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Cement is one of the mostly used construction materials due to its high durability and low cost, but it suffers from brittle fracture and facile crack initiation. This article describes the use of naturally-derived renewable cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) to reinforce cement. The effects of CNFs on the mechanical properties, degree of hydration (DOH), and microstructure of cement pastes have been studied. It is found that an addition of 0.15% by weight of CNFs leads to a 15% and 20% increase in the flexural and compressive strengths of cement paste. The enhancement in mechanical strength is attributed to high DOH and dense microstructure of cement pastes after adding CNFs.

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Saponin 1 is a triterpeniod saponin extracted from Anemone taipaiensis, a traditional Chinese medicine against rheumatism and phlebitis. It has also been shown to exhibit significant anti-tumor activity against human leukemia (HL-60 cells) and human hepatocellular carcinoma (Hep-G2 cells). Herein we investigated the effect of saponin 1 in human glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) U251MG and U87MG cells. Saponin 1 induced significant growth inhibition in both glioblastoma cell lines, with a 50% inhibitory concentration at 24 h of 7.4 µg/ml in U251MG cells and 8.6 µg/ml in U87MG cells, respectively. Nuclear fluorescent staining and electron microscopy showed that saponin 1 caused characteristic apoptotic morphological changes in the GBM cell lines. Saponin 1-induced apoptosis was also verified by DNA ladder electrophoresis and flow cytometry. Additionally, immunocytochemistry and western blotting analyses revealed a time-dependent decrease in the expression and nuclear location of NF-κB following saponin 1 treatment. Western blotting data indicated a significant decreased expression of inhibitors of apoptosis (IAP) family members,(e.g., survivin and XIAP) by saponin 1. Moreover, saponin 1 caused a decrease in the Bcl-2/Bax ratio and initiated apoptosis by activating caspase-9 and caspase-3 in the GBM cell lines. These findings indicate that saponin 1 inhibits cell growth of GBM cells at least partially by inducing apoptosis and inhibiting survival signaling mediated by NF-κB. In addition, in vivo study also demonstrated an obvious inhibition of saponin 1 treatment on the tumor growth of U251MG and U87MG cells-produced xenograft tumors in nude mice. Given the minimal toxicities of saponin 1 in non-neoplastic astrocytes, our results suggest that saponin 1 exhibits significant in vitro and in vivo anti-tumor efficacy and merits further investigation as a potential therapeutic agent for GBM.

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It is a grand challenge to develop highly-parallel yet energy-efficient machine learning hardware accelerator. This paper introduces a 3D multi-layer CMOS-RRAM accelerator for tensorized neural network (TNN). Highly parallel matrix-vector multiplication can be performed with low power in the proposed 3D multi-layer CMOS-RRAM accelerator. The adoption of tensorization can significantly compress the weight matrix of neural network using much fewer parameters. Simulation results using the benchmark MNIST show that the proposed accelerator has 1.283× speed-up, 4.276× energy-saving and 9.339× area-saving compared to 3D CMOS-ASIC implementation; and 6.37× speedup and 2612× energy-saving compared to 2D CPU implementation. In addition, 14.85× model compression can be achieved by tensorization with acceptable accuracy loss.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is one of the most common malignant brain tumors. Saponin B, a novel compound isolated from the medicinal plant, Anemone taipaiensis, has been found to have a strong time- and dose-dependent cytostatic effect on human glioma cells and to suppress the growth of U87MG GBM cells. In this study, we investigated whether saponin B induces the apoptosis of glioblastoma cells and examined the underlying mechanism(s) of action of saponin B. Saponin B significantly suppressed U87MG cell proliferation. Flow cytometric analysis of DNA in the U87MG cells confirmed that saponin B blocked the cell cycle at the S phase. Furthermore, treatment of the U87MG cells with saponin B induced chromatin condensation and led to the formation of apoptotic bodies, as observed under a fluorescence microscope, and Annexin V/PI assay further suggested that phosphatidylserine (PS) externalization was apparent at higher drug concentrations. Treatment with saponin B activated the receptor-mediated pathway of apoptosis, as western blot analysis revealed the activation of Fas-l. Saponin B increased the Bax and caspase-3 ratio and decreased the protein expression of Bcl-2. The results from the present study demonstrate that the novel compound, saponin B, effectively induces the apoptosis of GBM cells and inhibits glioma cell growth and survival. Therefore, saponin B may be a potential candidate for the development of novel cancer therapeutics with antitumor activity against gliomas.

Herein, high‐performance enhancement‐mode (E‐mode) β‐Ga2O3 metal‐oxide‐semiconductor field‐effect transistors (MOSFETs) are achieved on Si‐doped homoepitaxial films. Oxygen annealing (OA) treatment under the gate region is used to effectively exhaust the channel electron, resulting in the normally off operation of the device. The threshold voltage, defined as that at the drain current of 0.1 mA mm−1, for the fabricated device is extracted to be 4.1 V. Moreover, double source‐connected field plates are used to suppress the peak electric fields in both Ga2O3 channel and SiNx passivation layer. The fabricated β‐Ga2O3 MOSFETs with gate‐to‐drain distance (Lgd) of 17 μm exhibit a record high breakdown voltage over 3000 V. It is shown that the OA treatment is a new way to obtain high‐performance E‐mode β‐Ga2O3 power MOSFETs.