Browse Articles

A comprehensive study of the crystal structure and dynamics of [N(C3H7)4]2Cd2Cl6

In‐Situ Spatial Visual Proteomics Enabled by Single‐Cell‐Type Proximity Biotinylation and Signaling Amplification

Abstract Mapping the spatial proteome signature within heterogeneous tissue microenvironment of clinical specimens offers unique insights into both physiological and pathological molecular phenotypes. However, to simultaneously visualize and discover these spatial proteome features is challenging. Herein, we introduce spatial visual proteomics (SVPro) which integrates single‐cell proximity biotinylation coupled with fluorescence signal amplification via the trifunctional probe. This probe uniquely combines naphthylamine‐mediated radical targeting, clickable fluorescence imaging, and biotinylation‐facilitated proteome capture, enabling all three within a single tissue section. Strategic PEGylation and multivalent fluorescent conjugation of these probes improves labeling and visualization efficiency and specificity. SVPro allows cell‐type proteomic profiling of neuronal subpopulations in distinct mouse brain regions and amyloid‐β plaques in mouse brain of Alzheimer's disease model. Notably, we identified and validated distinct marker proteins associated with amyloid‑β plaques deposited in different brain regions. SVPro therefore emerges as a robust and high‐resolution spatial proteomics approach for simultaneously visualizing the spatial architecture and proteome landscapes of intact tissue microenvironment.

Investigation of a viable but non-culturable state in Porphyromonas gingivalis and host cell invasion

Porphyromonas gingivalis ( P. gingivalis ) is a gram-negative, black-pigmented, anaerobic pathogen known for its biofilm formation and its central role in periodontal disease. More recently, P. gingivalis has been implicated in various systemic conditions, including atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and certain types of cancer, such as pancreatic and oral cancer. This bacterium employs several mechanisms to evade environmental stress, thereby contributing to its pathogenicity. The viable but non-culturable (VBNC) state is characterized by bacteria that remain viable but have reduced metabolic activity and are unable to form colonies on conventional culture media. To induce the VBNC state in P. gingivalis , we subjected the bacterium to oxidative stress using H 2 O 2 and subsequently resuscitated it from this state with sodium pyruvate. We utilized viability staining, confocal microscopy, and flow cytometry (FC) to count live and dead bacteria, confirming the presence of significant numbers of viable P. gingivalis cells both before and after stress induction. Despite being viable, the stressed P. gingivalis failed to form colonies on blood agar plates after seven days of incubation, indicating it had entered the VBNC state. We were then able to resuscitate the VBNC P. gingivalis by adding sodium pyruvate, and the growth of the resuscitated bacteria on plates was comparable to that of control P. gingivalis . Investigation into the invasiveness of P. gingivalis in the VBNC state was conducted using human coronary artery endothelial cells (HCAECs). P. gingivalis in the VBNC state demonstrated the ability to invade and based on live/dead staining, showed that a substantial proportion of the VBNC P. gingivalis remained viable within the host cells for extended periods. In this study, we explore the VBNC survival strategy previously described in many aerobic bacteria but not previously reported in anaerobes such as P. gingivalis . The objectives of this study are to verify the VBNC state in P. gingivalis, determine whether this state can be reversed and assess the extent to which it impacts the ability of P. gingivalis to invade host cells. Understanding the VBNC and resuscitation states will be instrumental in guiding the development of more effective therapies for periodontitis and other diseases associated with P. gingivalis infection.

