Nitrogen-Doped Hierarchical Porous Activated Carbon Derived from Paddy for High-Performance Supercapacitors

A facile and environmentally friendly fabrication is proposed to prepare nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous activated carbon via normal-pressure popping, one-pot activation and nitrogen-doping process. The method adopts paddy as carbon precursor, KHCO3 and dicyandiamide as the safe activating agent and nitrogen dopant. The as-prepared activated carbon presents a large specific surface area of 3025 m2·g−1 resulting from the synergistic effect of KHCO3 and dicyandiamide. As an electrode material, it shows a maximum specific capacitance of 417 F·g−1 at a current density of 1 A·g−1 and very good rate performance. Furthermore, the assembled symmetric supercapacitor presents a large specific capacitance of 314.6 F·g−1 and a high energy density of 15.7 Wh·Kg−1 at 1 A·g−1, maintaining 14.4 Wh·Kg−1 even at 20 A·g−1 with the energy density retention of 91.7%. This research demonstrates that nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous activated carbon derived from paddy has a significant potential for developing a high-performance renewable supercapacitor and provides a new route for economical and large-scale production in supercapacitor application

Clearing Persistent Extracellular Antigen of Hepatitis B Virus: An Immunomodulatory Strategy To Reverse Tolerance for an Effective Therapeutic Vaccination

Development of therapeutic vaccines/strategies to control chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection (CHB) has been challenging due to HBV-induced tolerance. In this study, we explored strategies for breaking tolerance and restoring the immune response to the HBV surface antigen in tolerant mice. We demonstrated that immune tolerance status is attributed to the level and duration of circulating HBsAg in HBV carrier models. Removal of circulating HBsAg by a monoclonal anti-HBsAg antibody in tolerant mice could gradually reduce tolerance and reestablish B cell and CD4+ T cell responses to subsequent Engerix-B vaccination, producing protective IgG. Furthermore, HBsAg-specific CD8+ T cells induced by the addition of a TLR agonist, resulted in clearance of HBV in both serum and liver. Thus, generation of protective immunity can be achieved by clearing extracellular viral antigen with neutralizing antibodies followed by vaccination

Vaccines targeting preS1 domain overcome immune tolerance in hepatitis B virus carrier mice

Strong tolerance to hepatitis B virus (HBV) surface antigens limits the therapeutic effect of the conventional hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) vaccination in both preclinical animal models and patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection. In contrast, we observed that clinical CHB patients presented less immune tolerance to the preS1 domain of HBV large surface antigen. To study whether targeting the weak tolerance of the preS1 region could improve therapy gain, we explored vaccination with the long peptide of preS1 domain for HBV virions clearance. Our study showed that this preS1-polypeptide rather than HBsAg vaccination induced robust immune responses in HBV carrier mice. The anti-preS1 rapidly cleared HBV virions in vivo and blocked HBV infection to hepatocytes in vitro. Intriguingly, vaccination of preS1-polypeptide even reduced the tolerized status of HBsAg, opening a therapeutic window for the host to respond to the HBsAg vaccine. A sequential administration of antigenically distinct preS1-polypeptide and HBsAg vaccines in HBV carrier mice could finally induce HBsAg/hepatitis B surface antibody serological conversion and clear chronic HBV infection in carrier mice. Conclusion: These results suggest that preS1 can function as a therapeutic vaccine for the control of CHB. (Hepatology 2017;66:1067-1082)

Sub-second periodic radio oscillations in a microquasar

Powerful relativistic jets are one of the ubiquitous features of accreting black holes in all scales. GRS 1915+105 is a well-known fast-spinning black-hole X-ray binary with a relativistic jet, termed as a ``microquasar'', as indicated by its superluminal motion of radio emission. It exhibits persistent x-ray activity over the last 30 years, with quasi-periodic oscillations of $\sim 1-10$ Hz and 34 and 67 Hz in the x-ray band. These oscillations likely originate in the inner accretion disk, but other origins have been considered. Radio observations found variable light curves with quasi-periodic flares or oscillations with periods of $\sim 20-50$ minutes. Here we report two instances of $\sim$5 Hz transient periodic oscillation features from the source detected in the 1.05-1.45 GHz radio band that occurred in January 2021 and June 2022, respectively. Circular polarization was also observed during the oscillation phase.Comment: The author version of the article which will appear in Nature on 26 July 2023, 32 pages including the extended data. The online publication version can be found at the following URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06336-

PSR J1926-0652: A Pulsar with Interesting Emission Properties Discovered at FAST

We describe PSR J1926-0652, a pulsar recently discovered with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). Using sensitive single-pulse detections from FAST and long-term timing observations from the Parkes 64-m radio telescope, we probed phenomena on both long and short time scales. The FAST observations covered a wide frequency range from 270 to 800 MHz, enabling individual pulses to be studied in detail. The pulsar exhibits at least four profile components, short-term nulling lasting from 4 to 450 pulses, complex subpulse drifting behaviours and intermittency on scales of tens of minutes. While the average band spacing P3 is relatively constant across different bursts and components, significant variations in the separation of adjacent bands are seen, especially near the beginning and end of a burst. Band shapes and slopes are quite variable, especially for the trailing components and for the shorter bursts. We show that for each burst the last detectable pulse prior to emission ceasing has different properties compared to other pulses. These complexities pose challenges for the classic carousel-type models.Comment: 13pages with 12 figure

Integrated Profiling of MicroRNAs and mRNAs: MicroRNAs Located on Xq27.3 Associate with Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Background: With the advent of second-generation sequencing, the expression of gene transcripts can be digitally measured with high accuracy. The purpose of this study was to systematically profile the expression of both mRNA and miRNA genes in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) using massively parallel sequencing technology. Methodology: The expression of mRNAs and miRNAs were analyzed in tumor tissues and matched normal adjacent tissues obtained from 10 ccRCC patients without distant metastases. In a prevalence screen, some of the most interesting results were validated in a large cohort of ccRCC patients. Principal Findings: A total of 404 miRNAs and 9,799 mRNAs were detected to be differentially expressed in the 10 ccRCC patients. We also identified 56 novel miRNA candidates in at least two samples. In addition to confirming that canonical cancer genes and miRNAs (including VEGFA, DUSP9 and ERBB4; miR-210, miR-184 and miR-206) play pivotal roles in ccRCC development, promising novel candidates (such as PNCK and miR-122) without previous annotation in ccRCC carcinogenesis were also discovered in this study. Pathways controlling cell fates (e. g., cell cycle and apoptosis pathways) and cell communication (e. g., focal adhesion and ECM-receptor interaction) were found to be significantly more likely to be disrupted in ccRCC. Additionally, the results of the prevalence screen revealed that the expression of a miRNA gene cluster located on Xq27.3 was consistently downregulated in at least 76.7% of similar to 50 ccRCC patients. Conclusions: Our study provided a two-dimensional map of the mRNA and miRNA expression profiles of ccRCC using deep sequencing technology. Our results indicate that the phenotypic status of ccRCC is characterized by a loss of normal renal function, downregulation of metabolic genes, and upregulation of many signal transduction genes in key pathways. Furthermore, it can be concluded that downregulation of miRNA genes clustered on Xq27.3 is associated with ccRCC