A Green Synthesis of Au-Ag Alloy Nanoparticles using Polydopamine Chemistry: Evaluation of their Anticancer Potency Towards Both MCF-7 Cells and their Cancer Stem Cells Subgroup.

BACKGROUND: Limited chemotherapy efficacy and cancer stem cells (CSCs)-induced therapeutic resistance are major difficulties for tumour treatment. Adopting more efficient therapies to eliminate bulk-sensitive cancer cells and resistant CSCs is urgently needed. METHODS: Based on the potential and functional complementarity of gold and silver nanoparticles (AuNPs or AgNPs) on tumour treatment, bimetallic NPs (alloy) have been synthesized to obtain improved or even newly emerging bioactivity from a combination effect. This study reported a facile, green and economical preparation of Au-Ag alloy NPs using biocompatible polydopamine (PDA) as a reductant, capping, stabilizing and hydrophilic agent. RESULTS: These alloy NPs were quasi-spherical with rough surfaces and recorded in diameters of 80 nm. In addition, these alloy NPs showed good water dispersity, stability and photothermal effect. Compared with monometallic counterparts, these alloy NPs demonstrated a dramatically enhanced cytotoxic/pro-apoptotic/necrotic effect towards bulk-sensitive MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells. The underlying mechanism regarding the apoptotic action was associated with a mitochondria-mediated pathway, as evidenced by Au3+/Ag+ mediated Mitochondria damage, ROS generation, DNA fragmentation and upregulation of certain apoptotic-related genes (Bax, P53 and Caspase 3). Attractively, these Au-Ag alloy NPs showed a remarkably improved inhibitory effect on the mammosphere formation capacity of MCF-7 CSCs. CONCLUSION: All the positive results were attributed to incorporated properties from Au, Ag and PDA, the combination effect of chemotherapy and photothermal therapy and the nano-scaled structure of Au-Ag alloy NPs. In addition, the high biocompatibility of Au-Ag alloy NPs supported them as a good candidate in cancer therapy.

What influence farmers' relative poverty in China: A global analysis based on statistical and interpretable machine learning methods.

Poverty eradication has always been a major challenge to global development and governance, which received widespread attention from each country. With the completion poverty alleviation task in 2020, relative poverty governance becomes an important issue to be solved in China urgently. Because of a large population, poor infrastructures, insufficient resources, and long-term uneven development raising the living standard of farmers in rural areas is critical to China's success in realizing moderate prosperity. Therefore, identifying the poor farmers, exploring the influence factors to relative poverty, and clarifying its effect mechanism in rural areas are significant for the subsequent poverty governance. Most of the previous studies adopted the method of apriori assuming the factor system and verifying the hypothesis. We innovatively constructed a relative poverty index system consistent with China's actual conditions, selecting all the possible variables that could affect relative poverty based on the existing literature, including individual characteristics, psychological endowment, and geographical environment, and rebuilt an experimental database. Then, through data processing and data analysis, the main factors influencing the relative poverty of farmers were systematically sorted out based on the machine learning method. Finally, 25 chosen influencing factors were discussed in detail. Research findings show that: 1) Machine learning algorithm is proved it could be well applied in relative poverty fields, especially XGBoost, which achieves 81.9% accuracy and the score of ROC_AUC reaches 0.819. 2) This study sheds light on many new research directions in applying machine learning for relative poverty research, besides, the paper offers an integral framework and beneficial reference for target identification using machine learning algorithms. 3) In addition, by utilizing the interpretable tools, the "black-box" of ML become transparent through PDP and SHAP explanation, it also reveals that machine learning models can readily handle the non-linear association relationship.

A study on the long-term effects and mechanisms of internet information behavior on poverty alleviation among smallholder farmers: Evidence from China.

