A catalyst family of high-entropy alloy atomic layers with square atomic arrangements comprising iron- and platinum-group metals.

We report a catalyst family of high-entropy alloy (HEA) atomic layers having three elements from iron-group metals (IGMs) and two elements from platinum-group metals (PGMs). Ten distinct quinary compositions of IGM-PGM-HEA with precisely controlled square atomic arrangements are used to explore their impact on hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR). The PtRuFeCoNi atomic layers perform enhanced catalytic activity and durability toward HER and HOR when benchmarked against the other IGM-PGM-HEA and commercial Pt/C catalysts. Operando synchrotron x-ray absorption spectroscopy and density functional theory simulations confirm the cocktail effect arising from the multielement composition. This effect optimizes hydrogen-adsorption free energy and contributes to the remarkable catalytic activity observed in PtRuFeCoNi. In situ electron microscopy captures the phase transformation of metastable PtRuFeCoNi during the annealing process. They transform from random atomic mixing (25°C), to ordered L10 (300°C) and L12 (400°C) intermetallic, and finally phase-separated states (500°C).

Serum Lipoprotein(a) Levels as a Predictor of Aortic Stiffness in Patients on Long-Term Peritoneal Dialysis.

BACKGROUND Lipoprotein (a) [Lp(a)] is associated with atherosclerosis and cardiovascular mortality in patients with kidney failure. Aortic stiffness (AS), measured primarily by carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV), reflects vascular aging and precedes end-organ failure. This study aimed to evaluate the association between serum Lp(a) levels and cfPWV in patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis (PD). MATERIAL AND METHODS In this cross-sectional study, which included 148 patients with long-term PD for end-stage kidney failure, cfPWV was measured using a cuff-based method. AS was defined as a cfPWV exceeding 10 m/s, and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to determine serum Lp(a) levels. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were performed to identify the clinical correlates of AS. RESULTS There were 32 (21.6%) patients diagnosed with AS. Based on the multivariate logistic regression analysis, the odds ratio for AS was 1.007 (95% confidence interval, 1.003-1.011; P=0.001) for every 1 mg/L increase in Lp(a) levels. Multivariate linear regression analysis showed that Lp(a) (P<0.001), age (P=0.003), waist circumference (P=0.008), systolic blood pressure (P=0.010), and diabetes mellitus (P<0.001) were positively associated with cfPWV. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for Lp(a) in differentiating AS from non-AS was 0.770 (95% confidence interval, 0.694-0.835; P<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS Serum Lp(a) level was independently associated with cfPWV and AS in patients with PD.

Artificial Intelligence-Guided Gut-Microenvironment-Triggered Imaging Sensor Reveals Potential Indicators of Parkinson's Disease.

The gut-brain axis has recently emerged as a crucial link in the development and progression of Parkinson's disease (PD). Dysregulation of the gut microbiota has been implicated in the pathogenesis of this disease, sparking growing interest in the quest for non-invasive biomarkers derived from the gut for early PD diagnosis. Herein, an artificial intelligence-guided gut-microenvironment-triggered imaging sensor (Eu-MOF@Au-Aptmer) to achieve non-invasive, accurate screening for various stages of PD is presented. The sensor works by analyzing α-Syn in the gut using deep learning algorithms. By monitoring changes in α-Syn, the sensor can predict the onset of PD with high accuracy. This work has the potential to revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of PD by allowing for early intervention and personalized treatment plans. Moreover, it exemplifies the promising prospects of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced sensors in the monitoring and prediction of a broad spectrum of diseases and health conditions.

CS2DIPs: Unsupervised HSI Super-Resolution Using Coupled Spatial and Spectral DIPs.

