Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as one of the most fascinating libraries of porous materials. In spite of their myriad merits, practical application of most MOFs is restricted due to ...their high preparation cost because of the complicated organic ligands involved. To address this limitation, we propose to use simple and cheap organic precursors to synthesize MOFs with complicated ligands
"one-pot"
reactions of these precursors along with the formation of new MOFs. In this work, we have carefully screened several organic reactions, through which target ligands were generated
from easily available reactants during the MOF construction. With this "one-pot" approach, the fabrication of a series of novel MOFs by integrating the organic covalent bond and the coordinate bond has thus been realized through the judicious selection of organic reactions, which effectively simplifies the MOF synthesis process and thus reduces the cost.
Sarcopenia, a newly recognized geriatric syndrome, is characterized by age-related decline of skeletal muscle plus low muscle strength and/or physical performance. Previous studies have confirmed the ...association of sarcopenia and adverse health outcomes, such as falls, disability, hospital admission, long term care placement, poorer quality of life, and mortality, which denotes the importance of sarcopenia in the health care for older people. Despite the clinical significance of sarcopenia, the operational definition of sarcopenia and standardized intervention programs are still lacking. It is generally agreed by the different working groups for sarcopenia in the world that sarcopenia should be defined through a combined approach of muscle mass and muscle quality, however, selecting appropriate diagnostic cutoff values for all the measurements in Asian populations is challenging. Asia is a rapidly aging region with a huge population, so the impact of sarcopenia to this region is estimated to be huge as well. Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS) aimed to promote sarcopenia research in Asia, and we collected the best available evidences of sarcopenia researches from Asian countries to establish the consensus for sarcopenia diagnosis. AWGS has agreed with the previous reports that sarcopenia should be described as low muscle mass plus low muscle strength and/or low physical performance, and we also recommend outcome indicators for further researches, as well as the conditions that sarcopenia should be assessed. In addition to sarcopenia screening for community-dwelling older people, AWGS recommends sarcopenia assessment in certain clinical conditions and healthcare settings to facilitate implementing sarcopenia in clinical practice. Moreover, we also recommend cutoff values for muscle mass measurements (7.0 kg/m(2) for men and 5.4 kg/m(2) for women by using dual X-ray absorptiometry, and 7.0 kg/m(2) for men and 5.7 kg/m(2) for women by using bioimpedance analysis), handgrip strength (<26 kg for men and <18 kg for women), and usual gait speed (<0.8 m/s). However, a number of challenges remained to be solved in the future. Asia is made up of a great number of ethnicities. The majority of currently available studies have been published from eastern Asia, therefore, more studies of sarcopenia in south, southeastern, and western Asia should be promoted. On the other hand, most Asian studies have been conducted in a cross-sectional design and few longitudinal studies have not necessarily collected the commonly used outcome indicators as other reports from Western countries. Nevertheless, the AWGS consensus report is believed to promote more Asian sarcopenia research, and most important of all, to focus on sarcopenia intervention studies and the implementation of sarcopenia in clinical practice to improve health care outcomes of older people in the communities and the healthcare settings in Asia.
Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is conventionally confirmed with oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) in 24 to 28 weeks of gestation, but it is still uncertain whether it can be predicted with ...secondary use of electronic health records (EHRs) in early pregnancy. To this purpose, the cost-sensitive hybrid model (CSHM) and five conventional machine learning methods are used to construct the predictive models, capturing the future risks of GDM in the temporally aggregated EHRs. The experimental data sources from a nested case-control study cohort, containing 33,935 gestational women in West China Second Hospital. After data cleaning, 4,378 cases and 50 attributes are stored and collected for the data set. Through selecting the most feasible method, the cost parameter of CSHM is adapted to deal with imbalance of the dataset. In the experiment, 3940 samples are used for training and the rest 438 samples for testing. Although the accuracy of positive samples is barely acceptable (62.16%), the results suggest that the vast majority (98.4%) of those predicted positive instances are real positives. To our knowledge, this is the first study to apply machine learning models with EHRs to predict GDM, which will facilitate personalized medicine in maternal health management in the future.
