A fluorimetric enzyme assay for the diagnosis of Sanfilippo disease type D (MPS IIID)

4-Methylumbelliferyl-α-N-acetylglucosamine 6-sulphate was synthesized and shown to be a substrate for the lysosomal N-acetylglucosamine-6-sulphate sulphatase (GlcNAc-6S sulphatase). Fibroblasts and leukocytes from 3 different Sanfilippo D patients showed <1% of mean normal GlcNAc-6S sulphatase activity. The enzymatic liberation of the fluorochrome from 4-methyl-umbelliferyl-α-N-acetylglucosamine 6-sulphate requires the sequential action of the GlcNAc-6S sulphatase and α-N-acetylglucosaminidase. A normal level of α-N-acetylglucosaminidase activity was insufficient to complete the hydrolysis of the reaction intermediate 4-methylumbelliferyl-α-N-acetylgluco-saminide formed by the GlcNAc-6S sulphatase. A second incubation in the presence of excess α-N-acetyglucosaminidase is needed to avoid underestimation of the GlcNAc-6S sulphatase activity

Evaluation of kidney allograft status using novel ultrasonic technologies

Early diagnosis of kidney allograft injury contributes to proper decisions regarding treatment strategy and promotes the long-term survival of both the recipients and the allografts. Although biopsy remains the gold standard, non-invasive methods of kidney allograft evaluation are required for clinical practice. Recently, novel ultrasonic technologies have been applied in the evaluation and diagnosis of kidney allograft status, including tissue elasticity quantification using acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS). In this review, we discuss current opinions on the application of ARFI and CEUS for evaluating kidney allograft function and their possible influencing factors, advantages and limitations. We also compare these two technologies with other non-invasive diagnostic methods, including nuclear medicine and radiology. While the role of novel non-invasive ultrasonic technologies in the assessment of kidney allografts requires further investigation, the use of such technologies remains highly promising

Trifluoromethyl-Substituted Large Band-Gap Polytriphenylamines for Polymer Solar Cells with High Open-Circuit Voltages

Two large band-gap polymers (PTPACF and PTPA2CF) based on polytriphenylamine derivatives with the introduction of electron-withdrawing trifluoromethyl groups were designed and prepared by Suzuki polycondensation reaction. The chemical structures, thermal, optical and electrochemical properties were characterized in detail. From the UV-visible absorption spectra, the PTPACF and PTPA2CF showed the optical band gaps of 2.01 and 2.07 eV, respectively. The cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurement displayed the deep highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy levels of −5.33 and −5.38 eV for PTPACF and PTPA2CF, respectively. The hole mobilities, determined by field-effect transistor characterization, were 2.5 × 10−3 and 1.1 × 10−3 cm2 V−1 S−1 for PTPACF and PTPA2CF, respectively. The polymer solar cells (PSCs) were tested under the conventional device structure of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/polymer:PC71BM/PFN/Al. All of the PSCs showed the high open circuit voltages (Vocs) with the values approaching 1 V. The PTPACF and PTPA2CF based PSCs gave the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 3.24% and 2.40%, respectively. Hence, it is a reliable methodology to develop high-performance large band-gap polymer donors with high Vocs through the feasible side-chain modification

Strategic social team crowdsourcing : forming a team of truthful workers for crowdsourcing in social networks

With the increasing complexity of tasks that are crowdsourced, requesters need to form teams of professional workers that can satisfy complex task skill requirements. Team crowdsourcing in social networks (SNs) provides a promising solution for complex task crowdsourcing, where the requester hires a team of professional workers that are also socially connected can work together collaboratively. Previous social team formation approaches have mainly focused on the algorithmic aspect for social welfare maximization; however, within the traditional objective of maximizing social welfare alone, selfish workers can manipulate the crowdsourcing market by behaving untruthfully. This dishonest behavior discourages other workers from participating and is unprofitable for the requester. To address this strategic social team crowdsourcing problem, truthful mechanisms are developed to guarantee that a worker's utility is optimized when he behaves honestly. This problem is proved to NP-hard, and two efficient mechanisms are proposed to optimize social welfare while reducing time complexity for different scale applications. For small-scale applications where the task requires a small number of skills, a binary tree network is first extracted from the social network, and a dynamic programming-based optimal team is formed in the binary tree. For large-scale applications where the task requires a large number of skills, a team is formed greedily based on the workers' social structure, skill, and working cost. For both mechanisms, the threshold payment rule, which pays each worker his marginal value for task completion, is proposed to elicit truthfulness. Finally, the experimental results of a real-world dataset show that compared to the benchmark exponential VCG truthful mechanism, the proposed small-scale-oriented mechanism can reduce computation time while producing nearly the same social welfare results. Furthermore, compared to other state-of-the-art polynomial heuristics, the proposed large-scale-oriented mechanism can achieve truthfulness while generating better social welfare outcomes.This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61472079, 61170164, 61807008 and 61806053, 61472089), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China (BK20171363), the Joint Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Guangdong Province (U1501254), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province (2015B010131015 and 2015B010108006), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2014A030308008), and Guangdong Regular University International and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Cooperative Innovation Platform and International Cooperation Major Projects (2015KGJHZ023)