In recent years, fusing high spatial resolution multispectral images (HR-MSIs) and low spatial resolution hyperspectral images (LR-HSIs) has become a widely used approach for hyperspectral image super-resolution (HSI-SR). Various unsupervised HSI-SR methods based on deep image prior (DIP) have gained wide popularity thanks to no pre-training requirement. However, DIP-based methods often demonstrate mediocre performance in extracting latent information from the data. To resolve this performance deficiency, we propose a coupled spatial and spectral deep image priors (CS2DIPs) method for the fusion of an HR-MSI and an LR-HSI into an HR-HSI. Specifically, we integrate the nonnegative matrix-vector tensor factorization (NMVTF) into the DIP framework to jointly learn the abundance tensor and spectral feature matrix. The two coupled DIPs are designed to capture essential spatial and spectral features in parallel from the observed HR-MSI and LR-HSI, respectively, which are then used to guide the generation of the abundance tensor and spectral signature matrix for the fusion of the HSI-SR by mode-3 tensor product, meanwhile taking some inherent physical constraints into account. Free from any training data, the proposed CS2DIPs can effectively capture rich spatial and spectral information. As a result, it exhibits much superior performance and convergence speed over most existing DIP-based methods. Extensive experiments are provided to demonstrate its state-of-the-art overall performance including comparison with benchmark peer methods.

Structural and functional investigation on stem and peel polysaccharides from different varieties of pitaya.

Varieties of plant species may affect the composition and structures of the polysaccharides, thus have an impact on their chemical properties and biological activities. Herein, the present study comparatively evaluated the differences in the chemical composition, morphological structures, antioxidant activity, and anti-inflammatory activity of the stem and peel polysaccharides from different varieties of pitaya. The FT-IR and NMR spectra indicated that the six polysaccharides had similar structural features, whereas the physicochemical characterization showed that they differed significantly in terms of the monosaccharide composition, molecular weight, and surface morphology. In addition, different varieties of pitaya polysaccharides exhibited different antioxidant activities and similar anti-inflammatory activities. These data suggested that varietal differences resulted in pitaya stem and peel polysaccharides with different monosaccharide compositions and molecular weights, thus led to different antioxidant activities and protection against oxidative damage, while similar structural features were closely related to their similar anti-inflammatory activities. Therefore, the study of the stem and peel polysaccharides from different varieties of pitaya can help us to better understand the relationship between their composition and structure and their biological activities. In addition, pitaya stem and peel polysaccharides have the potential to act as antioxidants or to treat inflammatory damage.

Enterovirus D68 vRNA induces type III IFN production via MDA5.

Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) primarily spreads through the respiratory tract and causes respiratory symptoms in children and acute flaccid myelitis (AFM). Type III interferons (IFNs) play a critical role in inhibiting viral growth in respiratory epithelial cells. However, the mechanism by which EV-D68 induces type III IFN production is not yet fully understood. In this study, we show that EV-D68 infection stimulates Calu-3 cells to secrete IFN-λ. The transfection of EV-D68 viral RNA (vRNA) stimulated IFN-λ via MDA5. Furthermore, our findings provide evidence that EV-D68 infection also induces MDA5-IRF3/IRF7-mediated IFN-λ. In addition, we discovered that EV-D68 infection downregulated MDA5 expression. Knockdown of MDA5 increased EV-D68 replication in Calu-3 cells. Finally, we demonstrated that the IFN-λ1 and IFN-λ2/3 proteins effectively inhibit EV-D68 infection in respiratory epithelial cells. In summary, our study shows that EV-D68 induces type III IFN production via the activated MDA5-IRF3/IRF7 pathway and that type III IFNs inhibit EV-D68 replication in Calu-3 cells.

Associations of Glucometabolic Indices with Aortic Stiffness in Patients Undergoing Peritoneal Dialysis with and without Diabetes Mellitus.