Chemical synthesis, bioinformatics and antiproliferative studies of novel pyrimidin-4-yl-1H-pyrazole derivatives in chronic myeloid cancer cells

Electro‐Thermal Coupling Catalysis

Abstract The chemical industry serves as a cornerstone of modern societal development, yet it is also associated with substantial energy consumption and high emissions. Electro‐thermal coupling catalysis, an emerging frontier at the intersection of thermocatalysis and electrocatalysis, offers a promising solution. The coupling of electrocatalytic reactions can solve the problems of slow reaction rates, substrate deactivation of catalysts, and difficult separation of products, and overcome thermodynamic and kinetic barriers inherent to traditional thermocatalytical reactions. This minireview highlights the state of the art in electro‐thermal coupling catalysis and the significant applications for nitrogen fixation, propane dehydrogenation, alcohol reforming, and methane and carbon dioxide conversion. Furthermore, we discuss the key challenges and future prospects that these integrated systems must address to advance toward technological maturation and commercial implementation, with the aim of providing insights for the development of next‐generation sustainable chemical processes.

Effects of export sophistication on marine pollution: Evidence from Chinese coastal regions

Trade liberalization has accelerated export growth in China’s coastal regions, becoming a major driving force behind local economic development. However, this rapid expansion has also imposed severe environmental pressures on marine ecosystems. As a key indicator for assessing the technological content and quality level of export structures, export sophistication warrants in-depth investigation regarding its potential impact on the marine environment. Drawing on panel data from 11 coastal regions in China between 2011 and 2022, this study employs a two-way fixed-effects model to empirically examine the relationship between export sophistication and marine pollution. The baseline regression results show that higher export sophistication significantly reduces marine pollution. The System GMM dynamic panel analysis further confirms a lagged, long-term pollution-reducing effect. Moreover, environmental regulation, port size, and industrial structure weaken this effect, indicating that the environmental benefits of export sophistication diminish under stricter regulatory conditions, larger port scales, or more advanced industrial structures. The mediation analysis reveals that green technological innovation partially transmits the impact of export sophistication on pollution reduction. Robustness checks, including the exclusion of provinces with extreme pollution levels, confirm the stability of the findings. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that the effects vary across different types of marine pollutants. This study enriches the research perspective on the link between export sophistication and environmental pollution, providing theoretical foundations and policy implications for promoting coordinated development between export structure optimization and marine environmental governance.

Investigating property-porosity relationships for micro-architected lattice structures

Mono-mix strategy enables comparative proteomics of a cross-kingdom microbial symbiosis

Cross-kingdom microbial symbioses, such as those between algae and bacteria, are key players in biogeochemical cycles. The molecular changes during initiation and establishment of symbiosis are of great interest, but quantitatively monitoring such changes can be challenging, particularly when the microorganisms differ greatly in size or are intimately associated. Here, we analyze output from label-free, data-dependent acquisition (DDA) LC-MS/MS proteomics experiments investigating the well-studied interaction between the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and the heterotrophic bacterium Mesorhizobium japonicum . We found that detection of bacterial proteins decreased in coculture by 50% proteome-wide due to the abundance of algal proteins. As a result, standard differential expression analysis led to numerous false-positive reports of significantly downregulated proteins, where it was not possible to distinguish meaningful biological responses to symbiosis from artifacts of the reduced protein detection in coculture relative to monoculture. We show that data normalization alone does not eliminate the impact of altered detection on differential expression analysis of the cross-kingdom symbiosis. We assessed two additional strategies to overcome this methodological artifact inherent to DDA proteomics. In the first, we combined algal and bacterial monocultures at a relative abundance that mimicked the coculture, creating a “mono-mix” control to which the coculture could be compared. This approach enabled comparable detection of bacterial proteins in the coculture and the monoculture control. In the second strategy, we enhanced detection of lowly abundant bacterial proteins by using sample fractionation upstream of LC-MS/MS analysis. When these simple approaches were combined, they allowed for meaningful comparisons of nearly 10,000 algal proteins and over 4,000 bacterial proteins in response to symbiosis by DDA. They successfully recovered expected changes in the bacterial proteome in response to algal coculture, including upregulation of sugar-binding proteins and transporters. They also revealed novel proteomic responses to coculture that guide hypotheses about algal-bacterial interactions.

