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Serologic and molecular surveillance of serum collected from 152 suspected scrub typhus patients in Myanmar revealed Orientia tsutsugamushi of genotypic heterogeneity. In addition, potential co-infection with severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus was observed in 5 (3.3%) patients. Both scrub typhus and severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome are endemic in Myanmar.

Although the activated sludge process, one of the most remarkable engineering inventions in the 20 th century, has made significant contribution to wastewater reclamation in the past 100 years, its high energy consumption is posing a serious impact and challenge on the current wastewater industry worldwide and is also inevitably linked to the issue of global climate change. In this study, we argued that substantial improvement in the energy efficiency might be no longer achievable through further optimization of the activated sludge process. Instead, we should devote more effort to the development or the adoption of novel treatment configurations and emerging technologies. Of which an example is A-B process which can significantly improve the energy recovery potential at A-stage, while markedly reduces energy consumption at B-stage. Various configurations of A-B process with energy analysis are thus discussed. It appears highly possible to achieve an overall energy gain in WWTPs with A-B process as a core.

The reaction of carbon dioxide with hydroxide to form carbonate in near-neutral or alkaline medium severely limits the energy and carbon efficiency of CO 2 electroreduction. Here we show that by suppression of the otherwise predominant hydrogen evolution using alkali cations, efficient CO 2 electroreduction can be conducted in acidic medium, overcoming the carbonate problem. The cation effects are general for three typical catalysts including carbon-supported tin oxide, gold and copper, leading to Faradaic efficiency as high as 90% for formic acid and CO formation. Our analysis suggests that hydrated alkali cations physisorbed on the cathode modify the distribution of electric field in the double layer, which impedes hydrogen evolution by suppression of migration of hydronium ions while at the same time promoting CO 2 reduction by stabilization of key intermediates. Acidic media provide an opportunity to alleviate carbonate formation in electrocatalytic CO 2 reduction but increase competition from H 2 evolution. This study demonstrates that alkali cations in acidic media suppress H 2 evolution leading to high Faradaic efficiency for carbon-based products and models the physical effects that lead to this result.

Background The prevalence of knee osteoarthritis (KOA), a progressive degenerative disease, is gradually increasing, and it is a progressive degenerative disease. In patients with mild-to-moderate KOA, intra-articular hyaluronic acid (IA-HA) has been shown to be an effective non-operative treatment option that can provide significant pain relief and symptom improvement by increasing intra-articular viscoelasticity. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of IA-HA injections in delaying total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and the safety of IA-HA according to IA-HA type and combination with intra-articular corticosteroid (IA-CS) using a large health insurance claim database. Methods For this retrospective cohort study, the study population included patients aged ≥ 50 years with a first diagnosis of KOA between 2009 and 2014, who underwent TKA by 2020, using the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service claim database in Republic of Korea. IA-HA injections were categorized as single or multiple injection regimen agents. Cox proportional hazard models estimated hazard ratios (HR) for TKA risk, adjusted for covariates. Logistic regression assessed the occurrence of adverse events after IA-HA administration. Results In all, 36,983 patients were included. Patients who received IA-HA injections had a significantly longer time to TKA compared to those who did not (mean delay of approximately 1 year). The IA-HA group had a significantly lower risk of TKA (HR: 0.61, 95% CI: 0.60–0.62) than non-IA-HA group after adjusting for covariates, which included age, sex, medical history, number of hospital beds, and CS injection. Single injection IA-HA regimen agents showed the longest time to TKA and lowest risk (HR: 0.56, 95% CI: 0.53–0.59). TKA risk decreased with the number of IA-HA cycles. Adverse events occurred in 6.7% of IA-HA cases without CS, with very low incidence of infection. Multiple injection regimen agents (multiple injection regimen 7.0% vs. single injection regimen 3.6%) and concurrent IA-CS use (concurrent IA-CS use 13.9% vs. IA-HA only 6.7%) were associated with higher infection risk. Conclusion IA-HA injections were associated with a significant delay in TKA among patients with KOA. Single-injection regimen agents had the lowest TKA risk. Infection risk increased with multiple injections and concurrent IA-CS use. These findings could suggest the use of IA-HA as an effective non-operative intervention option for managing KOA and delaying TKA. Careful selection of IA-HA type and consideration of concurrent IA-CS use could play a role in delaying the time to TKA and reducing complications.

Glass fibers (GFs)/epoxy laminated composites always present weak interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) and low cross-plane thermal conductivity coefficient (λ⊥). In this work, silica-sol, synthesized from tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) and KH-560 via sol-gel method, was employed to functionalize the surface of GFs (Si-GFs). Together with a spherical boron nitride (BNN-30), the thermally conductive BNN-30/Si-GFs/epoxy laminated composites were then fabricated. Results demonstrate that Si-sol is beneficial to the improvement of mechanical properties for epoxy laminated composites (especially for ILSS). The BNN-30/Si-GFs/epoxy laminated composites with 15 wt% BNN-30 fillers display the optimal comprehensive properties. In-plane λ(λ//) and λ⊥ reach the maximum of 2.37 and 1.07 W·m−1·K−1, 146.9% and 132.6% higher than those of Si-GFs/epoxy laminated composites (λ// = 0.96 W·m−1·K−1 and λ⊥ = 0.46 W·m−1·K−1), respectively, and also about 10.8 and 4.9 times those of pure epoxy resin (λ// = λ⊥ 0.22 W·m−1·K−1). And the heat-resistance index (THRI), dielectric constant (ε), dielectric loss (tanδ), breakdown strength (E0), surface resistivity (ρs) as well as volume resistivity (ρv) are 197.3 °C, 4.95, 0.0046, 22.3 kV·mm−1, 1.8 × 1014Ω, and 2.1 × 1014Ω·cm, respectively.

