Elaboration and characterization of nanoplate structured alpha-Fe2O3 films by Ag3PO4

A new strategy for surface treatment of hematite nanoplates for efficient photoelectrochemical (PEC) performances is proposed. Silver orthophosphate (Ag₃PO₄) has been adopted to mediate the formation of α-Fe₂O₃ films. Phosphate ions in Ag₃PO₄ is found to cause a significant morphology change during annealing process, from β-FeOOH nanorod arrays to hematite nanoplates. Meanwhile, Ag ions is doped into α-Fe₂O₃ film. The obtained nanoplate structured Fe₂O₃ –Ag–P films demonstrate much higher photoelectrochemical performance as photoanodes than the bare Fe₂O₃ nanorod thin films. The effects of phosphate and silver ions on the morphology, surface characteristics and the PEC properties of the photoanodes are investigated

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON INHIBITION OF S180 TUMOR CELLS BY AGRIMONIA PILOSA EXTRACT

We evaluated the in vitro and in vivo inhibition of S180 tumor cell growth of the water extract of Agrimonia pilosa. Inhibitory effect of Agrimonia pilosa on in vitro-cultured S180 cell proliferation was measured by MTT assay; mice model of transplanted tumor was established, after 8 days of continuous administration, the tumors were removed, weighed, and compared with the control group, and the in vivo anti-tumor effect of Agrimonia pilosa on mouse sarcoma S180 was compared using inhibition rate. The in vitro anti-tumor experiment indicated that the inhibition rate gradually increases with the increase of extract concentration and the extension of time, with IC50 175.64, 90.59, and 71.74 μg/ml at 24 h, 4 h, and 72 h respectively. In this study, the in vitro MTT assay was used to determine the inhibitory effect of Agrimony pilosa water extract on S180 tumor cells, the method is simple, reliable, and practical; mice model of in vivo transplanted S180 tumor was established, which allowed direct observation of tumor inhibitory effect, and thus found out that the water extract of Agrimonia pilosa has inhibitory effect on S180 tumor cells

In situ growth of ultrathin Co-MOF nanosheets on Α-Fe2O3 hematite nanorods for efficient photoelectrochemical water oxidation

Efficient charge transport is an important factor in photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. The charge transfer at the semiconductor/electrolyte interface is of great importance, especially for the complex water oxidation reaction. In this study, we explored the feasibility of improving charge transfer efficiency at the interface of semiconductor/electrolyte by in situ growth of Co based Metal-Organic Frame work (Co-MOF) through a facile ion-exchanging method. Under optimized conditions, the Co-MOF nanosheet-modified hematite gave a photocurrent density of 2.0 mA cm−2 (200% improvement) at 1.23 VRHE with a cathodic shift of 180 mV in the photocurrent onset potential, in comparison to bare α-Fe2O3 (0.71 mA cm−[email protected] VRHE). To elucidate the role of Co-MOF, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and Mott-Schottky measurements were carried out. It was found that the atomically distributed Co2+ in Co-MOF possessed excellent hole storage capability and charge transfer efficiency, as evidenced by the high surface capacitance and extremely low surface charge transfer resistance

Experimental Study on the Wood Combustion Restraining by Ultra-fine Water Mist in Confined Space

Because of wood is one kind of the basic combustible material, a small scale compartment was built for ultra-fine water mist restraining wood fire, and then the restraining efficiency and related factors were investigated. The study found: the heat release rate and the volume fraction of O2 decreased quickly, the production of CO2 increased in a short time and ultimately tended to be stable after discharging the ultra-fine water mist. It showed that the ultra-fine water mist can effectively reduce the heat release rate of wood and components generation rate. It was found that the restraining effect relies on preignition time, mist flux, discharging time and so on.特集 : 「資源、新エネルギー、環境、防災研究国際セミナー

The relationship between childhood trauma and Internet gaming disorder among college students: A structural equation model

open access journalBackground The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanisms of Internet gaming disorder (IGD) and the associated interaction effects of childhood trauma, depression and anxiety in college students. Methods Participants were enrolled full-time as freshmen at a University in the Hunan province, China. All participants reported their socio-demographic characteristics and undertook a standardized assessment on childhood trauma, anxiety, depression and IGD. The effect of childhood trauma on university students' internet gaming behaviour mediated by anxiety and depression was analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) using R 3.6.1. Results In total, 922 freshmen participated in the study, with an approximately even male-to-female ratio. A mediation model with anxiety and depression as the mediators between childhood trauma and internet gaming behaviour allowing anxiety and depression to be correlated was tested using SEM. The SEM analysis revealed that a standardised total effect of childhood trauma on Internet gaming was 0.18, (Z = 5.60, 95% CI [0.02, 0.05], P < 0.001), with the direct effects of childhood trauma on Internet gaming being 0.11 (Z = 3.41, 95% CI [0.01, 0.03], P = 0.001), and the indirect effects being 0.02 (Z = 2.32, 95% CI [0.00, 0.01], P = 0.020) in the pathway of childhood trauma-depression-internet gaming; and 0.05 (Z = 3.67, 95% CI [0.00, 0.02], P < 0.001) in the pathway of childhood trauma-anxiety-Internet gaming. In addition, the two mediators anxiety and depression were significantly correlated (r = 0.50, Z = 13.54, 95% CI [3.50, 5.05], P < 0.001). Conclusions The study revealed that childhood trauma had a significant impact on adolescents' Internet gaming behaviours among college students. Anxiety and depression both significantly mediated the relationship between childhood trauma and internet gaming and augmented its negative influence. Discussion of the need to understand the subtypes of childhood traumatic experience in relationship to addictive behaviours is included