Research on spatial differentiation, source decomposition and convergence of agricultural carbon emission efficiency in China

Highly Diastereo‐ and Enantioselective Pd‐Catalyzed Spiroaminoalkylation: One‐Step Construction of Multifunctional Angular Polycyclic Amines

Abstract Angular polycycles are ubiquitous in natural products with significant biological properties. However, the straightforward catalytic asymmetric synthesis of spirocyclic scaffolds with multiple stereogenic centers from readily available starting materials remains largely underdeveloped and a formidable challenge. Using the aminoalkyl cyclopalladated complex as the key intermediate, we report herein the first example of diastereo‐ and enantioselective multifunctional angular tetracyclic‐ and pentacyclic amines synthesis through palladium‐catalyzed spiroaminoalkylation/allylic substitution reaction (up to 92% yield, up to 99% ee). The synthetic versatility of this methodology is underscored by the efficient synthesis of chiral phosphine ligands, which further demonstrates its robust utility in concisely constructing versatile chiral ligands.

Drug-loaded nanoparticles for intra-articular injection

Drug loaded nanoparticles (NPs) were developed as a model intra-articular injection (IAI) formulation to mitigate early stage osteoarthritis (OA). Different types of celecoxib-loaded nanoparticles were prepared by a hybrid method that combines homogenization and solvent evaporation. The hydrodynamic diameter of the nanoparticles prepared were approximately 200 nm (PLLA: 238 ± 19 nm; PCL: 249 ± 28 nm; PLA: 252 ± 18 nm; PMMA: 234 ± 21), and zeta potential were about −40 mV (PLLA: −45.3 ± 2.3 mV; PCL: −38.0 ± 0.9 mV; PLA: −44.4 ± 3.2 mV; PMMA: −45.5 ± 2.7 mV). Our friction data evidences that nanoparticles could improve considerably the lubrication between a stainless steel sphere and a silicone elastomer that were used as model substrates. Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) measurements were carried out to unravel the lubrication mechanism. The magnitude and amount of NPs adsorbed on the surface determines the effect of lubrication. Drug release experiment suggests that nanoparticles could release up to more than one week, when being compared with free celecoxib. NPs formulation exhibited excellent biocompatibility in cytotoxicity of chondrocytes experiment.

Lifetime risk of cancer in carriers of intermediate alleles in the HTT gene

Abstract Previous studies have found a markedly reduced risk of cancer among Huntington’s disease (HD) patients with CAG ≥ 40, but data on cancer risk at shorter repeat numbers are lacking. The study includes 8149 subjects from Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study. Genotyping yielded a large number of intermediate allele carriers (IA, CAG n 27–35, ( n  = 497), normal alleles (CAG n 17–26, n  = 6584), short alleles (CAG ≤ 16, n  = 169) and 31 subjects with > 35 repeats, including reduced penetrance alleles (36–39; not guaranteed to suffer HD symptoms during a normal lifespan) and HD alleles > 39. Cancer diagnoses were retrieved from the Swedish Cancer Registry and the Hospital Discharge Registry and death certificates. We used Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox proportional hazard models to estimate the time to cancer, on strata of the population created by CAG repeat number intervals. Smoking status, BMI, as well as alcohol consumption were included in the models. 2735 participants (33.6%) had ≥ 1 cancer type. The Hazard-Ratio (HR) for IA carriers compared with normal alleles was similar, 0.97 CI 0.82–1.15). The reduced penetrance allele group (CAG n 36–39, n  = 29) had HR of 0.54 CI 0.22–1.30 similar to what has been reported with a full penetrance allele. Intermediate allele carriers as a group did not have a reduced risk of cancer. It remains possible that reduced penetrance alleles confer lower risk of cancer, with signs of a dose-dependent protective effect of CAG repeat length. The latter finding needs to be confirmed in even larger cohorts as these repeat numbers are relatively rare.