China has historically accomplished the task of eradicating absolute poverty, however, as a result of multiple external constraints and a lack of their own endogenous motivation, there is a general lack of viability among farmers who have been lifted out of poverty, with some of those who have been lifted out of poverty at risk of returning to poverty and marginalized populations at risk of becoming poor, and there are certain challenges to the longevity and stability of the poverty eradication of smallholder farmers. In the era of rapid development of information technology, the use of Internet information has become an important way to change the information asymmetry in rural areas, narrow the urban-rural digital divide and reduce the vulnerability of poverty at present. Based on this, this paper puts forward the corresponding research hypotheses on the theoretical basis of how Internet information behavior affects the long-term effects of poverty alleviation of smallholder farmers, and this paper is based on the empirical analysis of the household survey data of 240 smallholder farmers in 3 cities and 3 counties of H Province, in an attempt to explore empirical testing of the impact of Internet information behavior on the long-term effects of poverty alleviation of smallholder farmers, and to further reveal the intrinsic mechanism of the role of the internal mechanism of the transformation between the smallholder farmers' Internet information behavior and poverty alleviation of the long-term effects of poverty alleviation. This study found that (1) Internet information usage would be positively related to the long-term poverty alleviation of smallholder farmers; (2) Among the mechanisms of Internet information usage on the long-term poverty alleviation of smallholder farmers, agricultural income opportunities, employment opportunities and entrepreneurial business opportunities have significant mediating effects; (3) Formal social support and informal social support, all play a significant positive moderating role in the process of transformation of development opportunities carried out by smallholder farmers. The findings of the study have important practical implications for accelerating the poverty alleviation effect of the Internet and achieving sustainable poverty alleviation among small farmers to promote common prosperity.

Fluorinated Perylene-Diimides: Cathode Interlayers Facilitating Carrier Collection for High-Performance Organic Solar Cells.

Organic solar cells (OSCs) have experienced rapid progress with the innovation of near-infrared (NIR)-absorbing small-molecular acceptors (SMAs), while the unique electronic properties of the SMAs raise new challenges in relation to cathode engineering for effective electron collection. To address this issue, two fluorinated perylene-diimides (PDIs), PDINN-F and PDINN-2F, are synthesized by a simple fluorination method, for application as cathode interlayer (CIL) materials. The two bay-fluorinated PDI-based CILs possess a lower lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy level of ≈-4.0 eV, which improves the energy level alignment at the NIR-SMAs (such as BTP-eC9)/CIL for a favorable electron extraction efficiency. The monofluorinated PDINN-F shows higher electron mobility and better improved interfacial compatibility. The PDINN-F-based OSCs with PM6:BTP-eC9 as active layer exhibit an enhanced fill factor and larger short-circuit current density, leading to a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) exceeding 18%. The devices with PDINN-F CIL retain more than 80% of their initial PCE after operating at the maximum power point under continuous illumination for 750 h. This work prescribes a facile, cost-effective, and scalable method for the preparation of stable, high-performance fluorinated CILs, and instilling promise for the NIR-SMAs-based OSCs moving forward.

