Efficient Warming Textile Enhanced by a High-Entropy Spectrally Selective Nanofilm with High Solar Absorption.

Solar and radiative warming are smart approaches to maintaining the human body at a metabolically comfortable temperature in both indoor and outdoor scenarios. Nevertheless, existing warming textiles are ineffective in frigid climates because the solar absorption of selective absorbing coating is significantly reduced when coated on rough textile surface. Herein, for the first time, high-entropy nitrides based spectrally selective film (SSF) is introduced on common cotton through a one-step magnetron sputtering method. The well-designed refractive index gradient enables destructive interference effects, offering a roughness-insensitive high solar absorptance (92.8%) and low thermal emittance (39.2%). Impressively, the solar absorptance is 9.1% higher than the reported best-performing selective nanofilm-based textile. As a result, such a textile achieves a record-high photothermal conversion efficiency (82.2% under 0.6 suns, at 0 °C). This textile yields a 3.5 °C drop in the set-point of indoor air-conditioner temperature. Besides, in a winter morning with an air temperature of 7.5 °C, it warms up the human skin by as large as 12 °C under weak sunlight (350 W m-2 ). More importantly, such a superior radiative warming performance is achieved by engineering the widely used cotton without compromising its breathability and durability, showing great potential for practical applications.

Enabling Highly Enhanced Solar Thermoelectric Generator Efficiency by a CuCrMnCoAlN-Based Spectrally Selective Absorber.

Harvesting solar energy to enhance thermoelectric generator efficiency is a highly effective strategy. However, it is a grand challenge but essential to increase solar-thermal conversion efficiency. A spectrally selective absorber, which is capable of boosting solar absorptance (α) while suppressing thermal emittance (ε), shows great potential to elevate the solar-thermal conversion efficiency. Herein, we fabricate a multilayer spectrally selective absorber with the assistance of high-entropy nitrides, which shows outstanding spectral selectivity (α/ε = 95.2/10.9%). Benefitting from the high-entropy nitrides, it is experimentally demonstrated that the as-deposited absorber exhibits superior thermal stability, which is crucial to ensure service life. Under 1000 W·m-2 simulated solar illumination, it achieves a very high surface temperature of 109.6 °C, making it suitable to enhance the efficiency of solar thermoelectric generators. Impressively, the integration of the proposed absorber with a commercial thermoelectric generator efficiently reinforces thermoelectric performance, offering a high output power of 1.99 mW. More importantly, by taking advantage of a thermal concentration strategy, it enables a further increase of the output power by 2.98 mW. This work provides a promising solar-thermal material to boost high thermoelectric performance and extends the application category of high-entropy nitrides.

Solid-State Nonlinear Optical Switch with the Widest Switching Temperature Range Owing to Its Continuously Tunable Tc.

Interest on the nonlinear optical (NLO) switches that turn on/off the second-harmonic generation (SHG) triggered by the external stimulus (such as heat) have continuously grown, especially on the solid-state NLO switches showing superior stability, reversibility, and reproducibility. Herein, we discover (NH4)2PO3F, as an entirely new solid-state NLO switch showing outstanding switch contrast and reversibility as well as strong SHG intensity (1.1 × KH2PO4 (KDP)) and high laser-induced damage threshold (2.0 × KDP), undergoes a unique first-order phase transition that originates from a reversible hydrogen-bond rearrangement and needs to overcome an energy barrier. Accordingly, we put forward a strategy to continuously modify such an energy barrier by reducing the number of hydrogen bonds per unit cell via an isoelectronic replacement of NH4+ by K+ with a similar size yet incapability of providing any hydrogen bond. Consequently, Kx(NH4)2-xPO3F (x = 0-0.3) exhibiting excellent switching performance are obtained. Remarkably, Kx(NH4)2-xPO3F not only realizes a continuously tunable Tc spanning from 270 to 150 K, representing the widest NLO switching temperature range ever known but also indicates the first solid-state NLO switch example with continuous Tc. Intrinsically, such a Tc decline depends on the weakening degree of the hydrogen-bonding interactions in the unit cell. These new insights will shed useful light on the future material design and open new application possibilities.

LncRNA MALAT1 promotes cell proliferation and imatinib resistance by sponging miR-328 in chronic myelogenous leukemia.