In this work, the effect of core size on the fluorescence emission properties of CdTe@CdS core@shell quantum dots was investigated under the condition of different shell thickness and pH values. Both ...CdTe and CdTe@CdS core@shell QDs were synthesized in aqueous phase by a simple method, whose optical features were characterized by absorption and fluorescence spectra. High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) were utilized to study the structure and composition of the as-prepared QDs. We can conclude that a smaller initial core exhibits a greater potential for optimizing both fluorescence intensity enhancement and red shift. What's more, there is an optimal shell thickness for the strongest fluorescence intensity while a thicker shell contributes to a larger fluorescence red shift. The optimal pH value is 10.5 for the fluorescence intensity enhancement of the core@shell QDs and a higher pH value is an advantage to expedite the growth rate of CdS shell.
When an equiatomic multi-component alloy is quenched from its molten state down to room temperature, either a solid solution crystalline alloy or a metallic glass is formed. The former is called a ...high-entropy alloy, whereas the latter is referred as a high-entropy metallic glass (HE-MG). In such multicomponent alloys, thermodynamic parameters, e.g., the mixing entropy, the mixing enthalpy and other parameters such as atomic size mismatch, determine the resulting phases. In this work, we studied the phase selection rule applied to the equiatomic multicomponent Ti
20
Zr
20
Hf
20
Cu
20
Ni
20
HE-MG from a structural perspective, by analyzing the short-to-medium-range orders. It was found that the short-range order in this MG resembles a body-centered cube structure, while the medium-range order is comprised of different orders. The experimental data suggest that different packing schemes, at the medium-range scale, play a critical role in the phase selection rule with regard to an amorphous phase or solid solution.
Graphical abstract
A systematic microstructure-oriented magnetic property investigation for Al/CoCrFeNi nanocrystalline high-entropy alloys composite (nc-HEAC) is presented. In the initial state, the Al/CoCrFeNi ...nc-HEAC is composed of face-centered cubic (FCC)-Al, FCC-CoCrFeNi and hexagonal close-packed (HCP)-CoNi phases. High energy synchrotron radiation X-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy were used to reveal the relationship between microstructure evolution and magnetic mechanism of Al/CoCrFeNi nc-HEAC during heat treatment. At low-temperature annealing stage, the magnetic properties are mainly contributed by the HCP-CoNi phase. With the increase of temperature, the diffusion-induced phase transition process including the transformation of AlCoCrFeNi HEA from FCC to BCC structure and the growth of B2 phase plays a dominant role in the magnetic properties. It was found that the magnetic properties can be effectively regulated through the control of the thermal diffusion process. The nano dual-phase thermal diffusion-induced phase transition behavior of nanocomposites prepared based on laser-IGC technology provides guidance for the diffusion process and microstructure evolution of two phases in composites.
Graphical abstract
Since glioblastomas (GBMs) are radioresistant malignancies and most GBM recurrences occur in radiotherapy, increasing the effectiveness of radiotherapy by gene-silencing has recently attracted ...attention. However, the difficulty in precisely tuning the composition and RNA loading in nanoparticles leads to batch-to-batch variations of the RNA therapeutics, thus significantly restricting their clinical translation. Here, we bioengineer bacteriophage Qβ particles with a designed broccoli light-up three-way junction (b-3WJ) RNA scaffold (contains two siRNA/miRNA sequences and one light-up aptamer) packaging for the silencing of genes in radioresistant GBM cells. The
results demonstrate that the cleavage of
designed b-3WJ RNA by Dicer enzyme can be easily monitored in real-time using fluorescence microscopy, and the TrQβ@b-3WJ
successfully knocks down EGFR and IKKα simultaneously and thereby inactivates NF-κB signaling to inhibit DNA repair. Delivery of TrQβ@b-3WJ
through convection-enhanced delivery (CED) infusion followed by 2Gy X-ray irradiation demonstrated that the median survival was prolonged to over 60 days compared with the 2Gy X-ray irradiated group (median survival: 31 days). Altogether, the results of this study could be critical for the design of RNAi-based genetic therapeutics, and CED infusion serves as a powerful delivery system for promoting radiotherapy against GBMs without evidence of systemic toxicity.
