Graphene-Based Nanocomposites for Energy Storage

Since the first report of using micromechanical cleavage method to produce graphene sheets in 2004, graphene/graphene-based nanocomposites have attracted wide attention both for fundamental aspects as well as applications in advanced energy storage and conversion systems. In comparison to other materials, graphene-based nanostructured materials have unique 2D structure, high electronic mobility, exceptional electronic and thermal conductivities, excellent optical transmittance, good mechanical strength, and ultrahigh surface area. Therefore, they are considered as attractive materials for hydrogen (H2) storage and high-performance electrochemical energy storage devices, such as supercapacitors, rechargeable lithium (Li)-ion batteries, Li–sulfur batteries, Li–air batteries, sodium (Na)-ion batteries, Na–air batteries, zinc (Zn)–air batteries, and vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB), etc., as they can improve the efficiency, capacity, gravimetric energy/power densities, and cycle life of these energy storage devices. In this article, recent progress reported on the synthesis and fabrication of graphene nanocomposite materials for applications in these aforementioned various energy storage systems is reviewed. Importantly, the prospects and future challenges in both scalable manufacturing and more energy storage-related applications are discussed

Superresolution Reconstruction of Video Based on Efficient Subpixel Convolutional Neural Network for Urban Computing

Video surveillance is an important data source of urban computing and intelligence. The low resolution of many existing video surveillance devices affects the efficiency of urban computing and intelligence. Therefore, improving the resolution of video surveillance is one of the important tasks of urban computing and intelligence. In this paper, the resolution of video is improved by superresolution reconstruction based on a learning method. Different from the superresolution reconstruction of static images, the superresolution reconstruction of video is characterized by the application of motion information. However, there are few studies in this area so far. Aimed at fully exploring motion information to improve the superresolution of video, this paper proposes a superresolution reconstruction method based on an efficient subpixel convolutional neural network, where the optical flow is introduced in the deep learning network. Fusing the optical flow features between successive frames can compensate for information in frames and generate high-quality superresolution results. In addition, in order to improve the superresolution, a superpixel convolution layer is added after the deep convolution network. Finally, experimental evaluations demonstrate the satisfying performance of our method compared with previous methods and other deep learning networks; our method is more efficient

Quasi-Freeform Metasurfaces for Wide-Angle Beam Deflecting and Splitting

Metasurfaces attracted extensive interests due to their outstanding ability to manipulate the wavefront at a subwavelength scale. In this study, we demonstrated quasi-freeform metasurfaces in which the radius, location, and height of the nanocylinder building blocks were set as optimized structure parameters, providing more degrees of freedom compared with traditional gradient metasurfaces. Given a desired wavefront shaping objective, these structure parameters can be collectively optimized utilizing a hybrid optimized algorithm. To demonstrate the versatility and feasibility of our method, we firstly proposed metasurfaces with deflecting efficiencies ranging from 86.2% to 94.8%, where the deflecting angles can vary in the range of 29°–75.6°. With further study, we applied our concept to realize a variety of high-efficiency, wide-angle, equal-power beam splitters. The total splitting efficiencies of all the proposed beam splitters exceeded 89.4%, where a highest efficiency of 97.6%, a maximum splitting angle of 75.6°, and a splitting uniformity of 0.33% were obtained. Considering that various deflecting angles, and various splitting channels with different splitting angles, can be realized by setting the optical response of metasurfaces as the optimization target, we believe that our method will provide an alternative approach for metasurfaces to realize desired wavefront shaping

Evaluation of Piperacillin/Sulbactam, Piperacillin/Tazobactam and Cefoperazone/Sulbactam Dosages in Gram-Negative Bacterial Bloodstream Infections by Monte Carlo Simulation

The optimal regimens of piperacillin/sulbactam (PIS 2:1), piperacillin/tazobactam (PTZ 8:1), and cefoperazone/sulbactam (CSL 2:1) are not well defined in patients based on renal function. This study was conducted to identify optimal regimens of BLBLIs in these patients. The antimicrobial sensitivity test was performed by a two-fold agar dilution method. Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) was used to simulate the probability of target attainment (PTA) and the cumulative fraction of response (CFR) for various dosing regimens in patients with different renal functions. For strains with an MIC ≤ 8/4 mg/L, PIS 4.5 g q6h achieved 99.03%PTA in the subset of patients with creatinine clearance (CrCL) > 90 mL/min. For patients with CrCL 60–90 mL/min, PIS 4.5 g q6h achieved 81.2% CFR; for those with CrCL 40–59 mL/min, PIS 4.5 g q8h achieved 80.25% CFR. However, for patients infected by ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae, PIS 4.5 g q6h achieved a CFR lower than 80%. For patients infected by A. baumannii with a CrCL of 31–60 mL/min, PIS 6.0 g q8h and 4.5 g q6h achieved 81.24% and 82.42% CFR, respectively. For those infected by P. aeruginosa, PIS 4.5 g q6h reached 90% CFR. PIS and PTZ achieved a similar CFR when piperacillin was at the same dose. The CFRs of CSL were much lower than those of the other two agents in Enterobacteriaceae and P. aeruginosa infections. The antibacterial spectrum of PIS is superior to that of PTZ and CSL. Higher dosages and dosing adjustment according to renal function should be considered to treat Gram-negative bacterial BSIs

