A High Efficiency Aluminum-Ion Battery Using an AlCl3-Urea Ionic Liquid Analogue Electrolyte

In recent years, impressive advances in harvesting renewable energy have led to pressing demand for the complimentary energy storage technology. Here, a high coulombic efficiency (~ 99.7%) Al battery is developed using earth-abundant aluminum as the anode, graphite as the cathode, and a cheap ionic liquid analogue electrolyte made from a mixture of AlCl3 and urea in 1.3 : 1 molar ratio. The battery displays discharge voltage plateaus around 1.9 V and 1.5 V (average discharge = 1.73 V) and yielded a specific cathode capacity of ~73 mAh g-1 at a current density of 100 mA g-1 (~ 1.4 C). High coulombic efficiency over a range of charge-discharge rates and stability over ~150-200 cycles was easily demonstrated. In-situ Raman spectroscopy clearly showed chloroaluminate anion intercalation/deintercalation of graphite in the cathode side during charge/discharge and suggested the formation of a stage 2 graphite intercalation compound when fully charged. Raman spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance suggested the existence of AlCl4-, Al2Cl7- anions, and [AlCl2. (urea)n]+ cations in the urea/AlCl3 electrolyte when an excess of AlCl3 was present. Aluminum deposition therefore proceeded through two pathways, one involving Al2Cl7- anions and the other involving [AlCl2.(urea)n]+ cations. This battery is a promising prospect for a future high performance, low cost energy storage device

Sustained activation of mTORC1 in macrophages increases AMPKα-dependent autophagy to maintain cellular homeostasis

Abstract Background The mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) is a well-conserved serine/threonine protein kinase that controls autophagy as well as many other processes such as protein synthesis, cell growth, and metabolism. The activity of mTORC1 is stringently and negatively controlled by the tuberous sclerosis proteins 1 and 2 complex (TSC1/2). Results In contrast to the previous studies using Tsc1 knockout mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEF) cells, we demonstrated evidence that TSC1 deficient macrophages exhibited enhanced basal and mycobacterial infection-induced autophagy via AMPKα-dependent phosphorylation of ULK1 (Ser555). These effects were concomitant with constitutive activation of mTORC1 and can be reversed by addition of amino acids or rapamycin, and by the knockdown of the regulatory-associated protein of mTOR, Raptor. In addition, increased autophagy in TSC1 deficient macrophages resulted in suppression of inflammation during mycobacterial infection, which was reversed upon amino acid treatment of the TSC1 deficient macrophages. We further demonstrated that TSC1 conditional knockout mice infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, resulted in less bacterial burden and a comparable level of inflammation when compared to wild type mice. Conclusions Our data revealed that sustained activation of mTORC1 due to defects in TSC1 promotes AMPKα-dependent autophagic flux to maintain cellular homeostasis

Beyond the ceremony: Mega-event, air quality and political career

This paper examines whether mega-events-initiated planning regulations improved air quality in Chinese cities and explores the driving forces of the enforcement of such regulations. Using the 2008 Beijing Olympics as an example, we find that mega-events serve as an opportunity for cities to combat air pollution. The 2008 Olympics prompted a handful of Chinese cities to cut pollution and sustain a blue sky: Cities with air quality regulated for the Olympics cut their Air Pollution Index by about 16 points during the Games, compared to non-regulated cities, and 60% of that effect remained four years after the event. These achievements are obtained through effective mobilization of city leaders by associating air quality with their political careers. This study reveals that 1) a mega-event may improve urban environmental quality beyond the host cities and the event period, and 2) successful implementation of environmental regulations hinges on incentivizing local leaders

Systematic review of economic evaluations of vaccination programs in mainland China: Are they sufficient to inform decision making?

