Publications by authors named "Minghua Xu"

Objective: Bone resorption mediated by osteoclast differentiation induces the occurrence of bone-related diseases. Macrophages, an origin of osteoclasts, whose M2 type can reduce inflammation-induced bone damage. We aimed to investigate the effect of M2 macrophage-derived exosomes on osteoclast formation and elucidate its underlying mechanism.

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Photocatalytic generation of H₂O₂, involving both oxygen reduction and water oxidation without sacrificial agents, necessitates maximized light absorption, suitable band structure, and efficient carrier transport. Leveraging the redox capacity this study designs and constructs a step-scheme heterostructured SnO₂/Zn₃In₂S₆ catalyst for H₂O₂ production from seawater under ambient conditions for the first time. This photocatalyst demonstrates a remarkable H₂O₂ production rate of 43.

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Background: Moyamoya disease (MMD) leads to nerve injury. Exosomes are touted as bio-shuttles for the delivery of distinct biomolecules inside the cells. Recently, UCH-L1 was shown to play a vital role in nerve injury.

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Transition-metal-catalyzed enantioselective transformations of aryl/aryl carbene are inherently challenging due to the difficulty in distinguishing between two arene rings in the reaction process thus remain largely less explored. The few successful examples reported so far, without exception, have all been catalyzed by Rh(II)-complexes. Herein, we describe our successful development of a novel cationic Rh(I)/chiral diene catalytic system capable of efficient enantioselective B-H and O-H insertions with diaryl diazomethanes, allowing the access to a broad range of gem-diarylmethine boranes and gem-diarylmethine ethers in good yields with high enantioselectivities.

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Recent advancements in genome assembly have greatly improved the prospects for comprehensive annotation of Transposable Elements (TEs). However, existing methods for TE annotation using genome assemblies suffer from limited accuracy and robustness, requiring extensive manual editing. In addition, the currently available gold-standard TE databases are not comprehensive, even for extensively studied species, highlighting the critical need for an automated TE detection method to supplement existing repositories.

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Although S-scheme artificial photosynthesis shows promise for photocatalytic hydrogen production, traditional methods often overly concentrate on a single reduction site. This limitation results in inadequate redox capability and inefficient charge separation, which hampers the efficiency of the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction. To overcome this limitation, a double S-scheme system is proposed that leverages dual reduction sites, thereby preserving energetic photo-electrons and holes to enhance apparent quantum efficiency.

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MXenes are a class of 2D materials that include layered transition metal carbides, nitrides, and carbonitrides. Since their inception in 2011, they have garnered significant attention due to their diverse compositions, unique structures, and extraordinary properties, such as high specific surface areas and excellent electrical conductivity. This versatility has opened up immense potential in various fields, catalyzing a surge in MXene research and leading to note worthy advancements.

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Photocatalytic water splitting holds great promise as a sustainable and cost-effectiveness alternative for the production of hydrogen. Nevertheless, the practical implementation of this strategy is hindered by suboptimal visible light utilization and sluggish charge carrier dynamics, leading to low yield. MXene is a promising cocatalyst due to its high conductivity, abundance of active sites, tunable terminal functional groups, and great specific surface area.

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Amyloid-β (Aβ) is the core constituent protein of senile plaques, which is one of the key pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here we describe the design, synthesis, and evaluation of coumarin-derived small molecule fluorophores for Aβ imaging. By embedding the aromatic coumarin framework into π bridge of a push-pull chromophore, a novel fluorescence probe applicable to efficient Aβ recognition was discovered.

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A highly regiospecific vinylogous carbene insertion protocol for direct asymmetric C-H functionalization of indoles with arylvinyldiazoacetates has been developed. Under the catalysis of simple Rh(I)/chiral diene complexes, the reaction occurs solely at the vinylogous position of the vinylcarbenoid with exceptional selectivity and enantiocontrol. It provides an efficient way to obtain an interesting class of chiral indole scaffolds bearing an α,β-unsaturated ester unit and a -diaryl carbon stereocenter in good yields (≤99%) with excellent enantioselectivities (≤96%) at room temperature.

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Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the color stability and related properties including water sorption and solubility of ten light-cured composite resins in different solutions.

Methods: A total of 10 composite resins were BeautifilⅡ(B2) and Ceram. X One Universal (CXU), Charisma (CS), Charisma Diamond (CD), Denfil (DF), DX.

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A simple, broad-scope rhodium(I)/chiral diene catalytic system for challenging asymmetric intramolecular cyclopropanation of various tri-substituted allylic diazoacetates was successfully developed. The low coordination state Rh -complex exhibits an extraordinarily high degree of tolerance to the variation in the extent of substitution of the allyl double bond, thus allowing the efficient construction of a wide range of penta-substituted, fused-ring cyclopropanes bearing three contiguous stereogenic centers, including two quaternary carbon stereocenters, in a highly enantioselective manner with ease at catalyst loading as low as 0.1 mol %.

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Motivation: Oxford Nanopore sequencing has great potential and advantages in population-scale studies. Due to the cost of sequencing, the depth of whole-genome sequencing for per individual sample must be small. However, the existing single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) callers are aimed at high-coverage Nanopore sequencing reads.

