Isolated Binary Fe-Ni Metal-Nitrogen Sites Anchored on Porous Carbon Nanosheets for Efficient Oxygen Electrocatalysis through High-Temperature Gas-Migration Strategy.

Atomically dispersed dual-site catalysts can regulate multiple reaction processes and provide synergistic functions based on diverse molecules and their interfaces. However, how to synthesize and stabilize dual-site single-atom catalysts (DACs) is confronted with challenges. Herein, we report a facile high-temperature gas-migration strategy to synthesize Fe-Ni DACs on nitrogen-doped carbon nanosheets (FeNiSAs/NC). FeNiSAs/NC exhibits a high half-wave potential (0.88 V) for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and a low overpotential of 410 mV at 10 mA cm-2 for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). As an air electrode for Zn-air batteries (ZABs), it shows better performances in aqueous ZABs and excellent stability and flexibility in solid-state ZABs. The high specific surface area (1687.32 m2/g) of FeNiSAs/NC is conducive to electron transport. Density functional theory (DFT) reveals that the Fe sites are the active center, and Ni sites can significantly optimize the free energy of the oxygen-containing intermediate state on Fe sites, contributing to the improvement of ORR and the corresponding OER activities. This work can provide guidance for the rational design of DACs and understand the structure-activity relationship of SACs with multiple active sites for electrocatalytic energy conversion.

Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production from Pure Water Using a IEF-11/g-C3N4 S-Scheme Heterojunction.

Construction of S-scheme heterojunction offers a promising way to enhance the photocatalytic performance of photocatalysts for converting solar energy into chemical energy. However, the photocatalytic H2 production in pure water without sacrificial agents is still a challenge. Herein, the IEF-11 with the best photocatalytic H2 production performance in MOFs and suitable band structure was selected and firstly constructed with g-C3N4 to obtain a S-scheme heterojunction for photocatalytic H2 production from pure water. As a result, the novel IEF-11/g-C3N4 heterojunction photocatalysts exhibited significantly improved photocatalytic H2 production performance in pure water without any sacrificial agent, with a rate of 576 µmol/g/h, which is about 8 times than that of g-C3N4 and 23 times of IEF-11. The novel IEF-11/g-C3N4 photocatalysts also had a photocatalytic H2 production rate of up to 92 µmol/g/h under visible light and a good photocatalytic stability. The improved performance can be attributed to the efficient separation of photogenerated charge carriers, faster charge transfer efficiency and longer photogenerated carrier lifetimes, which comes from the forming of S-scheme heterojunction in the IEF-11/g-C3N4 photocatalyst. This work is a promising guideline for obtaining MOF-based or g-C3N4-based photocatalysts with great photocatalytic water splitting performance.

Fluoxetine Ameliorates the Aggravation of UC Symptoms in C57BL/6 Mice Induced by CUMS.

OBJECTIVE: Patients with chronic ulcerative colitis (UC) often have mental symptoms such as depression and anxiety, and stress can lead to gastrointestinal diseases. However, the correlation between mental stress and UC is unclear. In this paper, chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) was utilized to evaluate the involvement of mental factors in the pathogenesis of UC. METHODS: The CUMS model was used to evaluate the direct/indirect involvement of mental factors in the pathogenesis of UC. The behavior was evaluated by the open field, forced swimming, and tail suspension tests. Body weight, the disease activity index (DAI) score, colon length, and HE staining of colon tissue were used to evaluate the action of CUMS and fluoxetine. RESULTS: The results showed that weight loss and the DAI score increased in CUMS mice, but they had no meaningful effect on colon length and morphological structure of colon tissue. However, CUMS aggravated dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colon length shortening and colon morphological structure damage. Fluoxetine significantly improved the DAI score, shortened colon length, and damaged morphology and structure of the colons induced by CUMS combined with DSS in mice. Fluoxetine also decreased the level of IL-6 in the serum and the TNF-α and IFN-γ levels of colon tissue. Fluoxetine simultaneously improved behavioral abnormalities induced by CUMS combined with DSS in mice. CONCLUSION: CUMS aggravated the UC symptoms induced by DSS, and fluoxetine could improve the UC symptoms due to its improvement in the inflammatory level and behavioral abnormalities.

Transition-Metal Single Atom Anchored on MoS2 for Enhancing Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production of g-C3N4 Photocatalysts.

