Flexible electronic skins (e‐skins) play a very important role in the development of human–machine interaction and wearable devices. To fully mimic the functions of human skin, e‐skins should be able ...to perceive multiple external stimuli (such as temperature, touch, and friction) and be resistant to injury. However, both objectives are highly challenging. The fabrication of multifunctional e‐skins is difficult because of the complex lamination scheme and the integration of different sensors. The design of skin‐like materials is hindered by the trade‐off problem between flexibility, toughness, and self‐healing ability. Herein, flexible sodium methallyl sulfonate functionalized poly(thioctic acid) polymer chains are combined with rigid conductive polyaniline rods through ionic bonds to obtain a solvent‐free polymer conductive gel. The conductive gel has a modulus similar to that of skin, and shows good flexibility, puncture‐resistance, notch‐insensitivity, and fast self‐healing ability. Moreover, this conductive gel can convert changes in temperature and strain into electrical signal changes, thus leading to multifunctional sensing performance. Based on these superior properties, a flexible e‐skin sensor is prepared, demonstrating its great potential in the wearable field and physiological signal detection.
A new solvent‐free polymer conductive gel is obtained by combining flexible sulfonate‐containing poly(thioctic acid) polymer chains and rigid conductive polyaniline rods. The conductive gel shows good flexibility, puncture‐resistance, notch‐insensitivity, and fast self‐healing ability. Moreover, this conductive gel can convert changes in temperature and strain into electrical signal changes, and thus can be used for multifunctional electronic skin.
Objectives
To develop a new Chinese medicine (CM)-based drug and to evaluate its safety and effect for suppressing acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in COVID-19 patients.
Methods
A putative ...ARDS-suppressing drug Keguan-1 was first developed and then evaluated by a randomized, controlled two-arm trial. The two arms of the trial consist of a control therapy (alpha interferon inhalation, 50 µg twice daily; and lopinavir/ritonavir, 400 and 100 mg twice daily, respectively) and a testing therapy (control therapy plus Keguan-1 19.4 g twice daily) by random number table at 1:1 ratio with 24 cases each group. After 2-week treatment, adverse events, time to fever resolution, ARDS development, and lung injury on newly diagnosed COVID-19 patients were assessed.
Results
An analysis of the data from the first 30 participants showed that the control arm and the testing arm did not exhibit any significant differences in terms of adverse events. Based on this result, the study was expanded to include a total of 48 participants (24 cases each arm). The results show that compared with the control arm, the testing arm exhibited a significant improvement in time to fever resolution (
P
=0.035), and a significant reduction in the development of ARDS (
P
=0.048).
Conclusions
Keguan-1-based integrative therapy was safe and superior to the standard therapy in suppressing the development of ARDS in COVID-19 patients. (Trial registration No. NCT 04251871 at
www.clinicaltrials.gov
)
Extensive measurements made over the past two decades have indicated the widespread and frequent occurrence of gravity waves in the atmosphere of Mars. Gravity waves are able to significantly ...modify the atmospheric structure and potentially affect atmospheric escape. This study is devoted to examining the hot O escape variability on Mars in the presence of gravity waves with the aid of the Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin approximation and the multi collision model as well as the multi‐instrument MAVEN data set. Our calculations suggest that the hot O escape probability tends to be enhanced or suppressed in the presence of gravity waves near the Martian exobase and the impacts vary substantially with the ejection angle and nascent energy of hot O, and gravity wave characteristics. Further study indicates that although gravity waves play a negligible role in the averaged hot O escape probability, they are able to enhance hot O escape flux by 20% via altering the hot O production rate rather. Since gravity waves are omnipresent on any planetary body with a permanent atmosphere, they are expected to affect the non‐thermal escape on solar system and extrasolar bodies.
Key Points
We evaluate the impacts of gravity waves on the non‐thermal escape of oxygen on Mars for the first time
Gravity waves can alter local oxygen escape probabilities for some conditions yet have little effect for the average condition
Gravity waves are able to enhance oxygen by ∼20% primarily via enhancing hot oxygen production
The epigenetic reader BRD4 is involved in chromatin remodelling and transcriptional regulation, making it a promising therapeutic target. However, over the past decades, many BRD4 inhibitors that ...entered clinical trials were, in the main, unsatisfactory, due to some therapeutic limitations such as off‐target effects and drug resistance. Combining a BRD4 inhibitor with another drug was expected to be an ideal option to overcome these hurdles and to improve therapeutic outcomes. However, such combination therapy could trigger toxicity caused by drug‐drug interactions, complex pharmacokinetics, and additive effects. Recently, the application of dual‐target drugs targeting BRD4 and other kinases has become an attractive approach to remedy the defects of a single BRD4 inhibitor. This review focuses on recent advances in the discovery of dual BRD4‐kinase inhibitors, with an emphasis on their co‐crystal structures and structure‐activity relationships (SARs), as well as future perspectives in this field.
