Tysonmonahan9440

Over the past 20 years, important relationships between the microbiota and human health have emerged. A link between alterations of microbiota composition (dysbiosis) and cancer development has been recently demonstrated. In particular, the composition and the oncogenic role of intestinal bacterial flora has been extensively investigated in preclinical and clinical studies focusing on gastrointestinal tumors. SB 204990 mw Overall, the development of gastrointestinal tumors is favored by dysbiosis as it leads to depletion of antitumor substances (e.g., short-chain fatty acids) produced by healthy microbiota. Moreover, dysbiosis leads to alterations of the gut barrier, promotes a chronic inflammatory status through activation of toll-like receptors, and causes metabolic and hormonal dysregulations. However, the effects of these imbalances are not limited to the gastrointestinal tract and they can influence gynecological tumor carcinogenesis as well. The purpose of this Review is to provide a synthetic update about the mechanisms of interaction between gut microbiota and the female reproductive tract favoring the development of neoplasms. Furthermore, novel therapeutic approaches based on the modulation of microbiota and their role in gynecological oncology are discussed.We investigated the relationship between grain boundary (GB) oxidation of Cu-Ag thin-film catalysts and selectivity of the (photo)electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2 RR). The change in the thickness of the Cu thin film accompanies the variation of GB density, and the Ag layer (3 nm) has an island-like morphology on the Cu thin film. Therefore, oxygen from ambient air penetrates into the Cu thin film through the GB of Cu and binds with it because the uncoordinated Cu atoms at the GBs are unstable. It was found that the Cu thin film with a small grain size was susceptible to spontaneous oxidation and degraded the faradaic efficiency (FE) of CO and CH4. However, a relatively thick (≥80 nm) Cu layer was effective in preventing the GB oxidation and realized catalytic properties similar to those of bulk Cu-Ag catalysts. The optimized Cu (100 nm)-Ag (3 nm) thin film exhibited a unique bifunctional characteristic, which enables selective production of both CO (FECO = 79.8%) and CH4 (FECH4 = 59.3%) at a reductive potential of -1.0 and -1.4 VRHE, respectively. Moreover, the Cu-Ag thin film was used as a cocatalyst for photo-electrochemical CO2 reduction by patterning the Cu-Ag thin film and a SiO2 passivation layer on a p-type Si photocathode. This novel architecture improved the selectivity of CO and CH4 under light illumination (100 mW/cm2).GeP3 materials are attracting broad research interest due to their typical puckered layer structure, high carrier mobility, and chemical stability. This peculiarity expedites the independent control of anisotropic electrical and thermal conductance, which is thus expected to possess great thermoelectric potential. Nevertheless, the metal characteristics of GeP3 in the bulk and thick films are adverse to real application because of the low Seebeck coefficient. Thus, it is highly desirable to explore effective solutions to broaden the band gap and also maintain its excellent electrical conductance. Herein, we designed the interlaced GeP3/hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) bulk heterostructure using various component thicknesses. By using ab initio calculations based on the Boltzmann transport theory, we found that capping h-BN layer can obviously increase the band gap of the GeP3 layer by 0.24 eV, and more interestingly, the anisotropic electronic structure in the GeP3/h-BN heterostructure was accordingly modulated toward a favorable direction for high thermoelectricity. An ultrahigh ZT value of around 5 was predicted at 300 K in p-type GeP3/h-BN, attributed to the adjusted multivalley band structure. Overall, our work provided an effective route to design novel high-performance thermoelectrics through the appropriate construction of heterostructures.One of the primary factors limiting further research and commercial use of the two-dimensional (2D) titanium carbide MXene Ti3C2, as well as MXenes in general, is the rate at which freshly made samples oxidize and degrade when stored as aqueous suspensions. Here, we show that including excess aluminum during synthesis of the Ti3AlC2 MAX phase precursor leads to Ti3AlC2 grains with improved crystallinity and carbon stoichiometry (termed Al-Ti3AlC2). MXene nanosheets (Al-Ti3C2) produced from this precursor are of higher quality, as evidenced by their increased resistance to oxidation and an increase in their electronic conductivity up to 20 000 S/cm. Aqueous suspensions of stoichiometric single- to few-layer Al-Ti3C2 flakes produced from the modified Al-Ti3AlC2 have a shelf life of over ten months, compared to 1 to 2 weeks for previously published Ti3C2, even when stored in ambient conditions. Freestanding films made from Al-Ti3C2 suspensions stored for ten months show minimal decreases in electrical conductivity and negligible oxidation. Furthermore, oxidation of the improved Al-Ti3C2 in air initiates at temperatures that are 100-150 °C higher than that of conventional Ti3C2. The observed improvements in both the shelf life and properties of Al-Ti3C2 will facilitate the widespread use of this material.Safe storage and transportation of H2 is a fundamental requirement for its wide applications in the future. Controllable release of high-purity H2 from a stable storage medium such as CH3OH before use offers an efficient way of achieving this purpose. In our case, Cu nanoclusters uniformly dispersed onto (001) surfaces of TiO2 nanosheets (TiO2/Cu) are selectively prepared by thermal treatment of HKUST-1 loaded TiO2 nanosheets. One of the TiO2/Cu composites, TiO2/Cu_50, exhibits remarkably high activity toward the selective dehydrogenation of CH3OH to HCHO with a H2 evolution rate of 17.8 mmol h-1 per gram of catalyst within a 16-h photocatalytic reaction (quantum efficiency at 365 nm 16.4%). Theoretical calculations reveal that interactions of Cu nanoclusters with TiO2 could affect their electronic structures, leading to higher adsorption energy of CH3OH at Ti sites and a lower barrier for the dehydrogenation of CH3OH by the synergistic effect of Cu nanoclusters and TiO2, and lower Gibbs free energy for desorption HCHO and H2 as well.