Artificial Lithium Isopropyl-Sulfide Macromolecules as an Ion-Selective Interface for Long-Life Lithium-Sulfur Batteries.

The persistent reduction reactions between the hyperactive lithium metal (Li) and dissolved polysulfides would passivate the Li metal and rapidly decrease the cathodic active materials, thus leading to low Coulombic efficiency and a short cycle life of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries. Herein, we construct artificial lithium isopropyl-sulfide macromolecules as an ion-selective interface on the Li metal (IS-Li) by a facile electrochemical polymerization method, in which the polymer network improves the elasticity and toughness to accommodate the volume change of the Li anode and the formed lithium-organosulfides provide great mechanical strength to resist the destruction of Li dendrites. Importantly, this interfacial layer is proved to be sufficient in damping polysulfide anion diffusion and stopping irreversible reduction between polysulfides and metallic Li, which greatly contribute to the performance improvement of Li-S batteries.

A Visual Circuit Related to the Nucleus Reuniens for the Spatial-Memory-Promoting Effects of Light Treatment.

Light exerts profound effects on cognitive functions across species, including humans. However, the neuronal mechanisms underlying the effects of light on cognitive functions are poorly understood. In this study, we show that long-term exposure to bright-light treatment promotes spatial memory through a di-synaptic visual circuit related to the nucleus reuniens (Re).

A global benchmark of algorithms for segmenting the left atrium from late gadolinium-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance imaging.

Segmentation of medical images, particularly late gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (LGE-MRI) used for visualizing diseased atrial structures, is a crucial first step for ablation treatment of atrial fibrillation. However, direct segmentation of LGE-MRIs is challenging due to the varying intensities caused by contrast agents. Since most clinical studies have relied on manual, labor-intensive approaches, automatic methods are of high interest, particularly optimized machine learning approaches.

Targeting the polycomb repressive complex-2 related proteins with novel combinational strategies for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Aberrant epigenetic regulation is critically involved in the pathogenesis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), where abnormal histone methylation can be found in polycomb repressive complex-2 (PRC2) related cancer gene loci. This study investigated some novel combinational strategies against NPC using PRC2-targeting agents as a backbone. PRC2 subunit proteins were overexpressed in over 70% of NPC tumors and enhancer of zeste homolog-2 (EZH2) expression correlated with more advanced T-stage.

The Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Teenagers in China.

Purpose: The 2019 COVID-19 pandemic poses a challenge to adolescent psychological health. The aim of this study was to survey junior high and high school students in China to better understand the psychological consequences, such as anxiety, depression, and stress, of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: A cross-sectional online survey using structural questionnaires was conducted from April 7, 2020, to April 24, 2020.

In situ evolved NiMo/NiMoO nanorods as a bifunctional catalyst for overall water splitting.

Due to their good conductivity and catalytic performance, Ni-Mo-based catalysts are well-established for highly effective water splitting. However, the know-how required to fabricate distinct interfaces and electronic structures for metal oxides is still a challenge, and the synergistic effect between metal and metal oxides that enhances electrocatalytic activity is still ambiguous. As described here, by controlling the lithium-induced conversion reaction of metal oxides, metal/metal-oxide composites with plentiful interfaces and prominent electrical interconnections were fabricated, which can boost active sites and accelerate mass transfer during electrocatalytic reactions.

Strongly trapping soluble lithium polysulfides using polar cysteamine groups for highly stable lithium sulfur batteries.

Sulfur has become one of the most promising positive electrode materials for lithium sulfur batteries due to its high theoretical capacity and high energy density (2500 Wh kg). The use of common nonpolar carbon/sulfur composites has proved to be a good way to improve the performance, but they still cannot efficiently trap highly polar lithium polysulfides due to the weak interactions between nonpolar carbon and polar polysulfides. Herein, we report a new strategy of using polar cysteamine groups to trap polar polysulfides, leading to greatly enhanced capacity of ∼920 mAh g at 1 C with a high Coulombic efficiency of ∼99.

