sj-docx-1-nms-10.1177_14614448211063899 – Supplemental material for No trade-offs between news and entertainment: Evidence from online engagement data

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-nms-10.1177_14614448211063899 for No trade-offs between news and entertainment: Evidence from online engagement data by Shengchun Huang and Tian Yang in New Media & Society</p

sj-docx-1-nms-10.1177_14614448231218989 – Supplemental material for Civilizing social media: The effect of geolocation on the incivility of news comments

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-nms-10.1177_14614448231218989 for Civilizing social media: The effect of geolocation on the incivility of news comments by Yufan Guo, Yuhan Li and Tian Yang in New Media & Society</p

sj-docx-1-nms-10.1177_14614448231205893 – Supplemental material for The dark side of entertainment? How viral entertaining media build an attention base for the far-right politics of The Epoch Times

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-nms-10.1177_14614448231205893 for The dark side of entertainment? How viral entertaining media build an attention base for the far-right politics of The Epoch Times by Yilang Peng, Tian Yang and Kecheng Fang in New Media & Society</p

Strain Hardening in Graphene Foams under Shear

Strain hardening is an important issue for the design and application of materials. The strain hardening of graphene foams has been widely observed but poorly understood. Here, by adopting the coarse-grained molecular dynamics method, we systematically investigated the microscopic mechanism and influencing factors of strain hardening and related mechanical properties of graphene foams under shear loading. We found that the strain hardening is induced by cumulative nonlocalized bond-breakings and rearrangements of microstructures. Furthermore, it can be effectively tuned by the number of graphene layers and cross-link densities, i.e., the strain hardening would emerge at a smaller shear strain for the graphene foams with thicker sheets and/or more cross-links. In addition, the shear stiffness G of graphene foams increases linearly with the cross-link density and exponentially with the number of graphene layers n by G ∼ n1.95. These findings not only improve our understanding of the promising bulk materials but also pave the way for optimizing structural design in wide applications based on their mechanical properties

sj-pdf-1-nms-10.1177_14614448231196863 – Supplemental material for The puzzle of misinformation: Exposure to unreliable content in the United States is higher among the better informed

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-nms-10.1177_14614448231196863 for The puzzle of misinformation: Exposure to unreliable content in the United States is higher among the better informed by Alvin Zhou, Tian Yang and Sandra González-Bailón in New Media & Society</p

“Multiagent” Screening Improves Directed Enzyme Evolution by Identifying Epistatic Mutations

Enzyme evolution has enabled numerous advances in biotechnology and synthetic biology, yet still requires many iterative rounds of screening to identify optimal mutant sequences. This is due to the sparsity of the fitness landscape, which is caused by epistatic mutations that only offer improvements when combined with other mutations. We report an approach that incorporates diverse substrate analogues in the screening process, where multiple substrates act like multiple agents navigating the fitness landscape, identifying epistatic mutant residues without a need for testing the entire combinatorial search space. We initially validate this approach by engineering a malonyl-CoA synthetase and identify numerous epistatic mutations improving activity for several diverse substrates. The majority of these mutations would have been missed upon screening for a single substrate alone. We expect that this approach can accelerate a wide array of enzyme engineering programs

“Multiagent” Screening Improves Directed Enzyme Evolution by Identifying Epistatic Mutations

Enzyme evolution has enabled numerous advances in biotechnology and synthetic biology, yet still requires many iterative rounds of screening to identify optimal mutant sequences. This is due to the sparsity of the fitness landscape, which is caused by epistatic mutations that only offer improvements when combined with other mutations. We report an approach that incorporates diverse substrate analogues in the screening process, where multiple substrates act like multiple agents navigating the fitness landscape, identifying epistatic mutant residues without a need for testing the entire combinatorial search space. We initially validate this approach by engineering a malonyl-CoA synthetase and identify numerous epistatic mutations improving activity for several diverse substrates. The majority of these mutations would have been missed upon screening for a single substrate alone. We expect that this approach can accelerate a wide array of enzyme engineering programs

Effect of Sizing Agents on Surface Properties of Carbon Fibers and Interfacial Adhesion of Carbon Fiber/Bismaleimide Composites

