Dynamic Changes of Active Components and Volatile Organic Compounds in Rosa roxburghii Fruit during the Process of Maturity.

Rosa roxburghii (R. roxburghii), native to the southwest provinces of China, is a fruit crop of important economic value in Guizhou Province. However, the changes in fruit quality and flavor during R. roxburghii fruit ripening have remained unknown. Here, this study investigated the changes of seven active components and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during the ripening of the R. roxburghii fruit at five different ripening stages including 45, 65, 75, 90, and 105 days after anthesis. The results indicated that during the ripening process, the levels of total acid, vitamin C, and soluble sugar significantly increased (p < 0.05), while the levels of total flavonoids, superoxide dismutase (SOD), and soluble tannin significantly decreased (p < 0.05). Additionally, the content of total phenol exhibited a trend of first decreasing significantly and then increasing significantly (p < 0.05). A total of 145 VOCs were detected by HS-SPME-GC-MS at five mature stages, primarily consisting of aldehydes, alcohols, esters, and alkenes. As R. roxburghii matured, both the diversity and total quantity of VOCs in the fruit increased, with a notable rise in the contents of acids, ketones, and alkenes. By calculating the ROAV values of these VOCs, 53 key substances were identified, which included aromas such as fruit, citrus, green, caramel, grass, flower, sweet, soap, wood, and fat notes. The aromas of citrus, caramel, sweet, and wood were predominantly concentrated in the later stages of R. roxburghii fruit ripening. Cluster heatmap analysis revealed distinct distribution patterns of VOCs across five different maturity stages, serving as characteristic chemical fingerprints for each stage. Notably, stages IV and V were primarily characterized by a dominance of alkenes. OPLS-DA analysis categorized the ripening process of R. roxburghii fruit into three segments: the first segment encompassed the initial three stages (I, II, and III), the second segment corresponded to the fourth stage (IV), and the third segment pertained to the fifth stage (V). Following the variable importance in projection (VIP) > 1 criterion, a total of 30 key differential VOCs were identified across the five stages, predominantly comprising ester compounds, which significantly influenced the aroma profiles of R. roxburghii fruit. By integrating the VIP > 1 and ROAV > 1 criteria, 21 differential VOCs were further identified as key contributors to the aroma changes in R. roxburghii fruit during the ripening process. This study provided data on the changes in quality and aroma of R. roxburghii fruit during ripening and laid the foundation for the investigation of the mechanism of compound accumulation during ripening.

Effects of high-intensity laser therapy on subacromial impingement syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to identify, critically appraise, and summarize the effects of high-intensity laser therapy on subacromial impingement syndrome. Three databases, PubMed, Embase, and Scopus were searched from inception to March 1, 2024. Clinical trials comparing the effects of high-intensity laser therapy to conventional therapy are eligible for inclusion. Two independent reviewers conducted study selection, data extraction, and quality assessment. Methodological quality was assessed using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database scale. Meta-analyses were performed to determine the effects of high-intensity laser therapy. Five randomized controlled trials and one controlled clinical trial were included, with a total of 284 patients with subacromial impingement syndrome. All included studies were evaluated as good or above for quality assessment. Compared to conventional therapy, high-intensity laser therapy demonstrated significantly better outcomes for pain at both post-intervention (SMD = -1.01, 95%CI = -1.85 to -0.17) and three-month post-intervention (SMD = -0.51, 95%CI = -0.90 to -0.13); shoulder and arm function at both post-intervention (SMD = 0.40, 95%CI = 0.14 to 0.66) and three-month post-intervention (SMD = 0.45, 95%CI = 0.06 to 0.84); shoulder abduction active range of motion (SMD = 3.26, 95%CI = 0.49 to 6.03). No significant difference was found for shoulder flexion and external rotation range of motion. This review highlights the promising effects of high-intensity laser therapy for the rehabilitation of subacromial impingement syndrome. Rehabilitation professionals and policymakers should increase their awareness of high-intensity laser therapy as an emerging technology that may facilitate greater outcomes than current widespread standards.

