MOFs-Based Materials with Confined Space: Opportunities and Challenges for Energy and Catalytic Conversion.

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are a very promising material in the fields of energy and catalysis due to their rich active sites, tunable pore size, structural adaptability, and high specific surface area. The concepts of "carbon peak" and "carbon neutrality" have opened up huge development opportunities in the fields of energy storage, energy conversion, and catalysis, and have made significant progress and breakthroughs. In recent years, people have shown great interest in the development of MOFs materials and their applications in the above research fields. This review introduces the design strategies and latest progress of MOFs are included based on their structures such as core-shell, yolk-shell, multi-shelled, sandwich structures, unique crystal surface exposures, and MOF-derived nanomaterials in detail. This work comprehensively and systematically reviews the applications of MOF-based materials in energy and catalysis and reviews the research progress of MOF materials for atmospheric water harvesting, seawater uranium extraction, and triboelectric nanogenerators. Finally, this review looks forward to the challenges and opportunities of controlling the synthesis of MOFs through low-cost, improved conductivity, high-temperature heat resistance, and integration with machine learning. This review provides useful references for promoting the application of MOFs-based materials in the aforementioned fields.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on routine vaccination coverage under varying prevalence Conditions: A cohort study in Beijing, China.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has experienced various phases including outbreaks, a global health crisis, and eventual de-escalation from a public health emergency of international concern, significantly affecting the delivery and utilization of healthcare services. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the coverage rate of routine immunization in children under varying prevalence conditions. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective, population-based cohort study in Beijing, China, utilizing stratified random sampling by birthdate to obtain a sample of 29,811 participants. Subjects were categorized into four cohorts based on when they became eligible for vaccination: the Pre-COVID Period cohort, the COVID-19 Low Epidemic Period cohort, the COVID-19 Surging Period cohort, and the COVID-19 Slowing Down Period cohort. A one-month follow-up was conducted. Cox proportional hazards model was employed to examine associations between the COVID-19 epidemic status and timely vaccination. RESULTS: Participants age-eligible for vaccination during the COVID-19 Low Epidemic Period demonstrated higher rates of timely vaccination (HR 1.18, 95% CI 1.15-1.22) compared to those eligible during the Pre-COVID Period. Conversely, those eligible during the COVID-19 Surging Period displayed lower rates (HR 0.73, 95% CI 0.66-0.82). No significant difference in vaccination timeliness was observed for those eligible during the COVID-19 Slowing Down Period in comparison to the Pre-COVID Period (HR 0.99, 95% CI 0.91-1.09). By the end of May 2023, DTP3 rate among eligible children during the COVID-19 Surging Period had surpassed 90%. CONCLUSIONS: Significantly declining rates of timely vaccination were observed during the COVID-19 Surging Period, which lasted two months, but not during the nearly three-year-long COVID-19 Low Epidemic Period. An upward trend in vaccination timeliness followed, culminating in a return to baseline levels over the subsequent 3-4 months. Our findings suggested that the pandemic exerted a decreasing and recoverable impact on the coverage rate of routine immunizations in China.

Identification of angiogenesis-related genes signature for predicting survival and its regulatory network in glioblastoma.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is notorious for malignant neovascularization that contributes to undesirable outcome. However, its mechanisms remain unclear. This study aimed to identify prognostic angiogenesis-related genes and the potential regulatory mechanisms in GBM. RNA-sequencing data of 173 GBM patients were obtained from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database for screening differentially expressed genes (DEGs), differentially transcription factors (DETFs), and reverse phase protein array (RPPA) chips. Differentially expressed genes from angiogenesis-related gene set were extracted for univariate Cox regression analysis to identify prognostic differentially expressed angiogenesis-related genes (PDEARGs). A risk predicting model was constructed based on 9 PDEARGs, namely MARK1, ITGA5, NMD3, HEY1, COL6A1, DKK3, SERPINA5, NRP1, PLK2, ANXA1, SLIT2, and PDPN. Glioblastoma patients were stratified into high-risk and low-risk groups according to their risk scores. GSEA and GSVA were applied to explore the possible underlying GBM angiogenesis-related pathways. CIBERSORT was employed to identify immune infiltrates in GBM. The Pearson's correlation analysis was performed to evaluate the correlations among DETFs, PDEARGs, immune cells/functions, RPPA chips, and pathways. A regulatory network centered by three PDEARGs (ANXA1, COL6A1, and PDPN) was constructed to show the potential regulatory mechanisms. External cohort of 95 GBM patients by immunohistochemistry (IHC) assay demonstrated that ANXA1, COL6A1, and PDPN were significantly upregulated in tumor tissues of high-risk GBM patients. Single-cell RNA sequencing also validated malignant cells expressed high levels of the ANXA1, COL6A1, PDPN, and key DETF (WWTR1). Our PDEARG-based risk prediction model and regulatory network identified prognostic biomarkers and provided valuable insight into future studies on angiogenesis in GBM.

