Overpotential engineering enables dendrite-free zinc anode for high-performance zinc-ion batteries.

Large-scale energy storage applications can greatly benefit from the low-cost and safe zinc metal anode. However, corrosion, side reactions and dendrite growth in water significantly inhibit the cycle life of zinc-ion batteries. Here, 2-ethyl-1H-benzimidazole (EHB), a strong zincophilic and hydrophobic structure, is introduced into the ZnSO (ZS) electrolyte to adjust the nucleation overpotential in Zinc-ion batteries for the initial time.

A peptide-based pH-sensitive antibacterial hydrogel for healing drug-resistant biofilm-infected diabetic wounds.

Diabetic foot ulcers are a significant complication affecting roughly 15% of diabetic patients. These chronic wounds can be incredibly burdensome, leading to high treatment costs, potential amputations, and additional health complications. Microbiological studies reveal that bacterial infections are the primary culprit behind delayed wound healing.

Heterogeneous Characteristics of the CD90 Progenitors in the Fibrocartilage of Different Joints.

Objective: This study aimed to isolate and compare the mesenchymal stem cell characteristics of CD90 cells from different fibrocartilage tissues in the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), the knee joint, and the intervertebral joint to further understand the similarities and differences of these 4 fibrocartilage tissues.

Methods: CD90 cells were isolated from TMJ disc, condylar cartilage, meniscus, and intervertebral disc by using magnetic-activated cell sorting. Cellular assays including 4.

Divergent chondro/osteogenic transduction laws of fibrocartilage stem cell drive temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis in growing mice.

The anterior disc displacement (ADD) leads to temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis (TMJOA) and mandibular growth retardation in adolescents. To investigate the potential functional role of fibrocartilage stem cells (FCSCs) during the process, a surgical ADD-TMJOA mouse model was established. From 1 week after model generation, ADD mice exhibited aggravated mandibular growth retardation with osteoarthritis (OA)-like joint cartilage degeneration, manifesting with impaired chondrogenic differentiation and loss of subchondral bone homeostasis.

VEGF-modified PLA/HA nanocomposite fibrous membrane for cranial defect repair in rats.

A major obstacle to bone tissue repair is the difficulty in establishing a rapid blood supply areas of bone defects. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-infused tissue-engineered scaffolds offer a possible therapeutic option for these types of injuries. Their role is to accelerate angiogenesis and improve bone healing.

A retrospective three-dimensional study of the mandibular growth during preoperative orthodontics in late adolescent patients with skeletal Class III malocclusion.

Introduction: The mandible's ongoing development presents a contraindication for combined orthodontic-orthognathic treatment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the mandibular stability before and after preoperative orthodontic treatment in late adolescent patients with skeletal Class III malocclusion and to investigate the most appropriate time to start preoperative orthodontic treatment.

Material And Methods: The study population consisted of 58 adolescents, aged between 15 and 21 years, with skeletal Class III malocclusion; the adolescents underwent CT scans at the beginning (T1) and the end (T2) of preoperative orthodontic treatment.

Quality evaluation of metabolic and bariatric surgical guidelines.

Objective: To evaluate the quality of surgical guidelines on bariatric/metabolic surgery.

Methods: Four independent reviewers used the AGREE II (The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II) tool to assess the methodological quality of the included guidelines and conducted a comparative analysis of the main recommendations for surgical methods of these guidelines.

Results: Nine surgical guidelines were included in this study.

A single-cell transcriptional atlas reveals resident progenitor cell niche functions in TMJ disc development and injury.

The biological characteristics of the temporomandibular joint disc involve complex cellular network in cell identity and extracellular matrix composition to modulate jaw function. The lack of a detailed characterization of the network severely limits the development of targeted therapies for temporomandibular joint-related diseases. Here we profiled single-cell transcriptomes of disc cells from mice at different postnatal stages, finding that the fibroblast population could be divided into chondrogenic and non-chondrogenic clusters.

Igf1 Regulates Fibrocartilage Stem Cells, Cartilage Growth, and Homeostasis in the Temporomandibular Joint of Mice.

Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) growth requires orchestrated interactions between various cell types. Recent studies revealed that fibrocartilage stem cells (FCSCs) in the TMJ cartilage play critical roles as cell resources for joint development and repair. However, the detailed molecular network that influences FCSC fate during TMJ cartilage development remains to be elucidated.

Oscillatory Order-Disorder Transition during Layer-by-Layer Growth of Indium Selenide.

It is important to understand the polymorph transition and crystal-amorphous phase transition in InSe to tap the potential of this material for resistive memory storage. By monitoring layer-by-layer growth of β-InSe during molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), we are able to identify a cyclical order-disorder transition characterized by a periodic alternation between a glassy-like metastable subunit cell film consisting of < 5 sublayers (th layers = the number of subunit cell layers), and a highly crystalline β-InSe at = 5 layers. The glassy phase shows an odd-even alternation between the indium-cluster layer ( = 1, 3) and an In-Se solid solution ( = 2, 4), which suggests the ability of In and Se atoms to diffuse, aggregate, and intermix.

Random and aligned electrostatically spun PLLA nanofibrous membranes enhance bone repair in mouse femur midshaft defects.

Long-segment bone defects are a common clinical challenge and abstract biomaterials are a promising therapy. Poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) nanofibrous membranes prepared by electrostatic spinning have a good bone repair potential. However, there are random and aligned surface morphologies of electrostatic spun PLLA nanofibrous membranes, which can affect the migration, proliferation, and differentiation ability of cells.

Regulatory role of human fibrocartilage stem cells in condyle osteochondroma.

