Facile and efficient synthesis of magnetic fluorescent nanocomposites based on carbon nanotubes

Multifunctional nanomaterials composed of magnetic and fluorescent nanoparticles have been one of the most extensive pursuits because of the potential application in bio-research. In this paper, we demonstrated an efficient method by coupling CdSe/CdS/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) with Fe₃O₄ magnetic nanoparticles(MNPs) while functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes (f-MWCNTs) were used as matrix to synthesize a kind of magnetic fluorescent nanocomposite. Compared with other matrix materials, carbon nanotubes have the advantages of high surface areas and good biocompatibility. The incorporation of f-MWCNTs supplies plenty of nucleation sites for the preferential growth of Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles, avoiding the agglomeration phenomenon of Fe₃O₄ MNPs in traditional co-precipitation method. Moreover, the un-reacted functional groups of f-MCNTs can further adsorb biological species and drugs, averting the decline of fluorescent intensity caused by the modification of biological species and drugs. The synthetic product maintains the unique properties of rapid magnetic response and efficient fluorescence, which shows a broad application prospect in fluorescent labeling, biological imaging, cell tracking and drug delivery.     

Sn substitution endows NaTi2(PO4)3/C with remarkable sodium storage performances

The further development of clean energy requires the use of more stable and reliable energy storage system. In addition to lithium ion battery power supplies, sodium ion batteries also have prospects for application and development thanks to the low cost and abundant resource. NaTi₂(PO₄)₃ has attracted much attention due to its three-dimensional channels for sodium ion transfer. In order to meliorate sodium storage properties of NaTi₂(PO₄)₃ electrode, a facile strategy of Sn substitution at Ti sites was employed, and a series of electrodes were successfully synthesized through sol-gel route. The electrochemical performances of Sn substituted composites are significantly improved compared with bare NaTi₂(PO₄)₃/C. And it was found that NaSn_0.2Ti_1.8(PO₄)₃ (NTP/C-Sn-2) delivers the largest capacity, and it also demonstrates the outstanding cycling performances. NTP/C-Sn-2 has discharge capacity of 131.1 mAh g⁻¹ at 4 A g⁻¹ in rate test and 121.4 mAh g⁻¹ at 1 A g⁻¹ after 1000 cycles in cycling test. The experimental results show that NaTi₂(PO₄)₃/C with Sn substitution with proper content exhibits the great potential in anode for sodium ion batteries, and can further provide reference for next generation electrode materials and battery systems.     

Compiler compatible 5.66 Mb/mm2 8T 1R1W register file in 14 nm FinFET technology

1-read/1-write (1R1W) register file (RF) is a popular memory configuration in modern feature rich SoCs requiring significant amount of embedded memory. A memory compiler is constructed using the 8T RF bitcell spanning a range of instances from 32 b to 72 Kb. An 8T low-leakage bitcell of 0.106 μm² is used in a 14 nm FinFET technology with a 70 nm contacted gate pitch for high-density (HD) two-port (TP) RF memory compiler which achieves 5.66 Mb/mm² array density for a 72 Kb array which is the highest reported density in 14 nm FinFET technology. The density improvement is achieved by using techniques such as leaf-cell optimization (eliminating transistors), better architectural planning, top level connectivity through leaf-cell abutment and minimizing the number of unique leaf-cells. These techniques are fully compatible with memory compiler usage over the required span. Leakage power is minimized by using power-switches without degrading the density mentioned above. Self-induced supply voltage collapse technique is applied for write and a four stack static keeper is used for read Vmin improvement. Fabricated test chips using 14 nm process have demonstrated 2.33 GHz performance at 1.1 V/25 °C operation. Overall V_min of 550 mV is achieved with this design at 25 °C. The inbuilt power-switch improves leakage power by 12x in simulation. Approximately 8% die area of a leading 14 nm SoC in commercialization is occupied by these compiled RF instances.     

Results of initial surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy in treating small-cell lung cancer

The changes in the intestinal mucosal permeability were observed by quantitatively assessing plasma to luminal clearance of 99mTc-labeled DTPA, and the influence of platelet activating factor (PAF) on it was investigated. The results showed that intestinal permeability was significantly elevated after severe burn and was positively correlated with increase in PAF in the intestinal tissue (r = 0.94, P < 0.01). PAF antagonist therapy could significantly attenuate postburn intestinal mucosal permeability. It is concluded that PAF is one of the important factors causing increased intestinal permeability after severe burn.     

Applications of additive manufacturing (AM) in sustainable energy generation and battle against COVID-19 pandemic: The knowledge evolution of 3D printing

Sustainable and cleaner manufacturing systems have found broad applications in industrial processes, especially aerospace, automotive and power generation. Conventional manufacturing methods are highly unsustainable regarding carbon emissions, energy consumption, material wastage, costly shipment and complex supply management. Besides, during global COVID-19 pandemic, advanced fabrication and management strategies were extremely required to fulfill the shortfall of basic and medical emergency supplies. Three-dimensional printing (3DP) reduces global energy consumption and CO₂ emissions related to industrial manufacturing. Various renewable energy harvesting mechanisms utilizing solar, wind, tidal and human potential have been fabricated through additive manufacturing. 3D printing aided the manufacturing companies in combating the deficiencies of medical healthcare devices for patients and professionals globally. In this regard, 3D printed medical face shields, respiratory masks, personal protective equipment, PLA-based recyclable air filtration masks, additively manufactured ideal tissue models and new information technology (IT) based rapid manufacturing are some significant contributions of 3DP. Furthermore, a bibliometric study of 3D printing research was conducted in CiteSpace. The most influential keywords and latest research frontiers were found and the 3DP knowledge was categorized into 10 diverse research themes. The potential challenges incurred by AM industry during the pandemic were categorized in terms of design, safety, manufacturing, certification and legal issues. Significantly, this study highlights the versatile role of 3DP in battle against COVID-19 pandemic and provides up-to-date research frontiers, leading the readers to focus on the current hurdles encountered by AM industry, henceforth conduct further investigations to enhance 3DP technology.     