Single-atom catalyst technology with near-100% atomic utilization and a well-defined coordination structure has provided new ideas for designing high-performance photocatalysts, which is also beneficial for reducing the usage of noble metal cocatalysts. Herein, a series of single-atomic MoS2-based cocatalysts where monoatomic Ru, Co, or Ni modify MoS2 (SA-MoS2) for enhancing the photocatalytic hydrogen production performance of g-C3N4 nanosheets (NSs) are rationally designed and synthesized. The 2D SA-MoS2/g-C3N4 photocatalysts with Ru, Co, or Ni single atoms show similar enhanced photocatalytic activity, and the optimized Ru1-MoS2/g-C3N4 photocatalyst has the highest hydrogen production rate of 11115 µmol/h/g, which is about 37 and 5 times higher than that of pure g-C3N4 and MoS2/g-C3N4 photocatalysts, respectively. Experimental and density functional theory calculation results reveal that the enhanced photocatalytic performance is mainly attributed to the synergistic effect and intimate interface between SA-MoS2 with well-defined coordination single-atomic structures and g-C3N4 NSs, which is conducive to the rapid interfacial charge transport, and the unique single-atomic structure of SA-MoS2 with modified electronic structure and appropriate hydrogen adsorption performance offers abundant reactive sites for enhancing the photocatalytic hydrogen production performance. This work provides new insight into improving the cocatalytic hydrogen production performance of MoS2 by a single-atomic strategy.

Atomically Dispersed Fe/N4 and Ni/N4 Sites on Separate-Sides of Porous Carbon Nanosheets with Janus Structure for Selective Oxygen Electrocatalysis.

Dual single atoms catalysts have promising application in bifunctional electrocatalysis due to their synergistic effect. However, how to balance the competition between rate-limiting steps (RDSs) of reversible oxygen reduction and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and fully expose the active centers by reasonable structure design remain enormous challenges. Herein, Fe/N4 and Ni/N4 sites separated on different sides of the carbon nanosheets with Janus structure (FeNijns /NC) is synthesized by layer-by-layer assembly method. Experiments and calculations reveal that the side of Fe/N4 is beneficial to oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and the Ni/N4 side is preferred to OER. Such Janus structure can take full advantage of two separate-sides of carbon nanosheets and balance the competition of RDSs during ORR and OER. FeNijns /NC possesses superior ORR and OER activity with ORR half-wave potential of 0.92 V and OER overpotential of 440 mV at J = 10 mA cm-2 . Benefiting from the excellent bifunctional activities, FeNijns /NC assembled aqueous Zn-air battery (ZAB) demonstrates better maximum power density, and long-term stability (140 h) than Pt/C+RuO2 catalyst. It also reveals superior flexibility and stability in solid-state ZAB. This work brings a novel perspective for rational design and understanding of the catalytic mechanisms of dual single atom catalysts.

Aptamers as Smart Ligands for Targeted Drug Delivery in Cancer Therapy.

Undesirable side effects and multidrug tolerance are the main holdbacks to the treatment of cancer in conventional chemotherapy. Fortunately, targeted drug delivery can improve the enrichment of drugs at the target site and reduce toxicity to normal tissues and cells. A targeted drug delivery system is usually composed of a nanocarrier and a targeting component. The targeting component is called a "ligand". Aptamers have high target affinity and specificity, which are identified as attractive and promising ligands. Therefore, aptamers have potential application in the development of smart targeting systems. For instance, aptamers are able to efficiently recognize tumor markers such as nucleolin, mucin, and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Besides, aptamers can also identify glycoproteins on the surface of tumor cells. Thus, the aptamer-mediated targeted drug delivery system has received extensive attention in the application of cancer therapy. This article reviews the application of aptamers as smart ligands for targeted drug delivery in cancer therapy. Special interest is focused on aptamers as smart ligands, aptamer-conjugated nanocarriers, aptamer targeting strategy for tumor microenvironment (TME), and aptamers that are specified to crucial cancer biomarkers for targeted drug delivery.

Effect of Problem-Oriented Evidence-Based Nursing on Clinical Recovery and Prognosis in Patients with Arrhythmia after Acute Myocardial Infarction.

Background: To probe into the influence of evidence-based nursing (EBN) on clinical recovery and prognosis of patients with arrhythmia after acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Methods: Totally, 240 AMI patients with arrhythmia treated in Taizhou People's Hospital (Jiangsu, China) from July 2019 to December 2020 were collected and randomly divided into the study group (n = 120) and control group (n = 120). The control group was received routine nursing, while the study group carried out EBN. The following indicators were evaluated and compared between the two groups: length of hospital stay, symptom disappearance time, cardiac function, psychological status, and incidence of adverse events after 6 months of follow-up were. Results: Compared to the control group, the length of hospital stay, symptom disappearance time, LVEF (left ventricular ejection fraction), LVEDD (left ventricular end-diastolic diameter), SAS (self-rating anxiety scale) score and SDS (self-rating depression scale) score in the study group were significant improves (P < 0.05), and the incidence of adverse events after 6-month follow-up in the study group was also significantly lower than that in the control group (P < 0.05). Conclusion: EBN intervention for AMI patients with arrhythmia can significantly improve the length of hospital stay and symptom disappearance time, adjust cardiac function and psychological status, and reduce the incidence of adverse events.