The purpose of the study was to systematically review economic evaluations of vaccine programs conducted in mainland China. We searched for economic evaluations of vaccination in China published prior to August 3, 2015 in eight English-language and three Chinese-language databases. Each article was appraised against the 19-item Consensus on Health Economic Criteria list (CHEC-list). We found 23 papers evaluating vaccines against hepatitis B (8 articles), Streptococcus pneumoniae (5 articles), human papillomavirus (3 articles), Japanese encephalitis (2 articles), rotavirus (2 articles), hepatitis A (1 article), Enterovirus 71 (1 article) and influenza (1 article). Studies conformed to a mean of 12 (range: 6-18) items in the CHEC-list criteria. Five of six Chinese-language articles conformed to fewer than half of the 19 criteria items. The main criteria that studies failed to conform to included: inappropriate measurement (20 articles) and valuation (18 articles) of treatment and/or vaccination costs, no discussion about distributional implications (18 articles), missing major health outcomes (14 articles), no discussion about generalizability to other contexts (14 articles), and inadequate sensitivity analysis (13 articles). In addition, ten studies did not include major cost components of vaccination programs, and nine did not report outcomes in terms of life years even in cases where QALYs or DALYs were calculated. Only 13 studies adopted a societal perspective for analysis. All studies concluded that the appraised vaccination programs were cost-effective except for one evaluation of universal 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-7) in children. However, three of the five studies on PCV-7 showed poor overall quality, and the number of studies on vaccines other than hepatitis B vaccine and PCV-7 was limited. In conclusion, major methodological flaws and reporting problems exist in current economic evaluations of vaccination programs in China. Local guidelines for good practice and reporting, institutional mechanisms and education may help to improve the overall quality of these evaluations

The cell line ontology-based representation, integration and analysis of cell lines used in China

Abstract Background The Chinese National Infrastructure of Cell Line stores and distributes cell lines for biomedical research in China. This study aims to represent and integrate the information of NICR cell lines into the community-based Cell Line Ontology (CLO). Results We have aligned, represented, and added all identified 2704 cell line cells in NICR to CLO. We also proposed new ontology design patterns to represent the usage of cell line cells as disease models by inducing tumor formation in model organisms, and the relations between cell line cells and their expressed or overexpressed genes or proteins. The resulting CLO-NICR ontology also includes the Chinese representation of the NICR cell line information. CLO-NICR was merged into the general CLO. To serve the cell research community in China, the Chinese version of CLO-NICR was also generated and deposited in the OntoChina ontology repository. The usage of CLO-NICR was demonstrated by DL query and knowledge extraction. Conclusions In summary, all identified cell lines from NICR are represented by the semantics framework of CLO and incorporated into CLO as a most recent update. We also generated a CLO-NICR and its Chinese view (CLO-NICR-Cv). The development of CLO-NICR and CLO-NIC-Cv allows the integration of the cell lines from NICR into the community-based CLO ontology and provides an integrative platform to support different applications of CLO in China.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148821/1/12859_2019_Article_2724.pd

Research Progress of Each Cell Signaling Pathway in Renal Interstitial Fibrosis and Anti-Fibrotic Intervention Countermeasures

Interstitial fibrosis is a common pathological feature of various progressive renal diseases, andthis result is mainly caused with the activation of renal interstitial innate cells (fibroblasts, pericytes, immune cells, mesenchymal stem cells, etc.) and the massive expression and deposition of extracellular matrix（ECM）. According to statistics,chronic kidney disease and interstitial renal fibrosis affect half of the world's adults over the age of 70 and 10% of the population.Although there are currently no drugs or other means to halt this process, as more and more key players affecting fibrosis are identified, this provides new research directions for anti-fibrotic therapy. In this review, we highlight the relationship between renal interstitial lamina propria and the progression of interstitial fibrosis and describe new advances in anti-fibrotic strategies.Finally,we hope to provide new ideas for the treatment of interstitial renal fibrosis

Grazing weakens competitive interactions between active methanotrophs and nitrifiers modulating greenhouse-gas emissions in grassland soils

This work was financially supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (41977033, 41907026, and 41721001), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019QNA6011), National Key Basic Research Program of China (2014CB138801), Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2019BD032), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020T130387 and 2019M652448). CG-R was funded by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (UF150571). Special thanks to ChunMei Meng, Yu Luo, and Yan Zheng for their assistance in laboratory analyses.Peer reviewedPublisher PD