Disruptions in glucose metabolism are frequently observed among patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis (PD) who utilize glucose-containing dialysis solutions. We aimed to investigate the relationship between glucometabolic indices, including fasting glucose, insulin resistance, advanced glycation end products (AGEs), PD-related glucose load, and icodextrin usage, and aortic stiffness in PD patients with and without diabetic mellitus (DM). This study involved 172 PD patients (mean age 58.3 ± 13.5 years), consisting of 110 patients without DM and 62 patients with DM. Aortic stiffness was assessed using the carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV). Impaired fasting glucose was defined as a fasting glucose level ≥ 100 mg/dL. Homeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) scores, serum AGEs, dialysate glucose load, and icodextrin usage were assessed. Patients with DM exhibited the highest cfPWV (9.9 ± 1.9 m/s), followed by those with impaired fasting glucose (9.1 ± 1.4 m/s), whereas patients with normal fasting glucose had the lowest cfPWV (8.3 ± 1.3 m/s), which demonstrated a significant trend. In non-DM patients, impaired fasting glucose (ß = 0.52, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.01-1.03, p = 0.046), high HOMA-IR (ß = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.12-1.08, p = 0.015), and a high PD glucose load (ß = 0.58, 95% CI = 0.08-1.08, p = 0.023) were independently associated with increased cfPWV. In contrast, none of the glucometabolic factors contributed to differences in cfPWV in DM patients. In conclusion, among PD patients without DM, impaired fasting glucose, insulin resistance, and PD glucose load were closely associated with aortic stiffness.

Molecular simulations required to target novel and potent inhibitors of cancer invasion.

INTRODUCTION: Computer-aided drug design (CADD) is a computational approach used to discover, develop, and analyze drugs and active molecules with similar biochemical properties. Molecular simulation technology has significantly accelerated drug research and reduced manufacturing costs. It is an optimized drug discovery method that greatly improves the efficiency of novel drug development processes. AREASCOVERED: This review discusses the development of molecular simulations of effective cancer inhibitors and traces the main outcomes of in silico studies by introducing representative categories of six important anticancer targets. The authors provide views on this topic from the perspective of both medicinal chemistry and artificial intelligence, indicating the major challenges and predicting trends. EXPERT OPINION: The goal of introducing CADD into cancer treatment is to realize a highly efficient, accurate, and desired approach with a high success rate for identifying potent drug candidates. However, the major challenge is the lack of a sophisticated data-filtering mechanism to verify bottom data from mixed-quality references. Consequently, despite the continuous development of algorithms, computer power, and interface optimization, specific data filtering mechanisms will become an urgent and crucial issue in the future.

Toward controllable and predictable synthesis of high-entropy alloy nanocrystals.

High-entropy alloy (HEA) nanocrystals have attracted extensive attention in catalysis. However, there are no effective strategies for synthesizing them in a controllable and predictable manner. With quinary HEA nanocrystals made of platinum-group metals as an example, we demonstrate that their structures with spatial compositions can be predicted by quantitatively knowing the reduction kinetics of metal precursors and entropy of mixing in the nanocrystals under dropwise addition of the mixing five-metal precursor solution. The time to reach a steady state for each precursor plays a pivotal role in determining the structures of HEA nanocrystals with homogeneous alloy and core-shell features. Compared to the commercial platinum/carbon and phase-separated counterparts, the dendritic HEA nanocrystals with a defect-rich surface show substantial enhancement in catalytic activity and durability toward both hydrogen evolution and oxidation. This quantitative study will lead to a paradigm shift in the design of HEA nanocrystals, pushing away from the trial-and-error approach.

Hyperspectral Tensor Completion Using Low-Rank Modeling and Convex Functional Analysis.

Hyperspectral tensor completion (HTC) for remote sensing, critical for advancing space exploration and other satellite imaging technologies, has drawn considerable attention from recent machine learning community. Hyperspectral image (HSI) contains a wide range of narrowly spaced spectral bands hence forming unique electrical magnetic signatures for distinct materials, and thus plays an irreplaceable role in remote material identification. Nevertheless, remotely acquired HSIs are of low data purity and quite often incompletely observed or corrupted during transmission. Therefore, completing the 3-D hyperspectral tensor, involving two spatial dimensions and one spectral dimension, is a crucial signal processing task for facilitating the subsequent applications. Benchmark HTC methods rely on either supervised learning or nonconvex optimization. As reported in recent machine learning literature, John ellipsoid (JE) in functional analysis is a fundamental topology for effective hyperspectral analysis. We therefore attempt to adopt this key topology in this work, but this induces a dilemma that the computation of JE requires the complete information of the entire HSI tensor that is, however, unavailable under the HTC problem setting. We resolve the dilemma, decouple HTC into convex subproblems ensuring computational efficiency, and show state-of-the-art HTC performances of our algorithm. We also demonstrate that our method has improved the subsequent land cover classification accuracy on the recovered hyperspectral tensor.