Nanocage Ferritin Reinforced Polyacrylamide Hydrogel for Wearable Flexible Strain Sensors.

Biocomposite hydrogels are promising for applications in wearable flexible strain sensors. Nevertheless, the existing biocomposite hydrogels are still hard to meet all requirements, which limits the practical application. Here, inspired by the structure and composition of natural ferritin, we design a PAAm-Ferritin hybrid hydrogel through a facile method. Ferritin is uniformly distributed in the cross-linking networks and acts as a nanocage spring model, leading to the enhanced tensile strength of the hydrogel. The fracture stress is 99 kPa at 1400% maximum elongation. As fabricated PAAm-Ferritin hybrid hydrogels exhibit high toughness and low elastic modulus (21 kPa). The PAAm-Ferritin hybrid hydrogels present excellent biocompatibility and increased conductivity compared with PAAm hydrogel. Impressively, as a wearable flexible strain sensor, the PAAm-Ferritin hybrid hydrogels have high sensitivity (gauge factor = 2.06), excellent reliability, and cycling stability. This study indicates the feasibility of utilizing ferritin to synthesize functional materials, which is conducive to expanding the use of protein synthesis of materials technology and application fields.

Polyvinyl Alcohol/Graphene Oxide Conductive Hydrogels via the Synergy of Freezing and Salting Out for Strain Sensors.

Hydrogels of flexibility, strength, and conductivity have demonstrated broad applications in wearable electronics and soft robotics. However, it is still a challenge to fabricate conductive hydrogels with high strength massively and economically. Herein, a simple strategy is proposed to design a strong ionically conductive hydrogel. This ion-conducting hydrogel was obtained under the synergistic action by salting out the frozen mixture of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and graphene oxide (GO) using a high concentration of sodium chloride solution. The developed hydrogel containing only 5 wt% PVA manifests good tensile stress (65 kPa) and elongation (180%). Meanwhile, the PVA matrix doped with a small amount of GO formed uniformly porous ion channels after salting out, endowed the PVA/GO hydrogel with excellent ionic conductivity (up to 3.38 S m-1). Therefore, the fabricated PVA/GO hydrogel, anticipated for a strain sensor, exhibits good sensitivity (Gauge factor = 2.05 at 100% strain), satisfying working stability (stably cycled for 10 min), and excellent recognition ability. This facile method to prepare conductive hydrogels displays translational potential in flexible electronics for engineering applications.

Controllable Synthesis of Polyphenol Spheres via Amine-Catalyzed Polymerization-Induced Self-Assembly.

A facile and general strategy for preparing uniform and multifunctional polyphenol-based colloidal particles through amine-catalyzed polymerization-induced self-assembly is described. The size and interfacial adhesion of polyphenol spheres can be easily controlled over a wide range via adjusting the concentration of the cosolvent and monomer. Moreover, the polyphenol spheres showed excellent thermal and chemical stability and highly active properties and could efficiently deplete the reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are helpful for in vivo ROS regulation for inflammatory therapeutic. The accessible and versatile method provides a feasible way for the rational engineering of multifunctional polyphenol spheres, which have great potential in many fields.

A step-by-step synergistic stripping approach toward ultra-thin porous g-C3N4 nanosheets with high conduction band position for photocatalystic CO2 reduction.

The pristine g-C3N4 (BCN) with a low conversion efficiency of CO2 exits with small specific surface area, weak CO2 adsorption and severe recombination of photo-generated charges. The stripping of few-layer g-C3N4 represents excellent photocatalytic performance, which attracts extensive attention in photocatalytic CO2 reduction. In the present study, the ultra-thin porous g-C3N4 (THCN) with high specific surface area and high position of conduction band was prepared using step-by-step synergistic exfoliation. Further, we treated it with HCl-assisted hydrothermal stripping and successive thermal stripping/etching in air. Our results showed that the THCN exhibited the best CO2 conversion efficiency from CO2 to CH4 and CO fuels, compared with g-C3N4 (HCN) prepared by HCl-assisted hydrothermal stripping and g-C3N4 (TCN) prepared by thermal stripping/etching in air. Further, the excellent photocatalytic performance for CO2 reduction was mainly attributed to its high specific surface area and rich pores, excellent separation and utilization efficiency of photo-generated carriers, and upper position of conduction band. Due to its wide band gap and high specific surface area, the THCN also showed significantly better degradation for Rhodamine B than BCN, HCN and TCN. Nonetheless, using a simple two-step stripping strategy, we prepared and obtained an ultra-thin porous g-C3N4 nanosheets with a high specific surface area for CO2 conversion to CH4 and CO fuels. This ultimately provided a reference for preparation of other two-dimensional ultra-thin materials for CO2 reduction.