Red Emissive Carbon Dots Prepared from Polymers as an Efficient Nanocarrier for Coptisine Delivery in vivo and in vitro

Negatively charged fluorescent carbon dots (CDs, E_m=608 nm) were hydrothermally prepared from thiophene phenylpropionic acid polymers and then successfully loaded with the positively charged anticancer cargo coptisine, which suffers from poor bioavailability. The formed CD-coptisine complexes were thoroughly characterized by particle size, morphology, drug loading efficiency, drug release, cellular uptake and cellular toxicity in vitro and antitumor activities in vivo. In this nano-carrier system, red emissive CDs possess multiple advantages as follows: 1) high drug loading efficiency (>96 %); 2) sustained drug release; 3) enhanced drug efficacy towards cancer cells; 4) EPR effect; 5) drug release tracing with near-infrared imaging. These properties indicated that red emissive CDs prepared from polymers could be used as a novel drug delivery system with integrated therapeutic and imaging functions in cancer therapy, which are expected to have great potential in future clinical applications.     

Detection of urinary biomarkers for early diagnosis of acute renal allograft rejection by proteomic analysis

Acute allograft rejection has been recognized as a major impediment to improved success in renal transplantation. Timely detection and control of rejection are very important for the improvement in long-term renal allograft survival. Thus, biomarkers for early diagnosis of acute rejection are required urgently to clinical medication. This study seeks to search for such biomarker candidates by comparing patients' pre-treatment urinary protein profiling with their post-treatment urinary protein profiling. A total of 15 significantly and consistently down-regulated protein candidates were identified. Among them, alpha-1-antichymotrypsin precursor (AACT), tumor rejection antigen gp96 (GP96) and Zn-Alpha-2-Glycoprotein (ZAG) were selected for further analysis. The results indicated that Western Blot assay of AACT, GP96 and ZAG had advanced the diagnosis time of acute renal rejection by 3 days, compared with current standard clinical observation and laboratory examination. Furthermore, the double-blind detection revealed that the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the diagnosis of acute renal rejection of AACT, GP96 and ZAG were 66.67%/100%/60%, 83.33%/100%/80% and 66.67%/100%/60%, respectively, and 100%/100%/100% in combination. In conclusion, urinary protein AACT, GP96 and ZAG could be a set of potential biomarkers for early non-invasive diagnosis of the acute rejection after renal transplantation.     

Intelligent analysis method of dam material gradation for asphalt-core rock-fill dam based on enhanced Cascade Mask R-CNN and GCNet

Reasonable dam materials’ gradation design for asphalt-core rock-fill dams is one of the main ways to control permeability. It is a challenge to test whether it can meet the requirements of dam construction. The computer vision method provides a new idea for asphalt-core rock-fill dam material gradation testing. However, due to the characteristics of densely overlapping and multi-scale sizes of dam material particles, the traditional image segmentation methods and algorithms cannot achieve accurate segmentation of dam materials’ images, and it is hard to apply the segmentation result to quantify the gradation curve. In this research, the enhanced Cascade Mask R-CNN with ResNet and PAFPN (Path Aggregation Feature Pyramid Networks) is proposed. Multi-scale features extracted by ResNet and feature ensemble can be realized using PAFPN. Data augmentation (DA) and online hard example mining (OHEM) are also applied in segmentation model training. Moreover, the GCNet is proposed to calibrate the gradation curve. The nonlinear relationship between the real gradation and the one based on the segmentation results can be revealed and the model of dam materials’ gradation analysis can be established. In the research, the enhanced Cascade Mask R-CNN can achieve 84.2 mAP, which is higher than that of Cascade Mask R-CNN with 74.9 mAP. The effectiveness of the proposed module and training strategies is proved using ablation experiments. The average error of each level for the gradation calibration using GCNet is 0.55%, 1.87%, 2.22%, 1.18%, and 2.42% respectively. The accuracy can meet the requirements of hydraulic engineering construction, which verifies the effectiveness of the GCNet network for gradation calibration, and the research provides a new method and technology for intelligent gradation testing of the asphalt-core rock-fill dam.     

卫生经济学应用于慢性病防控决策的战略研究

为提高当前慢性病防控体系的效率,更好地遏制慢性病的流行,保护公众健康,2015年中国工程院设立了"卫生经济学应用于慢性病防控决策的战略研究"重大咨询项目。课题组调研发现,作为一种重要的卫生决策工具,卫生经济学在慢性病防控决策过程中尚处于初级应用阶段。对卫生经济学的重要性认识不足,对卫生经济学的方法的掌握和应用能力有限,制约了其在慢性病防控决策中的应用,因此建议建立多元主体参与的卫生经济学研究力量,加强卫生经济学应用于慢性病防控决策的大数据积累及应用研究,提出将卫生经济学应用于我国慢性病防控决策的战略框架。     

Bioinspired yeast microcapsules loaded with self-assembled nanotherapies for targeted treatment of cardiovascular disease

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