Evaluation of Growth and Development of Adolescents' Dental Arch Asymmetry with Normal Occlusion Using Three-Dimensional Digital Models.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to observe the dental arch asymmetry in 12-year-olds with normal occlusion during the early permanent dentition stage. METHODS: Ninety-two 12-year-old students (46 males and 46 females) who had normal occlusion during early permanent dentition were selected from a junior high school in Tangshan, China. Once per year for three consecutive years, a dental cast was obtained from each subject, and the cast was scanned with a 3D digital scanner (R700 3D). The median palatal plane (MPP) and transverse palatal plane (TPP) were used as the reference plane for the transverse and anteroposterior measurements, respectively. RESULTS: Most of the dental arch asymmetry indicators decreased with age, but these differences were not statistically significant. The values of the midincisal edge of the upper central incisors (U1), midincisal edge of the upper lateral incisors (U2), upper canine cusp tip (U3), upper first premolar buccal cusp tip (U4), upper second premolar buccal cusp tip (U5), upper first molar mesiobuccal cusp tip (U6MB), and upper first molar distobuccal cusp tip (U6DB) to the TPP were 0.019 mm, 0.279 mm, 0.017 mm, 0.016 mm, 0.016 mm, 0.027 mm, and 0.200 mm, respectively; these values were larger in males than in females (P < 0.05). The values of 2-5, 6MB, and 6DB-TPP were 0.154 mm, 0.102 mm, 0.119 mm, 0.259 mm, 0.206 mm, and 0.123 mm, respectively, larger in the mandibular than in the maxillary dental arch (P < 0.05). The values of the midincisal edge of the lower central incisors (L1), midincisal edge of the lower lateral incisors (L2), lower canine cusp tip (L3), lower first premolar buccal cusp tip (L4), lower second premolar buccal cusp tip (L5), lower first molar mesiobuccal cusp tip (L6MB), and lower first molar distobuccal cusp tip (L6DB) to the MPP were 0.399 mm, 0.197 mm, 0.258 mm, 0.248 mm, 0.214 mm, 0.575 mm, and 0.531 mm, respectively, larger than L1-5, L6MB, and L6DB-TPP (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The asymmetry of the dental arch in 12-to-15-year-olds with normal occlusion did not change significantly with age. The anteroposterior asymmetry of the maxillary dental arch is larger in males than in females. With the exception of the central incisor, the anteroposterior asymmetry of the mandibular dental arch is larger than that of the maxillary dental arch. The transverse asymmetry of the mandibular dental arch is larger than the anteroposterior asymmetry.

Counter-current fractionation-assisted bioassay-guided separation of active composition from the edible medicinal insect Blaps rynchopetera Fairmaire.

An efficient strategy for the selection of active components based on counter-current fractionation and bioassay-guided separation was established in the present work. Blaps rynchopetera Fairmaire was an edible medicinal insect. Its extract showed the potential RAW264.7 macrophage cell inhibitory activity. After extraction with different solvents, the active components were enriched in ethyl acetate. In order to further track the active compounds, the ethyl acetate extraction was divided into 14 fractions by means of HSCCC. The results showed that the activities of F6 and F7 were significant higher than the others. Two compounds, hydroxytyrosol and 4-ethylbenzene-1,3-diol, were separated from the mixture of F6 and F7 by column chromatography and their chemical structures were confirmed by MS, 1H NMR and 13C NMR. The IC50 of hydroxytyrosol and 4-ethylbenzene-1,3-diol against RAW264.7 macrophage cell were 38.24 ±â€¯0.26 µg/mL and 103.26 ±â€¯0.29 µg/mL, respectively, indicating that hydroxytyrosol was the major active ingredient responsible for the RAW264.7 inhibitory activity of Blaps rynchopetera Fairmaire.

[The rescue effect of RANKL on zoledronate induced acid inhibition of osteoclastogenesis and gene expression of NF-kappaB p50 and c-Jun].

In this study, the rescue effect of receptor activator for nuclear factor-kappaB ligand (RANKL) on zoledronate acid (ZOL) induced inhibition of osteoclastogenesis and gene expression of NF-kappaB p50 and c-Jun was investigated. Mice calvarial osteoblasts (OBs) were harvested and co-cultured with RAW264.7 cells and the cells were divided into 4 groups and received treatment with ZOL and RANKL, either single or combined. The formation of multi-nucleated osteoclast (OC) was examined and gene expression of NF-kappaB p50 and c-Jun was detected. Group B (ZOL) showed least multi-nucleated OC and resorption lacunae among the 4 groups (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01) and it was followed by group C (ZOL+RANKL). Group D (RANKL) showed highest OC and resorption lacunae while it was similar to Group A (control) (P > 0.05). Gene expression of NF-kappaB p50 and c-Jun was the lowest in group B (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01) among the four groups and was significantly increased in group C when compared with group B (P < 0.05). Group A and D showed highest gene expression and they were similar to each other (P > 0.05). This study suggest that RANKL might partly rescue ZOL induced inhibition of osteoclastogenesis, and the effect of RANKL and ZOL on osteoclastogenesis may be mediated by NF-kappaB p50 and c-Jun.