Ultra-stable Pickering emulsion stabilized by a natural particle bilayer.

Ultra-stable Pickering emulsions synergistically stabilized by zein nanoparticles and starch nanocrystals were successfully prepared and the stabilization is ascribed to the double-layer shell of binary particles. The as-prepared Pickering emulsions showed unprecedented stability against centrifugation up to 20 000g and against environmental stresses such as pH change and high temperature.

Engineering Z-scheme TiO2-OV-BiOCl via oxygen vacancy for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of imidacloprid.

The development and application of photocatalysts with strong redox ability to degrade refractory pesticides is the key to eliminating pesticide contamination. In this work, we develop a facile, time-saving, and surfactant-assisted method to fabricate a new Z-scheme heterojunction based on TiO2/BiOCl. This photocatalyst is rich in oxygen vacancy defects (TiO2-OV-BiOCl), and displays an excellent photocatalytic degradation performance for imidacloprid (IMD), and a possible degradation pathway of IMD is provided. The surfactant F127 plays an essential role in regulating the oxygen vacancy defects (OVDs) of TiO2-OV-BiOCl, where the OVD mainly exists in 5 layer BiOCl ultrathin nanosheets. Free radical trapping experiments demonstrate that the introduction of an OVD in BiOCl as a 'charge mediator' changes the charge-transfer mode from a type-II mechanism to a Z-scheme mechanism. The formation of a Z-scheme heterojunction leads to an excellent light utilization and higher separation efficiency of photogenerated charge carriers with a prolonged lifetime compared to those of BiOCl and TiO2/BiOCl. This work highlights the critical role of an OVD in the construction of a Z-scheme heterojunction of TiO2/BiOCl, and it can be applied to construct efficient photocatalytic systems for pesticide degradation.

Spout Fluidized Bed Assisted Preparation of Poly(tannic acid)-Coated Urea Fertilizer.

Slow-release fertilizers (SRFs) have been widely used to reduce environment pollution derived from excessive nutrients. Coated fertilizers have been designed and prepared using various materials. However, development of new green coating materials and simple process is still a huge challenge. In this study, tannic acid (TA), a natural polyphenol, was used to prepare poly(tannic acid) (PTA)-coated fertilizers with urea prills as the core, and the technology of the coating process in a spout fluidized bed was developed. PTA coating could be formed rapidly by the fast oxidation of TA by an oxidation solution containing CuSO4 and H2O2. The coated urea release behavior was systematically studied in water and soil. In both water and soil, the release rate of nitrogen from coated urea is much slower than that from raw urea. Raw urea was completely dissolved within 30 min, while 27% of urea was released from coated urea. The pot experiments indicated that coated urea has a positive effect on the plant growth as well. Our results provide an effective method to prepare environment-friendly SRFs, indicating a promising application in sustainable agriculture.

Human mitochondrial genome compression using machine learning techniques.

BACKGROUND: In recent years, with the development of high-throughput genome sequencing technologies, a large amount of genome data has been generated, which has caused widespread concern about data storage and transmission costs. However, how to effectively compression genome sequences data remains an unsolved problem. RESULTS: In this paper, we propose a compression method using machine learning techniques (DeepDNA), for compressing human mitochondrial genome data. The experimental results show the effectiveness of our proposed method compared with other on the human mitochondrial genome data. CONCLUSIONS: The compression method we proposed can be classified as non-reference based method, but the compression effect is comparable to that of reference based methods. Moreover, our method not only have a well compression results in the population genome with large redundancy, but also in the single genome with small redundancy. The codes of DeepDNA are available at https://github.com/rongjiewang/DeepDNA .

Improve Plant Photosynthesis by a New Slow-Release Carbon Dioxide Gas Fertilizer.

