Progress in Research and Development Prospects of Aronia melanocarpa

Aronia melanocarpa is a berry with unique edible and medicinal value. It boasts a high content of polysaccharides, anthocyanins, and various other bioactive ingredients. These compounds exhibit multiple effects such as antioxidant, anti-aging, anti-inflammatory, modulation of blood sugar and lipid, hypotensive function, anti-cancer, and amelioration of depressive symptoms. The applications of Aronia melanocarpa span across the realms of food, pharmaceuticals, and health products. Predominantly, Aronia melanocarpa products are presented in the form of juice, wine, and powder, etc., employing rather straightforward processing techniques. Notably, industries revolving around this berry are nascent, indicating expansive market opportunities. This review mainly focuses on the active ingredients, efficacy and the current developmental trajectory of Aronia melanocarpa products. The objective is to provide a comprehensive reference for high-value development of Aronia melanocarpa and catalyzing the growth of associated industries

Risk factors for deep vein thrombosis in patients with pelvic or lower-extremity fractures in the emergency intensive care unit

IntroductionThis study aimed to investigate the incidence of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in patients with pelvic or lower-extremity fractures in the emergency intensive care unit (EICU), explore the independent risk factors for DVT, and investigate the predictive value of the Autar scale for DVT in these patients.MethodsThe clinical data of patients with single fractures of the pelvis, femur, or tibia in the EICU from August 2016 to August 2019 were retrospectively examined. The incidence of DVT was statistically analyzed. Logistic regression was used to analyze the independent risk factors for DVT in these patients. The receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the predictive value of the Autar scale for the risk of DVT.ResultsA total of 817 patients were enrolled in this study; of these, 142 (17.38%) had DVT. Significant differences were found in the incidence of DVT among the pelvic fractures, femoral fractures, and tibial fractures (P < 0.001). The multivariate logistic regression analysis showed multiple injuries (OR = 2.210, 95% CI: 1.166–4.187, P = 0.015), fracture site (compared with tibia fracture group, femur fracture group OR = 4.839, 95% CI: 2.688–8.711, P < 0.001; pelvic fracture group OR = 2.210, 95% CI: 1.225–3.988, P = 0.008), and Autar score (OR = 1.198, 95% CI: 1.016–1.353, P = 0.004) were independent risk factors for DVT in patients with pelvic or lower-extremity fractures in the EICU. The area under the ROC curve (AUROC) of the Autar score for predicting DVT was 0.606. When the Autar score was set as the cutoff value of 15.5, the sensitivity and specificity for predicting DVT in patients with pelvic or lower-extremity fractures were 45.1% and 70.7%, respectively.DiscussionFracture is a high-risk factor for DVT. Patients with a femoral fracture or multiple injuries have a higher risk of DVT. In the case of no contraindications, DVT prevention measures should be taken for patients with pelvic or lower-extremity fractures. Autar scale has a certain predictive value for the occurrence of DVT in patients with pelvic or lower-extremity fractures, but it is not ideal

A Plasticity-Centric Approach to Train the Non-Differential Spiking Neural Networks

Many efforts have been taken to train spiking neural networks (SNNs), but most of them still need improvements due to the discontinuous and non-differential characteristics of SNNs. While the mammalian brains solve these kinds of problems by integrating a series of biological plasticity learning rules. In this paper, we will focus on two biological plausible methodologies and try to solve these catastrophic training problems in SNNs. Firstly, the biological neural network will try to keep a balance between inputs and outputs on both the neuron and the network levels. Secondly, the biological synaptic weights will be passively updated by the changes of the membrane potentials of the neighbour-hood neurons, and the plasticity of synapses will not propagate back to other previous layers. With these biological inspirations, we propose Voltage-driven Plasticity-centric SNN (VPSNN), which includes four steps, namely: feed forward inference, unsupervised equilibrium state learning, supervised last layer learning and passively updating synaptic weights based on spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP). Finally we get the accuracy of 98.52% on the hand-written digits classification task on MNIST. In addition, with the help of a visualization tool, we try to analyze the black box of SNN and get better understanding of what benefits have been acquired by the proposed method

CO2-Tolerant Oxygen Permeation Membranes Containing Transition Metals as Sintering Aids with High Oxygen Permeability

Chemical doping of ceramic oxides may provide a possible route for realizing high-efficient oxygen transport membranes. Herein, we present a study of the previously unreported dual-phase mixed-conducting oxygen-permeable membranes with the compositions of 60 wt.% Ce0.85Pr0.1M0.05O2-δ-40 wt.%Pr0.6Sr0.4Fe0.8Al0.2O3-δ (M = Fe, Co, Ni, Cu) (CPM-PSFA) adding sintering aids, which is expected to not only improve the electronic conductivity of fluorite phase, but also reduce the sintering temperature and improve the sintering properties of the membranes. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) results indicate that the CPM-PSFA contain only the fluorite and perovskite two phases, implying that they are successfully prepared with a modified Pechini method. Backscattered scanning electron microscopy (BSEM) results further confirm that two phases are evenly distributed, and the membranes are very dense after sintering at 1275 °C for 5 h, which is much lower than that (1450 °C, 5 h) of the composite 60 wt.%Ce0.9Pr0.1O2-δ-40 wt.%Pr0.6Sr0.4Fe0.8Al0.2O3-δ (CP-PSFA) without sintering aids. The results of oxygen permeability test demonstrate that the oxygen permeation flux through the CPCu-PSFA and CPCo-PSFA is higher than that of undoped CP-PSFA and can maintain stable oxygen permeability for a long time under pure CO2 operation condition. Our results imply that these composite membranes with high oxygen permeability and stability provide potential candidates for the application in oxygen separation, solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), and oxy-fuel combustion based on carbon dioxide capture

