Well-dispersed Pd–Sn nanocatalyst anchored on TiO 2 nanosheets with enhanced activity and durability for ethanol electarooxidation

Abstract(#br)Novel Pd 1 -Sn x /TiO 2 nanosheets catalyst with higher activity and durability for ethanol oxidation (EOR) was obtained by NaBH 4 co-reduction method in direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs). The electrochemical performance tested under alkaline conditions illustrates that the prepared Pd 1 –Sn 0.6 /TiO 2 NSs catalyst presents outstanding activity (3381 mA mg Pd − 1 ) and excellent CO anti-poisoning ability for EOR. Meanwhile, the residual current density of Pd 1 –Sn 0.6 /TiO 2 NSs nanocatalyst (1207 mA mg Pd − 1 ) is 8.5 times of the Pd/C (JM) catalyst (142 mA mg Pd − 1 ) after the durability test of 5000 s for EOR. Additionally, the Pd 1 -Sn x /TiO 2 nanosheets show prominent electrocatalytic activity in EOR comparison with Pd/TiO 2 nanosheets and Pd–Sn nanocatalysts. Thus, Pd and Sn doped in TiO 2 nanosheets not only display excellent electrocatalytic, but also reduce the cost of Pd, which have some reference value for DEFCs

CD151 Drives Cancer Progression Depending on Integrin α3β1 through EGFR Signaling in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Background Tetraspanins CD151, a transmembrane 4 superfamily protein, has been identified participating in the initiation of a variety of cancers. However, the precise function of CD151 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains unclear. Here, we addressed the pro-tumoral role of CD151 in NSCLC by targeting EGFR/ErbB2 which favors tumor proliferation, migration and invasion. Methods First, the mRNA expression levels of CD151 in NSCLC tissues and cell lines were measured by RT-PCR. Meanwhile, CD151 and its associated proteins were analyzed by western blotting. The expression levels of CD151 in NSCLC samples and its paired adjacent lung tissues were then verified by Immunohistochemistry. The protein interactions are evaluated by co-immunoprecipitation. Flow cytometry was applied to cell cycle analysis. CCK-8, EdU Incorporation, and clonogenic assays were used to analyze cell viability. Wound healing, transwell migration, and matrigel invasion assays were utilized to assess the motility of tumor cells. To investigate the role of CD151 in vivo, lung carcinoma xenograft mouse model was applied. Results High CD151 expression was identified in NSCLC tissues and cell lines, and its high expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis of NSCLC patients. Further, knockdown of CD151 in vitro inhibited tumor proliferation, migration, and invasion. Besides, inoculation of nude mice with CD151-overexpressing tumor cells exhibited substantial tumor proliferation compared to that in control mice which inoculated with vector-transfected tumor cells. Noteworthy, we found that overexpression of CD151 conferred cell migration and invasion by interacting with integrins. We next sought to demonstrate that CD151 regulated downstream signaling pathways via activation of EGFR/ErbB2 in NSCLC cells. Therefore, we infer that CD151 probably affects the sensitivity of NSCLC in response to anti-cancer drugs. Conclusions Based on these results, we demonstrated a new mechanism of CD151-mediated tumor progression by targeting EGFR/ErbB2 signaling pathway, by which CD151 promotes NSCLC proliferation, migration, and invasion, which may considered as a potential target of NSCLC treatment

Dual hydrophobic modifications toward anion exchange membranes with both high ion conductivity and excellent dimensional stability

Abstract(#br)Anion exchange membrane (AEMs) as a kind of important functional material are widely used in many fields including fuel cell, electrodialysis and water treatment. However, synthetic AEMs generally suffer a pernicious trade-off: high ion-conductive AEMs lack dimensional stability and vice versa. Herein we demonstrate a versatile strategy to prepare the AEMs with both high ion conductivity and excellent dimensional stability ( i.e. , low swelling ratio) via hydrophobic crosslinking and introducing hydrophobic chains. The hydrophobic length of crosslinkers has great influence on construction of highly efficient ion channels in the AEMs. Amazingly, the hydrophilic poly (phenylene oxide) (PPO) AEM crosslinked by 1,8-diaminooctane has the highest hydroxide conductivity that is further improved to 157.2 mS cm −1 (10% increases) with a low swelling ratio of 12.9% at 80 °C by introducing hydrophobic PPO backbone. This AEM not only overcomes the trade-off between the ion conductivity and the dimensional stability of crosslinked AEMs, but also breaks the upper bound between the ion conductivity and the water uptake. The newly developed strategy of hydrophobic dual-modifications promises to be an effective approach to develop the high-performance AEMs