Clinical immunological characteristics of anti-interferon-γ autoantibodies syndrome: a 3 year prospective cohort study.

Anti-interferon-γ autoantibodies (AIGAs) syndrome is susceptible to disseminated opportunistic infections due to increased AIGAs, but its clinical immunological characteristics remain unrecognized. We conducted a prospective cohort study between January 2021 and December 2023, recruiting patients with opportunistic infections who were categorized into AIGAs-positive and AIGAs-negative groups. Clinical immunological data and outcomes were documented. A subset of AIGAs-positive patients received glucocorticoid treatment, and its effectiveness was evaluated. A total of 238 patients were enrolled, with 135 AIGAs-positive and 103 AIGAs-negative patients. AIGAs-positive patients showed higher rates of multiple pathogen dissemination, shorter progression-free survival (PFS), and increased exacerbation frequency. They also showed elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), globulin (GLB), immunoglobulin (Ig)G, IgE, and IgG4 levels. Among the 70 AIGAs-positive patients monitored for at least six months, three subtypes were identified: high AIGAs titer with immune damage, high AIGAs titer without immune damage, and low AIGAs titer without immune damage. Of the 55 patients followed for 1 year, decreasing AIGAs titer and immune indices (GLB, IgG, IgE, IgG4) were observed. Among the 31 patients with high AIGAs titer and immune damage treated with low-dose glucocorticoids at the stable phase, reductions were observed in immune indices and AIGAs titer in 67.74% of cases. In summary, AIGAs-positive patients exhibit infectious and immunological characteristics. Elevated AIGAs, IgG, IgG4, and IgE indicate abnormal immune damages. AIGAs titer generally decrease over time. Stable-phase AIGAs-positive patients can be categorized into three subtypes, with those having high AIGAs titer and increased immune indices potentially benefitting from glucocorticoid treatment.

Effects of spinal mobilization on physical function in patients with stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to identify, critically appraise, and synthesize current evidence regarding the effects of spinal mobilization on physical function in patients with stroke. Three databases, PubMed, Embase, and Scopus, were searched from inception to March 15, 2024. Randomized controlled trials comparing the effects of spinal mobilization to conventional therapy were eligible for inclusion. Methodological quality was assessed using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database scale. Meta-analyses were performed to determine the effects of spinal mobilization. Nine randomized controlled trials were included, with a total of 294 patients with stroke. All included studies were evaluated as good or above for quality assessment. No adverse events related to spinal mobilization were reported. Compared to conventional therapy, spinal mobilization demonstrated significantly improved forward head posture (SMD: 1.00, 95% CI: 0.53 to 1.46, p < 0.001); there were no between-group differences on forced vital capacity (SMD: 0.44, 95% CI: -0.01 to 0.88, p = 0.06), forced expiratory volume (SMD: 0.33, 95% CI: -0.12 to 0.77, p = 0.15), balance (SMD: 0.36, 95% CI: -0.04 to 0.77, p = 0.08), gait speed (SMD: 0.48, 95% CI: -0.44 to 1.40, p = 0.31), and trunk function (SMD: 0.79, 95% CI: -0.17 to 1.75, p = 0.11). Cervical mobilization significantly improved forward head posture; however, no significant differences were found in other outcomes. Clinicians may consider spinal mobilization as an adjunctive intervention in stroke rehabilitation to address posture-related impairments to expand treatment strategy and optimize quality of care.

Triacanthine enhances the sensitivity of colorectal cancer cells to 5-fluorouracil by regulating RRM2.

