Amorphous Nickel Hydroxide Shell on Ni8P3 Nanorods for Boosted Highly Stable Overall Water Splitting at High Current.

Developing highly active, highly stable, and cheap electrocatalysts for water splitting is of great significance for hydrogen production. Herein, we report an amorphous Ni(OH)2-clothed transition Ni8P3 catalyst, in which the amorphous Ni(OH)2 shell provides catalytic active sites and serves as a proton conductive encapsulation layer to ensure efficient proton supply to the active Ni8P3 sites. As expected, the Ni8P3@Ni(OH)2 catalyst exhibits significant water decomposition performance at low and high current densities of 10, 100, and 1000 mA cm-2 at 1.45, 1.71, and 2.21 V, respectively, which is comparable to those of commercial electrocatalysts. In particular, the prepared Ni8P3@Ni(OH)2 electrodes possess exceptional long-term durability (200 h) at high current (over 1 A). The significantly improved water-splitting activity and durability in alkaline medium are expected to make them attractive catalyst materials to produce renewable chemical fuels.

An initial study of core muscles using ultrasound in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis.

BACKGROUND: Osteoporosis is a systemic bone disease, resulting in bone pain and fragility fractures. This study sought to explore the ultrasonic characteristics of core muscles in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. METHODS: A total of 91 participants underwent ultrasound examinations of the lumbar and abdominal core muscles. The participants were divided into the following two groups: group 1 (the normal control group, comprising 20 participants, aged 25-35 years); and the osteoporosis group (comprising 71 participants). The participants in the osteoporosis group were further divided into the following three groups: group II (comprising 20 participants, aged 50-59 years); group III (comprising 30 participants, aged 60-69 years); and group IV (comprising 21 participants, aged 70-87 years). The 2-dimensional (2D) sonographic manifestations, thickness and gray values of the core muscles of the lumbar and abdomen were observed, and a further analysis was conducted that included the bone density of the lumbar vertebrae results. RESULTS: Compared to the control group, the total thickness of the core muscles in the osteoporosis group was significantly decreased (P<0.05), and the gray values were significantly increased (P<0.05). The comparison of the osteoporosis groups showed that in relation to the total thickness of the core muscle, group II > group III > group IV (P<0.05). The 2D ultrasonography showed that the muscles of the participants in group I were full and had an equally low echo. Conversely, in the osteoporosis group, the muscles of the participants were less full, the echo was enhanced, the boundary between the muscle and the fascia was unclear, and the long axis of the rectus abdominis and transverse abdominis tracts were wavy and linear, with reduced tension. CONCLUSIONS: In postmenopausal women with osteoporosis, the core muscles of the waist and abdomen are degenerative, which can be evaluated with ultrasonography via the echo, thickness, and gray value of the muscles.

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound and its differential diagnosis in 21 patients with intrahepatic space-occupying lesions under the background of fatty liver.

BACKGROUND: The sonographic appearance in intrahepatic space-occupying lesions under the background of fatty liver is atypical. This study aimed to explore the value of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) in the differential diagnosis of intrahepatic space-occupying lesions under the background of fatty liver. METHODS: Twenty-one patients with intrahepatic space-occupying lesions under the background of fatty liver who were treated in our hospital from January 2017 to September 2020 and met the inclusion/ exclusion criteria were enrolled in this study. The clinical and imaging data, size, location, shape, and other characteristics of the lesions were analyzed. The accuracy of conventional ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound in diagnosing intrahepatic space-occupying lesions under the background of fatty liver were compared. RESULTS: The 21 patients had moderate to severe fatty liver, including 11 cases with malignant lesions (52.38%) and 10 cases with benign lesions (47.62%). The accuracy of CEUS (90.48%) was significantly higher than that of conventional ultrasound (61.90%) in diagnosing intrahepatic space-occupying lesions under the background of fatty liver. A total of 33 lesions were detected in 21 patients, which were hypoechoic. Liver abscesses mainly showed ring-shaped enhancement in the arterial phase and low enhancement in the portal phase, with abscess necrosis in the center and no significant enhancement. Liver cyst lesions showed no significant enhancement in the arterial, portal, and delayed phases. The three stages of focal fat loss were synchronized and simultaneously enhanced with surrounding fatty liver tissues. The area under the diagnostic curve of conventional ultrasound and CEUS was 0.668 and 0.809, respectively, and the area under the curve of CEUS detection was the largest (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: CEUS can effectively improve the diagnostic accuracy of intrahepatic space-occupying lesions under the background of fatty liver, and is an effective means to differentially diagnose intrahepatic space-occupying lesions under the background of fatty liver.

