Developing bifunctional efficient and durable non-noble electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is highly desirable and challenging for overall water splitting. Herein, Co-Mn carbonate hydroxide (CoMnCH) nanosheet arrays with controllable morphology and composition were developed on nickel foam (NF) as such a bifunctional electrocatalyst. It is discovered that Mn doping in CoCH can simultaneously modulate the nanosheet morphology to significantly increase the electrochemical active surface area for exposing more accessible active sites and tune the electronic structure of Co center to effectively boost its intrinsic activity. As a result, the optimized CoMnCH/NF electrode exhibits unprecedented OER activity with an ultralow overpotential of 294 mV at 30 mA cm, compared with all reported metal carbonate hydroxides. Benefited from 3D open nanosheet array topographic structure with tight contact between nanosheets and NF, it is able to deliver a high and stable current density of 1000 mA cm at only an overpotential of 462 mV with no interference from high-flux oxygen evolution. Despite no reports about effective HER on metal carbonate hydroxides yet, the small overpotential of 180 mV at 10 mA cm for HER can be also achieved on CoMnCH/NF by the dual modulation of Mn doping. This offers a two-electrode electrolyzer using bifunctional CoMnCH/NF as both anode and cathode to perform stable overall water splitting with a cell voltage of only 1.68 V at 10 mA cm. These findings may open up opportunities to explore other multimetal carbonate hydroxides as practical bifunctional electrocatalysts for scale-up water electrolysis.

The synthesis of water-soluble nitrogen-doped carbon dots has received great attention, due to their wide applications in oxygen reduction reaction, cell imaging, sensors, and drug delivery. Herein, nitrogen-doped, carbon-rich, highly photoluminescent carbon dots have been synthesized for the first time from ammonium citrate under hydrothermal conditions. The obtained nitrogen-doped carbon dots possess bright blue luminescence, short fluorescence lifetime, pH-sensitivity and excellent stability at a high salt concentration. They have potential to be used for pH sensors, cell imaging, solar cells, and photocatalysis.

Despite rapid advances in modern medical technology and significant improvements in survival rates of many cancers, pancreatic cancer is still a highly lethal gastrointestinal cancer with a low 5-year survival rate and difficulty in early detection. At present, the incidence and mortality of pancreatic cancer are increasing year by year worldwide, no matter in the United States, Europe, Japan, or China. Globally, the incidence of pancreatic cancer is projected to increase to 18.6 per 100000 in 2050, with the average annual growth of 1.1%, meaning that pancreatic cancer will pose a significant public health burden. Due to the special anatomical location of the pancreas, the development of pancreatic cancer is usually diagnosed at a late stage with obvious clinical symptoms. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the risk factors for pancreatic cancer is of great clinical significance for effective prevention of pancreatic cancer. In this paper, the epidemiological characteristics, developmental trends, and risk factors of pancreatic cancer are reviewed and analyzed in detail.

Compared with traditional semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) and organic dyes, photoluminescent carbon dots (CDs) are superior because of their high aqueous solubility, robust chemical inertness, facile functionalization, high resistance to photobleaching, low toxicity and good biocompatibility. Herein, a green, large-scale and high-output heterogeneous synthesis of N-doped CDs was developed by reacting calcium citrate and urea under microwave irradiation without the use of any capping agents. The obtained N-doped CDs with a uniform size distribution exhibit good aqueous solubility and yellowish-green fluorescence in the solid and aqueous states. These unique luminescence properties of N-doped CDs inspire new thoughts for applications as fluorescent powders, fluorescent inks, the growth of fluorescent bean sprouts, and fingerprint detection tools.

Background: The feature of CD44 binding with native high molecular weight hyaluronan (nHA) and hyaluronan oligosaccharides (oHA) is different.Results: nHA induces but oHA reduces CD44 clustering.Conclusion: nHA and oHA have distinct effects on CD44 clustering.Significance: The study provides direct evidence for the different characteristics of CD44 binding with nHA and oHA in vivo.