The use of two caffeine metabolite ratios for acetylator phenotyping was validated by demonstrating concordance with two sulfamethazine tests in 178 unrelated healthy subjects. The caffeine metabolites used for this purpose were 5-acetylamino-6-amino-3-methyluracil (AAMU), 1-methylxanthine (1X), and 1-methylurate (1U). The ratio AAMU/(AAMU + 1X + 1U), referred to as molar ratio or N-acetyltransferase, was compared with the ratio AAMU/1X. The results indicated that, for screening purposes, the acetylator phenotype can be determined by analysis of a 6-hour urine sample after a cup of coffee or strong tea or a can of caffeine-containing soft drink. The ratio AAMU/1X is the ratio of choice for the study of subjects in whom variability of xanthine oxidase can be neglected; use of the ratio AAMU/(AAMU + 1X + 1U) appears appropriate for special purposes. Gender, ethnic origin, habitual or moderate consumption of coffee, tea, soft drinks, or ethanol, or cigarette smoking have little if any effect on the caffeine tests for acetylator phenotyping.

Steam generation and photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants based on solar light are regarded as two important strategies for addressing the water scarcity issues. The water evaporation efficiency was greatly inhibited by the high cost, low stability, and low efficiencies of solar light absorption and photothermal conversion of photothermal materials. Moreover, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are easily volatilized and enriched in as-distilled water during the photothermal process. Inspired by the structure of biomass materials in nature, a bifunctional solar light-driven steam generation and VOC removal microreactor was explored by coating commercial TiO 2 (P25) powders on a carbonized biomass waste Flammulina. With the 3D aligned porous carbon architectures, this microreactor exhibited both a high water evaporation rate (37.0 kg m −2 h −1 ) and a high energy conversion efficiency (91.2%) under simulated sunlight irradiation (light intensity = 25.5 kW m −2 ). A high VOC removal rate (80.9% in 40 min) was also achieved during the steam generation process via choosing phenol as the probe pollutant molecules. The nature-inspired designing concept and bifunctional microreactor in this study may open up a new strategy for producing clean distilled water from seawater with an efficient removal of VOCs.

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Exploitation of high-efficiency and low-cost catalysts for dehydrogenation of the ideal hydrogen storage material (ammonia borane) can effectively promote the development of hydrogen economy. Here, we report an efficient and economical non-noble-metal magnetic catalyst (Ni 0.23 Co 0.19 P 0.58 @NHPC900) with nanoparticles uniformly distributed on MOF-derived (metal−organic framework) nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon (NHPC900) by a one-step in situ synthesis method. The catalyst has achieved a superior initial total turnover frequency (TOF) of 125.2 mol H2 •mol cat −1 •min −1 . Based on isotopic analyses and ion effects, we further obtain an unprecedentedly higher TOF of 282.4 mol H2 •mol cat −1•min −1 , the highest among non-noble-metal heterogeneous systems. Through experiments and theoretical studies, we confirm that the highly doped phosphorus component leads to a C−P−Ni−Co quaternary synergy in the catalyst. Then, the induced strong electron transfer and increased partial charge can reduce the reaction energy barrier, strengthen the adsorption of ammonia borane, and ultimately result in superior catalytic performance. The proposed mechanisms and strategies are helpful to develop non-noble-metal catalysts for practical applications of hydrogen energy systems in the future.

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We aimed to investigate the role of the quantitative parameters of dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) in evaluating patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated by transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). We retrospectively identified 80 HCC patients (mean age, 56 years; 61 men) treated by TACE who received contrast-enhanced DECT and were retreated by TACE within 7 days between November 2018 and December 2019. Taking digital subtraction angiography (DSA) and CT images as reference standard, two readers measured and calculated the values of normalized iodine concentration at arterial phase (NICAP), normalized iodine concentration at portal venous phase (NICPP), iodine concentration difference (ICD), arterial iodine fraction (AIF) and slope of the spectral Hounsfield unit curve (λHu) by placing matched regions of interests (ROIs) within the tumor active area (TAA), adjacent normal hepatic parenchyma (ANHP) and tumor necrotic area (TNA). Differences between the parameters were analyzed by the Kruskal–Wallis H test. Receiver operating characteristic analysis of the parameters performance in differentiating the three tissues types was performed. AIF exhibited a good performance in distinguishing TAA (0.93 ± 0.31) and ANHP (0.18 ± 0.14), the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was 0.989, while the λHu exhibited an excellent performance in distinguishing TAA (3.32 ± 1.24) and TNA (0.29 ± 0.27), with an AUC of 1.000. In conclusion, quantitative DECT can be effectively used to evaluate the tumor viability in HCC patients treated by TACE.