Wiggling Mesopores Kinetically Amplify the Adsorptive Separation of Propylene/Propane.

Adsorptive separation is an appealing technology for propylene and propane separation; however, the challenge lies in the design of efficient adsorbents which can distinguish the two molecules having very similar properties. Here we report a kinetically amplified separation by creating wiggling mesopores in structurally robust carbon monoliths. The wiggling mesopores with alternating wide and narrow segments afford a surface area of 413 m2 g-1 and a tri-modal pore size distribution centered at 1.5, 4.2 and 6.6 nm, respectively. The synergistically kinetic and equilibrium effects were observed and quantitatively assessed, which together ensured a remarkable propylene/propane selectivity up to 39. This selectivity outperformed not only the available carbon adsorbents but also highly competitive among the dominated crystalline porous adsorbents. In addition, the wiggling mesoporous carbon adsorbent showed excellent dynamical separation stability, which ensured its great potential in practical molecular separations.

Three-Dimensional (3D) Nanostructured Skeleton Substrate Composed of Hollow Carbon Fiber/Carbon Nanosheet/ZnO for Stable Lithium Anode.

The practical applications of Li metal batteries (LMBs) have long been limited by the obstacles of low Coulombic efficiency (CE) and formation of dendrites on Li metal electrode. Herein, we demonstrated the synthesis of a novel three-dimensional (3D) nanostructured skeleton substrate composed of nitrogen-doped hollow carbon fiber/carbon nanosheets/ZnO (NHCF/CN/ZnO) using 2-methylimidazole (2-MIZ)-coated 3D cloth as a scaffold. The mechanism of formation of this novel hierarchical structure was investigated. The multilayered hierarchical structure and abundant lithiophilic nucleation sites of the substrate provide a stable environment for the deposition and stripping of lithium metal, thus preventing the generation of lithium dendrites. Consequently, the lithium anode based on the NHCF/CN/ZnO current collector demonstrated an excellent Coulombic efficiency of 96.47% after 400 cycles at 0.5 mA cm-2. The prepared NHCF/CN/ZnO/Li electrode also showed outstanding cycling performance of over 800 h and an ultralow voltage hysteresis of less than 30 mV in a symmetric cell at 5 mA cm-2 and 5 mAh cm-2. Even at a high loading of the cathode with 10.4 mg cm-2, the full cell of NHCF/CN/ZnO/Li anode with LiFePO4 can also work very well. Our work offers a path toward the facial preparation of 3D hierarchical structure for high-performance lithium metal batteries.

Prevalence and Multilocus Genotyping of Giardia lamblia in Cattle in Jiangxi Province, China: Novel Assemblage E Subtypes Identified.

Giardia lamblia is a common enteric pathogen associated with diarrheal diseases. There are some reports of G. lamblia infection among different breeds of cattle in recent years worldwide. However, it is yet to know whether cattle in Jiangxi province, southeastern China is infected with G. lamblia. The objectives of the present study were to investigate the prevalence and examine the multilocus genotypes of G. lamblia in cattle in Jiangxi province. A total of 556 fecal samples were collected from 3 cattle breeds (dairy cattle, beef cattle, and buffalo) in Jiangxi province, and the prevalence and genotypes of G. lamblia were determined by the nested PCR amplification of the beta-giardin (bg) gene. A total of 52 samples (9.2%) were positive for G. lamblia. The highest prevalence of G. lamblia was detected in dairy cattle (20.0%), followed by that in beef cattle (6.4%), and meat buffalo (0.9%). Multilocus sequence typing of G. lamblia was performed based on sequences of the bg, triose phosphate isomerase and glutamate dehydrogenase loci, and 22, 42, and 52 samples were amplifiable, respectively, forming 15 MLGs. Moreover, one mixed G. lamblia infection (assemblages A and E) was found in the present study. Altogether, 6 novel assemblage E subtypes (E41*-E46*) were identified for the first time. These results not only provided baseline data for the control of G. lamblia infection in cattle in this southeastern province of China, but also enriched the molecular epidemiological data and genetic diversity of G. lamblia in cattle.