Performance and mechanism of simultaneous nitrification and denitrification in zeolite spheres internal loop airlift reactor.

An internal loop airlift reactor was constructed with zeolite spheres as biofilm carriers (ZS-ALR), and the performance and mechanism of nitrogen removal were investigated. The results indicated that the TN, NH4+-N and TOC removal efficiencies of ZS-ALR reached 96.12%, 100% and 94.54% under appropriate conditions (HRT of 6-8 h, aeration rates of 80-120 mL/min, C/N ratios of 4-6), and the highest TN removal rate constant was 0.01156 min-1. Further investigating the influence of ammonia-N concentrations on nitrogen removal and biofilm stability revealed that catabolism was important in TN removal, and the prominent genera for nitrogen removal included Sphaerotilus (42.20%), Flavobacterium (17.47%) and Fusibacter (6.14%). Meanwhile, the abundance of amoA, napA, narG and nosZ genes was markedly influenced by ammonia-N concentrations. The nitrogen removal of ZS-ALR was mainly through ammonia-N adsorption by zeolite spheres and simultaneous nitrification and denitrification by biofilm.

Preferences of general practitioners for delivering adult vaccination: A discrete choice experiment.

Preventive health workers rather than general practitioners (GPs) are the principal providers of vaccines in China, which may be a determinant of the unmet demand for vaccination, especially for adults, in recent years. GPs' preferences had a significant influence on alternative approaches to adult vaccination delivery. To better understand GP's preferences for adult vaccination services, we employed a discrete choice experiment with seven attributes: income, setting, information system, workshop, workload, performance measurement, and managerial support. Mixed logit models and latent class models were used for statistical analyses. In general, support from primary healthcare managers was the strongest driver of choice, followed by a 10% increase in workload, separate adult vaccination clinic, 5% increase in workload, and independent information system. Monthly income was significantly associated with provision of adult vaccination services. Based on the influence of latent factors, GPs fell into three classes that were correlated with GPs' years of practice, workload, income satisfaction, and knowledge-attitude-practicescore. Classes 1 and 2 valued the service setting and performance measurement differently, while Class 3 valued the service setting only (preferred separate adult vaccination clinics to provide service). This study generated actionable information to guide innovation in the adult vaccination delivery system in China.

Screening and identification of HTNVpv entry inhibitors with high-throughput pseudovirus-based chemiluminescence.

Hantaviruses, such as Hantaan virus (HTNV) and Seoul virus, are the causative agents of Hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS) and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), and are important zoonotic pathogens. China has the highest incidence of HFRS, which is mainly caused by HTNV and Seoul virus. No approved antiviral drugs are available for these hantaviral diseases. Here, a chemiluminescence-based high-throughput-screening (HTS) assay was developed and used to screen HTNV pseudovirus (HTNVpv) inhibitors in a library of 1813 approved drugs and 556 small-molecule compounds from traditional Chinese medicine sources. We identified six compounds with in vitro anti-HTNVpv activities in the low-micromolar range (EC50 values of 0.1-2.2 â€‹µmol/L; selectivity index of 40-900). Among the six selected compounds, cepharanthine not only showed good anti-HTNVpv activity in vitro but also inhibited HTNVpv-fluc infection in Balb/c mice 5 â€‹h after infection by 94% (180 â€‹mg/kg/d, P â€‹< â€‹0.01), 93% (90 â€‹mg/kg/d, P â€‹< â€‹0.01), or 92% (45 â€‹mg/kg/d, P â€‹< â€‹0.01), respectively, in a bioluminescent imaging mouse model. A time-of-addition analysis suggested that the antiviral mechanism of cepharanthine involves the membrane fusion and entry phases. Overall, we have established a HTS method for antiviral drugs screening, and shown that cepharanthine is a candidate for HCPS and HFRS therapy. These findings may offer a starting point for the treatment of patients infected with hantaviruses.

