Cross-linked CoMoO4/rGO nanosheets as oxygen reduction catalyst

Development of inexpensive and robust electrocatalysts towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is crucial for the cost-affordable manufacturing of metal-air batteries and fuel cells. Here we show that cross-linked CoMoO4 nanosheets and reduced graphene oxide (CoMoO4/rGO) can be integrated in a hybrid material under one-pot hydrothermal conditions, yielding a composite material with promising catalytic activity for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) were used to investigate the efficiency of the fabricated CoMoO4/rGO catalyst towards ORR in alkaline conditions. The CoMoO4/rGO composite revealed the main reduction peak and onset potential centered at 0.78 and 0.89 V (vs. RHE), respectively. This study shows that the CoMoO4/rGO composite is a highly promising catalyst for the ORR under alkaline conditions, and potential noble metal replacement cathode in fuel cells and metal-air batteries

Insights into high temperature pretreatment on cellulase processing of bamboo

Bamboo processing was performed with commercial cellulase. The properties of cellulase and the effect of high temperature pretreatment on cellulase hydrolysis of bamboo were investigated. Results indicated that cellulase hydrolysis performed fast and dramatically within 30 minutes, and then gradually reached its balance. It was found that pretreatment played an active role in cellulase processing, which enhanced the saccharification of bamboo and benefited high-molecular-weight lignin degradation and removal. Additionally, a better performance of bamboo processing was achieved under the cellulase concentration of 15IU in total reaction system of 100 ml at 50°C, pH 4.8, together with the high temperature pretreatment of 120°C for 15 minutes

The Cardiovascular Effect of Systemic Homocysteine Is Associated with Oxidative Stress in the Rostral Ventrolateral Medulla

It has been demonstrated that homocysteine (HCY) is a significant risk factor of hypertension, which is characterized by overactivity of sympathetic tone. Excessive oxidative stress in the rostral ventrolateral medulla (RVLM), a key region for control of sympathetic outflow, contributes to sympathetic hyperactivity in hypertension. Therefore, the goal of the present study is to determine the effect of systemic HCY on production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the RVLM. In the rat model of the diet-induced hyperhomocysteinemia (L-methionine, 1 g/kg/day, 8 weeks), we found that the HCY resulted in a significant increase (≈3.7-fold, P<0.05) in ROS production in the RVLM, which was paralleled with enhanced sympathetic tone and blood pressure (BP). Compared to the vehicle group, levels of BP and basal renal sympathetic nerve activity in the HCY group were significantly (P<0.05, n=5) increased by an average of 27 mmHg and 31%, respectively. Furthermore, the rats treated with L-methionine (1 g/kg/day, 8 weeks) showed an upregulation of NADPHase (NOX4) protein expression and a downregulation of superoxide dismutase protein expression in the RVLM. The current data suggest that central oxidative stress induced by systemic HCY plays an important role in hypertension-associated sympathetic overactivity

Certain Class of Analytic Functions Based on qq-difference operator

In this paper, we considered a generalized class of starlike functions defined by Kanas and R\u{a}ducanu\cite{10} to obtain integral means inequalities and subordination results. Further, we obtain the for various subclasses of starlike functions.Comment:

Plasma indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase activity as a potential biomarker for early diagnosis of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in tuberculosis patients

Purpose: Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) remains a challenge of global TB control, with difficulty in early detection of drug-sensitive tuberculosis (DS-TB). We investigate the diagnostic significance of IDO as a potential biomarker to discriminate MDR patients among the TB patients. Patients and methods: Plasma indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) was measured by the ratio of kynurenine (Kyn) to tryptophan (Trp) concentrations, using high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Chest computed tomography (CT) imaging signs from TB patients were collected and analyzed in 18 DS-TB patients, 16 MDR-TB patients, 6 lung cancer (LC) patients, and 11 healthy individuals. Lung imaging signs from TB patients were collected and analyzed. Results: We found that plasma IDO activity was significantly higher in the MDR-TB patients than in the DS-TB patients (p=0.012) and in the LC patients (p=0.003). We evaluated the diagnostic significance of plasma IDO activity in discriminating the MDR-TB group from the DS-TB group using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. With a cutoff level of 46.58 uM/mM, the diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) for IDO activity were 87.50%, 72.22%, 73.68%, and 86.67%, respectively. Plasma IDO activity was higher in cavity cases than in non-cavity cases (p=0.042), proving a positive correlation between lung cavity number and cavity size (p \u3c 0.05, separately) among all the TB patients studied. Conclusion: Our findings confirmed that plasma IDO activity might have an auxiliary diagnosis value for early discrimination of MDR-TB patients from DS-TB patients. Among the TB patients with cavitary lung lesions, higher plasma IDO activity can indicate a higher risk of MDR-TB