The Effect of Mindfulness Intervention on the Psychological Skills and Shooting Performances in Male Collegiate Basketball Athletes in Macau: A Quasi-Experimental Study.

BACKGROUND: This study adopted a quasi-experimental design to examine the effect of a 7-week mindfulness intervention on the psychological coping ability and shooting performance of college-level male basketball athletes in Macau. METHODS: A total of 43 male college basketball athletes in Macau were selected as the participants. Besides the regular basketball training, the intervention group (n = 23) received a 7-week mindfulness training; the weekly mindfulness intervention session lasted around one hour according to the mindfulness training manual for athletes, while the control group (n = 20) did not receive any mindfulness training. Before and immediately after the 7-week intervention, all players performed the following tests: the "Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire", the "Acceptance and Action Questionnaire", the "Sport Competition Anxiety Test", the "Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale", and three shooting tests. An independent-sample t-test and a paired-sample t-test were used to analyze the between- and within-group differences. Moreover, a repeated measures ANOVA was used to assess the group, time, and group-by-time effects on psychological skills and shooting performances. RESULTS: The intervention resulted in both significant between-group and within-group differences in mindfulness level, acceptance level, attention level, three-point, and free-throw shooting performances (all p < 0.05, Cohen's d ranging from 0.565 to 1.117). CONCLUSION: While further study is necessary, the present study suggests that the 7-week mindfulness training program can significantly improve psychological outcomes and shooting performance in Macau college basketball athletes. Future studies involving competition settings and objective metrics will aid in verifying mindfulness as the prevalent practice among basketball practitioners and athletes.

Discovery of pyrazole-carbohydrazide with indole moiety as tubulin polymerization inhibitors and anti-tumor candidates.

In this work, a series of indole-containing pyrazole-carbohydrazide derivatives A1-A25 were synthesized, and their biological activity on tubulin polymerization inhibition and mitotic catastrophe was evaluated. For introducing indole group to CA-4 pattern, the carbohydrazide linker was used for the first time. As the top hit, A18 suggested notable antiproliferation efficacy and tubulin polymerization inhibitory activity. Inferring comparable antitubulin effect with the positive control Colchicine, A18 indicated obviously lower cyto-toxicity. The cell scratch test showed that A18 could block the cell migration, while the confocal imaging depicted that A18 could induce the mitotic catastrophe via a Colchicine-like approach. The docking simulation visualized the probable binding pattern of A18. With the information in this work, some new hints on modification might be involved in further tubulin-related investigations.

EV-A71 induced IL-1ß production in THP-1 macrophages is dependent on NLRP3, RIG-I, and TLR3.

Enterovirus A71 (EV-A71) is an emerging enterovirus that can cause neurological complications. Enhanced serum IL-1ß levels were observed in EV-A71 patients with severe neurological symptoms. However, the roles of sensors in enterovirus-induced IL-1ß production are unclear. In this study, we identified that pattern recognition receptors, including RIG-I, TLR3, and TLR8, are implicated in EV-A71-triggered IL-1ß release in human macrophages. EV-A71 infection results in caspase-1 and caspase-8, which act as regulators of EV-A71-induced NLRP3 and RIG-I inflammasome activation. Moreover, knockdown of the expression of TLR3 and TLR8 decreased the released IL-1ß in an NLRP3-dependent manner. Since TLR3 and TLR8 ligands promote NLRP3 inflammasome activation via caspase-8, the alternative pathway may be involved. In summary, these results indicate that activation of the NLRP3 and RIG-I inflammasomes in EV-A71-infected macrophages is mediated by caspase-1 and caspase-8 and affected by TLRs, including TLR3 and TLR8.