In the natural state, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 300 µmol mol-1. Plants need a suitable balance of CO2 to achieve optimal growth. The optimum CO2 content corresponding to a high photosynthesis rate is between 0.1 and 1.0% by volume. However, air has only a CO2 content of 0.03% by volume, so plants cannot use all of their growth potential. The use of fertilizer to assist in the supply of CO2 increases the rate of photosynthesis. In this work, a slow-release CO2 gas fertilizer inspired by polyphenol chemistry was prepared to provide sustainable CO2 that could improve plant photosynthetic capacity and get a higher crop yield. The core-shell structure was designed to confer gas fertilizers slow-release property. Micron-sized calcium carbonate particles with uniform particle size and regularity morphology, as carbon sources for plant photosynthesis, was a core, and tannic acid was coated on it as a shell via oxidative oligomerization and cross-linked by polyetherimide. The structure and morphology of fertilizers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. In vitro experiments, the prepared fertilizers were proved to have slow-release properties. And then through net photosynthesis rate, chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, chlorophyll content, leaf area, leaf mass per area, and dry matter to study the effects of slow-release CO2 gas fertilizers on plant physiology of Brassica chinensis. The results revealed that the slow-release CO2 gas fertilizers not only had good slow-release properties but also can well improve plant photosynthesis.

Integrated entropy-based approach for analyzing exons and introns in DNA sequences.

BACKGROUND: Numerous essential algorithms and methods, including entropy-based quantitative methods, have been developed to analyze complex DNA sequences since the last decade. Exons and introns are the most notable components of DNA and their identification and prediction are always the focus of state-of-the-art research. RESULTS: In this study, we designed an integrated entropy-based analysis approach, which involves modified topological entropy calculation, genomic signal processing (GSP) method and singular value decomposition (SVD), to investigate exons and introns in DNA sequences. We optimized and implemented the topological entropy and the generalized topological entropy to calculate the complexity of DNA sequences, highlighting the characteristics of repetition sequences. By comparing digitalizing entropy values of exons and introns, we observed that they are significantly different. After we converted DNA data to numerical topological entropy value, we applied SVD method to effectively investigate exon and intron regions on a single gene sequence. Additionally, several genes across five species are used for exon predictions. CONCLUSIONS: Our approach not only helps to explore the complexity of DNA sequence and its functional elements, but also provides an entropy-based GSP method to analyze exon and intron regions. Our work is feasible across different species and extendable to analyze other components in both coding and noncoding region of DNA sequences.

BdBG: a bucket-based method for compressing genome sequencing data with dynamic de Bruijn graphs.

Dramatic increases in data produced by next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies demand data compression tools for saving storage space. However, effective and efficient data compression for genome sequencing data has remained an unresolved challenge in NGS data studies. In this paper, we propose a novel alignment-free and reference-free compression method, BdBG, which is the first to compress genome sequencing data with dynamic de Bruijn graphs based on the data after bucketing. Compared with existing de Bruijn graph methods, BdBG only stored a list of bucket indexes and bifurcations for the raw read sequences, and this feature can effectively reduce storage space. Experimental results on several genome sequencing datasets show the effectiveness of BdBG over three state-of-the-art methods. BdBG is written in python and it is an open source software distributed under the MIT license, available for download at https://github.com/rongjiewang/BdBG.

WDNfinder: A method for minimum driver node set detection and analysis in directed and weighted biological network.

Structural controllability is the generalization of traditional controllability for dynamical systems. During the last decade, interesting biological discoveries have been inferred by applied structural controllability analysis to biological networks. However, false positive/negative information (i.e. nodes and edges) widely exists in biological networks that documented in public data sources, which can hinder accurate analysis of structural controllability. In this study, we propose WDNfinder, a comprehensive analysis package that provides structural controllability with consideration of node connection strength in biological networks. When applied to the human cancer signaling network and p53-mediate DNA damage response network, WDNfinder shows high accuracy on essential nodes prediction in these networks. Compared to existing methods, WDNfinder can significantly narrow down the set of minimum driver node set (MDS) under the restriction of domain knowledge. When using p53-mediate DNA damage response network as illustration, we find more meaningful MDSs by WDNfinder. The source code is implemented in python and publicly available together with relevant data on GitHub: https://github.com/dustincys/WDNfinder .

UV-Triggered Surface-Initiated Polymerization from Colorless Green Tea Polyphenol-Coated Surfaces.

A facile and versatile approach to constructing colorless surface coatings based on green tea polyphenols is reported, which can further act as a photoinitiating layer to initiate radical polymerization. These colorless green tea polyphenol coatings are capable of successfully photografting polymer brushes, and the resulting polymer brush patterns show spatial shape adjustability by masked UV irradiation. Both surface modifications and photografted polymer brushes do not alter the original color of the substrates. This method could be promising for the development of surface modifications.