This review covers recent research progress in the discovery and development of dual BRD4‐kinase inhibitors, summarizing currently available co‐crystal structures to aid in subsequent design efforts. It also discusses the current challenges and future development direction in this new field. The development of dual BRD4‐kinase inhibitors provides more therapeutic options for future cancer treatment.
The association between subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) has been widely discussed. This study aimed to conduct an update and comprehensive meta-analysis to reveal the ...risk of MetS and its components in SCH. PubMed, Embase and ISI Web of Knowledge were searched to identify relevant studies through February 20th, 2020. Review Manager 5.3 and Stata 14.0 were used to conduct the meta-analysis. Both fixed-effects and random-effects models were used. In total, 18 articles (19 studies) incorporating 79,727 participants were included. The pooled OR for MetS comparing subjects with SCH with euthyroid subjects was 1.28 (95% CI: 1.19 to 1.39, p = 0.04, I2 = 40%). Subgroup analysis results showed significant associations of SCH and MetS in the adult subgroup (OR = 1.28, 95% CI: 1.18–1.40), Asian population subgroup (OR = 1.30, 95% CI: 1.19–1.42) and cross-sectional study design subgroup (OR = 1.31, 95% CI: 1.16–1.47). Significant associations of SCH and MetS also existed in all MetS definition criteria subgroups except the Chinese Diabetes Society (CDS) subgroup. SCH was correlated with MetS and was not affected by the subgroup analysis stratified by the proportion of females in the total population, the TSH cutoff value in SCH diagnostic criteria, or the adjustment for confounding factors. SCH was identified to be associated with an increased risk of obesity, hypertension, high triglyceride (TG) levels and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels. In conclusion, SCH is significantly associated with an increased risk of MetS and four out of five components of MetS.
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This review summarized recent research progresses on the in-situ synthesis of molecular magnetorefrigerant materials derived from organic ligands, metal ions and templates generated ...in-situ.
•In-situ synthetic strategy for the construction of molecular magnetorefrigerant materials has been reviewed.•Molecular magnetorefrigerant materials with ligands, metal ions and templates formed in-situ have been illustrated.•The influencing factors toward magnetocaloric effect of the molecular magnetorefrigerants are detail discussed.
Zero-dimensional cluster complexes and coordination polymers for magnetic refrigeration have attracted great interest in the last decade. In-situ synthesis is a widely-used method to assemble various molecular magnetorefrigerant materials derived from different types of ligands. This review focuses mainly on the synthesis, structure and magnetochemistry of molecular magnetorefrigerant materials via in-situ synthesis, with an emphasis on in-situ generation of ligands, metal ions and templates. The first section gives a brief discussion on molecular magnetorefrigerants and some important principles obtained from magneto–structural correlation. The in-situ synthetic strategy will also be referred to and elucidated in this part. The next three sections give overviews of the main results obtained by our group and other groups in recent years, which are, in-situ generated ligands, metal ions and templates in the synthesis of molecular magnetorefrigerant materials. Finally, the conclusions and perspectives of molecular magnetorefrigerant materials will be presented. Some of the trends could provide new insights for the further development of this promising area.
Summary
Increasing demand of electricity and severer concerns to environment call for green energy sources as well as efficient energy conversion systems. SCO2 power cycles integrated with ...concentrating solar power (CSP) are capable of enhancing the competitiveness of thermal solar electricity. This article makes a comprehensive review of supercritical CO2 power cycles integrated with CSP. A detailed comparison of four typical CSP technologies is conducted, and the cost challenge of currently CSP technologies is pointed out. The thermophysical properties of sCO2 and the corresponding two real gas effects are analyzed elaborately to express the features of sCO2 power cycles. An extensive review of sCO2 layouts relevant for CSP including 12 single layouts and 1 combined layout is implemented logically. Strengths and weaknesses of sCO2 power cycles over traditional steam‐Rankine cycle generally adopted in current CSP plants are concluded, followed by metal material degration summary in CSP relevant temperature sCO2 environment, which shows that the nickel‐based alloy is a proper structural material candidate for sCO2‐CSP integration. Thermodynamic analyses of sCO2 power cycles when integrated with CSP are divided into three level of which design‐point analysis and off‐design modeling are conducted and compared, more researches into the off‐design point analysis, dynamic modeling, especially the transient behavior are suggested. Economic analysis of the integrated system is concluded and presents a considerable levelized cost of electricity reduction of 15.6% to 67.7% compared to that of state of art CSP. Taking the thermodynamic and economic analysis into consideration, target designs of sCO2 power cycles for CSP are summarized in three aspects. Finally, current theoretical and experimental researches of sCO2 power cycles integrated with CSP for market penetration are introduced. The strengths, weaknesses, and potential solutions to the gaps of three potential pathways (molten salt pathway, particle pathway, and gas phase pathway) to realize the integration of sCO2 power cycles in the next CSP generation plants up to 700°C are reviewed. In general, the integration of sCO2 power cycles with CSP technologies exhibits promising expectations for facilitating the competitiveness of thermal solar electricity.
