Modification of Transition-Metal Redox by Interstitial Water in Hexacyanometalate Electrodes for Sodium-Ion Batteries.

A sodium-ion battery (SIB) solution is attractive for grid-scale electrical energy storage. Low-cost hexacyanometalate is a promising electrode material for SIBs because of its easy synthesis and open framework. Most hexacyanometalate-based SIBs work with aqueous electrolyte, and interstitial water in the material has been found to strongly affect the electrochemical profile, but the mechanism remains elusive. Here we provide a comparative study of the transition-metal redox in hexacyanometalate electrodes with and without interstitial water based on soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy and theoretical calculations. We found distinct transition-metal redox sequences in hydrated and anhydrated NaxMnFe(CN)6·zH2O. The Fe and Mn redox in hydrated electrodes are separated and are at different potentials, leading to two voltage plateaus. On the contrary, mixed Fe and Mn redox in the same potential range is found in the anhydrated system. This work reveals for the first time how transition-metal redox in batteries is strongly affected by interstitial molecules that are seemingly spectators. The results suggest a fundamental mechanism based on three competing factors that determine the transition-metal redox potentials. Because most hexacyanometalate electrodes contain water, this work directly reveals the mechanism of how interstitial molecules could define the electrochemical profile, especially for electrodes based on transition-metal redox with well-defined spin states

Optimization of Spiral MRI Using a Perceptual Difference Model

We systematically evaluated a variety of MR spiral imaging acquisition and reconstruction schemes using a computational perceptual difference model (PDM) that models the ability of humans to perceive a visual difference between a degraded “fast” MRI image with subsampling of k-space and a “gold standard” image mimicking full acquisition. Human subject experiments performed using a modified double-stimulus continuous-quality scale (DSCQS) correlated well with PDM, over a variety of images. In a smaller set of conditions, PDM scores agreed very well with human detectability measurements of image quality. Having validated the technique, PDM was used to systematically evaluate 2016 spiral image conditions (six interleave patterns, seven sampling densities, three density compensation schemes, four reconstruction methods, and four noise levels). Voronoi (VOR) with conventional regridding gave the best reconstructions. At a fixed sampling density, more interleaves gave better results. With noise present more interleaves and samples were desirable. With PDM, conditions were determined where equivalent image quality was obtained with 50% sampling in noise-free conditions. We conclude that PDM scoring provides an objective, useful tool for the assessment of fast MR image quality that can greatly aid the design of MR acquisition and signal processing strategies

Visualizing drug-induced lipid accumulation in lysosomes of live cancer cells with stimulated Raman imaging

The low pH of the lysosomal compartment often results in sequestration of chemotherapeutic agents that contain positively charged basic functional groups, leading to anti-cancer drug resistance. To visualize drug localization in lysosomes and its influence on lysosomal functions, we synthesize a group of drug-like compounds that contain both a basic functional group and a bisarylbutadiyne (BADY) group as a Raman probe. With quantitative stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) imaging, we validate that the synthesized lysosomotropic (LT) drug analogs show high lysosomal affinity, which can also serve as a photostable lysosome tracker. We find that long-term retention of the LT compounds in lysosomes leads to the increased amount and colocalization of both lipid droplets (LDs) and lysosomes in SKOV3 cells. With hyperspectral SRS imaging, further studies find that the LDs stuck in lysosomes are more saturated than the LDs staying out of the lysosomes, indicating impaired lysosomal lipid metabolism by the LT compounds. These results demonstrate that SRS imaging of the alkyne-based probes is a promising approach to characterizing the lysosomal sequestration of drugs and its influence on cell functions

Factorized Blank Thresholding for Improved Runtime Efficiency of Neural Transducers

We show how factoring the RNN-T's output distribution can significantly reduce the computation cost and power consumption for on-device ASR inference with no loss in accuracy. With the rise in popularity of neural-transducer type models like the RNN-T for on-device ASR, optimizing RNN-T's runtime efficiency is of great interest. While previous work has primarily focused on the optimization of RNN-T's acoustic encoder and predictor, this paper focuses the attention on the joiner. We show that despite being only a small part of RNN-T, the joiner has a large impact on the overall model's runtime efficiency. We propose to factorize the joiner into blank and non-blank portions for the purpose of skipping the more expensive non-blank computation when the blank probability exceeds a certain threshold. Since the blank probability can be computed very efficiently and the RNN-T output is dominated by blanks, our proposed method leads to a 26-30% decoding speed-up and 43-53% reduction in on-device power consumption, all the while incurring no accuracy degradation and being relatively simple to implement.Comment: Submitted to ICASSP 202

The relationship between city “greenness” and homicide in the US : evidence over a 30-year period

Residents in US cities are exposed to high levels of stress and violent crime. At the same time, a number of cities have put forward “greening” efforts which may promote nature’s calming effects and reduce stressful stimuli. Previous research has shown that greening may lower aggressive behaviors and violent crime. In this study we examined, for the first time, the longitudinal effects over a 30-year period of average city greenness on homicide rates across 290 major cities in the US, using multilevel linear growth curve modeling. Overall, homicide rates in US cities decreased over this time-period (52.1–33.5 per 100,000 population) while the average greenness increased slightly (0.41–0.43 NDVI). Change in average city greenness was negatively associated with homicide, controlling for a range of variables (β = −.30, p-value = .02). The results of this study suggest that efforts to increase urban greenness may have small but significant violence-reduction benefits.https://journals.sagepub.com/home/EABhj2023Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorolog

The contribution of genetic risk and lifestyle factors in the development of adult-onset inflammatory bowel disease: a prospective cohort study

INTRODUCTION: The joint associations across genetic risk, modifiable lifestyle factors, and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) remains unclear. METHODS: Genetic susceptibility to Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) was estimated by polygenic risk scores and further categorized into high, intermediate, and low genetic risk categories. Weighted healthy lifestyle scores were constructed based on 5 common lifestyle factors and categorized into favorable (4 or 5 healthy lifestyle factors), intermediate (3 healthy lifestyle factors), and unfavorable (0-2 healthy lifestyle factors) groups. Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to estimate the hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for their associations. RESULTS: During the 12-year follow-up, 707 cases with CD and 1576 cases with UC were diagnosed in the UK Biobank cohort. Genetic risk and unhealthy lifestyle categories were monotonically associated with CD and UC risk with no multiplicative interaction between them. The HR of CD and UC were 2.24 (95% CI 1.75-2.86) and 2.15 (95% CI 1.82-2.53) for those with a high genetic risk, respectively. The HR of CD and UC for individuals with an unfavorable lifestyle were 1.94 (95% CI 1.61-2.33) and 1.98 (95% CI 1.73-2.27), respectively. The HR of individuals with a high genetic risk but a favorable lifestyle (2.33, 95% CI 1.58-3.44 for CD, and 2.05, 95% CI 1.58-2.66 for UC) were reduced nearly by half, compared with those with a high genetic risk but an unfavorable lifestyle (4.40, 95% CI 2.91-6.66 for CD and 4.44, 95% CI 3.34-5.91 for UC). DISCUSSION: Genetic and lifestyle factors were independently associated with susceptibility to incident CD and UC. Adherence to a favorable lifestyle was associated with a nearly 50% lower risk of CD and UC among participants at a high genetic risk

Comparative analysis of the genes UL1 through UL7 of the duck enteritis virus and other herpesviruses of the subfamily Alphaherpesvirinae

The nucleotide sequences of eight open reading frames (ORFs) located at the 5' end of the unique long region of the duck enteritis virus (DEV) Clone-03 strain were determined. The genes identified were designated UL1, UL2, UL3, UL4, UL5, UL6 and UL7 homologues of the herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1). The DEV UL3.5 located between UL3 and UL4 had no homologue in the HSV-1. The arrangement and transcription orientation of the eight genes were collinear with their homologues in the HSV-1. Phylogenetic trees were constructed based on the alignments of the deduced amino acids of eight proteins with their homologues in 12 alpha-herpesviruses. In the UL1, UL3, UL3.5, UL5 and UL7 proteins trees, the branches were more closely related to the genus Mardivirus. However, the UL2, UL4, and UL6 proteins phylogenetic trees indicated a large distance from Mardivirus, indicating that the DEV evolved differently from other viruses in the subfamily Alphaherpesvirinae and formed a single branch within this subfamily

Climate change : strategies for mitigation and adaptation

The sustainability of life on Earth is under increasing threat due to humaninduced climate change. This perilous change in the Earth's climate is caused by increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, primarily due to emissions associated with burning fossil fuels. Over the next two to three decades, the effects of climate change, such as heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, storms, and floods, are expected to worsen, posing greater risks to human health and global stability. These trends call for the implementation of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Pollution and environmental degradation exacerbate existing problems and make people and nature more susceptible to the effects of climate change. In this review, we examine the current state of global climate change from different perspectives. We summarize evidence of climate change in Earth’s spheres, discuss emission pathways and drivers of climate change, and analyze the impact of climate change on environmental and human health. We also explore strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation and highlight key challenges for reversing and adapting to global climate change

The network structure of mania symptoms differs between people with and without binge eating

Objectives: People with bipolar disorder who also report binge eating have increased psychopathology and greater impairment than those without binge eating. Whether this co‐occurrence is related to binge eating as a symptom or presents differently across full‐syndrome eating disorders with binge eating is unclear. Methods: We first compared networks of 13 lifetime mania symptoms in 34,226 participants from the United Kingdom's National Institute for Health and Care Research BioResource with (n = 12,104) and without (n = 22,122) lifetime binge eating. Second, in the subsample with binge eating, we compared networks of mania symptoms in participants with lifetime anorexia nervosa binge‐eating/purging (n = 825), bulimia nervosa (n = 3737), and binge‐eating disorder (n = 3648). Results: People with binge eating endorsed every mania symptom significantly more often than those without binge eating. Within the subsample, people with bulimia nervosa most often had the highest endorsement rate of each mania symptom. We found significant differences in network parameter statistics, including network structure (M = 0.25, p = 0.001) and global strength (S = 1.84, p = 0.002) when comparing the binge eating with no binge‐eating participants. However, network structure differences were sensitive to reductions in sample size and the greater density of the latter network was explained by the large proportion of participants (34%) without mania symptoms. The structure of the anorexia nervosa binge‐eating/purging network differed from the bulimia nervosa network (M = 0.66, p = 0.001), but the result was unstable. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the presence and structure of mania symptoms may be more associated with binge eating as a symptom rather than any specific binge‐type eating disorder. Further research with larger sample sizes is required to confirm our findings