Highly efficient blue and warm white organic light-emitting diodes with a simplified structure

Two blue fluorescent emitters were utilized to construct simplified organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and the remarkable difference in device performance was carefully illustrated. A maximum current efficiency of 4.84 cd A(-1) (corresponding to a quantum efficiency of 4.29%) with a Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE) coordinate of (0.144, 0.127) was achieved by using N, N-diphenyl-4 ''-(1-phenyl-1H-benzo[d] imidazol-2-yl)-[1, 1':4', 1 ''-terphenyl]-4-amine (BBPI) as a non-doped emission layer of the simplified blue OLEDs without carrier-transport layers. In addition, simplified fluorescent/phosphorescent (F/P) hybrid warm white OLEDs without carrier-transport layers were fabricated by utilizing BBPI as (1) the blue emitter and (2) the host of a complementary yellow phosphorescent emitter (PO-01). A maximum current efficiency of 36.8 cd A(-1) and a maximum power efficiency of 38.6 lmW(-1) were achieved as a result of efficient energy transfer from the host to the guest and good triplet exciton confinement on the phosphorescent molecules. The blue and white OLEDs are among the most efficient simplified fluorescent blue and F/P hybrid white devices, and their performance is even comparable to that of most previously reported complicated multi-layer devices with carrier-transport layers

Oxidative Stress-Mediated Repression of Virulence Gene Transcription and Biofilm Formation as Antibacterial Action of <i>Cinnamomum burmannii</i> Essential Oil on <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i>

This work aimed to identify the chemical compounds of Cinnamomum burmannii leaf essential oil (CBLEO) and to unravel the antibacterial mechanism of CBLEO at the molecular level for developing antimicrobials. CBLEO had 37 volatile compounds with abundant borneol (28.40%) and showed good potential to control foodborne pathogens, of which Staphylococcus aureus had the greatest inhibition zone diameter (28.72 mm) with the lowest values of minimum inhibitory concentration (1.0 μg/mL) and bactericidal concentration (2.0 μg/mL). To unravel the antibacterial action of CBLEO on S. aureus, a dynamic exploration of antibacterial growth, material leakage, ROS formation, protein oxidation, cell morphology, and interaction with genome DNA was conducted on S. aureus exposed to CBLEO at different doses (1/2–2×MIC) and times (0–24 h), indicating that CBLEO acts as an inducer for ROS production and the oxidative stress of S. aureus. To highlight the antibacterial action of CBLEO on S. aureus at the molecular level, we performed a comparative association of ROS accumulation with some key virulence-related gene (sigB/agrA/sarA/icaA/cidA/rsbU) transcription, protease production, and biofilm formation in S. aureus subjected to CBLEO at different levels and times, revealing that CBLEO-induced oxidative stress caused transcript suppression of virulence regulators (RsbU and SigB) and its targeted genes, causing a protease level increase destined for the biofilm formation and growth inhibition of S. aureus, which may be a key bactericidal action. Our findings provide valuable information for studying the antibacterial mechanism of essential oil against pathogens

Achieving Efficient Triplet Exciton Utilization with Large Δ<i>E</i>_ST and Nonobvious Delayed Fluorescence by Adjusting Excited State Energy Levels

Enhancing the rate of reverse intersystem crossing (<i>k</i>_risc) and the rate of radiative transition (<i>k</i>_r) has been regarded as the key to improve molecular design strategy in the field of thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) materials. Herein, two sky-blue donor–acceptor (D–A)-type TADF materials, namely, CzDCNPy and <i>t</i>BuCzDCNPy, were designed following a strategy of controlling the energy difference among the charge-transfer singlet state (¹CT), local exciton triplet state (³LE), and charge-transfer triplet state (³CT). Significantly different from most previously reported TADF materials, large values of <i>k</i>_r and <i>k</i>_risc and a nearly 100% exciton utilization efficiency were simultaneously achieved despite nonobvious delayed fluorescence and a large value of the singlet–triplet energy difference (Δ<i>E</i>_ST) being observed. This work presents a view that photoinduced delayed fluorescence and a small Δ<i>E</i>_ST are sufficient but not necessary for TADF materials. It also provides a reference that the high-energy ³LE state plays a key role in the RISC process in electroluminescence

Exchange protein directly activated by cAMP (Epac) mediates cardiac repolarization and arrhythmogenesis during chronic heart failure

Most sudden cardiac death in chronic heart failure (CHF) is caused by malignant ventricular arrhythmia (VA). However, the molecular mechanism remains unclear. This study aims to explore the effect of exchange proteins directly activated by cAMP (Epac) on VA in CHF and the potential molecular mechanism. Transaortic constriction was performed to prepare CHF guinea pigs. Epac activation model was obtained with 8-pCPT administration. Programmed electrical stimulation (PES) was performed to detect effective refractory period (ERP) or induce VA. Isolated adult cardiomyocytes were treated with 8-pCPT and/or the Epac inhibitor. Cellular electrophysiology was examined by whole-cell patch clamp. With Epac activation, corrected QT duration (QTc) was lengthened by 12.6%. 8-pCPT increased action potential duration (APD) (APD50: 236.918.07ms vs. 328.811.27ms, pThe accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author