Water-Based Black Phosphorus Hybrid Nanosheets as a Moldable Platform for Wound Healing Applications.

Black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets with unique biocompatibility and superior optical performance have attracted enormous attention in material science. However, their instability and poor solution-processability severely limit their clinical applications. In this work, we demonstrate the use of silk fibroin (SF) as an exfoliating agent to produce thin-layer BP nanosheets with long-term stability and facile solution-processability. Presence of SF prevents rapid oxidation and degradation of the resultant BP nanosheets, enhancing their performance in physiological environment. The SF-modified BP nanosheets exhibit subtle solution-processability and are fabricated into various BP-based material formats. As superior photothermal agents, BP-based wound dressings effectively prevent bacterial infection and promote wound repair. Therefore, this work opens new avenues for unlocking current challenges of BP nanosheet applications for practical biomedical purposes.

Silk fibroin-assisted exfoliation and functionalization of transition metal dichalcogenide nanosheets for antibacterial wound dressings.

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted rapidly increasing attention due to their fascinating properties and potential applications. However, scalable and cost-effective methods to produce thin-layer TMD nanosheets and their functional composites with environmental benignity are still limited. Herein, we develop a facile and environmentally friendly method for the scalable production of thin-layer TMD nanosheets in an aqueous medium by using silk fibroin, a natural and abundant biopolymer, as the exfoliating agent. Specifically, carboxyl-modified silk fibroin significantly improves the exfoliation efficiency, achieving the high-yield production of thin-layer MoSe2 nanosheets with good solution stabilization and excellent biocompatibility. Strong binding interactions endow the resultant MoSe2 nanosheets with unprecedentedly high concentrations. By virtue of the solution-processability of silk fibroin, MoSe2 hybrid nanosheets are readily fabricated into macroscopic freestanding films. Furthermore, due to the superior peroxidase-like activity of MoSe2 nanosheets, MoSe2-based films show rapid and effective wound disinfection and healing efficacy with the use of low-dose H2O2in vivo, avoiding the side effects of high-dose H2O2 in traditional medical therapy. This work may offer new opportunities to apply two-dimensional TMD nanosheets for clinical applications.

Laparoscopic versus open liver resection for colorectal liver metastases: A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies with propensity score-based analysis.

BACKGROUND: This meta-analysis collected studies with propensity score matching analysis (PSM) and focused on comparing the short-term and oncological outcomes of patients with colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) who underwent laparoscopic liver resection (LLR) versus open liver resection (OLR), to provide relatively high-level evidence of the additional value of LLR in treating patients with CRLM in comparison with OLR. METHODS: A systematic literature search was performed using the PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library databases. Bibliographic citation management software (EndNote X7) was used for literature management. Quality assessment was performed based on a modified version of the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. The data were analyzed using Review Manager (Version 5.1), and sensitivity analysis was performed by omitting one study in each step. Dichotomous data were calculated by odds ratio (OR) and continuous data were calculated by weighed mean difference (WMD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). RESULTS: Overall, 10 studies enrolling 2259 patients with CRLM were included in the present meta-analysis. The pooled analysis suggested that LLR was associated with significantly less overall morbidity (OR, 0.57; 95% CI 0.40 to 0.80; I2 = 57%; P < 0.001), reduced blood loss (WMD, -124.68; 95% CI, -177.35 to -72.01; I2 = 83%; P < 0.00001), less transfusion requirement (OR, 0.46; 95% CI 0.35 to 0.62; I2 = 0%; P < 0.00001), shorter length of hospital stay (WMD, -2.13; 95% CI, -2.68 to -1.58; I2 = 0%; P < 0.00001), but longer operative time (WMD, 39.48; 95% CI, 23.68 to 55.27; I2 = 66%; P = 0.04). However, no significant differences were observed in mortality (OR, 0.50; 95% CI 0.21 to 1.2; I2 = 0%; P = 0.12). For oncological outcomes, no significant differences were observed in negative surgical margins (R0 resection), tumor recurrence, 3-year disease-free survival, 5-year disease-free survival, 5-year overall survival between the approaches. Nevertheless, LLR tended to provide higher 3-overall survival rate (OR, 1.37; 95% CI 1.11 to 1.69; I2 = 0%; P = 0.003). The pooled OR for overall morbidity in each subgroup analysis was consistent with the overall pooled OR. Additionally, the pooled OR for overall morbidity varied from (0.63; 95% CI 0.45to 0.88; I2 = 49%; P = 0.007) to (0.51; 95% CI 0.37 to 0.69; I2 = 39%; P < 0.0001) in sensitivity analysis. CONCLUSION: LLR is a beneficial alternative to OLR in select patients, and provides more favorable short-term outcomes such as less overall morbidity, shorter length of hospital stay, less blood loss, lower blood transfusion rate. Simultaneously, LLR does not compromise oncological outcomes including surgical margins R0, tumor recurrence, disease-free survival, 5-overall survival, as well as even yielding better 3-overall survival. Considering unavoidable bias from non-randomized trials, high-quality RCTs are badly needed to determine whether LLR can become standard practice for treating patients with CRLM.

