysis of nitric oxide synthase. We find that such cascade reaction successfully achieves dual protection for the liver through reactive oxygen species clearance and nitric oxide regulation, enabling reduction of oxidative stress, inhibition of macrophage activation and neutrophil recruitment, and ensuring suppression of proinflammatory cytokines. The current work establishes a proof of concept of multifunctional nanotherapeutics against ischemia-reperfusion injury, which may provide a promising intervention solution in clinical use.
Customized electrode materials with good temperature adaptability and high‐rate capability are critical to the development of wide‐temperature power sources. Herein, high‐quality TiC nanowires are ...uniformly grown on flexible carbon cloth as free‐standing electric‐double‐layer supercapacitor electrode. The TiC nanowires, 20–40 nm wide and 3–6 µm long, are single‐crystalline and highly conductive that is close to typical metal. Symmetric supercapacitors are constructed with ionic liquid electrolyte and TiC nanowires electrodes as wide‐temperature and long‐cycle stable power source. Ultrastable high‐rate cycling life of TiC nanowire arrays electrodes is demonstrated with capacitance retention of 96.8% at 60 °C (≈440 F g−1), 99% at 25 °C (≈400 F g−1), and 98% at −25 °C (≈240 F g−1) after 50 000 cycles at 10 A g−1. Moreover, due to high electrical conductivity, the TiC nanowire arrays show ultrafast energy release with a fast response time constant of ≈0.7 ms. The results demonstrate the viability of metal carbide nanostructures as wide‐temperature, robust electrode materials for high‐rate and ultrastable supercapacitors.
Dense arrays of TiC nanowires are grown by one‐step chemical vapor deposition method on carbon cloth. These nanowires are highly conductive and chemically stable. The electrodes show ultrastable and high‐rate electric double layer capacitor supercapacitive property at different temperatures from −25 to 60 °C.
Abstract
Ferroelectrics are considered excellent photocatalytic candidates for solar fuel production because of the unidirectional charge separation and above-gap photovoltage. Nevertheless, the ...performance of ferroelectric photocatalysts is often moderate. A few studies showed that these types of photocatalysts could achieve overall water splitting. This paper proposes an approach to fabricating interfacial charge-collecting nanostructures on positive and negative domains of ferroelectric, enabling water splitting in ferroelectric photocatalysts. The present study observes efficient accumulations of photogenerated electrons and holes within their thermalization length (~50 nm) around Au nanoparticles located in the positive and negative domains of a BaTiO
3
single crystal. Photocatalytic overall water splitting is observed on a ferroelectric BaTiO
3
single crystal after assembling oxidation and reduction cocatalysts on the positively and negatively charged Au nanoparticles, respectively. The fabrication of bipolar charge-collecting structures on ferroelectrics to achieve overall water splitting offers a way to utilize the energetic photogenerated charges in solar energy conversion.
The half-bridge-based modular multilevel converter (MMC) has emerged as the favored converter topology for voltage-source HVDC applications. The submodules within the converter can be constructed ...with either individual insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules or with series-connected IGBTs, which allows for different redundancy strategies to be employed. The main contribution of this paper is that an analytical method was proposed to analyze the reliability of MMCs with the consideration of submodule arrangements and redundancy strategies. Based on the analytical method, the relative merits of two approaches to adding redundancy, and variants created by varying the submodule voltage, are assessed in terms of overall converter reliability. Case studies were conducted to compare the reliability characteristics of converters constructed using the two submodule topologies. It is found that reliability of the MMC with series-connected IGBTs is higher for the first few years but then decreases rapidly. By assigning a reduced nominal voltage to the series valve submodule upon IGBT module failure, the need to install redundant submodules is greatly reduced.
Exploring advanced battery materials with fast charging/discharging capability is of great significance to the development of modern electric transportation. Herein we report a powerful synergistic ...engineering of carbon and deficiency to construct high-quality three/two-dimensional cross-linked Ti
Nb
O
@C composites at primary grain level with conformal and thickness-adjustable boundary carbon. Such exquisite boundary architecture is demonstrated to be capable of regulating the mechanical stress and concentration of oxygen deficiency for desired performance. Consequently, significantly improved electronic conductivity and enlarged lithium ion diffusion path, shortened activation process and better structural stability are realized in the designed Ti
Nb
O
@C composites. The optimized Ti
Nb
O
@C composite electrode shows fast charging/discharging capability with a high capacity of 197 mA h g
at 20 C (∼3 min) and excellent long-term durability with 98.7% electron and Li capacity retention over 500 cycles. Most importantly, the greatest applicability of our approach has been demonstrated by various other metal oxides, with tunable morphology, structure and composition.
Transient absorption spectroscopy on subpicosecond to second time scales is used to investigate photogenerated charge carrier recombination in Si-doped nanostructured hematite (α-Fe2O3) photoanodes ...as a function of applied bias. For unbiased hematite, this recombination exhibits a 50% decay time of ∼6 ps, ∼103 times faster than that of TiO2 under comparable conditions. Anodic bias significantly retards hematite recombination dynamics, and causes the appearance of electron trapping on ps−μs time scales. These ultrafast recombination dynamics, their retardation by applied bias, and the associated electron trapping are discussed in terms of their implications for efficient water oxidation.
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