Outside Back Cover: Rhodopsin‐Mimicking Reversible Photo‐Switchable Chloride Channels Based on Azobenzene‐Appended <i>Semiaza</i> ‐Bambusurils for Light‐Controlled Ion Transport and Cancer Cell Apoptosis (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 3/2026)

Exploring novel semi-inner product reproducing Kernels in Banach space for robust Kernel methods

Kernel methods are widely applied across various domains; however, structural limitations of reproducing kernels in Hilbert spaces pose significant challenges. Many challenges inherent to Hilbert spaces can be effectively addressed within the framework of Banach spaces. In this work, we define the semi-inner product reproducing kernel Banach space and its reproducing kernels using semi-inner product and bilinear mapping, supported by rigorous proofs. Specific forms of semi-inner product reproducing kernels are derived within the theoretical framework of the semi-inner product reproducing kernel Banach space. This constitutes the core originality of our work and represents its primary contribution. Through illustrative experiments, we validate the effectiveness of semi-inner product reproducing kernels and demonstrate their superior performance compared to polynomial reproducing kernels.

Association of emerging alternatives to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances with polycystic ovary syndrome among Chinese women: a case-control study

Prevalence, risk factors, and viral load quantification of HBV infection among hospital patients: A cross-sectional investigation in Mogadishu, Somalia

Background Hepatitis B virus (HBV) remains a major public health challenge in sub-Saharan Africa. Somalia, with its fragile healthcare system and high-risk population, lacks up to date data on HBV epidemiology. This study assessed HBV prevalence, associated risk factors, and viral load among hospital patients in Mogadishu, Somalia. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted in four major hospitals in Mogadishu. Socio-demographic and clinical risk data were collected using structured questionnaires. Blood samples from 270 participants were screened for HBsAg using a rapid test, with positives confirmed and quantified for HBV DNA by real-time PCR. Bivariate and multivariate analyses identified independent risk factors. Results HBsAg prevalence was 11.5% (n = 31), but only 2.2% of all participants (6/270; 19.4% of HBsAg-positives) had detectable HBV DNA. The strongest independent predictors were family history of HBV (AOR: 5.08, 95% CI 1.90–13.60) and history of tooth extraction (AOR: 3.18, 95% CI 1.24–8.12). Socio-economic factors, facility variations, and low vaccination were also observed. Classical behavioral risk factors were infrequent and not significant. Among PCR positive cases, only one presented with a high viral load (&gt;20,000 IU/mL). Conclusion HBV poses a substantial, ongoing threat to the Somali population, especially in hospital-based settings. Household transmission and unsafe medical procedures are the most significant risk factors. Improving infection control, expanding vaccination, and prioritizing molecular diagnostics will be critical to effective HBV control in Somalia.

Dataset-centric evaluation of federated intrusion detection models in IoT networks

Abstract Intrusion detection systems (IDS) leveraging federated learning (FL) are increasingly deployed in Internet of Things (IoT) environments to address distributed data and privacy constraints. However, generalization remains unclear because most evaluations rely on a single dataset, which risks overfitting to site-specific traffic, label taxonomies, and non-IID client mixtures. This study provides a comprehensive dataset-centric evaluation of FL-based IDS across three contemporary IoT/IIoT datasets: Edge-IIoTset (2022), CIC-IoT2023, and TII-SSRC-23 (2023), that differ in devices, feature distributions, and attack families. We benchmark three FL aggregation algorithms (FedAvg, FedProx, FedNova) with two deep learning backbones (LSTM and Transformer) to assess detection accuracy, cross-environment generalizability, convergence behavior, and communication cost. Methodologically, we construct non-IID clients by device or application type, harmonize labels to a common family-level schema, align features to the intersection set, and evaluate three regimes: in-domain, cross-dataset, and a combined multi-dataset federation. Results show that federated models approach centralized performance in-domain, with macro-F1 up to 98% and accuracies in the 92–98% range. Transformers consistently exceed LSTM by $$\approx$$ 1–2% points in macro-F1 at comparable communication budgets. Cross-dataset tests expose substantial degradation, with up to 30 percentage-point macro-F1 loss when models face unseen environments, underscoring the need for diverse training coverage. Combined multi-dataset federation substantially restores transfer, yielding $$\approx$$ 90% macro-F1 across datasets in the harmonized family-level setting. Under heterogeneous clients, FedProx improves stability by reducing round-to-round variance, while FedNova achieves target accuracy in fewer rounds and lowers communication by $$\approx$$ 15–25% relative to FedAvg. These findings indicate a practical recipe for deployment: prioritize attack and environment diversity through combined-dataset FL, select Transformer backbones where feasible, and use FedProx or FedNova to stabilize training and reduce communication in bandwidth-constrained IoT settings.