BACKGROUND: According to the literatures, triacanthine is isolated from the leaves of Gleditsia triacanthos L. and acts as an anti-hypertensive agent, also cardiotonic, antispasmodic and a respiratory analeptic. The 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) is widely used to treat the patients of colorectal cancer (CRC), but the resistance to 5-FU treatment restricts the therapeutic efficacy of CRC patients. PURPOSE: This study aims to explore a novel therapeutics regimen overcoming CRC resistance to 5-FU. METHODS: The cell proliferation of CRC cells was determined by SRB and colony formation assay. Transwell and wound-healing assay were applied to explore the potential metastatic abilities of CRC cells. qRT-PCR and Western blot were performed to evaluate the level of indicated mRNAs and proteins respectively. Xenograft assay was used to explore the anti-CRC effect of triacanthine. RESULTS: Triacanthine statistically restrained CRC proliferation both in vitro and in vivo. Triacanthine induced cell cycle G1/G0 phase arrest in CRC cells. Meanwhile, triacanthine also inhibited the migrative and invasive abilities of CRC cells. A Venn diagram was generated showing that O-6-Methylguanine-DNA Methyltransferase (MGMT) might be a molecular target of triacanthine in treating CRC. Furthermore, triacanthine plus 5-FU significantly suppressed the cell proliferation of CRC cells compared with single agent treatment alone, and highly synergistic anti-cancer effects were scored when 5-FU was combined with triacanthine in CRC cells. In addition, triacanthine sensitized the anti-cancer activity of 5-FU via regulating Ribonucleotide Reductase Regulatory Subunit M2 (RRM2). MGMT or RRM2 might be novel biomarkers for evaluating the therapeutical efficiency of 5-FU in CRC patients. CONCLUSION: We firstly demonstrated triacanthine suppressed cell proliferation and metastasis abilities and found the novel molecular targets of triacanthine in CRC cells. This is the first study to evaluate the anti-cancer efficiency of triacanthine plus 5-FU. Our study has revealed triacanthine as a pertinent sensitizer to 5-FU, and provided novel strategies for predicting outcomes and reversing resistance of 5-FU therapy.

Multiple intracellular pathogen infections with ocular pathologies associated with adult-onset immunodeficiency due to anti-interferon-γ autoantibodies: a case report.

BACKGROUND: Autoantibodies against interferon-γ (IFN-γ) can inhibit IFN-γ-dependent signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 phosphorylation and thus increase the risk of infection with intracellular pathogens, such as Talaromyces marneffei (TM), nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTMs), and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB). Here, we report a rare case of triple infection caused by TM, NTM, and TB in a human immunodeficiency virus-negative patient. CASE PRESENTATION: A middle-aged female was admitted to our hospital after experiencing recurrent rash, cough, and expectoration for 4 months. She was successively diagnosed with NTM, TM, and TB infections without conventional immunosuppression-associated factors. However, after effective anti-infective treatment, the patient was confirmed to have allergic conjunctivitis and was successfully treated with corticosteroids and immunosuppressants. The most conspicuous characteristics were recurrent infection and immune disorders. CONCLUSIONS: High-titer anti-IFN-γ autoantibodies are strongly associated with severe and disseminated infections, such as NTM, TM, and TB. It is characterized by persistently high degree of inflammation and high immunoglobin levels.

ConSpaS: a contrastive learning framework for identifying spatial domains by integrating local and global similarities.

Spatial transcriptomics is a rapidly growing field that aims to comprehensively characterize tissue organization and architecture at single-cell or sub-cellular resolution using spatial information. Such techniques provide a solid foundation for the mechanistic understanding of many biological processes in both health and disease that cannot be obtained using traditional technologies. Several methods have been proposed to decipher the spatial context of spots in tissue using spatial information. However, when spatial information and gene expression profiles are integrated, most methods only consider the local similarity of spatial information. As they do not consider the global semantic structure, spatial domain identification methods encounter poor or over-smoothed clusters. We developed ConSpaS, a novel node representation learning framework that precisely deciphers spatial domains by integrating local and global similarities based on graph autoencoder (GAE) and contrastive learning (CL). The GAE effectively integrates spatial information using local similarity and gene expression profiles, thereby ensuring that cluster assignment is spatially continuous. To improve the characterization of the global similarity of gene expression data, we adopt CL to consider the global semantic information. We propose an augmentation-free mechanism to construct global positive samples and use a semi-easy sampling strategy to define negative samples. We validated ConSpaS on multiple tissue types and technology platforms by comparing it with existing typical methods. The experimental results confirmed that ConSpaS effectively improved the identification accuracy of spatial domains with biologically meaningful spatial patterns, and denoised gene expression data while maintaining the spatial expression pattern. Furthermore, our proposed method better depicted the spatial trajectory by integrating local and global similarities.