Evaluation of Immunogenicity by Pseudovirus Neutralization Assays for SARS-CoV-2 Variants after Primary and Booster Immunization.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the status of immune responses after primary and booster immunization for SARS-CoV-2 variants and evaluate the differences in disease resistance based upon titers of neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against the variants. METHODS: Participants aged 18-59 years received 2 doses of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine, 14 days apart, and a booster dose after 12 months. Blood samples were collected before vaccination (baseline), 1 and 6 months after primary immunization, and at multiple instances within 21 days of the booster dose. NAbs against the spike protein of Wuhan-Hu-1 and 3 variants were measured using pseudovirus neutralization assays. RESULTS: Of 400 enrolled participants, 387 completed visits scheduled within 6 months of the second dose and 346 participants received the booster dose in the follow-up research. After 1 month of primary immunization, geometric mean titers (GMTs) of NAbs peaked for Wuhan-Hu-1, whereas GMTs of other variants were <30. After 6 months of primary immunization, GMTs of NAbs against all strains were <30. After 3 days of booster immunization, GMTs were unaltered, seroconversion rates reached approximately 50% after 7 days, and GMTs of NAbs against all strains peaked at 14 days. CONCLUSION: Two-dose of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine induced the formation of NAbs and memory-associated immune responses, and high titers of NAbs against the variants obtained after booster immunization may further improve the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Optimization of a protocol for contrast-enhanced four-dimensional computed tomography imaging of thoracic tumors using minimal contrast agent.

PURPOSE: The accuracy of target delineation for node-positive thoracic tumors is dependent on both four-dimensional computed tomography (4D-CT) and contrast-enhanced three-dimensional (3D)-CT images; these scans enable the motion visualization of tumors and delineate the nodal areas. Combining the two techniques would be more effective; however, currently, there is no standard protocol for the contrast media injection parameters for contrast-enhanced 4D-CT (CE-4D-CT) scans because of its long scan durations and complexity. Thus, we aimed to perform quantitative and qualitative assessments of the image quality of single contrast-enhanced 4D-CT scans to simplify this process and improve the accuracy of target delineation in order to replace the standard clinical modality involved in administering radiotherapy for thoracic tumors. METHODS: Ninety consecutive patients with thoracic tumors were randomly and parallelly assigned to one of nine subgroups subjected to CE-4D-CT scans with the administration of contrast agent volume equal to the patient's weight but different flow rate and scan delay time (protocol A1: flow rate of 2.0 ml/s, delay time of 15 s; A2: 2.0 ml/s, 20 s; A3: 2.0 ml/s, 25 s; B1: 2.5 ml/s, 15 s; B2: 2.5 ml/s, 20 s; B3: 2.5 ml/s, 25 s; C1: 3.0 ml/s, 15 s; C2: 3.0 ml/s, 20 s; C3: 3.0 ml/s, 25 s). The Hounsfield unit (HU) values of the thoracic aorta, pulmonary artery stem, pulmonary veins, carotid artery, and jugular vein were acquired for each protocol. Both quantitative and qualitative image analysis and delineation acceptability were assessed. RESULTS: The results revealed significant differences among the nine protocols. Enhancement of the vascular structures in mediastinal and perihilar regions was more effective with protocol A1 or A2; however, when interested in the region of superior mediastinum and supraclavicular fossa, protocol C2 or C3 is recommended. CONCLUSION: Qualitatively acceptable enhancement on contrast-enhanced 4D-CT images of thoracic tumors can be obtained by varying the flow rate and delay time when minimal contrast agent is used.

High-Throughput Screening and Identification of Human Adenovirus Type 5 Inhibitors.