Origin of Reduced Open-Circuit Voltage in Highly Efficient Small-Molecule-Based Solar Cells upon Solvent Vapor Annealing

In this study, we demonstrate that remarkably reduced open-circuit voltage in highly efficient organic solar cells (OSCs) from a blend of phenyl-C₆₁-butyric acid methyl ester and a recently developed conjugated small molecule (DPPEZnP-THD) upon solvent vapor annealing (SVA) is due to two independent sources: increased radiative recombination and increased nonradiative recombination. Through the measurements of electroluminescence due to the emission of the charge-transfer state and photovoltaic external quantum efficiency measurement, we can quantify that the open-circuit voltage losses in a device with SVA due to the radiative recombination and nonradiative recombination are 0.23 and 0.31 V, respectively, which are 0.04 and 0.07 V higher than those of the as-cast device. Despite of the reduced open-circuit voltage, the device with SVA exhibited enhanced dissociation of charge-transfer excitons, leading to an improved short-circuit current density and a remarkable power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.41%, one of the best for solution-processed OSCs based on small-molecule donor materials. Our study also clearly shows that removing the nonradiative recombination pathways and/or suppressing energetic disorder in the active layer would result in more long-lived charge carriers and enhanced open-circuit voltage, which are prerequisites for further improving the PCE

Serum HMGB1 as a Potential Biomarker for Patients with Asbestos-Related Diseases

High-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) functions as a proinflammatory cytokine and is one of the most intriguing molecules in inflammatory disorders and cancers. Notably, HMGB1 is a potential therapeutic target and novel biomarker in related diseases. However, the diagnostic value of HMGB1 for benign and malignant asbestos-related diseases (ARDs) remains unclear. In this work, we detected preoperative serum HMGB1 levels in Chinese asbestos-exposed (AE) and ARDs populations and further evaluated the diagnostic value of HMGB1 in patients with certain types of ARDs, including those with pleural plaques, asbestosis, or malignant mesothelioma (MM). The experimental data presented that the serum level of HMGB1 was significantly elevated in AE and ARDs subjects. Our findings indicated that serum HMGB1 is a sensitive and specific biomarker for discriminating asbestosis- and MM-affected individuals from healthy or AE individuals. In addition, serum matrix metalloproteinases 2 and 9 are not correlated with HMGB1 in ARDs. Thus, our study provides supporting evidence for HMGB1 as a potential biomarker either for the clinical diagnosis of high-risk AE cohorts or for evaluating ARDs

Layer-by-layer processed binary all-polymer solar cells with efficiency over 16% enabled by finely optimized morphology

Optimal active layer morphology is a prerequisite for high-efficiency all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs). Herein, we report that the vertical phase separation as well as microstructures of the polymer donor and acceptor can be finely optimized in layer-by-layer (LbL) processed all-PSCs. By using 1-chloronaphthalene as the solvent additive during the deposition of the polymer acceptor in the top layer and applying thermal annealing on the entire active layer, bulk-heterojunction like morphology with favorable vertical composition distribution, improved lamellar ordering of the polymer donor (PBDB-T), and the formation of polymer fibrils of the polymer acceptor (PYT) have been realized simultaneously. This favorable morphology led to greatly enhanced exciton splitting efficiency, reduced trap density, improved charge transport, and suppressed charge recombination loss. As a result, the LbL processed all-PSCs of PBDB-T/PYT afforded a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 16.05%, which is one of the highest PCEs for binary all-PSCs. Moreover, a fill factor (FF) of 0.77 has been obtained, which is the highest value for all-PSCs based on polymerized small molecule acceptors up to date. This work demonstrates an effective strategy for morphology optimization of LbL processed all-PSCs, which will greatly contribute to efficiency breakthrough