A Fully Flexible Potential Model for Carbon Dioxide

A fully flexible potential model for carbon dioxide has been developed to predict the vapor-liquid coexistence properties using the NVT-Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlo technique (GEMC). The average absolute deviation between our simulation and the literature experimental data for saturated liquid and vapor densities is 0.3% and 2.0%, respectively. Compared with the experimental data, our calculated results of critical properties (7.39 Mpa, 304.04 K, and 0.4679 g.cm(-3)) are acceptable and are better than those from the resealing the potential parameters of elementary physical model (EPM2). The agreement of our simulated densities of supercritical carbon dioxide with the experimental data is acceptable in a wide range of pressure and temperature. The radial distribution function estimated at the supercritical conditions suggests that the carbon dioxide is a nonlinear molecule with the C=O bond length of 0.117 nm and the O=C=O bond angle of 176.4 degrees, which are consistent with Car-Parrinello molecular-dynamics (CPMD), whereas the EPM2 model shows large deviation at supercritical state. The predicted self-diffusion coefficients are in agreement with the experiments.National Natural Science Foundation of China [50573063]; Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of the State Ministry of Education [NCET-05-0566]; Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China [2005038401

Long Non-Coding RNA MEG3 Functions as a Competing Endogenous RNA to Regulate HOXA11 Expression by Sponging miR-181a in Multiple Myeloma

Background/Aims: Long non-coding RNA maternally expressed gene 3 (MEG3) has been reported to play an essential role in cancer progression and metastasis. However, the overall biological role and regulatory mechanism of MEG3 in multiple myeloma (MM) development and progression remains largely ill-defined. Methods: MEG3 and miR-181a expression of MM patients were analyzed by publicly available MM data sets. Cell counting kit-8 and flow cytometry analysis were used to identify the function of MEG3 on MM in vitro. Additionally, we conducted tumor formation experiments in mice models to explain the role of MEG3 on MM in vivo. Then, several mechanism experiments, including dual-luciferase reporter assay and RNA immunoprecipitation were performed to evaluate the emulative relationship between MEG3 and miR-181a. Results: In this research, we found that MEG3 was downregulated in MM patients, which was linked with tumor progression. In addition, we demonstrated that miR-181a was overexpressed in MM patients in consistent with its cancer-promoting function. Importantly, several mechanism experiments revealed that MEG3, acting as an endogenous competitive RNA, could contend with miR-181a to inhibit tumor progression. Furthermore, as the target mRNA of miR-181a, homeobox gene A11(HOXA11) could be positively regulated by MEG3 through sponging miR-181a competitively in vitro. Conclusion: Our present work supplies the first discovery of a MEG3/miR-181a/HOXA11 regulatory network in MM and highlights that MEG3 may serve as a promising target for MM therapy in the future

Dynamic characteristics and failure mechanism of vegetated revetment under cyclic loading

This research is focused on the dynamic behavior and failure mechanisms of an ecologically vegetated bituminous mixture applied in a riverbank revetment model. The dynamic bearing capacity of the vegetated riparian slope was evaluated. The dynamic soil pressure distribution and deformation were analyzed, followed by 3D elastic-plastic finite element modeling. Experimental results showed that the cumulative vertical settlement increased rapidly with the loading time. Vegetation added into bituminous mixtures was found to be effective in inhibiting the development of the vertical displacement of sand. The research described in this paper provides a theoretical basis and guidelines for the protection of riverbank slopes

MODMA dataset: a Multi-modal Open Dataset for Mental-disorder Analysis

According to the World Health Organization, the number of mental disorder patients, especially depression patients, has grown rapidly and become a leading contributor to the global burden of disease. However, the present common practice of depression diagnosis is based on interviews and clinical scales carried out by doctors, which is not only labor-consuming but also time-consuming. One important reason is due to the lack of physiological indicators for mental disorders. With the rising of tools such as data mining and artificial intelligence, using physiological data to explore new possible physiological indicators of mental disorder and creating new applications for mental disorder diagnosis has become a new research hot topic. However, good quality physiological data for mental disorder patients are hard to acquire. We present a multi-modal open dataset for mental-disorder analysis. The dataset includes EEG and audio data from clinically depressed patients and matching normal controls. All our patients were carefully diagnosed and selected by professional psychiatrists in hospitals. The EEG dataset includes not only data collected using traditional 128-electrodes mounted elastic cap, but also a novel wearable 3-electrode EEG collector for pervasive applications. The 128-electrodes EEG signals of 53 subjects were recorded as both in resting state and under stimulation; the 3-electrode EEG signals of 55 subjects were recorded in resting state; the audio data of 52 subjects were recorded during interviewing, reading, and picture description. We encourage other researchers in the field to use it for testing their methods of mental-disorder analysis