Early transition metal carbides (TMCs) can be used as supports for platinum-group metals as low-cost electrocatalysts. The determination of electrochemical stability of TMCs is important to identify their potential use in electrochemical and photoelectrochemical applications. Various TMC thin films were synthesized and characterized with Xray diffraction and photoelectron spectroscopy. Chronopotentiometrictitration measurements were used to map the stability regions of the TMC thin films over a wide pH range. The stability of the TMC thin films was correlated to the oxygen binding energy of the parent metal. All of the TMCs studied are stable for hydrogen evolution/oxidation; most are stable for alcohol oxidation, and titanium, tantalum, and zirconium carbides are stable for oxygen evolution/reduction reactions.

This study explores how mobile phone-savvy Asian college students use mobile news, especially news posted on mobile-accessible Twitter-like microblogs, to stay informed about current events. Our survey of more than 3500 college students in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan asks why young people turn to mobile phones for news and how the news-getting behavior is related to the level of press freedom in their respective societies. The results show that using mobile phones to read news and follow news posts on mobile-accessible microblogs is rapidly on the rise and significant differences among respondents in the four cities exist; press freedom was found to be negatively related to reading and following news via mobile phones. Finally, the study discusses the role of press freedom in accounting for these societal-level differences.

Objective This current study pursued an exploration of the psychological mechanism that determines college students’ continuance intention to use fitness apps. Methods This current study adopted a mixed methods research that composed two distinct phases. Study 1 was quantitative research that helped to identify determinants of Chinese college students’ continuance intention to use. A self-reported questionnaire was completed by 379 college students to ascertain their user experience. Study 2 was qualitative research. A semi-structured interview was conducted with a sample of 10 college students. Study 2 can be seen as a follow-up study and it pursued an in-depth understanding on how college students use fitness apps in the everyday life and their views towards study 1’s major findings. Results The results revealed that five factors (confirmed usefulness, confirmed ease of use, satisfaction, fitness achievement and social connection) were found to significantly and positively affect college students’ continuous intention to use fitness apps. Entertainment did not show obvious impact. In the interview, college students reported that even if they don’t obtain entertainment from fitness apps, they will still push themselves to use them, because they have a very specific goal when using fitness apps, which is to achieve health and fitness. Conclusion These findings indicated that successful fitness apps should make users feel convenient to use and indeed improves the fitness user’s efficiency. Besides, people are more eager to get the information with strong credibility with the negligible effort. This implies more efforts should be made to design apps that can provide high-quality services. Moreover, if apps designers can pay more attention to protecting the personal information and data, it will inspire more people to use social connection functions.

The study aimed to investigate the expression and significance of the plasma let-7 family in anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis. Blood samples from 5 anti-NMDAR encephalitis patients and 5 negative controls were collected for microarray analysis. Blood samples from10 anti-NMDAR encephalitis patients, 10 anti-NMDAR encephalitis patients whose physical conditions have improved after 3 months of immunotherapy, 20 virus (meningitis) encephalitis patients, 20 tuberculosis (meningitis) encephalitis patients, 10 purulent (meningitis) encephalitis patients, 20 cerebral cysticercosis patients, 20 ischemic stroke patients, 20 intracerebral hemorrhage patients, 15 neuromyelitis optica patients, 15 multiple sclerosis patients, 15 moyamoya disease patients, and 20 negative controls were collected for real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis. The expression levels of let-7a, let-7b, let-7d, and let-7f were significantly down-regulated in anti-NMDAR encephalitis compared with the negative controls (NC). The expression levels of let-7a, let-7d, and let-7f were significantly down-regulated in other nervous system diseases compared with the NC group while the expression level of let-7b was statistically insignificant in other nervous system diseases compared with the NC group. In addition, there was no significant dysregulation of let-7b in the anti-NMDAR encephalitis treatment group compared with the NC. Let-7b may be a potential diagnostic marker and an indicator that reflected the molecular mechanism of anti-NMDAR encephalitis.

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The forced Burgers equation works as a testing ground for a real turbulence, and as the qualitative model for a wide variety of problems including charge density waves, vortex lines in superconductors, disordered solids and epitaxial growth, etc. Its variable-coefficient generalizations call for better modeling of the physical situations. In this paper, we investigate a variable-coefficient generalization of the forced Burgers equation, and obtain several sets of exact soliton-like and other exact analytic solutions, via the extension of a generalized hyperbolic-function method with computerized symbolic computation. We also discuss the Wu method. We find some possibly observable effects, which might be discovered with the relevant experiments.

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