Human adenovirus infections can develop into diffuse multi-organ diseases in young children and immunocompromised patients, and severe cases can lead to death. However, there are no approved antiviral drugs available to treat adenovirus diseases. In this study, a chemiluminescence-based, high-throughput screening (HTS) assay was developed and applied to screen human adenovirus 5(HAdV5)inhibitors from 1,813 approved drug library and 556 traditional Chinese medicine-sourced small-molecule compounds. We identified three compounds with in vitro anti-HAdV5 activities in the low-micromolar range (EC50 values 0.3-4.5 µM, selectivity index values 20-300) that also showed inhibitory effects on HAdV3. Cardamomin (CDM) had good anti-HAdV5 activity in vitro. Furthermore, three dilutions of CDM (150, 75, and 37.5 mg/kg/d) administered to BALB/c mouse models inhibited HAdV5-fluc infection at 1 day post-infection by 80% (p < 0.05), 76% (p < 0.05), and 58% (p < 0.05), respectively. HE-staining of pathological tissue sections of mice infected with a wildtype adenoviral strain showed that CDM had a protective effect on tissues, especially in the liver, and greatly inhibited virus-induced necrosis of liver tissue. Thus, CDM inhibits adenovirus replication in vivo and in vitro. This study established a high-throughput screening method for anti-HAdV5 drugs and demonstrated CDM to be a candidate for HAdV5 therapy, potentially providing a new treatment for patients infected with adenoviruses.

Trends in Alzheimer's Disease Research Based upon Machine Learning Analysis of PubMed Abstracts.

About 29.8 million people worldwide had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD) in 2015, and the number is projected to triple by 2050. In 2018, AD was the fifth leading cause of death in Americans with 65 years of age or older, but the progress of AD drug research is very limited. It is helpful to identify the key factors and research trends of AD for guiding further more effective studies. We proposed a framework named as LDAP, which combined the latent Dirichlet allocation model and affinity propagation algorithm to extract research topics from 95,876 AD-related papers published from 2007 to 2016. Trends and hotspots analyses were performed on LDAP results. We found that the focus points of AD research for the past 10 years include 15 diseases, 15 amino acids, peptides, and proteins, 9 enzymes and coenzymes, 7 hormones, 7 carbohydrates, 5 lipids, 2 organophosphonates, 18 chemicals, 11 compounds, 13 symptoms, and 20 phenomena. Our LDAP framework allowed us to trace the evolution of research trends and the most popular areas of interest (hotspots) on disease, protein, symptom, and phenomena. Meanwhile, 556 AD related-genes were identified, which are enriched in 12 KEGG pathways including the AD pathway and nitrogen metabolism pathway. Our results are freely available at https://www.keaml.cn/Alzheimer.

Analysis of epidemiological characteristics of four natural-focal diseases in Shandong Province, China in 2009-2017: A descriptive analysis.

BACKGROUND: Natural-focal diseases are serious diseases that endanger human health. They threaten about 100 million people in Shandong Province, and cause illness in thousands of people each year. However, information on the epidemiological characteristics of natural-focal diseases in Shandong Province has been limited. The purpose of the study was to describe and analyze the epidemiological characteristics of natural-focal diseases in Shandong Province, 2009-2017. METHODS: We describe the incidence and distribution of four natural-focal diseases in Shandong Province using surveillance data from 2009-2017. RESULTS: From 2009-2017, 11123 cases of four natural-focal diseases including 257 deaths were reported in Shandong Province, China. The four natural-focal diseases were severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA), typhus, and scrub typhus. The high-risk groups of the four diseases were farmers and the elderly. The incidence rate of scrub typhus was significantly higher in females. However, this difference was not seen in the other three diseases. The four diseases were mainly clustered in the middle-southern part of Shandong Province and the Shandong Peninsula. The annual incidence of SFTS and scrub typhus increased, typhus was relatively stable, and HGA declined. However, the range of SFTS expanded, while HGA shrunk, and typhus and scrub typhus were unchanged. The epidemic period of SFTS and HGA was from May to October, typhus was from October to November, and scrub typhus was from September to November. The fatality rates of SFTS, typhus, scrub typhus, and HGA were 9.19%, 0%, 0.01%, and 2.24%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Our study described and analyzed the prevalence of natural-focal diseases in Shandong Province, and confirmed that age was closely related to the SFTS fatality rate. This study may help to improve the understanding of the prevalence of natural-focal diseases in Shandong Province in recent years and to better develop accurate prevention and control strategies for natural-focal diseases.

The untranslated regions of EV-A71 contribute to its pathogenicity and virulence.