End-of-life care stress in korean pediatric nurses: A cross-sectional analysis of related perceptions, attitudes, and self-efficacy

Pediatric end-of-life (EOL) care imposes a significant emotional burden on nurses, often leading to elevated stress. Psychological factors, such as perception, attitude, and self-efficacy, are known to play critical roles in stress responses during EOL care in clinical settings. This study examined the effect of South Korean pediatric nurses’ perceptions, attitudes, and self-efficacy regarding EOL care on their stress levels. A cross-sectional survey was conducted involving 150 pediatric nurses working at two university hospitals in South Korea. Structured, self-administered questionnaires were used to assess their perceptions of EOL care (supportive and obstacle factors), attitudes, and self-efficacy. Data were analyzed using t-tests, ANOVA, Scheffé’s post hoc test, and Pearson’s correlation analysis. The mean pediatric EOL care stress score was 3.60 out of 5, indicating a moderate to high level of stress. Significant differences in stress were observed based on whether participants had experienced the death of a patient in their care within the previous year and whether they had received education related to EOL care. Specifically, nurses without such experiences reported significantly higher levels of stress. Correlation analysis further revealed that pediatric EOL care stress was positively associated with supportive care perception factors and obstacle perception factors, while showing a significant negative correlation with self-efficacy. No significant relationship was found between attitudes toward EOL care and stress. This study identified the major psychological and experiential factors influencing pediatric nurses’ stress related to pediatric EOL care within two tertiary hospitals in South Korea. These findings highlight the need for structured educational interventions and institutional support systems to strengthen nurses’ coping abilities and enhance the overall quality of pediatric EOL care. In particular, integrating structured EOL training into undergraduate nursing curricula and continuing professional development programs may help reduce stress, improve self-efficacy, and ultimately ensure higher-quality pediatric EOL care.

Optimization of antioxidant extraction from Citrullus colocynthis seed using response surface methodology

Fusion of multi-scale geometric features and frequency domain decomposition for stereo matching network

In learning-based stereo matching methods, a feature information-rich and concise cost volume is crucial for achieving high-precision and high-efficiency stereo matching. Aiming at the problem that the cost volume lacks global geometric information, which leads to confusing foreground and background disparity estimation and blurring at edges and details, this paper proposes a fusion of multi-scale geometric features and frequency domain decomposition stereo matching network. Firstly, the initial cost volume is processed by the multi-scale geometric extraction module, which achieves an effective conversion from local correlation to global geometric information understanding, and significantly enhances the perception of scene boundaries and occluded regions. In the cost aggregation stage, we introduce an adaptive guidance mechanism based on channel attention, which not only improves the cost aggregation efficiency but also reduces the time overhead. In the disparity refinement stage, we not only use the iterative update of disparity based on multi-scale GRU, but also introduce the high and low-frequency separation of disparity reconstruction network, which reconstructs the disparity by decomposing the high and low-frequency errors, and is able to obtain a finer full-resolution disparity map. Our method achieves state-of-the-art performance on benchmark tests across multiple datasets, including Scene mFlow, KITTI2012, KITTI2015, ETH3D, and Middlebury. Compared to mainstream approaches, our method demonstrates excellent results on the KITTI2015 test set, attaining error rates of 1.39% in the background region (D1-bg) and 2.54% in the foreground region (D1-fg), while maintaining real-time inference capabilities.