Economic Uncertainty and the Demand for Broad Money in South Africa

This paper scrutinised the impact of economic uncertainty on the broad money demand in South Africa using quarterly data from 2001 to 2018. Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model is employed to capture the volatilities of selected components in order to construct an economic uncertainty index (EUI) for South Africa. The constructed index is then used as a regressor along with real income, interest rate and exchange rate in determining South African demand for broad money. The empirical finding using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach notably shows that the EUI is negatively affecting South Africa’s demand for broad money in the long term. This reveals that economic agents tend to hold real or safer assets than riskier assets, thus reduce broad money demand during times of heightened economy in South Africa. The model is cointegrated in the long-run and stable with the inclusion of EUI in the broad money demand function for South Africa. The findings are able to assist policy makers in using suitable determinants as stabilisation tools and targeting a more effective monetary policy framework refined by appropriate monetary aggregates in South Africa

Extremely Low-light Image Enhancement with Scene Text Restoration

Deep learning-based methods have made impressive progress in enhancing extremely low-light images - the image quality of the reconstructed images has generally improved. However, we found out that most of these methods could not sufficiently recover the image details, for instance, the texts in the scene. In this paper, a novel image enhancement framework is proposed to precisely restore the scene texts, as well as the overall quality of the image simultaneously under extremely low-light images conditions. Mainly, we employed a self-regularised attention map, an edge map, and a novel text detection loss. In addition, leveraging synthetic low-light images is beneficial for image enhancement on the genuine ones in terms of text detection. The quantitative and qualitative experimental results have shown that the proposed model outperforms state-of-the-art methods in image restoration, text detection, and text spotting on See In the Dark and ICDAR15 datasets

Structural investigations on the mitochondrial uncouplers niclosamide and FCCP

There has been renewed interest in using mitochondrial uncoupler compounds such as niclosamide and carbonyl cyanide p‐(trifluoromethoxy)phenylhydrazone (FCCP) for the treatment of obesity, hepatosteatosis and diseases where oxidative stress plays a role. However, both FCCP and niclosamide have undesirable effects that are not due to mitochondrial uncoupling, such as inhibition of mitochondrial oxygen consumption by FCCP and induction of DNA damage by niclosamide. Through structure–activity analysis, we identified FCCP analogues that do not inhibit mitochondrial oxygen consumption but still provided good, although less potent, uncoupling activity. We also characterized the functional role of the niclosamide 4′‐nitro group, the phenolic hydroxy group and the anilide amino group in mediating uncoupling activity. Our structural investigations provide important information that will aid further drug development

Influence of Baking Degree on the Content of Chlorogenic Acid in Coffee by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

The effect of baking degree on the change of seven chlorogenic acid compounds in 10 different origins (origin 1: Yunnan, origin 2: Africa and America) of Cardim coffee. The content of chlorogenic acid, neochlorogenic acid, cryptochlorogenic acid, isochlorogenic acid A, isochlorogenic acid B, isochlorogenic acid C and 5-ferulicquinic acid in green coffee and baked coffee were determined by high performance liquid chromategraphy (HPLC). The optimum extraction conditions of seven chlorogenic acid compounds were optimized by response surface methodology. 100 mL 0.1% phosphoric acid solution was extracted in water bath for 30 min, and the calibration curves of the seven chlorogenic acid compounds showed good linearity with correlation coefficients of above 0.999 4 in the range of 2~150 mg/L. Limit of the detection (LOD) and the limit of the quantitative (LOQ) were 0.005~0.5 mg/g and 0.02~2 mg/g respectively. The content of chlorogenic acid in green coffee beans was the highest, followed by 5-ferulicquinic acid. With the increase of baking degree, the content of chlorogenic acid and 5-ferulicquinic acid decreased significantly (P<0.05). The content of neochlorogenic acid and cryptochlorogenic acid increased first and then decreased. The degradation rate of isochlorogenic acid A was significantly higher than that of isochlorogenic acid B and isochlorogenic acid C. The degradation rate of chlorogenic acid and 5-ferulicquinic acid was relatively stable compared with the other six kinds of chlorogenic acid. Through the study of the content changes of seven kinds of chlorogenic acid compounds under different baking degrees can further evaluate the efficacy of chlorogenic acids in coffee, and provide a reference basis for the quality control of coffee baking