RV Tissue Heterogeneity on CT: A Novel Tool to Identify the VT Substrate in ARVC.

Objectives: This study sought to evaluate whether right ventricular (RV) tissue heterogeneity on computed tomography (CT): 1) is associated with conduction delay in arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC); and 2) distinguishes patients with ARVC from those with exercise-induced arrhythmogenic remodeling (EIAR) and control individuals.

Background: ARVC is characterized by fibrofatty replacement, related to conduction delay and ventricular tachycardias. Distinguishing ARVC from acquired, EIAR is challenging.

Influence of the ion content of CaCl-ionised polyamide-66 nucleator on the crystalline nucleation of poly(ethylene terephthalate) through ion-dipole interactions.

Polyamide (PA)-66 is successfully ionised with various weight fractions of CaCl to prepare PA-66 ionenes bearing different ion contents (ICs). The PA-66 ionenes against PA-66 are incorporated as heterogeneous nucleators into poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) to effectively promote PET crystallisation. Compared to the PET/PA-66 (95/5 wt/wt), the PET/PA-66 ionenes (95/5) markedly improve the crystallisation rate and degree of crystallinity.

Efficacy of light therapy for a college student sample with non-seasonal subthreshold depression: An RCT study.

Background: Light therapy has been successfully used to treat seasonal and non-seasonal depression, but there is limited evidence for its efficacy in subthreshold depression. This study examines the efficacy of light therapy for symptoms of depression and anxiety in non-seasonal subthreshold depression.

Methods: College students with non-seasonal subthreshold depression were recruited.

DNA methylation downregulated ZDHHC1 suppresses tumor growth by altering cellular metabolism and inducing oxidative/ER stress-mediated apoptosis and pyroptosis.

Cancer progression is an intricate biological process profiled by not only unscheduled proliferation, but also altered metabolism mechanisms. In this article, we introduced a novel tumor suppressor gene (TSG), Zinc Finger DHHC-Type Containing 1 (ZDHHC1, also known as ZNF377), frequently silenced due to epigenetic modification among various cancers, which exerts significant anti-tumor effects through metabolic regulation. Quantitative reversed-transcription PCR (qRT-PCR), reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) and Western blot were employed to demonstrate transcriptional and protein levels of targeted regulators.

Neural Circuits Underlying Innate Fear.

Fear is defined as a fundamental emotion promptly arising in the context of threat and when danger is perceived. Fear can be innate or learned. Examples of innate fear include fears that are triggered by predators, pain, heights, rapidly approaching objects, and ancestral threats such as snakes and spiders.

Executive Control, Alerting, Updating, and Falls in Cognitively Healthy Older Adults.

Background: Cognitive impairment represents a risk factor for falls in older adults. However, cognition is a complex construct comprising several functional domains. The relationship between specific cognitive domain and falls in cognitively healthy older adults is unclear.

Sealing Failure Mechanism and Control Method for Cement Sheath during Hydraulic Fracturing.

This study focused on the sealing failure mechanism and control method for a cement sheath during hydraulic fracturing. Taking a shale gas well as an example, whole wellbore numerical models of the casing-cement sheath-formation assembly were established, failure modes of the cement sheath at different depths were clarified, and control methods were proposed based on the calculation results. The following conclusions were drawn.

Cardiac Involvement in Patients Recovered From COVID-2019 Identified Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Objectives: This study evaluated cardiac involvement in patients recovered from coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) using cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR).

Background: Myocardial injury caused by COVID-19 was previously reported in hospitalized patients. It is unknown if there is sustained cardiac involvement after patients' recovery from COVID-19.

Temporally coherent cardiac motion tracking from cine MRI: Traditional registration method and modern CNN method.

Purpose: Cardiac motion tracking enables quantitative evaluation of myocardial strain, which is clinically interesting in cardiovascular disease research. However, motion tracking is difficult to perform manually. In this paper, we aim to develop and compare two fully automated motion tracking methods for the steady state free precession (SSFP) cine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and explore their use in real clinical scenario with different patient groups.

