Electrodeposition Synthesis of Coral-like MnCo Selenide Binder-Free Electrodes for Aqueous Asymmetric Supercapacitors.

Bimetallic selenide compounds show great potential as supercapacitor electrode materials in energy storage and conversion applications. In this work, a coral-like MnCo selenide was grown on nickel foam using a facile electrodeposition method to prepare binder-free supercapacitor electrodes. The heating temperature was varied to tune the morphology and crystal phase of these electrodes. Excellent electrochemical performance was achieved due to the unique coral-like, dendritic- dispersed structure and a bimetallic synergistic effect, including high specific capacitance (509 C g-1 at 1 A g-1) and outstanding cycling stability (94.3% capacity retention after 5000 cycles). Furthermore, an asymmetric supercapacitor assembled with MnCo selenide as the anode and active carbon as the cathode achieved a high specific energy of 46.2 Wh kg-1 at 800 W kg-1. The work demonstrates that the prepared coral-like MnCo selenide is a highly promising energy storage material.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy with weekly cisplatin and paclitaxel followed by chemoradiation for locally advanced cervical cancer.

BACKGROUND: Currently, the standard treatment for locally advanced cervical cancer is concurrent chemoradiation (CCRT). Forty percent of patients present with disease recurrence. This study aims to investigate the feasibility, safety and efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) with weekly cisplatin and paclitaxel (TP) followed by CCRT. METHODS: We are conducting a phase III trial comparing the efficacy and side effects of patients with cervical cancer (FIGO 2018 stage IIB to IVA) who were assigned to four cycles of NACT with cisplatin (40 mg/m2) and paclitaxel (60 mg/m2) weekly followed by CCRT or CCRT alone. In this report, we studied the medium-term effect of 50 patients enrolled in the NACT + CCRT arm. The primary endpoints were the response rate post-NACT and 12 weeks post-CCRT evaluated by MR/CT based on RECIST v 1.1. The secondary endpoints were 3-year OS (overall survival) and PFS (progression-free survival) measured by the Kaplan-Meier method. RESULTS: Among 50 patients enrolled in the NACT + CCRT arm, the complete and partial response rates were 10.4% and 68.8%, post-NACT. Twelve weeks after treatment completion, the complete response rate was 72.0%, whereas the total response rate (complete and partial response) was 90.0%. After a median follow-up of 28 months, the 3-year OS rate was 83.9%, and the 3-year PFS rate was 73.6%. NACT response was related to superior PFS and OS compared with NACT nonresponse (P < 0.01). Late AEs were exiguous, while early AEs mainly included myelosuppression and gastrointestinal AEs. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed a good response rate achieved by dose-dense weekly cisplatin and paclitaxel followed by standard CCRT. The treatment regimen is feasible, as evidenced by the acceptable toxicity of NACT and by the high compliance with radiotherapy. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Protocol version number and date. Chinese clinical trial registry, ChiCTR1900025327; http://www.chictr.org.cn . Registered 24 August 2019. Retrospectively registered, medresman.org.cn/ChiCTR1900025326. The date recruitment began 01-01-2019.

Effects of social assistance on self-rated health.

Based on the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) data in 2018, medical assistance and life assistance have significant negative influences on self-rated health, found via an empirical analysis based on the Oprobit model. Such negative influences are robust based on the substitution of explained variables and propensity score matching. It can be found from a heterogeneity analysis that the negative influences of medical assistance on self-rated health are more significant in urban residents and residents in Central China and East China. Meanwhile, negative influences of life assistance on self-rated health are more significant in urban residents, and residents in Central China, East China, and Northeast China. This study provides empirical evidence to improve the health of residents by using medical assistance and life assistance accurately and offers important policy enlightenments to formulate appropriate social assistance policies.

Iguratimod decreases bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis in association with inhibition of TNF-α in mice.

Severe interstitial lung disease secondary to connective tissue diseases, characterized by pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis, often have very poor prognosis due to lack of effective treatments. Iguratimod (IGU) shows encouraging efficacy in treating connective tissue diseases, however, the underlying mechanism is still to be elucidated. In this study, we investigated the impact of IGU on bleomycin-induced interstitial lung disease and the related tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) signaling pathway in mice and in the alveolar epithelial cell A549. We found IGU decreased pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis and expression of fibrosis-related genes such as Collagen I, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) induced by bleomycin. IGU inhibited epithelial-mesenchymal transition as evidenced by decreased E-cadherin expression but increased vimentin expression. IGU reduced TNF-α production in the pulmonary fibrosis murine model and in the in vitro cultured A549 cells. Furthermore, IGU ameliorated TNF-α-induced severe pulmonary fibrosis and inhibited TNF-α-induced activation of NF-κB. In addition, IGU decreased IL-6 production and phosphorylation of STAT3. In conclusion, the IGU-mediated anti-fibrogenesis effect was associated with the inhibition of TNF-α and NF-κB.

IL-22 promotes tumor growth of breast cancer cells in mice.