This work proposes a facile fabrication strategy for thermally conductive graphite nanosheets/poly(lactic acid) sheets with ordered GNPs (o-GNPs/PLA) via fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printing technology. Further combinations of o-GNPs/PLA with Ti3C2Tx films prepared by vacuum-assisted filtration were carried out by “layer-by-layer stacking-hot pressing” to be the thermally conductive Ti3C2Tx/(o-GNPs/PLA) composites with superior electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI SE). When the content of GNPs was 18.60 wt% and 4 layers of Ti3C2Tx (6.98 wt%) films were embedded, the in-plane thermal conductivity coefficient (λ||) and EMI SE (EMI SE||) values of the thermally conductive Ti3C2Tx/(o-GNPs/PLA) composites significantly increased to 3.44 W·m–1·K–1 and 65 dB (3.00 mm), increased by 1223.1% and 2066.7%, respectively, compared with λ|| (0.26 W·m–1·K–1 ) and EMI SE|| (3 dB) of neat PLA matrix. This work offers a novel and easily route for designing and manufacturing highly thermally conductive polymer composites with superior EMI SE for broader application.

Spontaneous magnetic field generation plays important role in laser-plasma interactions. Strong quasi-static magnetic fields affect the thermal conductivity and the plasma dynamics, particularly in the case of ultra intense laser where the magnetic part of Lorentz force becomes as significant as the electric part. Kinetic simulations of giga-gauss magnetic field amplification via a laser irradiated microtube structure reveal the dynamics of charged particle implosions and the mechanism of magnetic field growth. A giga-gauss magnetic field is generated and amplified with the opposite polarity to the seed magnetic field. The spot size of the field is comparable to the laser wavelength, and the lifetime is hundreds of femtoseconds. An analytical model is presented to explain the underlying physics. This study should aid in designing future experiments.

Most tumor cells show different metabolic pathways than normal cells. Even under the conditions of sufficient oxygen, they produce energy by a high rate of glycolysis followed by lactic acid fermentation in the cytosol, which is known as aerobic glycolysis or the Warburg effect. Lung cancer is a malignant tumor with one of the highest incidence and mortality rates in the world at present. However, the exact mechanisms underlying lung cancer development remain unclear. The three key enzymes of glycolysis are hexokinase, phosphofructokinase, and pyruvate kinase. Lactate dehydrogenase catalyzes the transfer of pyruvate to lactate. All four enzymes have been reported to be overexpressed in tumors, including lung cancer, and can be regulated by many oncoproteins to promote tumor proliferation, migration, and metastasis with dependence or independence of glycolysis. The discovery of aerobic glycolysis in the 1920s has provided new means and potential therapeutic targets for lung cancer.

Electrochemical CO 2 reduction in acidic electrolytes is a promising strategy to achieve high utilization efficiency of CO 2 . Although alkali cations in acidic electrolytes play a vital role in suppressing hydrogen evolution and promoting CO 2 reduction, they also cause precipitation of bicarbonate on the gas diffusion electrode (GDE), flooding of electrolyte through the GDE, and drift of the electrolyte pH. In this work, we realize the electroreduction of CO 2 in a metal cation-free acidic electrolyte by covering the catalyst with cross-linked poly-diallyldimethylammonium chloride. This polyelectrolyte provides a high density of cationic sites immobilized on the surface of the catalyst, which suppresses the mass transport of H + and modulates the interfacial field strength. By adopting this strategy, the Faradaic efficiency (FE) of CO reaches 95 ± 3% with the Ag catalyst and the FE of formic acid reaches 76 ± 3% with the In catalyst in a 1.0 pH electrolyte in a flow cell. More importantly, with the metal cation-free acidic electrolyte the amount of electrolyte flooding through the GDE is decreased to 2.5 ± 0.6% of that with alkali cation-containing acidic electrolyte, and the FE of CO maintains above 80% over 36 h of operation at −200 mA·cm −2 . Alkali bicarbonate precipitation hinders electrochemical CO 2 reduction in acidic electrolytes. Here, the authors report CO 2 reduction in a metal cation-free acidic electrolyte by covering the catalyst with crosslinked polyelectrolyte, achieving 36-hour stability in a flow cell.

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) is a tick-borne viral pathogen that causes Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) in humans with a high fatality rate. Currently, there are no approved antivirals or vaccines against SFTSV. The envelope protein of SFTSV, which consists of two domains, Gn and Gc, has been investigated as a target antigen for the development of SFTSV vaccines. Here, we used an mRNA platform to develop an effective and safe SFTSV vaccine. Our mRNA vaccine candidate harbored an equal number of mRNAs individually encoding the full-length SFTSV Gn or Gc domain. These mRNAs were produced using a 5′ cap, SmartCap, by in vitro transcription and then packaged with an ionizable lipid nanoparticle platform, called STLNP. Robust expression of these Gn and Gc antigens was observed when human 293 T cells were transfected with the SFTSV mRNA formulation. When mice were immunized with our SFTSV vaccine candidate, the collected serum displayed strong immunogenicity and in vitro neutralization activity against SFTSV. Thus, the immunized mice showed complete protection with a lethal dose of SFTSV, without any pathological traces of SFTSV infection-mediated tissue damage. Thus, our mRNA vaccine platform is a promising SFTS vaccine candidate for clinical development.