Altering the rate-determining step over cobalt single clusters leading to highly efficient ammonia synthesis.

Activation of high-energy triple-bonds of N is the most significant bottleneck of ammonia synthesis under ambient conditions. Here, by importing cobalt single clusters as strong electron-donating promoter into the catalyst, the rate-determining step of ammonia synthesis is altered to the subsequent proton addition so that the barrier of N dissociation can be successfully overcome. As revealed by density functional theory calculations, the N dissociation becomes exothermic over the cobalt single cluster upon the strong electron backdonation from metal to the N antibonding orbitals.

BTB/POZ zinc finger protein ZBTB16 inhibits breast cancer proliferation and metastasis through upregulating ZBTB28 and antagonizing BCL6/ZBTB27.

Background: Breast cancer remains in urgent need of reliable diagnostic and prognostic markers. Zinc finger and BTB/POZ domain-containing family proteins (ZBTBs) are important transcription factors functioning as oncogenes or tumor suppressors. The role and regulation of ZBTB16 in breast cancer remain to be established.

Long noncoding RNA LINC00460 conduces to tumor growth and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma through miR-342-3p-dependent AGR2 up-regulation.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common malignant tumor in the world. It ranks third among cancer-induced deaths worldwide and has the characteristics of high metastasis and high recurrence rate. Long non-coding RNA (LncRNA) LINC00460 is significantly up-regulated in multiple types of cancers and is closely related to the progression of tumors.

Nuclear medicine radiomics in precision medicine: why we can't do without artificial intelligence.

In recent years, radiomics, defined as the extraction of large amounts of quantitative features from medical images, has gained emerging interest. Radiomics consists of the extraction of handcrafted features combined with sophisticated statistical methods or machine learning algorithms for modelling, or deep learning algorithms that both learn features from raw data and perform modelling. These features have the potential to serve as non-invasive biomarkers for tumor characterization, prognostic stratification and response prediction, thereby contributing to precision medicine.

Enhanced utilization of active sites of Fe/N/C catalysts by pore-in-pore structures for ultrahigh mass activity.

Carbon material doped with nitrogen and transition metal is a kind of promising candidate of the platinum for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) process due to its low cost, efficiency and stability. Here we demonstrate an original type of Fe/N/C catalyst based on pore-in-pore structures (P-P Fe/N/C), showing one of the highest oxygen reduction reaction performances among all reported Fe/N/C-type catalysts (onset potential of 0.995 V, half-wave potential of 0.

Toward safer solid-state lithium metal batteries: a review.

The solid-state lithium metal battery (SSLMB) is one of the most optimal solutions to pursue next-generation energy storage devices with superior energy density, in which solid-state electrolytes (SSEs) are expected to completely solve the safety problems caused by direct use of a lithium metal anode. Most previous work has mainly focused on improving the electrochemical performance of SSLMBs, but the safety issues have been largely ignored due to the influence of the stereotype that batteries with SSEs are always safe. In the actual research process, however, some potential dangers of SSLMBs have been gradually revealed, so extra attention should be paid to this issue.

Monoamine oxidase A is down-regulated in EBV-associated nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a highly metastatic cancer that is consistently associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. In this study, we identify for the first time a role for monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) in NPC. MAOA is a mitochondrial enzyme that catalyzes oxidative deamination of neurotransmitters and dietary amines.

Pressure-flow curve derived from coronary CT angiography for detection of significant hemodynamic stenosis.

Objectives: Coronary CT angiography (cCTA) has been used to non-invasively assess both the anatomical and hemodynamic significance of coronary stenosis. The current study investigated a new CFD-based method of evaluating pressure-flow curves across a stenosis to further enhance the diagnostic value of cCTA imaging.

Methods: Fifty-eight patients who underwent both cCTA imaging and invasive coronary angiography (ICA) with fractional flow reserve (FFR) within 2 weeks were enrolled.