Physicochemical, surface, and mechanical properties of three batches of T800 grade carbon fibers (CFs) treated with three kinds of sizing agents and Toray T800H CFs were characterized to study the effect of sizing agents on surface properties. Scanning electron microscopy for morphology, atomic force microscopy calculations, and results for the content of sizing agents showed that sizing agent B improved the surface roughness and CFs with high content of sizing agent always presented small surface roughness in a certain content range 1.2–1.6%. Surface energy of CFs was calculated by Young’s contact angle using the test results with water and glycol, and contact angles with LY-1 and modified-AC531 were also acquired. The results proved that CFs of sizing agent group B had the highest average surface energy and the lowest average contact angles with both LY-1 and modified-AC531. From both single-filament and tensile strength test results, the average strength of CFs of sizing agent group B was found to be the lowest, which indicated that sizing agent B had an influence on tensile strength decrease of T800 grade CFs. Comparing the results of interfacial shear strength both in a natural dry state and after hygrothermal treatment, high surface energy was found to be the key element to obtain high interfacial adhesion between T800 grade CFs and bismaleimide, and high surface roughness and low contact angle also played important roles. Among sizing agents A, B, and C, A had an effect on the interfacial shear strength decrease of CFs in the natural dry state, while C had that after hygrothermal treatment

Efficient Continuous-Flow Synthesis of Methyl Ethyl Ketone Peroxide in a Microreaction System

Organic peroxides are important to the fine chemical industry because of their applications in polymerization and curing initiators. However, as a hazardous process, the peroxidation reaction to synthesize organic peroxide involves explosive intermediates, sensitive products, and exothermic reactions, resulting in many accidents reported each year. Recently, continuous-flow microreaction synthesis has emerged as a new technology for producing chemicals efficiently and safely. This work introduced a novel efficient continuous-flow microreaction system to intensify the methyl ethyl ketone peroxide (MEKPO) production process. A microreaction platform for MEKPO synthesis was established, with quantitative methods to uncover the effects of reaction conditions on the kinetics and thermodynamics of the reaction, which had never been reported before. Then, a continuous-flow microreaction process was developed to replace the existing batch method by optimizing the peroxidation reaction, phase separation, and dilution steps. Compared to the current batch process for the commercial MEKPO product V688, the conversion of MEK and H2O2 reached 69.11% (4% higher than V688) and 70.01%, respectively, when the nitric acid concentration in H2O2 was 0.5 wt % and the reaction reach time was 270 s at a temperature of 25 °C. Also, our product can achieve the same performance (gel time and gel to cure time) as V688 with a lower active oxygen content (9.5% for V688, 8–9% for microreaction products). These results indicated that both the safety of the peroxidation reaction process and the activity of products were improved by replacing the existing batch process with our continuous microreaction process, which provides great potential for the industrial scale-up of such a system

Data_Sheet_1_miR-193a-3p Mediates Placenta Accreta Spectrum Development by Targeting EFNB2 via Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition Pathway Under Decidua Defect Conditions.PDF

Objective: To clarify the role of microRNA-193a-3p (miR-193a-3p) in the pathogenesis of placenta accreta spectrum.Methods: The placental tissue expression levels of miR-193a-3p and Ephrin-B2 (EFNB2) were compared between a placenta accreta spectrum group and a control group. Transwell migration and invasion assays were used to verify the effect of miR-193a-3p and EFNB2 on HTR-8/SVneo cells cultured in human endometrial stromal cell (hESC)-conditioned medium. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related proteins were examined by western blotting to establish whether the EMT pathway was altered in placenta accreta spectrum. To determine whether EFNB2 is a target gene of miR-193a-3p, luciferase activity assays were performed.Results: miR-193a-3p was upregulated but EFNB2 downregulated in the placenta accreta spectrum group and EFNB2 was a direct target of miR-193a-3p. Overexpression or inhibition of miR-193a-3p revealed that miR-193a-3p promoted the migration and invasion of HTR-8/SVneo cells cultured in hESC-conditioned medium. Furthermore, EMT was induced, as shown by increased N-cadherin, vimentin, MMP2, and MMP9 and decreased E-cadherin in the placenta accreta spectrum group and in HTR-8/SVneo cells transfected with miR-193a-3p mimics or si-EFNB2. The negative effect of miR-193a-3p inhibitor was reversed by co-transfection with si-EFNB2 in function studies and in analyses of EMT-related proteins in vitro.Conclusion: miR-193a-3p which upregulated in placenta accreta spectrum group increases HTR-8/SVneo cell migration and invasion by targeting EFNB2 via the EMT pathway under decidua defect conditions to lead to placenta accreta spectrum.</p