Objective: Osteochondroma is a common benign skeletal disorder for which different molecular and histological features of long bones have been reported. We investigated cell-of-origin and molecular mechanisms of a rare condylar osteochondroma (CO).

Methods: Human fibrocartilage stem cells (hFCSCs) isolated from CO and normal condyle tissue were used for RNA sequencing, real-time PCR, Western Blotting, immunohistology, flowcytometry, as well as for chondrogenic differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis detection assays.

Giant g-factor in Self-Intercalated 2D TaS.

Central to the application of spintronic devices is the ability to manipulate spins by electric and magnetic fields, which relies on a large Landé g-factor. The self-intercalation of layered transitional metal dichalcogenides with native metal atoms can serve as a new strategy to enhance the g-factor by inducing ferromagnetic instability in the system via interlayer charge transfer. Here, scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) are performed to extract the g-factor and characterize the electronic structure of the self-intercalated phase of 2H-TaS .

Platelet-rich plasma contributes to chondroprotection by repairing mitochondrial function via AMPK/NF-κB signaling in osteoarthritic chondrocytes.

Osteoarthritis (OA), also known as degenerative osteoarthritis, has a complex etiology, and its pathogenesis remains unclear. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy has been widely used in medicine and other related professions since its clinical application was first reported in the 1980 s and the 1990 s. This study aimed to investigate the effects and potential mechanisms of PRP in OA.

Electroacupuncture regulates inflammation, collagen deposition and macrophage function in skeletal muscle through the TGF-β1/Smad3/p38/ERK1/2 pathway.

Skeletal muscle injury is one of the most common sports injury, which accounts for ~40% of all sports-related injuries among the elderly. In addition, cases of full recovery from treatment are rare. Although electroacupuncture (EA) is an integral aspect of traditional Chinese medicine, the effects of EA on skeletal muscle fibrosis and the possible underlying mechanism remain unclear.

Iron Single Atom Catalyzed Quinoline Synthesis.

The production of high-value chemicals by single-atom catalysis is an attractive proposition for industry owing to its remarkable selectivity. Successful demonstrations to date are mostly based on gas-phase reactions, and reports on liquid-phase catalysis are relatively sparse owing to the insufficient activation of reactants by single-atom catalysts (SACs), as well as, their instability in solution. Here, mechanically strong, hierarchically porous carbon plates are developed for the immobilization of SACs to enhance catalytic activity and stability.

Atomic Imaging of Electrically Switchable Striped Domains in β'-In Se.

2D ferroelectricity in van-der-Waals-stacked materials such as indium selenide (In Se ) has attracted interests because the ferroelectricity is robust even in ultrathin layers, which is useful for the miniaturization of ferroelectric field effect transistors. To implement In Se in nanoscale ferroelectric devices, an understanding of the domain structure and switching dynamics in the 2D limit is essential. In this study, a biased scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) tip is used to locally switch polarized domains in β'-In Se , and the reconfiguration of these domains are directly visualized using STM.

Structural characterization and immunomodulatory activity of a polysaccharide from Eurotium cristatum.

By combining DEAE-cellulose-52 and Sepharose-CL-6B chromatography, a heteropolysaccharide ECIP-1A with an average molecular weight of 24,336 Da was isolated from the hyphae of Eurotium cristatum. The main components of the monosaccharides of ECIP-1A were mannose, glucose and galactose, and their molar ratio is 4.003: 0.

Transformation of ginsenoside via deep eutectic solvents based on choline chloride as an enzymatic reaction medium.

Ginsenoside compound K (CK) with a wide range of pharmacological activities has been widely used in the healthcare product industry. However, the application of CK is limited by low productivity and difficult separation. The purpose of this study is to convert ginsenoside Rb1 into CK by improving conversion efficiency in novel "green" reaction medium-deep eutectic solvent (DES).

Hydrogen bond guided synthesis of close-packed one-dimensional graphdiyne on the Ag(111) surface.

Aided by hydrogen bonding, alkyne and oxazole functionalized precursors undergo uniform self-assembly, which serves as a template for the fabrication of one-dimensional graphdiyne-like wires on the Ag(111) surface.

DiscoRhythm: an easy-to-use web application and R package for discovering rhythmicity.

Motivation: Biological rhythmicity is fundamental to almost all organisms on Earth and plays a key role in health and disease. Identification of oscillating signals could lead to novel biological insights, yet its investigation is impeded by the extensive computational and statistical knowledge required to perform such analysis.

Results: To address this issue, we present DiscoRhythm (Discovering Rhythmicity), a user-friendly application for characterizing rhythmicity in temporal biological data.

Integrating Polar and Conductive FeO-FeC Interface with Rapid Polysulfide Diffusion and Conversion for High-Performance Lithium-Sulfur Batteries.

A low-cost in situ formed FeO-FeC heterostructure highly dispersed in carbon nanofiber was delicately designed via a facile one-pot electrospinning method. The intense anchoring (by FeO) and rapid electron transfer (by FeC) for lithium polysulfides transformation can be simultaneously achieved on the FeO-FeC heterostructure interface, thus preventing the amassment of lithium polysulfides benefiting from its excellent interfacial contact and improving sulfur utilization. Experimental characterizations and DFT calculations confirmed the restrained polysulfides shuttle and enhanced redox kinetics.

The effectiveness of financial intervention strategies for reducing caesarean section rates: a systematic review.

Background: The increasing trend of Caesarean section (CS) in childbirth has become a global public health challenge. Previous studies have proposed financial intervention strategies for reducing CS rates by limiting caesarean delivery on maternal request (CDMR). This study synthesizes such strategies while evaluating their effectiveness.