Vitamin E Inhibits Osteoclastogenesis in Protecting Osteoporosis

The most common orthopedic condition affecting senior adults is osteoporosis, which is defined by a decrease in bone mass and strength as well as microstructural degradation that leads to fragility fractures. Bone remodeling is a well-planned, ongoing process that replaces deteriorated, old bone with new, healthy bone. Bone resorption and bone creation work together during the cycle of bone remodeling to preserve the bone’s volume and microarchitecture. The only bone-resorbing cells in the human body, mononuclear preosteoclasts fuse to form osteoclasts, are multinucleated cells. In numerous animal models or epidemiological studies, vitamin E’s anti-osteoporotic characteristics have been extensively described. This review aims to summarize recent developments in vitamin E’s molecular features as a bone-protective agent. In RANKL/RANK/OPG signaling pathway, vitamin E inhibits synthesis of RANKL, stimulation of c-Fos, and increase level of OPG. Vitamin E also inhibits inflammatory cytokines, such as TNF-α, IL-1, IL-6, IL-27, and MCP-1, negative regulating the JAK–STAT, NF-κB, MAPK signaling pathways. Additionally, vitamin E decreases malondialdehyde and increases superoxide dismutase, GPx and heme oxygenase-1, in suppressing osteoclasts. In this article, we aim to give readers the most recent information on the molecular pathways that vitamin E uses to enhance bone health

Facile Synthesis of N-Doped Graphene-Like Carbon Nanoflakes as Efficient and Stable Electrocatalysts for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Abstract A series of N-doped carbon materials (NCs) were synthesized by using biomass citric acid and dicyandiamide as renewable raw materials via a facile one-step pyrolysis method. The characterization of microstructural features shows that the NCs samples are composed of few-layered graphene-like nanoflakes with controlled in situ N doping, which is attributed to the confined pyrolysis of citric acid within the interlayers of the dicyandiamide-derived g-C3N4 with high nitrogen contents. Evidently, the pore volumes of the NCs increased with the increasing content of dicyandiamide in the precursor. Among these samples, the NCs nanoflakes prepared with the citric acid/dicyandiamide mass ratio of 1:6, NC-6, show the highest N content of ~6.2 at%, in which pyridinic and graphitic N groups are predominant. Compared to the commercial Pt/C catalyst, the as-prepared NC-6 exhibits a small negative shift of ~66 mV at the half-wave potential, demonstrating excellent electrocatalytic activity in the oxygen reduction reaction. Moreover, NC-6 also shows better long-term stability and resistance to methanol crossover compared to Pt/C. The efficient and stable performance are attributed to the graphene-like microstructure and high content of pyridinic and graphitic doped nitrogen in the sample, which creates more active sites as well as facilitating charge transfer due to the close four-electron reaction pathway. The superior electrocatalytic activity coupled with the facile synthetic method presents a new pathway to cost-effective electrocatalysts for practical fuel cells or metal–air batteries

Synthesis of Nitrogen-Doped Porous Carbon Spheres with Improved Porosity toward the Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction

In this study, a series of activated N-doped porous carbon spheres (ANCSs) have been prepared from biomass as the carbon source to be used as highly active and stable electrocatalysts toward the electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Hydrothermal carbonization of biomass glucose, which obtains uniform carbon nanopsheres, is followed by doping N atoms by treatment in ammonia and subsequent activation treatment to form ANCSs. The resultant ANCSs possess a large specific surface area of up to 2813 m²/g and pore volume of up to 1.384 cm³/g, and adjustable N contents (2.38–4.53 atom %) with increasing activation temperature. The graphitic and pyridinic-N groups dominate in various N functional groups in the ANCSs. Remarkably, the 1000 °C-activated sample demonstrates competitive activity and outstanding stability and methanol crossover toward the ORR with a four-electron transfer pathway in alkaline media compared to commercial Pt/C catalyst. This excellent performance should be mainly due to effective N-doping and high porosity which can boost the mass transfer and charge transfer and provide a larger number of active sites for the ORR. The unique spherical morphologies with improved porosity as well as excellent stability and recyclability make these ANCSs among the most promising ORR electrocatalysts in practical applications

Highly Exothermic and Superhydrophobic Mg/Fluorocarbon Core/Shell Nanoenergetic Arrays

Mg/fluorocarbon core/shell nanoenergetic arrays are prepared onto silicon substrate, with Mg nanorods as the core and fluorocarbon as the shell. Mg nanorods are deposited by the glancing angle deposition technique, and the fluorocarbon layer is then prepared as a shell to encase the Mg nanorods by the magnetron sputtering deposition process. Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy show the core/shell structure of the Mg/fluorocarbon arrays. X-ray energy-dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy are used to characterize the structural composition of the Mg/fluorocarbon. It is found that the as-prepared fluorocarbon layer consists of shorter molecular chains compared to that of bulk polytetrafluoroethylene, which is proven beneficial to the low onset reaction temperature of Mg/fluorocarbon. Water contact angle test demonstrates the superhydrophobicity of the Mg/fluorocarbon arrays, and a static contact angle as high as 162° is achieved. Thermal analysis shows that the Mg/fluorocarbon material exhibits a very low onset reaction temperature of about 270 °C as well as an ultrahigh heat of reaction approaching 9 kJ/g. A preliminary combustion test reveals rapid combustion wave propagation, and a convective mechanism is adopted to explain the combustion behaviors

Are medical record front page data suitable for risk adjustment in hospital performance measurement? Development and validation of a risk model of in-hospital mortality after acute myocardial infarction

Objectives To develop a model of in-hospital mortality using medical record front page (MRFP) data and assess its validity in case-mix standardisation by comparison with a model developed using the complete medical record data.Design A nationally representative retrospective study.Setting Representative hospitals in China, covering 161 hospitals in modelling cohort and 156 hospitals in validation cohort.Participants Representative patients admitted for acute myocardial infarction. 8370 patients in modelling cohort and 9704 patients in validation cohort.Primary outcome measures In-hospital mortality, which was defined explicitly as death that occurred during hospitalisation, and the hospital-level risk standardised mortality rate (RSMR).Results A total of 14 variables were included in the model predicting in-hospital mortality based on MRFP data, with the area under receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.78 among modelling cohort and 0.79 among validation cohort. The median of absolute difference between the hospital RSMR predicted by hierarchical generalised linear models established based on MRFP data and complete medical record data, which was built as ‘reference model’, was 0.08% (10th and 90th percentiles: −1.8% and 1.6%). In the regression model comparing the RSMR between two models, the slope and intercept of the regression equation is 0.90 and 0.007 in modelling cohort, while 0.85 and 0.010 in validation cohort, which indicated that the evaluation capability from two models were very similar.Conclusions The models based on MRFP data showed good discrimination and calibration capability, as well as similar risk prediction effect in comparison with the model based on complete medical record data, which proved that MRFP data could be suitable for risk adjustment in hospital performance measurement