Brain Nocardiosis and Pulmonary Talaromycosis Infection in a Patient with Anti-IFN-γ Autoantibodies: A Case Report.

Adult-onset acquired immunodeficiency caused by anti-IFN-γ autoantibodies is associated with severe opportunistic infection. Due to lack of specific symptoms and different manifestations, this form of infection can be easily misdiagnosed or overlooked. Herein, we present a case of Nocardia farcinica and Talaromyces marneffei co-infection in a patient with anti-IFN-γ autoantibodies (AIGAs). The patient, a 54-year-old man, presented with a 1-month history of fever, coughing and expectoration, dizziness, headache and gait imbalance. Laboratory workup revealed increased inflammatory markers, negative anti-HIV antibody and a high positive titer of AIGAs. Chest computed tomography (CT) showed multiple patches of high-density shadows in both lungs, and brain enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed an irregular lesion. The patient underwent a craniotomy for resection of the lesion. Pulmonary T. marneffei infection was diagnosed through sputum and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid culture, and brain nocardiosis was confirmed via purulent fluid culture of brain tissue. With regular antibiotic therapy, his symptoms improved and there was no recurrence during 18-month follow-up. This may be the first detailed case report detailing infection with these two distinct pathogens in disparate anatomical locations.

Clinical Characteristics, Course, and Long-Term Outcomes in Patients with Talaromyces marneffei Infection: A 10-Year Retrospective Cohort Study.

INTRODUCTION: Talaromyces marneffei (T. marneffei), a dimorphic fungus, causes local or disseminated infection in humans. We aimed to analyze the clinical characteristics, prognostic factors, and survival outcomes of patients with T. marneffei infection and compare the differences between human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive and HIV-negative subgroups. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 241 patients with T. marneffei infection at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University between January 2012 and January 2022. The overall population was stratified into HIV-positive (n = 98) and HIV-negative (n = 143) groups according to HIV status. Kaplan-Meier analysis and multivariate Cox regression models were used to determine the prognostic factors for overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). RESULTS: With a median follow-up time of 58.9 months, 120 patients (49.8%) experienced disease progression and 85 patients (70.8%) died. The 5-year rates of OS and PFS were 61.4% (95% CI 55.0-68.6%) and 47.8% (95% CI 41.5-55.1%), respectively. As an independent factor, patients who were HIV positive had better PFS (HR 0.50, 95% CI 0.31-0.82; p < 0.01) than patients who were HIV negative. Compared with patients who were HIV positive, patients who were HIV negative were older and had more probabilities of underlying diseases, chest involvement, bone destruction, and higher count of neutrophils (all p < 0.05). Hemoglobin (PFS: HR 0.62; 95% CI 0.39-1.00; p < 0.05; OS: HR 0.45; 95% CI 0.22-0.89; p = 0.02) and lymphocyte count (PFS: HR 0.06; 95% CI 0.01-0.26; p < 0.01; OS: HR 0.08; 95% CI 0.01-0.40; p < 0.01) were independent prognostic factors for PFS and OS in patients who were HIV negative. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with T. marneffei infection have a poor prognosis. Patients who are HIV positive and HIV negative have relatively independent clinical characteristics. Multiple organ involvement and disease progression are more common in patients who are HIV negative.

A naturally-occurring phenomenon of flower color change during flower development in Xanthoceras sorbifolium.