Effectiveness and safety of controlled venous pressure in liver surgery: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effectiveness and safety of controlled venous pressure in liver surgery and further to compare the clinical outcomes of low central venous pressure by infrahepatic inferior vena cava clamping (IVCC) and intraoperative anesthetic control (IAC). METHODS: Online databases including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Clinical trials.gov, and China biology medicine database were comprehensively searched. After identifying relevant studies out of the search results, quality assessment was performed according to the methods recommended by the Cochrane collaboration. And meta-analysis was performed by both direct comparison and indirect comparison. RESULTS: Thirteen studies containing 1252 patients were included. Compared with control, controlled venous pressure significantly decreased central venous pressure, total blood loss, blood loss during transection, transfusion rate, and total incidence of complications. Further analysis of IVCC and IAC showed that there was no significant difference in aspects of main clinical outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Controlled venous pressure significantly decreased central venous pressure and achieved improvement of bleeding control in liver surgery. It reduced total incidence of complications and chest infection, while it caused concerns about heart disorder. Although IVCC was not worse than IAC in therapeutic effect, a superiority between them still needs to be explored.

Nonradiative recombination--critical in choosing quantum well number for InGaN/GaN light-emitting diodes.

In this work, InGaN/GaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) possessing varied quantum well (QW) numbers were systematically investigated both numerically and experimentally. The numerical computations show that with the increased QW number, a reduced electron leakage can be achieved and hence the efficiency droop can be reduced when a constant Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) nonradiative recombination lifetime is used for all the samples. However, the experimental results indicate that, though the efficiency droop is suppressed, the LED optical power is first improved and then degraded with the increasing QW number. The analysis of the measured external quantum efficiency (EQE) with the increasing current revealed that an increasingly dominant SRH nonradiative recombination is induced with more epitaxial QWs, which can be related to the defect generation due to the strain relaxation, especially when the effective thickness exceeds the critical thickness. These observations were further supported by the carrier lifetime measurement using a pico-second time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) system, which allowed for a revised numerical modeling with the different SRH lifetimes considered. This work provides useful guidelines on choosing the critical QW number when designing LED structures.

Forecast model analysis for the morbidity of tuberculosis in Xinjiang, China.

Tuberculosis is a major global public health problem, which also affects economic and social development. China has the second largest burden of tuberculosis in the world. The tuberculosis morbidity in Xinjiang is much higher than the national situation; therefore, there is an urgent need for monitoring and predicting tuberculosis morbidity so as to make the control of tuberculosis more effective. Recently, the Box-Jenkins approach, specifically the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model, is typically applied to predict the morbidity of infectious diseases; it can take into account changing trends, periodic changes, and random disturbances in time series. Autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH) models are the prevalent tools used to deal with time series heteroscedasticity. In this study, based on the data of the tuberculosis morbidity from January 2004 to June 2014 in Xinjiang, we establish the single ARIMA (1, 1, 2) (1, 1, 1)12 model and the combined ARIMA (1, 1, 2) (1, 1, 1)12-ARCH (1) model, which can be used to predict the tuberculosis morbidity successfully in Xinjiang. Comparative analyses show that the combined model is more effective. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to establish the ARIMA model and ARIMA-ARCH model for prediction and monitoring the monthly morbidity of tuberculosis in Xinjiang. Based on the results of this study, the ARIMA (1, 1, 2) (1, 1, 1)12-ARCH (1) model is suggested to give tuberculosis surveillance by providing estimates on tuberculosis morbidity trends in Xinjiang, China.