Enterovirus A71 (EV-A71) is known for its manifestation as hand foot and mouth disease (HFMD), which has caused countless large-scale epidemic outbreaks throughout the world. However, the molecular pathogenesis of EV-A71 infection is still elusive. Previous studies found that the biological characteristics of a mild EV-A71 strain (SDLY1) and a severe EV-A71 strain (SDLY107) are significantly different, and sequence analysis showed that there are several differences in nucleotide sites of UTRs (88 nt, 123 nt, 143 nt, 154 nt, 187 nt, 241 nt, 243 nt, 253 nt, 291 nt, 438 nt, 440 nt, 571 nt, 579 nt, 602 nt, 658 nt, 664 nt, 690 nt, 696 nt, 7328 nt, 7335 nt, 7367 nt, and 7395 nt). The aim of this study was to determine whether these amino sites in UTRs are associated with the pathogenesis of EV-A71 and are responsible for different clinical manifestations. Based on the reverse genetics technology, we rescued two chimeric viruses SDLY107(1-5'UTR) and SDLY107(1-3'UTR) by replacing 5'UTR/3'UTR gene fragments of an infectious cDNA clone. Replication kinetics and cytotoxicity assays showed that the virulence of the two chimeric strains significantly changed in vitro. The viral loads of the two chimeric strains in infected ICR mice were reduced and pathological damage in the brains, lungs, intestinal tissues, and muscles were lightened. Our findings suggest that some nucleotide sites in UTRs may have a function in the pathogenicity and virulence of EV-A71.

Asymmetric Mannich Reaction of Isatin-Based Ketimines with α-Diazomethylphosphonates Catalyzed by Chiral Silver Phosphate.

An efficient asymmetric Mannich reaction of isatin-based ketimines with α-diazomethylphosphonates has been developed using a chiral binaphthanol-derived silver phosphate as the catalyst. This reaction allowed the construction of a series of chiral oxindoles bearing a quaternary stereocenter and amino group at the C3 position with up to 95% yields and 99% ee. Those products could be further transformed into promising densely functionalized compounds by merging of the oxindole and ß-aminophosphonate.

Co-occurrence of circular dichroism and asymmetric transmission in twist nanoslit-nanorod Arrays.

Circular dichroism (CD) and asymmetric transmission (AT) are important in the field of negative refractive index media and perfect polarization converters. A large difference between T++ and T-- in the transmission matrix T leads to a large CD effect, whereas a large difference between T-+ and T+- leads to a large AT effect. To achieve large CD and AT effects simultaneously, we theoretically analyzed the transmission matrix T and proposed the chiral plasmonic nanostructure of twist nanoslit-nanorod arrays (TNNAs) in this study. Results calculated by the finite element method show that, at around resonant wavelengths, the spectra of T++ and T-- correspondingly present peaks and valleys leading to a large CD effect. Meanwhile one of the spectra for T-+ and T+- presents valleys and another presents peaks leading to a large AT effect. More importantly, the magnitude of CD is equivalent to that of AT. In addition, the CD and AT effects strongly depend on the geometric parameters of TNNAs. Overall, these results are useful for designing chiral plasmonic nanostructures with large CD and AT effects.

Giant circular dichroism induced by silver nanocuboid heterodimers.

Metallic nanocuboid heterodimers are proposed to generate a giant circular dichroism (CD) effect. Two cuboids in the heterodimers have different heights. The dipole and quadrupole charge oscillation modes in the cuboids occur under left- and right-handed circular polarizations. The height difference generates phase difference between charge oscillations in the two cuboids. The two charge oscillations and the phase difference between them are consistent with the Born-Kuhn model for the CD effect. The CD effect of the nanocuboid heterodimers can be tuned by changing the structural parameters of the nanocuboid heterodimers, especially the height difference between two cuboids. The results of this research are not only useful for designing plasmonic structures to generate the CD effect but also for understanding the physical mechanisms of the CD effect.

Highly efficient asymmetric Mannich reaction of dialkyl α-diazomethylphosphonates with N-carbamoyl imines catalyzed by chiral Brønsted acids.

An efficient method involving the first use of chiral phosphoric acids as catalysts in the asymmetric Mannich reaction of dialkyl diazomethylphosphonates and N-carbamoyl imines is developed. With only 0.1 mol % catalyst 1f, the reaction proceeded smoothly and produced the corresponding ß-amino-α-diazophosphonate with up to 97% yield and >99% ee.