Xanthoceras sorbifolium (yellowhorn) is originated in China and is a unique tree in northern China. Yellowhorn is very popular because of the gradual color change of its flower at different flower developmental stages. During flowering development, the color at the base of yellowhorn flower petals gradually changes from yellow to purple. The mechanism of this miraculous phenomenon is still unclear. Here we show that anthocyanin accumulation during flowering development is the main reason for this color change. RT-PCR results show that the expression level of a variety of anthocyanin biosynthesis genes changes in different flower developmental stages. Realtime results show that the expression changes of these anthocyanin biosynthesis genes are positively regulated by a cluster of R2R3-MYB transcription factor genes, XsMYB113s. Furthermore, the DNA methylation analysis showed that CHH methylation status on the transposon element near the XsMYB113-1 influence its transcript level during flowering development. Our results suggest that dynamic epigenetic regulation of the XsMYB113-1 leads to the accumulation of anthocyanins during yellowhorn flower color change. These findings reemphasize the role of epigenetic regulation in flower development and provide a foundation for further studies of epigenetic regulation in long-lived woody perennials.

lncRNA Expression-Based Risk Scoring System Can Predict Survival of Tumor-Positive Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play critical roles in the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aim of this study was to explore whether lncRNA expression profiles can predict prognosis of HCC patients with tumors. METHODS: Expression of lncRNAs in HCC patients based on data in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) was examined by uni- and multivariate cox analysis to identify associations between clinical features and overall survival (OS) or recurrence-free survival (RFS). Based on our finding that both were independently associated with tumor status, we examined lncRNAs differentially expressed between patients with or without tumors. An lncRNA-based risk scoring system was developed to predict OS and RFS in tumor-positive patients, and it was assessed using uni- and multivariate cox analyses. Potential functions of the prognostic lncRNAs were explored. RESULTS: A risk scoring system to predict OS for HCC patients with tumors was developed based on the expression of six lncRNAs (AC090921.1, AC012640.1, AL158839.1, AL356056.1, AL359853.1 and C10orf91), and a corresponding scoring system to predict RFS was developed from nine lncRNAs (AL356056.1, AL158839.1, MIR7-3HG, AL445493.2, AP000808.1, AP003354.2, PLCE1-AS1, TH2LCRR and LINC01447). Both risk scoring systems gave areas under receiver operating characteristic curves >0.7. Uni- and multivariate cox analyses showed that both risk scoring systems independently predicted survival even after adjusting for clinical factors. The lncRNAs related to OS may be involved in complement and coagulation cascades, while those related to RFS may be involved in the cell cycle. CONCLUSION: Risk scoring system based on these lncRNAs may be useful for predicting prognosis of tumor-positive HCC patients.

Risk scoring based on expression of long non­coding RNAs can effectively predict survival in hepatocellular carcinoma patients with or without fibrosis.

Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have different prognoses depending on whether or not they also have fibrosis. Since long non­coding RNAs (lncRNAs) affect tumor formation and progression, the present study aimed to investigate whether their expression might help predict the survival of patients with HCC. Expression profiles downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas database were examined to identify lncRNAs differentially expressed (DElncRNAs) between HCC patients with or without fibrosis. These DElncRNAs were then used to develop a risk scoring system to predict overall survival (OS) or recurrence­free survival (RFS). A total of 142 significant DElncRNAs were identified using data from 135 patients with fibrosis and 72 without fibrosis. For HCC patients with fibrosis, a risk scoring system to predict OS was constructed based on five lncRNAs (AL359853.1, Z93930.3, HOXA­AS3, AL772337.1 and AC012640.3), while the risk scoring system to predict RFS was based on 12 lncRNAs (PLCE1­AS1, Z93930.3, LINC02273, TRBV11­2, HHIP­AS1, AC004687.1, LINC01857, AC004585.1, AP000808.1, CU638689.4, AC090152.1 and AL357060.1). For HCC patients without fibrosis, the risk scoring system to predict OS was established based on seven lncRNAs (LINC00239, AC104971.4, AP006285.2, HOXA­AS3, AC079834.2, NRIR and LINC01929), and the system to predict RFS was based on five lncRNAs (AC021744.1, NRIR, LINC00487, AC005858.1 and AC107398.3). Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves for all risk scoring systems exceeded 0.7. Uni­ and multivariate Cox analyses showed that the risk scoring systems were significant independent predictors of OS for HCC patients with fibrosis, or of OS and RFS for HCC patients without fibrosis, after adjusting for clinical factors. Functional enrichment analysis suggested that, depending on the risk scoring system, highly associated genes were involved in pathways mainly associated with the cell cycle, chemokines, Th17 cell differentiation or thermogenesis. The findings of the present study indicate that risk scoring systems based on lncRNA expression can effectively predict the OS of HCC patients with fibrosis as well as the OS or RFS of HCC patients without fibrosis.

