Alloying Pd with Ru enables electroreduction of nitrate to ammonia with ∼100% faradaic efficiency over a wide potential window.

Electrocatalytic nitrate (NO) reduction reaction (eNORR) to ammonia under ambient conditions is deemed a sustainable route for wastewater treatment and a promising alternative to the Haber-Bosch process. However, there is still a lack of efficient electrocatalysts to achieve high NH production performance at wastewater-relevant low NO concentrations. Herein, we report a PdRu bimetallic nanocrystal (NC) electrocatalyst capable of exhibiting an average NH FE of ∼100% over a wide potential window from 0.

Tumor immune microenvironment-based therapies in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: time to update the concept.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal solid tumors. The tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) formed by interactions among cancer cells, immune cells, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF), and extracellular matrix (ECM) components drives PDAC in a more immunosuppressive direction: this is a major cause of therapy resistance and poor prognosis. In recent years, research has advanced our understanding of the signaling mechanism by which TIME components interact with the tumor and the evolution of immunophenotyping.

Balanced NO and Proton Adsorption for Efficient Electrocatalytic NO to NH Conversion.

Electrocatalytic nitrate (NO)/nitrite (NO) reduction reaction (eNORR) to ammonia under ambient conditions presents a green and promising alternative to the Haber-Bosch process. Practically available NO sources, such as wastewater or plasma-enabled nitrogen oxidation reaction (p-NOR), typically have low NO concentrations. Hence, electrocatalyst engineering is important for practical eNORR to obtain both high NH Faradaic efficiency (FE) and high yield rate.

Enhanced Charge Transfer via S-Scheme Heterojunction Interface Engineering of Supramolecular SubPc-Br/UiO-66 Arrays for Efficient Photocatalytic Oxidation.

Constructing heterojunction of supramolecular arrays self-assembled on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with elaborate charge transfer mechanisms is a promising strategy for the photocatalytic oxidation of organic pollutants. Herein, H SubPcB-Br (SubPc-Br) and UiO-66 are used to obtain the step-scheme (S-scheme) heterojunction SubPc-Br/UiO-66 for the first time, which is then applied in the photocatalytic oxidation of minocycline. Atomic-level B-O-Zr charge-transfer channels and van der Waals force connections synergistically accelerated the charge transfer at the interface of the SubPc-Br/UiO-66 heterojunction, while the establishment of the B-O-Zr bonds also led to the directional transfer of charge from SubPc-Br to UiO-66.

Difference frequency coherent matched autoproduct processing for source localization in deep ocean.

Matched autoproduct processing (MAP) refers to a matched field processing (MFP) style array signal processing technique for passive source localization, which interrogates frequency-difference autoproduct instead of genuine acoustic pressure. Due to frequency downshifting, MAP is less sensitive to environmental mismatch, but it suffers from low spatial resolution and a low peak-to-sidelobe ratio of ambiguity surface. These source localization metrics are herein improved with coherent approaches.

The effects of GPER on age-associated memory impairment induced by decreased estrogen levels.

Estrogen, as a pleiotropic endocrine hormone, not only regulates the physiological functions of peripheral tissues but also exerts vital neuroregulatory effects in the central nervous system (CNS), such as the development of neurons and the formation of neural network connections, wherein rapid estrogen-mediated reactions positively stimulate spinogenesis and regulate synaptic plasticity and synaptic transmission to facilitate cognitive and memory performance. These fast non-genomic effects can be initiated by membrane-bound estrogen receptors (ERs), three best known of which are ERα, ERβ, and G protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER). To date, the effects of ERα and ERβ have been well studied in age-associated memory impairment, whereas there is still a lack of attention to the role of GPER in age-associated memory impairment, and there are still disputes about whether GPER indeed functions as an ER to enhance learning and memory.

Hepatocellular carcinoma: Novel understandings and therapeutic strategies based on bile acids (Review).

Bile acids (BAs) are the major components of bile and products of cholesterol metabolism. Cholesterol is catalyzed by a variety of enzymes in the liver to form primary BAs, which are excreted into the intestine with bile, and secondary BAs are formed under the modification of the gut microbiota. Most of the BAs return to the liver via the portal vein, completing the process of enterohepatic circulation.

Allicin in Digestive System Cancer: From Biological Effects to Clinical Treatment.

Allicin is the main active ingredient in freshly-crushed garlic and some other allium plants, and its anticancer effect on cancers of digestive system has been confirmed in many studies. The aim of this review is to summarize epidemiological studies and and investigations on the anticancer effects of allicin and its secondary metabolites, as well as their biological functions. In epidemiological studies of esophageal cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, and biliary tract cancer, the anticancer effect of garlic has been confirmed consistently.

Normal mode energy estimation based on reconstructing the incoherent beamformed outputs from a horizontal array.

The acoustic pressure field in many underwater environments is well described by a superposition of normal modes. The normal modes can be used for source localization and environmental inversion. However, the wavenumber resolution of traditional normal mode filtering methods for a small-aperture horizontal array is usually not sufficient to identify individual modes in a shallow water waveguide.

Synthetic adaptive matched field processing for moving source with a horizontal line array.

Using adaptive matched field processing (AMFP) to search for targets in shallow water is challenged by source motion. For AMFP, a relatively large number of samples is required to minimize the variance of the covariance matrix. For a fast moving target, direct integrating over a large number of data snapshots will blur the sound interference structure and, hence, degrade the ability of AMFP to produce a sharp main peak.

Measurement and modeling of sound propagation over continental slope in the South China Sea.

Measurements along two ship tracks were obtained in an experiment to investigate the properties of acoustic propagation over the continental slope in the South China Sea. The measured data show a notable difference in transmission loss about 35 dB as sound crosses different geodesic paths. Numerical simulations indicate that the range and azimuth-dependent geological properties control the level of the transmission loss and lead to this large transmission loss fluctuation.

Passive ocean acoustic tomography in shallow water.

It has been demonstrated that an estimate of an empirical Green's function (EGF) can be extracted from the ocean ambient noise cross-correlation functions, which can provide an alternative method for ocean acoustic tomography. However, the requirement for a long recording time to obtain EGFs with a high signal-to-noise ratio limits the application. This article focuses on using array signal processing to accelerate the convergence rate of EGFs between two horizontally separated arrays.

Observations of wind-generated noise by the tropical cyclone.

An analysis of the measured ocean noise during the tropical cyclone period is presented. While the observed noise is highly correlated with wind, this study reveals the dispersion of noise spectra. A wind-driven noise model within the framework of the bubble oscillation is developed.