Increased interleukin-22 (IL-22) level was reported to associate with progression of breast cancer. Regulation of IL-22 in breast cancer still needs to be elucidated. We assessed the effect of giving IL-22 in tumor growth of mice inoculated with 4T1, MCF7 and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. IL-22-producing cells were analyzed in tumor tissues. We also analyzed the impact of giving IL-1ß and IL-23 on IL-22 levels in tumor tissues. Giving exogenous IL-22 increased tumor size and intra-tumor Ki-67-positive cells in vivo. IL-22 increased phosphorylated STAT3 level and proliferation of breast cancer cells in vitro, an effect blocked by a STAT3-inhibitor stattic. Endogenous IL-22 mRNA level was up-regulated in tumor tissue, compared with normal mammary tissue. Innate lymphoid cell group 3 (ILC3) is a major producer of IL-22 in 4T1 tumor. Giving IL-1ß and/or IL-23 increased cell proliferation in 4T1 tumor, which was reversed by concurrent use of an IL-22 neutralization antibody. IL-1ß and IL-23 increased levels of IL-22 mRNA and IL-22-producing ILC3 in 4T1 tumor. Our findings suggest a mechanism for how IL-22 regulates tumor growth in breast cancer, and indicate blocking IL-22 function might reduce IL-1ß- and IL-23-induced tumor progression of breast cancer.

Comparative Evaluation of Two Antioxidants on Reversing the Immediate Bond Strength of Bleached Enamel: In Vitro Study.

BACKGROUND Tooth bleaching causes a significant decrease in the bonding strength between the resin and human enamel. Nevertheless, the effects of different antioxidant types on the immediate bonding strength of resin and bleached enamel were significantly different. Therefore, the objective of this study was to compare the effects of 2 antioxidants for enhancing the bond strength of the resin to bleached enamel. MATERIAL AND METHODS There were 48 enamel blocks performed from 48 recently extracted maxillary central incisors. There were 8 groups: NC (negative control, no bleached specimens restored without antioxidants); NA (no antioxidant, bleached specimens bonded immediately without any antioxidants); SA30, SA60, and SA120 (bleached specimens accepted the management of 10% sodium ascorbate (SA) for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, and 120 minutes, respectively, before restored); PC30, PC60, and PC120 (bleached specimens received treatment of 5% proanthocyanidins (PC) for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, and 120 minutes, respectively, before restored). We measured the micro-tensile bond strength of specimens and used 2-way ANOVA to analyze the data. RESULTS The mean±standard deviation bond strength measured were: NC, 29.99±4.00; NA, 14.90±1.97; SA30, 18.60±2.20; SA60, 22.57±2.71; SA120, 26.15±3.85; PC30, 16.78±2.29; PC60, 19.13±2.24, PC120, 23.90±2.01 MPa. In addition, the fracture types were mainly of an adhesive mode (88.75%), followed by mixed (7.5%), and cohesive (3.75%). CONCLUSIONS 10% sodium ascorbate provided a comparatively more promising improvement for immediate bond strength than 5% proanthocyanidins when the same duration of antioxidant was applied.

Quantitative evaluation methods of skin condition based on texture feature parameters.

In order to quantitatively evaluate the improvement of the skin condition after using skin care products and beauty, a quantitative evaluation method for skin surface state and texture is presented, which is convenient, fast and non-destructive. Human skin images were collected by image sensors. Firstly, the median filter of the 3 × 3 window is used and then the location of the hairy pixels on the skin is accurately detected according to the gray mean value and color information. The bilinear interpolation is used to modify the gray value of the hairy pixels in order to eliminate the negative effect of noise and tiny hairs on the texture. After the above pretreatment, the gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) is calculated. On the basis of this, the four characteristic parameters, including the second moment, contrast, entropy and correlation, and their mean value are calculated at 45 ° intervals. The quantitative evaluation model of skin texture based on GLCM is established, which can calculate the comprehensive parameters of skin condition. Experiments show that using this method evaluates the skin condition, both based on biochemical indicators of skin evaluation methods in line, but also fully consistent with the human visual experience. This method overcomes the shortcomings of the biochemical evaluation method of skin damage and long waiting time, also the subjectivity and fuzziness of the visual evaluation, which achieves the non-destructive, rapid and quantitative evaluation of skin condition. It can be used for health assessment or classification of the skin condition, also can quantitatively evaluate the subtle improvement of skin condition after using skin care products or stage beauty.

Non-invasive diagnosis methods of coronary disease based on wavelet denoising and sound analyzing.

The heart sound is the characteristic signal of cardiovascular health status. The objective of this project is to explore the correlation between Wavelet Transform and noise performance of heart sound and the adaptability of classifying heart sound using bispectrum estimation. Since the wavelet has multi-scale and multi-resolution characteristics, in this paper, the heart sound signal with different frequency ranges is decomposed through wavelet and displayed on different scales of the resolving wavelet result. According to distribution features of frequency of heart sound signals, the interference components in heart sound signal can be eliminated by selecting reconstruction coefficients. Comparing de-noising effects of four wavelets which are haar, db6, sym8 and coif6, the db6 wavelet has achieved an optimal denoising effect to heart sound signals. The de-noising result of contrasting different layers in the db6 wavelet shows that decomposing with five layers in db6 provide the optimal performance. In practice, the db6 wavelet also shows commendable denoising effects when applying to 51 clinical heart signals. Furthermore, through the clinic analyses of 29 normal signals from healthy people and 22 abnormal heart signals from coronary heart disease patients, this method can fairly distinguish abnormal signals from normal signals by applying bispectrum estimation to denoised signals via ARMA coefficients model.