Application of ultrasonic shear wave elastography and contrast-enhanced ultrasound in the differential diagnosis of patients with benign and malignant thyroid lesions.

BACKGROUND: Thyroid nodules are a common thyroid disorder. The aim of the present study was to observe the application value of ultrasonic shear wave elastography (SWE) and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in the differential diagnosis of patients with benign and malignant thyroid lesions. METHODS: Eighty-two patients with thyroid nodules (96 thyroid nodules) at our hospital were enrolled. All patients underwent ultrasonic SWE and CEUS examination. With surgical pathology as the gold standard, the Young's modulus, CEUS imaging features, and quantitative parameters were compared between the benign and malignant groups. The diagnostic efficiency of SWE, CEUS, and their combination was analyzed by receiver-operating characteristic curve (ROC). RESULTS: The average of the Young's modulus in the malignant group was significantly higher than that of the benign group (P<0.05). There were significant differences in the CEUS images of nodules between the benign and malignant groups in terms of boundary conditions, morphology, perfusion intensity, homogeneous enhancement, and perfusion defects (P<0.05), while there were no significant difference in initial increase time, peak intensity, time to peak, and area under the curve (P>0.05). The curve sharpness in the benign group was significantly lower than that of the malignant group (P<0.05). ROC analysis found that the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of SWE, CEUS, and their combination were 90.1% and 81.6%, 67.8% and 75.4%, and 97.3% and 71.5%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Compared with CEUS, the sensitivity and specificity of SWE were relatively higher in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroid lesions, and a combination of both can improve the diagnostic sensitivity of SWE alone to a certain extent.

Systemic immune-inflammation index and ultrasonographic classification of breast imaging-reporting and data system predict outcomes of triple-negative breast cancer.

INTRODUCTION: This research was conducted to explore the relationship between the systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) and breast imaging-reporting and data system (BI-RADS) classification using ultrasonography and the survival of patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in a cohort of Chinese. METHODS: A total of 215 TNBC patients treated at our hospital between November 2008 and March 2016 were enrolled in this study. We used the log-rank test and Kaplan-Meier curves to assess the overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) differences between groups. The prognostic role of SII and other clinicopathological characteristics in TNBC patients were identified using the Cox regression model. RESULTS: Patients with low and high SII had median OS of 60.9 and 40.3 months, respectively, (HR=3.78, 95% CI: 2.16-4.15, P<0.001); while the median DFS was 22.4 months and 14.4 months for TNBC patients with low and high SII, respectively (HR =3.16, 95% CI: 1.82-4.02, P<0.001). For patients with grade 5 ultrasonographic BI-RADS classification, the median DFS and OS were 41.2 and 16.5 months, respectively, whereas, it was 57.7 and 21.3 months, respectively, for those with BI-RADS grades 3-4 (P<0.01). According to multivariable analyses, increased SII was a risk factor that independently predicted poor OS (HR =2.96, 95% CI: 2.18-3.98, P<0.001) and DFS (HR = 2.85, 95% CI: 1.62-3.81, P=0.005). In addition, tumor stage, BI-RADS, and histological grade also independently predicted poor OS (P=0.002, <0.001, 0.004). CONCLUSION: Pretreatment SII and BI-RADS 5 were independent indicators for prognosis in TNBC patients. It is imperative to conduct prospective studies to evaluate the potential role of SII in patient selection, treatment guidance, and design of clinical trials.

Corrigendum to "Antitumor Molecular Mechanism of Chlorogenic Acid on Inducting Genes GSK-3ß and APC and Inhibiting Gene ß-Catenin".

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1155/2013/951319.].

Antitumor Molecular Mechanism of Chlorogenic Acid on Inducting Genes GSK-3 ß and APC and Inhibiting Gene ß -Catenin.

Objective. Inhibiting gene ß -catenin and inducting genes GSK-3 ß and APC, promoting the tumor cell apoptosis in Wnt pathway, by chlorogenic acid were discussed (CGA). Method. The different genes were scanned by the 4∗44K mouse microarray chips. The effect of the three genes was confirmed by RT-PCR technique with CGA dosage of 5, 10, and 20 mg/kg. Result. The expression of GSK-3 ß and APC was upregulated in group of 20 mg/kg dosage (P < 0.05) and the expression of ß -catenin was downregulated in the same dosage (P < 0.05). Conclusion. The results infer that the multimeric protein complex of ß -catenin could be increased by CGA upregulated genes GSK-3 ß and APC, which could inhibit the free ß -catenin into the nucleus to connect with TCF. So the transcriptional expression of the target genes will be cut to abnormal cell proliferation. It is probably one of the ways that can stop the tumor increase by CGA.