The clinical prospect of sonodynamic therapy (SDT) has not been fully realized due to the scarcity of efficient sonosensitizers. Herein, we designed phthalocyanine–artesunate conjugates (e.g. ...ZnPcT4A), which could generate up to ca. 10‐fold more reactive oxygen species (ROS) than the known sonosensitizer protoporphyrin IX. Meanwhile, an interesting and significant finding of aggregation‐enhanced sonodynamic activity (AESA) was observed for the first time. ZnPcT4A showed about 60‐fold higher sonodynamic ROS generation in the aggregated form than in the disaggregated form in aqueous solutions. That could be attributed to the boosted ultrasonic cavitation of nanostructures. The level of the AESA effect depended on the aggregation ability of sonosensitizer molecules and the particle size of their aggregates. Moreover, biological studies demonstrated that ZnPcT4A had high anticancer activities and biosafety. This study thus opens up a new avenue the development of efficient organic sonosensitizers.
An interesting aggregation‐enhanced sonodynamic activity (AESA) effect was first observed based on the studies of phthalocyanine–artesunate conjugates and common organic sonosensitizers, which arose from boosted ultrasonic cavitation caused by nanostructured aggregates. We believed that the AESA effect in this work could open up a new avenue for the development of efficient sonosensitizers.
The zeroth law of black hole mechanics asserts that the stationary black hole has a constant surface gravity on the event horizon. This study investigates the zeroth law within the ...Einstein-Scalar-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, particularly involving a complex scalar field (ECSGB). Assuming that the Lie derivative of the complex scalar field is proportional to itself other than stationary, and that ECSGB gravity converges to the Einstein's gravity analyticaly as the coupling constant approaches zero, as well as the minimally coupled matter fields satisfy the dominant energy condition, we demonstrate that the surface gravity remains constant over the entire event horizon without reliance on additional symmetries.
Soil heavy metal contamination is a major environmental concern, and the ecological risk associated with heavy metals is increasing. In this paper, we investigated heavy metal contamination near ...Dabaoshan Mine by: using sequential indicator simulation to delineate the spatial patterns of soil data; fitting multiple linear regression models for heavy metal uptake by crops; interpreting land uses from remote sensing images and integrating the spatial patterns, uptake models and land uses into a dose–response model for human health risks from heavy metals. The areas with elevated soil heavy metal concentrations are mainly located at the Dabaoshan Mine site and in the watershed basins of the Hengshi, Tielong and Chuandu rivers. The average concentrations of Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb in soil in the study area are all above the natural soil background levels, but Cd is the major contributor to human health risk in the area. Areas of low soil pH are also found throughout the watershed basins of the Hengshi, Tielong and Chuandu rivers. Of the different land use types in the study area, agricultural and residential land uses have the highest human health risk because ingestion is the dominant exposure pathway for heavy metals. The spatial patterns of the heavy metal concentrations and soil pH indicate that the areas with the highest human health risk regions do not directly coincide with the areas of highest heavy metal concentrations, but do coincide with the areas of lower soil pH. The contamination with high concentrations of heavy metals provides the risk source, but the combination of high heavy metal concentrations, low pH and agricultural or residential land use is required for human health risks to be present. The spatial pattern of the hazard quotients indicates that Cd is the most important pollutant contributing to the human health risk.
►The distribution of Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb and pH in soil were analyzed near Dabaoshan Mine. ►Heavy metal uptake models in crops were established using multiple regression method. ►Land use was extracted from a remote sensing image. ►Cadmium was the major heavy metal pollutant near Dabaoshan Mine. ►Agricultural and residential land had greatest health risks due to Cd contamination.
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