Positive Correlation of Serum Resistin Level with Peripheral Artery Disease in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 3 to 5.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease-related ischemic events, which includes peripheral arterial disease (PAD). PAD is a strong predictor of future cardiovascular events, which can cause significant morbidity and mortality. Resistin has been found to be involved in pathological processes leading to CVD. Therefore, we aim to investigate whether resistin level is correlated with PAD in patients with non-dialysis CKD stage 3 to 5. There were 240 CKD patients enrolled in this study. Ankle-brachial index (ABI) values were measured using the automated oscillometric method. An ABI value < 0.9 defined the low ABI group. Serum levels of human resistin were determined using a commercially available enzyme immunoassay. Thirty CKD patients (12.5%) were included in the low ABI group. Patients in the low ABI group were older and had higher resistin levels as well as higher diabetes mellitus, hypertension and habit of smoking, and lower estimated glomerular filtration rate than patients in the normal ABI group. After the adjustment for factors that were significantly associated with PAD by multivariate logistic regression analysis, age and serum resistin level were independent predictors of PAD. A high serum resistin level is an independent predictor of PAD in non-dialysis CKD stage 3 to 5.

Low temperature pickling regeneration process for remarkable enhancement in Cu(II) adsorptivity over spent activated carbon fiber.

In this paper, a simple and efficient regeneration technology of low-temperature pickling regeneration process is proposed for Cu(II)-adsorbed activated carbon fiber felts (ACFFs). The regeneration process mainly uses the strong oxidation of acidic regenerant above boiling point to regenerate ACFFs in a confined space. With no demand for high temperature and high pressure, the regeneration process achieves a high efficiency regeneration and a remarkable enhancement of Cu(II) adsorptivity simultaneously for Cu(II)-adsorbed ACFFs. After parameter optimization, the pickling temperature of 383 K, pickling time of 3 h and HNO3 concentration of 150 g/L are adopted as optimum process parameters for the reutilization of ACFFs. The regeneration rates of ACFFs in five cycles are maintained at 424.08%-829.59%. Analytical results show that the enhancement of Cu(II) adsorptivity is mainly caused by the remarkable enhancement of specific surface area (increased by 106.08%), micropore volume (increased by 102.17%) and more abundant surface chemical structure (particularly carboxyl and nitro group) after treated by the regeneration process.

Synthesis of SiC/SiO2 core-shell nanowires with good optical properties on Ni/SiO2/Si substrate via ferrocene pyrolysis at low temperature.

In this study, the high-density SiC/SiO2 core-shell nanowires were synthesized on the nickel coated SiO2 (100 nm)/Si substrate by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method with ferrocene precursor at temperature 1000 °C compared to previous studies (1300-1600 °C). The present work provides an efficient strategy for the production of SiC/SiO2 nanowires with uniform morphology and good optical properties, where the Ni layer plays important roles for this fabrication at low temperature which reduces the decomposition temperature of hydrocarbon gases and improves the growth quality of SiC nanowires. The as-synthesized SiC/SiO2 nanowires consist of single crystal 3C structures as well as 3C structures with defects along [111] direction. In the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum, the SiC/SiO2 core-shell nanowires revealed an obvious blueshift. The blueshift is due to the formation of nanoscale silicon carbide polytypism caused by the stacking faults in 3C-SiC and the nanoscale polytypism also caused the transition from indirect to direct bandgap which explains why the stacking faults percentage in SiC confirmed from X-ray diffraction (XRD) is 19%, but ultimately makes the strongest emission intensity. Finally, the PL characteristics are further improved by changing the diameter of the SiC nanowire and etching and an approximate model followed by the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism was proposed to explain the possible growth mechanism of the SiC/SiO2 nanowires.

Selective Growth of WSe2 with Graphene Contacts.