[Molecular Detection of Giardia lamblia and Cryptosporidium Species in Pet Dogs].

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of Giardia lamblia and Cryptosporidium species infection in pet dogs, and identify the G. lamblia assemblages and Cryptosporidium species. METHODS: A total of 315 fresh fecal samples were collected from pet clinics in five counties of Anhui Province and in Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province. Hemi-nested-PCR targeting the GDH gene of G. lamblia and nested-PCR targeting the SSU rRNA gene of Cryptosporidium were performed in all the fecal samples. The PCR products were sequenced and analyzed using bioinformatics methods to identify the G. lamblia assemblages and Cryptosporidium species. RESULTS: The positive rates of G. lamblia and Cryptosporidium spp. infections in the 315 fecal samples were 3.2% (10/315) and 1.6% (5/315), respectively. Specifically, the two indicators were both significantly higher in dogs ≤12 months (17.8% and 11.1%, respectively) than in adult dogs (0.7% and 0.0%)(P<0.05). However, there was no significant difference in the two indicators between male and female dogs. In addition, two G. lamblia assemblages were identified, assemblages B (n=6) and D (n=4). Sequence analysis of PCR products of the SSU rRNA gene showed that the five Cryptosporidium isolates were C. canis (n =5). CONCLUSION: The prevalences of G. lamblia and Cryptosporidium infection in pet dogs in Anhui and Zhejiang Provinces were 3.2 % and 1.6 %, respectively. The assemblages of G. lamblia in this study are of types B and D.

On the effect of N-GaN/P-GaN/N-GaN/P-GaN/N-GaN built-in junctions in the n-GaN layer for InGaN/GaN light-emitting diodes.

N-GaN/P-GaN/N-GaN/P-GaN/N-GaN (NPNPN-GaN) junctions embedded between the n-GaN region and multiple quantum wells (MQWs) are systematically studied both experimentally and theoretically to increase the performance of InGaN/GaN light emitting diodes (LEDs) in this work. In the proposed architecture, each thin P-GaN layer sandwiched in the NPNPN-GaN structure is completely depleted due to the built-in electric field in the NPNPN-GaN junctions, and the ionized acceptors in these P-GaN layers serve as the energy barriers for electrons from the n-GaN region, resulting in a reduced electron over flow and enhanced the current spreading horizontally in the n- GaN region. These lead to increased optical output power and external quantum efficiency (EQE) from the proposed device.

[Hyperspectral remote sensing estimation models for snow grain size].

Snow grain size is a key parameter not only to affect the energy budget of the global or local region but also characterizing the status of snow vapor transport and temperature gradient. It is significant to monitor and estimate the snow grain size in large area for global or local climate change and water resource management. Recently, remote sensing technology has become a useful tool for snow grain size monitoring and estimating. In the present paper, the estimate models were built based on simulating the snow surface spectral reflectance curve in visible-infrared region and the sensitive bands and snow indices for snow grain size were selected. These models help estimate snow grain size by hyperspectral remote sensing. Through validating with ground true data, the results show that these models have higher explorative accuracy using 1 030, 1 260 nm and normalized difference snow index (460 and 1 030 nm). In addition, the correlation slopes of estimated and observed valves are 1.37, 0.61 and 0.62, respectively. R2 are 0.82, 0.86 and 0.93 and RMSE are 55.65, 50.83 and 35.91 microm, respectively. The result can provide a scientific basis for snow grain size monitoring and estimating.