Natural killer group 2D receptor and its ligands in cancer immune escape

Abstract The immune system plays important roles in tumor development. According to the immune-editing theory, immune escape is the key to tumor survival, and exploring the mechanisms of tumor immune escape can provide a new basis for the treatment of tumors. In this review, we describe the mechanisms of natural killer group 2D (NKG2D) receptor and NKG2D ligand (NKG2DL) in tumor immune responses. Natural killer (NK) cells are important cytotoxic cells in the immune system, and the activated NKG2D receptor on the NK cell surface can bind to NKG2DL expressed in tumor cells, enabling NK cells to activate and kill tumor cells. However, tumors can escape the immune clearance mediated by NKG2D receptor/NKG2DL through various mechanisms. The expression of NKG2D receptor on NK cells can be regulated by cells, molecules, and hypoxia in the tumor microenvironment. Tumor cells regulate the expression of NKG2DL at the level of transcription, translation, and post-translation and thereby escape recognition by NK cells. In particular, viruses and hormones have special mechanisms to affect the expression of NKG2D receptor and NKG2DL. Therefore, NKG2D\NKG2DL may have applications as targets for more effective antitumor therapy

Prominent immune signatures of T cells are specifically associated with indolent B-cell lymphoproliferative disorders and predict prognosis

Objectives.T cells play an essential role in controlling thedevelopment of B-cell lymphoproliferative disorders (BLPDs), butthe dysfunction of T cells in BLPDs largely remains elusive.Methods.Using multiplexed flow cytometry, we quantified allmajor subsets of CD4+helper T cells (Th) and CD8+cytotoxic T cells(Tc) in 94 BLPD patients and 66 healthy controls. Statistics wasutilised to rank T-cell signatures that distinguished BLPDs fromhealthy controls and differentially presented between indolentand aggressive categories.Results.By comparing with healthycontrols, we found that the indolent but not aggressive type ofBLPDs demonstrated a high degree of T-cell activation, showingthe increase in type I helper T (Th1) cells and follicular B-helper T(Tfh) cells, both of which strongly associated with the enhanceddifferentiation of exhaustion-like effector cytotoxic CD8+T cellsexpressing PD-1 (Tc exhaustion-like) in indolent BLPDs. Randomforest modelling selected a module of T-cell immune signaturesbest performing binary classification of all BLPD patients. This signature module was composed of low na€ıve Th cells and highTh1, Tfh and Tc exhaustion-like cells which efficiently identified>85% indolent cases and was, therefore, assigned as the Indolent Dominant Module of T-cell immune signature. In indolent BLPD patients, a strong bias towards such signatures was found to associate with clinical characteristics of worse prognosis.Conclusion.Our study identified a prominent signature of T-celldysregulation specifically for indolent BLPDs, suggesting Th1, Tfhand Tc exhaustion-like cells represent potential prognostic biomarkers and targets for immunotherapies.This work was supported by grants from the National NatureScience Foundation of China (81970187 to SY, 81800187 toYZ and 81601441 to HZ), the National Key Research andDevelopment Program of China (2016YFA0100600 to LQ and2017YFC0909003 to DY), National Science and TechnologyMajor Project from China (2017ZX09304024), NationalScience and Technology Supporting Program (2014BAI09B12to SY and LQ), Chinese Academy of Medical SciencesInnovation Fund for Medical Sciences (grants 2017-I2M-3-018, 2017-I2M-1-005 and 2016-I2M-3-013), ShandongProvincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2016YL013 to DY,ZR2015YL005 to DY and YW, and ZR2017LH030 to YZ), the Special Foundation of Taishan Overseas Distinguished Exertsand Scholars (to DY), the Priority Research Program of theShandong Academy of Sciences (to DY), Key Lab Foundationof Shandong Academy of Sciences (to DY), Youth ScienceFunds of Shandong Academy of Sciences (2018QN005 to YZ)and the Bellberry-Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship(to DY

Comparison of the inoculum effect of in vitro antibacterial activity of Imipenem/relebactam and Ceftazidime/avibactam against ESBL-, KPC- and AmpC-producing Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae

Abstract Objective To evaluate effect of inoculum size of extended-spectrum β-Lactamase (ESBL)-producing-, AmpC-producing-, and KPC-producing Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae on the in vitro antibacterial effects of imipenem/relebactam (IMR) and ceftazidime/avibactam (CZA). Methods We compared the impact of inoculum size on IMR and CZA of sixteen clinical isolates and three standard isolates through antimicrobial susceptibility tests, time-kill assays and in vitro PK/PD studies. Results When inoculum size increased from 105 to 107 CFU/mL, an inoculum effect was observed for 26.3% (5/19) and 52.6% (10/19) of IMR and CZA, respectively; time-kill assays revealed that the concentration of CZA increased from ≥ 4 × MIC to 16 × MIC to reach 99.9% killing rate against K. pneumoniae ATCC-BAA 1705 (KPC-2-, OXA-9- and SHV-182-producing) and 60,700 (SHV-27- and DHA-1-producing). While for IMR, a concentration from 1 × MIC to 4 × MIC killed 99.9% of the four strains. When the inoculum size increased to 109 CFU/mL, neither IMR nor CZA showed a detectable antibacterial effect, even at a high concentration. An in vitro PK/PD study revealed a clear bactericidal effect when IMR administered as 1.25 g q6h when inoculum size increased. Conclusion An inoculum effect on CZA was observed more frequent than that on IMR. Among the β-lactamase-producing strains, the inoculum effect was most common for SHV-producing and KPC-producing strains