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For a healthy society to exist, it is crucial for the media to focus on disease-related issues so that more people are widely aware of them and reduce health risks. Recently, deep neural networks have become a popular tool for textual sentiment analysis, which can provide valuable insights and real-time monitoring and analysis regarding health issues. In this paper, as part of an effort to develop an effective model that can elicit public sentiment on COVID-19 news, we propose a novel approach Cov-Att-BiLSTM for sentiment analysis of COVID-19 news headlines using deep neural networks.

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A rhodium-catalyzed asymmetric 1,4-addition of -(-indolyl) acrylates to access highly enantioenriched chiral -alkylindoles promoted by chiral diene or sulfur-olefin ligands under mild reaction conditions has been developed, which provides an efficient and practical approach for constructing carbon stereocenters adjacent to the indole nitrogen. The reaction can be applied to various -indolyl-substituted -unstaturated esters and arylboron reagents, providing access to a wide range of α- and β-(-indolyl) propionate derivatives in high yields with excellent enantioselectivities (≤99% ee).

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This study aims to assess the color stability, water sorption, and solubility of 11 resin composites as commercially available dental products. Twenty samples (10 mm in diameter and 2 mm in thickness) of each material were fabricated using a customized silicone mold, followed by immersion in each of curry, coffee, wine, and distilled water for 28 days (n = 5). Baseline shade and color changes (ΔE) were measured using a reflection spectrophotometer.

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When COVID-19 was raging around the world, people were more fearful and anxious. In this context, the media should uphold impartiality and shoulder the responsibility of eliminating misinformation. Therefore, our research adopted sentiment analysis technologies to analyze the impartiality of news agencies and analyzed the factors that affect the impartiality of COVID-19-related articles about various countries.

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A rhodium(I)-diene catalyzed highly enantioselective C(sp )-H functionalization of simple unprotected indoles, pyrroles, and their common analogues such as furans, thiophenes, and benzofurans with arylvinyldiazoesters has been developed for the first time. This transformation features unusual site-selectivity exclusively at the vinyl terminus of arylvinylcarbene and enables a reliable and rapid synthetic protocol to access a distinctive class of diarylmethine-bearing α,β-unsaturated esters containing a one or two heteroarene-attached tertiary carbon stereocenter in high yields and excellent enantioselectivities under mild reaction conditions. Mechanistic studies and DFT calculations suggest that, compared to the aniline substrate, the more electron-rich indole substrate lowers the C-C addition barrier and alters the rate-determining step to the reductive elimination, leading to different isotope effect.

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There is no doubt that the COVID-19 epidemic posed the most significant challenge to all governments globally since January 2020. People have to readapt after the epidemic to daily life with the absence of an effective vaccine for a long time. The epidemic has led to society division and uncertainty.

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A one-pot rhodium-catalyzed C-H functionalization/organocatalyzed oxa-Michael addition cascade reaction has been developed. This methodology enables the stereodivergent synthesis of diverse 2,3-disubstituted dihydrobenzofurans with broad functional group compatibility in good yields with high levels of stereoselectivity under exceptionally mild conditions. The full complement of stereoisomers of chiral 2,3-disubstituted dihydrobenzofurans and 3,4-disubstituted isochromans could be accessed at will by appropriate permutations of the two chiral catalysts.

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Dietary restriction (DR), as a natural intervention, not only benefits the neuroendocrine system, but also has an antiaging action. Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) is one of the most important bioactive substances and plays a major part in choline changes in the aging process. Thus, we aim to evaluate the effect of DR on AChE in the brains of aging animals.

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Asymmetric insertion of an arylvinylcarbenoid into the C-H bond for direct enantioselective C(sp)-H functionalization of aniline derivatives catalyzed by a rhodium(I)-diene complex was developed for the first time. The reaction occurred exclusively at the uncommon vinyl terminus site with excellent E selectivity and enantioselectivities, providing various chiral γ,γ--diarylsubstituted α,β-unsaturated esters with broad functional group compatibility under simple and mild conditions. It provides a rare example of the asymmetric C-H insertion of arenes with selective vinylogous reactivity.

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A highly enantioselective rhodium-catalyzed intermolecular hydroarylation of α-aminoalkyl acrylates using water as a direct proton source has been realized by employing a chiral bicyclo[3.3.0] diene ligand, allowing efficient access to a broad range of α-aryl-methyl-substituted β-, γ-, and δ-amino esters with excellent enantioselectivities (up to 98% ee) under exceptionally mild conditions.

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Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of atorvastatin combined with febuxostat in the treatment of gout patients with carotid atherosclerosis and to observe the effects on serum tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, carotid plaques, and the adverse reactions.

Methods: Seventy patients with gout and carotid atherosclerosis admitted to Affiliated Hospital of Hebei University from January 2014 to June 2017 were randomly divided into a treatment group and a control group. The treatment group received oral febuxostat 40 mg/day combined with atorvastatin 40 mg/day.

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Development of glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β) inactivation-centric agents with polypharmacological profiles is increasingly recognized as a promising therapeutic strategy against the multifactorial etiopathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this respect, a series of disubstituted aminopyrazole derivatives were designed and synthesized as a new class of GSK-3β inhibitors. Most of these derivatives possess GSK-3β inhibitory activities with IC values in the micromolar ranges, among which bisindole-substituted aminopyrazole derivative displayed moderate GSK-3β inhibition (IC = 1.

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