Magnetoelectric plasma preparation of silicon-carbon nanocomposite as anode material for lithium ion batteries

A high-performance silicon-carbon nanocomposite facilely prepared by one-step magnetoelectric plasma pyrolysis of the mixture of methane, silane, and hydrogen is proposed for lithium-ion batteries. The ratio of silane, methane, and hydrogen was studied to optimize the properties of the composite. When the ratio of hydrogen/silane/methane is 1:1:3, the composite is composed of spherical Si nanoparticles that uniformly attach to the surface of the tremelliform carbon nanosheets framework, in which the tremelliform carbon nanosheets can effectively resist the volumetric change of the Si nanoparticles during the cycles and serve as electronic channels. The silicon-carbon nanocomposite exhibits a high reversible capacity (1007 mAh g−1 after 50 cycles), a low charge transfer resistance, and an excellent rate performance. In addition, the proposed process for synthesizing silicon-carbon nanocomposite without expensive materials or toxic reagents is an environmentally friendly and cost-effective method for mass production

Carbon Nanostructures Production by AC Arc Discharge Plasma Process at Atmospheric Pressure

Carbon nanostructures have received much attention for a wide range of applications. In this paper, we produced carbon nanostructures by decomposition of benzene using AC arc discharge plasma process at atmospheric pressure. Discharge was carried out at a voltage of 380 V, with a current of 6 A–20 A. The products were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Raman spectra. The results show that the products on the inner wall of the reactor and the sand core are nanoparticles with 20–60 nm diameter, and the products on the electrode ends are nanoparticles, agglomerate carbon particles, and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). The maximum yield content of carbon nanotubes occurs when the arc discharge current is 8 A. Finally, the reaction mechanism was discussed

Research progress on the association between melatonin and hypertensive disorder complicating pregnancy

Melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine) is a polypotent neuroendocrine lipid-soluble small molecule secreted mainly by the pineal gland. During gestation, melatonin levels in the mother at night rise as the pregnancy progresses and return to normal after delivery. The etiology of hypertensive disorder complicating pregnancy (HDCP) is multifaceted. An increasing number of evidence suggests the involvement of melatonin in the pathogenic process, and the regulation is related to its expression level, secretion rhythm and receptor level. Abnormal placental blood circulation, ischemia and hypoxia and systemic vascular endothelium dysfunction are the main pathological processes of HDCP. Through direct antioxidant effect, melatonin improves mitochondrial dysfunction and protects trophoblast cells from oxidative damage, thus participating in the regulation of placental oxidative stress level, and plays a protective role in preventing oxidative damage caused by hypoxic ischemia reperfusion of placenta, thus maintaining placental functional homeostasis. In addition, there is also evidence that melatonin can protect maternal vascular endothelium from oxidative stress by reducing the production and secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines and vasoactive compounds, and participating in the regulation of systemic blood pressure in pregnant women. These confidences suggest that melatonin can be involved in the maintenance of placental and systemic vascular functional homeostasis during pregnancy through the regulation of oxidative stress. In this article, the effects of melatonin on HDCP and the related mechanisms are reviewed, and the positive role of melatonin in the pathogenesis of HDCP is summarized

Advanced liposome-loaded scaffolds for therapeutic and tissue engineering applications

Liposome is one of the most commonly used drug delivery systems in the world, due to its excellent biocompatibility, satisfactory ability in controlling drug release, and passive targeting capability. However, some drawbacks limit the application of liposomes in clinical, such as problems in transporting, storing, and difficulties in maintaining the drug concentration in the local area. Scaffolds usually are used as implants to supply certain mechanical supporting to the defective area or utilized as diagnosis and imaging methods. But, in general, unmodified scaffolds show limited abilities in promoting tissue regeneration and treating diseases. Therefore, liposome-scaffold composite systems are designed to take advantages of both liposomes’ biocompatibility and scaffolds’ strength to provide a novel system that is more suitable for clinical applications. This review introduces and discusses different types of liposomes and scaffolds, and also the application of liposome-scaffold composite systems in different diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, skin-related diseases, infection and human immunodeficiency virus, and in tissue regeneration like bone, teeth, spinal cord and wound healing.Peer reviewe

TeacherLM: Teaching to Fish Rather Than Giving the Fish, Language Modeling Likewise

Large Language Models (LLMs) exhibit impressive reasoning and data augmentation capabilities in various NLP tasks. However, what about small models? In this work, we propose TeacherLM-7.1B, capable of annotating relevant fundamentals, chain of thought, and common mistakes for most NLP samples, which makes annotation more than just an answer, thus allowing other models to learn "why" instead of just "what". The TeacherLM-7.1B model achieved a zero-shot score of 52.3 on MMLU, surpassing most models with over 100B parameters. Even more remarkable is its data augmentation ability. Based on TeacherLM-7.1B, we augmented 58 NLP datasets and taught various student models with different parameters from OPT and BLOOM series in a multi-task setting. The experimental results indicate that the data augmentation provided by TeacherLM has brought significant benefits. We will release the TeacherLM series of models and augmented datasets as open-source.Comment: 5 figures, 15 page

Understanding environmental incidents on construction sites in Australia: The causal factors, environmental impact and their relations

The construction sites are prone to environmental incidents. In this paper, the root causes of incidents and immediate actions taken after events are identified through qualitative analysis, while the environmental impacts, the cost of mitigation, time of incident occurrence, as well as the relationship between the causes of incidents and immediate actions and the causes and environmental impacts were quantitatively analysed. In total, 499 environment incidents occurred over an 8-year period on the construction sites in Australia was examined in this study. The results show that the most common causes of incidents were equipment and plant failure, oil spillage, and fuel spillage, while the most expensive incidents in terms of mitigation were flooding, poor weather, and process failures. Further, the most common actions taken immediately after incidents were cleaning and clearing, shut down of operation, plant and equipment and notifications. More than 50% of incidents resulted in the contamination of land and groundwater, while the majority of incidents occurred between 10:00 am and 12:00 am. We propose strategies for project managers and environmental managers to better understand potential environmental hazards