Simultaneous occurrence of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: case report and literature review.

BACKGROUND: Patients with lymphoma are at risk for developing pulmonary opportunistic infections due to immunocompromise. However, clinical reports of concurrent lymphoma and opportunistic infection at presentation are rare and often confined to single cases. A delayed diagnosis of either opportunistic infection or lymphoma usually occurs in this complex situation. Here, we report such a case and analyse 18 similar cases searched in the PubMed database to deepen clinicians' understanding. CASE PRESENTATION: A 48-year-old man presented with a 3-month history of fever, cough and emaciation. High-resolution computed tomography revealed bilateral cavitating lesions of different sizes. Aspergillus fumigatus complex was identified from a bronchoalveolar lavage fluid culture. However, antifungal treatment combined with multiple rounds of antibacterial therapy was unsuccessful, and the patient's lung lesions continued to deteriorate. Multiple puncture biopsies finally confirmed the coexistence of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Despite the initiation of combination chemotherapy, the patient died of progressive respiratory failure. CONCLUSIONS: Synchronous pulmonary lymphoma and simultaneous opportunistic infection is rare and usually lacks specific clinical and imaging manifestations. Lymphoma should be considered as part of the differential diagnosis of patients with an opportunistic infection when treatment fails or other symptoms are present that could be considered "atypical" for the condition. Tissue biopsy is the gold standard, and multiple biopsies are essential for making the final diagnosis and should be performed upon early suspicion.

Enhancing the performance of LARP-synthesized CsPbBr3 nanocrystal LEDs by employing a dual hole injection layer.

Lead halide perovskites have been considered promising materials for optoelectronic applications owing to their superior properties. CsPbBr3 nanocrystals (NCs) with a narrow particle size distribution and a narrow emission spectrum are synthesized by ligand-assisted re-precipitation (LARP), a low-cost and facile process. In inverted CsPbBr3 NC LEDs, a dual hole injection layer (HIL) of 1,4,5,8,9,11-hexaazatriphenylene-hexacarbonitrile (HAT-CN)/MoO3 is introduced to enhance hole injection and transport, because HAT-CN can extract electrons easily from the hole transport layer and leave a large number of holes there. The current and power efficiencies of the optimized device with a dual HIL are 1.5- and 1.8-fold higher than those of the single HIL device. It is believed that the dual HAT-CN/MoO3 HIL effectively promotes hole injection and has promise for application in many other devices.

Regulating Heterogeneous Catalysis of Gold Nanoparticles with Polymer Mechanochemistry.

Polymer mechanochemistry has emerged as a unique approach to regulate homogeneous catalysis in chemical transformations. The utilization of polymer mechanochemistry to regulate heterogeneous catalysis, however, still remains to be investigated. In this study, using polymer-grafted gold nanoparticles as the model heterogeneous catalysts, we show that polymer chains can be mechanically ruptured from the surface of gold nanoparticles, and thus, the catalytic activity of gold nanoparticles can be accelerated under sonication. The mechanical activation of polymer-grafted gold nanoparticles only occurs when the grafted polymer chains exceed a threshold molecular weight. This mechanical behavior is similar to those mechanophore-linked polymers. More importantly, further characterizations reveal that the Au-Au bonds instead of the Au-S bonds are broken at the heterointerfaces of polymer chains and gold nanoparticles. Our study unveils an unprecedented characteristic of polymer-grafted metallic nanoparticles in response to external mechanical stress.