Nanoelectronics of two-dimensional (2D) materials and related applications are hindered with critical contact issues with the semiconducting monolayers. To solve these issues, a fundamental challenge is selective and controllable fabrication of p-type or ambipolar transistors with a low Schottky barrier. Most p-type transistors are demonstrated with tungsten selenides (WSe2) but a high growth temperature is required. Here, we utilize seeding promoter and low pressure CVD process to enhance sequential WSe2 growth with a reduced growth temperature of 800 °C for reduced compositional fluctuations and high hetero-interface quality. Growth behavior of the sequential WSe2 growth at the edge of patterned graphene is discussed. With optimized growth conditions, high-quality interface of the laterally stitched WSe2-graphene is achieved and characterized with transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Device fabrication and electronic performances of the laterally stitched WSe2-graphene are presented.

High adsorptivity and recycling performance activated carbon fibers for Cu(II) adsorption.

In order to develop adsorbent materials with high Cu(II) adsorptivity and renewable recycling for Cu(II), nitric acid oxidation process is optimized and ameliorated by microwave and sonication to obtain an efficient modification and regeneration processes. Microwave-assisted nitric acid oxidation process has the most significant enhancement effect to the Cu(II) adsorptivity of activated carbon fiber felts (ACFFs), which can reach 23.13 mg/g and 4.55 times of pristine felts. It is due to this process can greatly increase the ultramicropore volume and polar oxygen-containing groups. In addition, sonication-assisted-pickling regeneration process achieves efficient regenerations and enhancements of Cu(II) adsorptivity for ACFFs. The Cu(II) adsorptivity and regeneration rate of ACFFs are still up at 25.51 mg/g and 379.59% after five times recycling by the process of sonication-assisted pickling regeneration process.

Direct Synthesis of Large-Scale Multilayer TaSe2 on SiO2/Si Using Ion Beam Technology.

The multilayer 1T-TaSe2 is successfully synthesized by annealing a Se-implanted Ta thin film on the SiO2/Si substrate. Material analyses confirm the 1T (octahedral) structure and the quasi-2D nature of the prepared TaSe2. Temperature-dependent resistivity reveals that the multilayer 1T-TaSe2 obtained by our method undergoes a commensurate charge-density wave (CCDW) transition at around 500 K. This synthesis process has been applied to synthesize MoSe2 and HfSe2 and expanded for synthesis of one more transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) material. In addition, the main issue of the process, that is, the excess metal capping on the TMD layers, is solved by the reduction of thickness of the as-deposited metal thin film in this work.

Inhibition of EV71 by curcumin in intestinal epithelial cells.

EV71 is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus that belongs to the Picornaviridae family. EV71 infection may cause various symptoms ranging from hand-foot-and-mouth disease to neurological pathological conditions such as aseptic meningitis, ataxia, and acute transverse myelitis. There is currently no effective treatment or vaccine available. Various compounds have been examined for their ability to restrict EV71 replication. However, most experiments have been performed in rhabdomyosarcoma or Vero cells. Since the gastrointestinal tract is the entry site for this pathogen, we anticipated that orally ingested agents may exert beneficial effects by decreasing virus replication in intestinal epithelial cells. In this study, curcumin (diferuloylmethane, C21H20O6), an active ingredient of turmeric (Curcuma longa Linn) with anti-cancer properties, was investigated for its anti-enterovirus activity. We demonstrate that curcumin treatment inhibits viral translation and increases host cell viability. Curcumin does not exert its anti-EV71 effects by modulating virus attachment or virus internal ribosome entry site (IRES) activity. Furthermore, curcumin-mediated regulation of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways is not involved. We found that protein kinase C delta (PKCδ) plays a role in virus translation in EV71-infected intestinal epithelial cells and that curcumin treatment decreases the phosphorylation of this enzyme. In addition, we show evidence that curcumin also limits viral translation in differentiated human intestinal epithelial cells. In summary, our data demonstrate the anti-EV71 properties of curcumin, suggesting that ingestion of this phytochemical may protect against enteroviral infections.