Green Nanotechnology of Cell Wall Swelling for Nanostructured Transparent Wood of High Optical Performance.

Transparent wood composites provide new functionalities through active additives distributed at the nanoscale. Scalable nanotechnology includes processing where nanoparticles and molecules are brought into the dense wood cell wall. A novel cell wall swelling step through green chemistry is therefore investigated.

Two faces of holistic face processing: Facilitation and interference underlying part-whole and composite effects.

Holistic processing, a strong tendency to process multiple features together, is regarded as a hallmark of face perception. Holistic effects can be revealed by several tasks, including the part-whole task, standard composite task, and complete composite task. Although holistic effects are readily observed using these tasks, the lack of correlations among these effects and the mixed findings across these tasks when examining the effects among various populations or manipulations pose questions about how these effects should be understood.

Implicit bias and experience influence overall but not relative trustworthiness judgment of other-race faces.

Impressions of trustworthiness are formed quickly from faces. To what extent are these impressions shared among observers of the same or different races? Although high consensus of trustworthiness evaluation has been consistently reported, recent studies suggested substantial individual differences. For instance, negative implicit racial bias and low contact experience towards individuals of the other race have been shown to be related to low trustworthiness judgments for other-race faces.

Achieving Molecular Sieving of CO from CH by Controlled Dynamical Movement and Host-Guest Interactions in Ultramicroporous VOFFIVE-1-Ni by Pillar Substitution.

Engineering the building blocks in metal-organic materials is an effective strategy for tuning their dynamical properties and can affect their response to external guest molecules. Tailoring the interaction and diffusion of molecules into these structures is highly important, particularly for applications related to gas separation. Herein, we report a vanadium-based hybrid ultramicroporous material, VOFFIVE-1-Ni, with temperature-dependent dynamical properties and a strong affinity to effectively capture and separate carbon dioxide (CO) from methane (CH).

Facilitation and interference are asymmetric in holistic face processing.

A hallmark of face specificity is holistic processing. It is typically measured by paradigms such as the part-whole and composite tasks. However, these tasks show little evidence for common variance, so a comprehensive account of holistic processing remains elusive.

Genome-Wide DNA Methylation Profiling as Frontline Diagnostics for Central Nervous System Embryonal Tumors in Hong Kong.

This paper examines the link between CNS tumor biology and heterogeneity and the use of genome-wide DNA methylation profiling as a clinical diagnostic platform. CNS tumors are the most common solid tumors in children, and their prognosis remains poor. This study retrospectively analyzed pediatric patients with CNS embryonal tumors in Hong Kong between 1999 and 2017, using data from the territory-wide registry and available formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor tissue.

Effects of masculinity vs. femininity on competence judgement of politician faces and election outcome prediction.

First impressions of politician faces can be effective in predicting election outcomes, based on perceived competence from candidate photographs. However, it remains unclear whether such effects arose from facial features or other non-facial information present in the photographs (e.g.

Plasma degradation of contaminated PPE: an energy-efficient method to treat contaminated plastic waste.

The use of PPE has drastically increased because of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic as disposable surgical face masks made from non-biodegradable polypropylene (PP) polymers have generated a significant amount of waste. In this work, a low-power plasma method has been used to degrade surgical masks. Several analytical techniques (gravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), attenuated total reflection-infra-red spectroscopy (ATR-IR), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), thermogravimetric analysis/differential scanning calorimetry (TGA/DSC) and wide-angle x-ray scattering (WAXS)) were used to evaluate the effects of plasma irradiation on mask samples.

Gold-iron oxide (Au/FeO) magnetic nanoparticles as the nanoplatform for binding of bioactive molecules through self-assembly.

Nanomedicine plays a crucial role in the development of next-generation therapies. The use of nanoparticles as drug delivery platforms has become a major area of research in nanotechnology. To be effective, these nanoparticles must interact with desired drug molecules and release them at targeted sites.

High Temperature CO Capture Performance and Kinetic Analysis of Novel Potassium Stannate.

For the first time, the use of stannate-based sorbents was investigated as high temperature CO sorption to evaluate their potential to contribute towards reducing carbon emissions. The sorption capacity and kinetics of commercial tin oxide, sodium, potassium and calcium stannates and lab synthesised potassium stannates were tested using thermogravimetric analysis. Commercial KSnO was found to possess the largest CO uptake capacity (2.

A hexagon based Mn(II) rod metal-organic framework - structure, SF gas sorption, magnetism and electrochemistry.

A manganese(II) metal-organic framework based on the hexatopic hexakis(4-carboxyphenyl)benzene, cpb: [Mn(cpb)(dmf)], was solvothermally prepared showing a Langmuir area of 438 m g, rapid uptake OF sulfur hexafluoride (SF) as well as electrochemical and magnetic properties, while single crystal diffraction reveals an unusual rod-MOF topology.

Low-concentration CO capture using metal-organic frameworks - current status and future perspectives.

The ever-increasing atmospheric CO level is considered to be the major cause of climate change. Although the move away from fossil fuel-based energy generation to sustainable energy sources would significantly reduce the release of CO into the atmosphere, it will most probably take time to be fully implemented on a global scale. On the other hand, capturing CO from emission sources or directly from the atmosphere are robust approaches that can reduce the atmospheric CO concentration in a relatively short time.

The role of implicit social bias on holistic processing of out-group faces.