Cadmium-caused environmental pollution and diseases have always been worldwide problems. Thus it is extremely urgent to establish a cheap, rapid, simple and selective detection method for trace ...cadmium in drinking water. In this study, a fluorescence “turn-on” method based on ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA)-etched CdTe@CdS quantum dots (QDs) was designed to detect Cd2+. High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were utilized for chemical and structural characterization of the as-prepared QDs. Based on chemical etching of EDTA on the surface of CdTe@CdS QDs, specific Cd2+ recognition sites were produced, and then results in fluorescence quenching. The introduction of Cd2+ could identify these sites and restore the fluorescence of the EDTA-QDs system. Under the optimum conditions, the nanoprobe shows a linear response range from 0.05 to 9 μM with a very low detection limit of 0.032 μM. In addition, the reported fluorescence probe in this work displays a good selectivity for trace Cd2+ over other metal ions and an admirable practicability in real water samples.
A fluorescence turn-on sensing method for trace cadmium in water phase was proposed. The detection is based on the fluorescence recovering of EDTA-etched CdTe@CdS QDs by adding Cd2+. An extremely low detection limit of 0.032 μM (3.60 μg/L) was obtained, which is lower than the permissible level (5 ppb) of Cd2+ in drinking water stipulated by EPA. Display omitted
•A fluorescence turn-on sensing method for trace cadmium in water phase was proposed.•The sensor was based on the fluorescence recovering of EDTA-etched CdTe@CdS QDs by adding Cd2+.•An extremely low detection limit of 0.032 μM (3.60 μg/L) was obtained.•The proposed sensor is reliable and practicability in real sample detection.
This paper describes a patent-pending passive offline light-emitting diode (LED) driver that has no controlled semiconductor switches, electrolytic capacitors, auxiliary power supply, and control ...board. It can provide a fairly smooth current from the ac mains to drive LED strings. The new circuit has the advantages of high input power factor, high energy efficiency and luminous efficacy, long lifetime, stable luminous output, and high robustness against extreme weather conditions. In addition, over 90% of the driver material is recyclable, leading to reduction of electronic waste. It is particularly suitable public LED lighting systems, such as road lighting systems. Experimental results based on a 50-W system are included in the paper to confirm the validity of the proposal. Due to the circuit simplicity, an energy efficiency exceeding 93.6% has been achieved.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the clinical efficacy of five therapeutic strategies in patients with CSP.
A total of 135 CSP patients were included and divided into five groups based on the ...treatment they received, including transvaginal resection (Group A), laparoscopic resection (Group B), uterine arterial embolization (UAE) combined with hysteroscopic curettage (Group C), UAE combined with uterine curettage (Group D), and hysteroscopic curettage (Group E). To investigate the clinical efficacy of these strategies, intraoperative bleeding, serum β-hCG levels and recovery time, menstruation recovery time, hormone levels at 1 month after treatment.
Patients in group A had the lowest postoperative serum β-hCG levels, and the shortest recovery times of both serum β-hCG and menstruation, followed by patients in group B. Group C and D had small amount of blood loss. The hospital stays and costs were low in group E. In addition, the sex hormone levels showed no significant difference among the five groups.
Our results indicated that resection surgery and UAE have good curative effects, but high hospital costs in CSP treatment. The selection of an optimal treatment regimen for CSP should be carried out based on specific conditions of the patients.
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