Development and validation of prognostic index based on purine metabolism genes in patients with bladder cancer

BackgroundBladder cancer (BLCA) is a prevalent malignancy affecting the urinary system and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Dysregulation of tumor metabolic pathways is closely linked to the initiation and proliferation of BLCA. Tumor cells exhibit distinct metabolic activities compared to normal cells, and the purine metabolism pathway, responsible for providing essential components for DNA and RNA synthesis, is believed to play a crucial role. However, the precise involvement of Purine Metabolism Genes (PMGs) in the defense mechanism against BLCA remains elusive.MethodsThe integration of BLCA samples from the TCGA and GEO datasets facilitated the quantitative evaluation of PMGs, offering potential insights into their predictive capabilities. Leveraging the wealth of information encompassing mRNAsi, gene mutations, CNV, TMB, and clinical features within these datasets further enriched the analysis, augmenting its robustness and reliability. Through the utilization of Lasso regression, a prediction model was developed, enabling accurate prognostic assessments within the context of BLCA. Additionally, co-expression analysis shed light on the complex relationship between gene expression patterns and PMGs, unraveling their functional relevance and potential implications in BLCA.ResultsPMGs exhibited increased expression levels in the high-risk cohort of BLCA patients, even in the absence of other clinical indicators, suggesting their potential as prognostic markers. GSEA revealed enrichment of immunological and tumor-related pathways specifically in the high-risk group. Furthermore, notable differences were observed in immune function and m6a gene expression between the low- and high-risk groups. Several genes, including CLDN6, CES1, SOST, SPRR2A, MYBPH, CGB5, and KRT1, were found to potentially participate in the oncogenic processes underlying BLCA. Additionally, CRTAC1 was identified as potential tumor suppressor genes. Significant discrepancies in immunological function and m6a gene expression were observed between the two risk groups, further highlighting the distinct molecular characteristics associated with different prognostic outcomes. Notably, strong correlations were observed among the prognostic model, CNVs, SNPs, and drug sensitivity profiles.ConclusionPMGs have been implicated in the etiology and progression of bladder cancer (BLCA). Prognostic models corresponding to this malignancy aid in the accurate prediction of patient outcomes. Notably, exploring the potential therapeutic targets within the tumor microenvironment (TME) such as PMGs and immune cell infiltration holds promise for effective BLCA management, albeit necessitating further research. Moreover, the identification of a gene signature associated with purine Metabolism presents a credible and alternative approach for predicting BLCA, signifying a burgeoning avenue for targeted therapeutic investigations in the field of BLCA

Coarse- and fine-grained fusion hierarchical network for hole filling in view synthesis

Depth image-based rendering (DIBR) techniques play an essential role in free-viewpoint videos (FVVs), which generate the virtual views from a reference 2D texture video and its associated depth information. However, the background regions occluded by the foreground in the reference view will be exposed in the synthesized view, resulting in obvious irregular holes in the synthesized view. To this end, this paper proposes a novel coarse and fine-grained fusion hierarchical network (CFFHNet) for hole filling, which fills the irregular holes produced by view synthesis using the spatial contextual correlations between the visible and hole regions. CFFHNet adopts recurrent calculation to learn the spatial contextual correlation, while the hierarchical structure and attention mechanism are introduced to guide the fine-grained fusion of cross-scale contextual features. To promote texture generation while maintaining fidelity, we equip CFFHNet with a two-stage framework involving an inference sub-network to generate the coarse synthetic result and a refinement sub-network for refinement. Meanwhile, to make the learned hole-filling model better adaptable and robust to the “foreground penetration” distortion, we trained CFFHNet by generating a batch of training samples by adding irregular holes to the foreground and background connection regions of high-quality images. Extensive experiments show the superiority of our CFFHNet over the current state-of-the-art DIBR methods. The source code will be available at https://github.com/wgc-vsfm/view-synthesis-CFFHNet

MLVA genotyping of Chinese human Brucella melitensis biovar 1, 2 and 3 isolates

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Since 1950, <it>Brucella melitensis </it>has been the predominant strain associated with human brucellosis in China. In this study we investigated the genotypic characteristics of <it>B. melitensis </it>isolates from China using a multiple-locus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis (MLVA) and evaluated the utility of MLVA with regards to epidemiological trace-back investigation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 105 <it>B. melitensis </it>strains isolated from throughout China were divided into 69 MLVA types using MLVA-16. Nei's genetic diversity indices for the various loci ranged between 0.00 - 0.84. 12 out 16 loci were the low diversity with values < 0.2 and the most discriminatory markers were bruce16 and bruce30 with a diversity index of > 0.75 and containing 8 and 7 alleles, respectively. Many isolates were single-locus or double-locus variants of closely related <it>B. melitensis </it>isolates from different regions, including the north and south of China. Using panel 1, the majority of strains (84/105) were genotype 42 clustering to the 'East Mediterranean' <it>B. melitensis </it>group. Chinese <it>B. melitensis </it>are classified in limited number of closely related genotypes showing variation mainly at the panel 2B loci.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The MLVA-16 assay can be useful to reveal the predominant genotypes and strain relatedness in endemic or non-endemic regions of brucellosis. However it is not suitable for biovar differentiation of <it>B. melitensis</it>. Genotype 42 is widely distributed throughout China during a long time. Bruce 16 and bruce 30 in panel 2B markers are most useful for typing Chinese isolates.</p