BACKGROUND: Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a type of cancer that starts in certain blood-forming cells of the bone marrow. LncRNA metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1), a well known protooncogene, has be shown to be upregulated in various tumor types, including multiple myeloma. However, the biological function of MALAT1 in CML remains has yet to be explored. This study was designed to investigate the effects of MALAT1 on the physiological processes in CML and its underlying mechanisms, which will be helpful for us to have a better understanding of CML development and progression as well as improved therapeutic method. METHODS: Recombinant virus construction and infection was performed to overexpress or knockdown the expression of MALAT1. Dual luciferase reporter assay was applied to vetify the interaction between MALAT1 and miR-328. The cell viability and cell cycle were analyzed by CCK-8 assay and flow cytometry, respectively. Quantitative real time PCR and western blotting assays were used to measure the expression of genes and proteins. RESULTS: The expression of MALAT1 was significantly increased in CML cells compared with peripheral blood cells from health donors. Silencing of MALAT1 significantly inhibited the proliferation and arrested cell cycle of CML cells by targeting miR-328. Moreover, MALAT1 knockdown enhanced imatinib sensitivity of K562 cells, while silencing of miR-328 abolished this effect. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that lncRNA MALAT1/miR-328 axis promotes the proliferation and imatinib resistance of CML cells, providing new perspectives for the future study of MALAT1 as a therapeutic target for CML.

Pre-clinical evaluation of a new indirectly labeled 99mTc-6-hydrazinopyridine-3-carboxylic acid (HYNIC)-depreotide with HYNIC as bifunctional chelator.

BACKGROUND: Technetium-99m or (99m)Tc is widely used for labeling peptide in nuclear medicine. Somatostatin and its analog can inhibit tumor cell growth after binding with its receptor. This research was to study the preclinical effect of a new (99m)Tc-6-hydrazinopyridine-3-carboxylic acid (HYNIC)-depreotide, indirect (99m)Tc labeling of depreotide using HYNIC as a bifunctional chelator. METHODS: The cyclopeptide, cyclo-[(N-Me) Phe-Tyr-D-Trp-Lys-Val-Hcy], the linear peptide, and [ClCH(2)-CO×b-Dap-Lys- Cys-Lys×amide] were synthesized by Fmoc solid-phase synthesis. The cyclopeptide and the linear peptide were linked by liquid-phase synthesis. The product depreotide was isolated and purified by high performance liquid chromatography and was confirmed by mass spectrography. Depreotide was labeled with (99m)Tc through a direct labeling method, using HYNIC as a bifunctional chelator. Paper chromatography method was used to calculate the labeling rate, and through the comparative analysis selected the best mark conditions. The new (99m)Tc-HYNIC-depreotide was tested by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The internalization and externalization rates of the new (99m)Tc-HYNIC-depreotide were studied in A549 cells. Furthermore, biodistribution of the radiopeptide was studied in nude mice, bearing tumors from human lung carcinoma cells SPC-A1. RESULTS: The molecular of synthesize depreotide was 1358, and the purity of it was 95.29%. The labeling efficiency of (99m)Tc-HYNIC-depreotide was highest at pH 6.0 and 15°C, about (70.95 ± 0.84)%. The labeling rate of the new (99m)Tc-HYNIC-depreotide rose to a peak of (20.75 ± 0.48)% at 60 minutes in A549 cells at 37°C and decreased slightly later, while it elevated gradually during the time course at 4°C and 25°C. The internalization rate of the new (99m)Tc-HYNIC-depreotide at 37°C increased gradually and reached the peak of 84.4% in 120 minutes, while the externalization rate of the new (99m)Tc-HYNIC-depreotide was always less than 20%. In mice bearing the experimental SPC-A1 tumor, the new (99m)Tc-HYNIC-depreotide demonstrated a high tumor uptake of (4.05 ± 0.04)% ID/g at 1.5 hpi and remained high ((2.51 ± 0.06)% ID/g) at 4 hpi. The tumor-to-lung activity concentration ratio (T/Lu) was very high for the new (99m)Tc-HYNIC-depreotide at all time points. So did the tumor-to-muscle activity (T/Mu) and tumor-to-blood activity concentration ratios (T/Bl). CONCLUSION: The findings suggested that the new (99m)Tc-HYNIC-depreotide might be a promising candidate radiopharmaceutical for imaging somatostatin receptor positive lung cancer.

The RODS Open Source Project: removing a barrier to syndromic surveillance.

The goal of the Real-time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS) Open Source Project is to accelerate deployment of computer-based syndromic surveillance. To this end, the project has released the RODS software under the GNU General Public License and created an organizational structure to catalyze its development. This paper describes the design of the software, requested extensions, and the structure of the development effort.