Although faces of in-group members are generally thought to be processed holistically, there are mixed findings on whether holistic processing remains robust for faces of out-group members and what factors contribute to holistic processing of out-group faces. This study examined how implicit social bias, experience with out-group members, and ability to process in-group faces holistically might predict the magnitude of holistic processing for faces of two out-groups: other-race and other-age groups. In Experiment 1, Caucasian participants viewed Caucasian (own-race) and East Asian (other-race) faces.

Bioavailability of Celecoxib Formulated with Mesoporous Magnesium Carbonate-An In Vivo Evaluation.

An attractive approach to increase the aqueous apparent solubility of poorly soluble drugs is to formulate them in their amorphous state. In the present study, celecoxib, a poorly soluble drug, was successfully loaded into mesoporous magnesium carbonate (MMC) in its amorphous state via a solvent evaporation method. Crystallization of celecoxib was suppressed, and no reaction with the carrier was detected.

Chiral Lanthanum Metal-Organic Framework with Gated CO Sorption and Concerted Framework Flexibility.

A metal-organic framework (MOF) based on lanthanum(III) and the conformationally chiral linker 1,2,3,4,5,6-hexakis(4-carboxyphenyl)benzene, cpb: [La(cpb)]·1.5dmf was prepared by the solvothermal method in dimethylformamide (dmf) and characterized by variable-temperature X-ray powder diffraction (VTPXRD), variable-temperature X-ray single-crystal diffraction (SCXRD), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). is a rod-MOF with new topology .

Preference at First Sight: Effects of Shape and Font Qualities on Evaluation of Object-Word Pairs.

Subjective preferences for visual qualities of shapes and fonts have been separately reported. Such preferences are often similarly attributed to factors such as aesthetic impressions, attributed meaning from the visual properties, or processing fluency. Because shapes and fonts were rarely studied together, we investigated whether these qualities had a similar impact on preference judgment of object-word pairs.

Rapid category selectivity for animals versus man-made objects: An N2pc study.

Visual recognition occurs rapidly at multiple categorization levels, including the superordinate level (e.g., animal), basic level (e.

Sirtuin 7 super-enhancer drives epigenomic reprogramming in hepatocarcinogenesis.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major cancer burden worldwide with increasing incidence in many developed countries. Super-enhancers (SEs) drive gene expressions required for cell type-specificity and tumor cell identity. However, their roles in HCC remain unclear because of data scarcity from primary tumors.

The effect of implicit racial bias on recognition of other-race faces.

Previous research has established a possible link between recognition performance, individuation experience, and implicit racial bias of other-race faces. However, it remains unclear how implicit racial bias might influence other-race face processing in observers with relatively extensive experience with the other race. Here we examined how recognition of other-race faces might be modulated by observers' implicit racial bias, in addition to the effects of experience and face recognition ability.

A selective HDAC8 inhibitor potentiates antitumor immunity and efficacy of immune checkpoint blockade in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Insufficient T cell infiltration into noninflamed tumors, such as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), restricts the effectiveness of immune-checkpoint blockade (ICB) for a subset of patients. Epigenetic therapy provides further opportunities to rewire cancer-associated transcriptional programs, but whether and how selective epigenetic inhibition counteracts the immune-excluded phenotype remain incompletely defined. Here, we showed that pharmacological inhibition of histone deacetylase 8 (HDAC8), a histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27)-specific isozyme overexpressed in a variety of human cancers, thwarts HCC tumorigenicity in a T cell-dependent manner.

Improving attitudes toward electroconvulsive therapy.

Aims And Method: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) often causes fear in the general public because of media representation and negative reported side-effects. This study evaluates a new video focusing on experiences of ECT and how this can aid communicating medical information to the public. Knowledge and attitudes toward ECT after watching the video were compared with a group that received no information and a group that read the current NHS leaflet on ECT.

Flexible face processing: Holistic processing of facial identity is modulated by task-irrelevant facial expression.

Holistic processing is a hallmark of face perception and has been observed separately for facial identity and expression. While the identity of a face remains constant regardless of any changes in facial expressions, to what extent is holistic processing of facial identity affected by task-irrelevant facial expressions? If holistic processing is flexible and integrates both identity and expression information, the magnitude of holistic processing of facial identity may be systematically modulated by different facial expressions, due to either visual or emotional differences among the expressions. In Experiment 1, participants matched the identities of target halves of two sequentially presented face composites, with both composites showing either positive (happy) or negative (angry) expressions.

Selective Adsorption of CO on Zeolites NaK-ZK-4 with Si/Al of 1.8-2.8.

Zeolites with appropriately narrow pore apertures can kinetically enhance the selective adsorption of CO over N. Here, we showed that the exchangeable cations (e.g.

Catalytic cracking of Etek lignin with zirconia supported metal-oxides for alkyl and alkoxy phenols recovery.

Alkyl and alkoxy phenols are desirable products from the catalytic depolymerisation of lignin. In this work, ex-situ catalytic pyrolysis of Etek lignin in presence of Na, Ce, NiCe, MgCe, Fe and FePd on ZrO was studied The largest combined yield of monomeric phenolics and alkylphenols was produced by Na/ZrO catalysts. A parametric study of the most promising Na/ZrO then resulted in using a catalyst:lignin ratio of 3:1 at 500 °C as the best option, enhancing at 17.