Characterizing the coverage of critical effects relevant in the safety evaluation of food additives by AOPs.

There is considerable interest in adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) as a means of organizing biological and toxicological information to assist in data interpretation and method development. While several chemical sectors have shown considerable progress in applying this approach, this has not been the case in the food sector. In the present study, safety evaluation reports of food additives listed in Annex II of Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 of the European Union were screened to qualitatively and quantitatively characterize toxicity induced in laboratory animals. The resulting database was used to identify the critical adverse effects used for risk assessment and to investigate whether food additives share common AOPs. Analysis of the database revealed that often such scrutiny of AOPs was not possible or necessary. For 69% of the food additives, the report did not document any adverse effects in studies based on which the safety evaluation was performed. For the remaining 31% of the 326 investigated food additives, critical adverse effects and related points of departure for establishing health-based guidance values could be identified. These mainly involved effects on the liver, kidney, cardiovascular system, lymphatic system, central nervous system and reproductive system. AOPs are available for many of these apical endpoints, albeit to different degrees of maturity. For other adverse outcomes pertinent to food additives, including gastrointestinal irritation and corrosion, AOPs are lacking. Efforts should focus on developing AOPs for these particular endpoints.

Multilayer Polypyrrole Nanosheets with Self-Organized Surface Structures for Flexible and Efficient Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion.

Converting solar energy into concentrated heat is very appealing for various applications. Polypyrrole (PPy) is known to possess excellent photothermal property with low thermal conductivity, and thus is an ideal candidate for solar-thermal energy conversion. However, solar-thermal materials based on PPy or other conducting polymers still exhibit limited energy conversion efficiency due to the lack of effective light-trapping schemes. Here, it is demonstrated that multilayer PPy nanosheets with spontaneously formed surface structures such as wrinkles and ridges via sequential polymerization on paper substrates can dramatically enhance broadband and wide-angle light absorption across the full solar spectrum, leading to an impressive solar-thermal conversion efficiency of 95.33%. The intriguing solar-thermal properties and structural features of multilayer PPy nanosheets can be used for solar heating and photoactuators. Meanwhile, when used for solar steam generation, the measured efficiency could achieve ≈92% under one sun irradiation. The hierarchically multilayer structure is mechanically flexible and robust, holding great potential for practical solar energy utilization. This study provides a simple and straightforward approach toward engineering light-weight and thermally insulating polymers into efficient solar-thermal materials for emerging solar energy-related applications.

Validation of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) in a sample of Chinese adolescents.

We sought to validate the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) in a sample of Chinese adolescents and investigate differences in eating behaviors among Chinese normal weight, overweight, and obese adolescents. Chinese middle and high school students completed the DEBQ, Eating Disorder Inventory-1, and the Self-Control Scale. Result showed that the DEBQ had good internal consistency, test-retest reliability and criterion validity. Furthermore, the obese and overweight adolescents scored significantly higher than normal weight adolescents on three subscales. The DEBQ is effective for assessing eating behaviors in Chinese adolescents.

Photodegradable Coordination Polymer Particles for Light-Controlled Cargo Release.

Stimuli-responsive coordination polymer particles (CPPs) show great promise for encapsulating and releasing cargos due to their unique and highly tailorable structures and properties. In particular, photoresponsive CPPs have received enormous interest, as noninvasive light can be spatially and temporally controlled, resulting in great safety and efficiency. In this work, we report the design and synthesis of novel photodegradable CPPs by infinite coordination polymerization of Zn2+ and a photocleavable organic linker containing o-nitrobenzyl derivatives. We further demonstrate that these novel photodegradable CPPs are able to efficiently encapsulate cargos and are applicable for on-command drug release upon low-power UV light irradiation (5.78 mW/cm2). Because light is a highly desirable remote-trigger and can be used externally, we expect that these photodegradable CPPs can provide a unique platform for controlled cargo release.