Jiaming Zhang

Neuromorphic computers comprised of artificial neurons and synapses could provide a more efficient approach to implementing neural network algorithms than traditional hardware. Recently, artificial neurons based on memristors have been developed, but with limited bio-realistic dynamics and no direct interaction with the artificial synapses in an integrated network. Here we show that a diffusive memristor based on silver nanoparticles in a dielectric film can be used to create an artificial neuron with stochastic leaky integrate-and-fire dynamics and tunable integration time, which is determined by silver migration alone or its interaction with circuit capacitance. We integrate these neurons with nonvolatile memristive synapses to build fully memristive artificial neural networks. With these integrated networks, we experimentally demonstrate unsupervised synaptic weight updating and pattern classification. Leaky integrate-and-fire artificial neurons based on diffusive memristors enable unsupervised weight updates of drift-memristor synapses in an integrated convolutional neural network capable of pattern recognition.

A novel Ag/oxide-based threshold switching device with attractive features including ≈1010 nonlinearity is developed. High-resolution transmission electron microscopic analysis of the nanoscale crosspoint device suggests that elongation of an Ag nanoparticle under voltage bias followed by spontaneous reformation of a more spherical shape after power off is responsible for the observed threshold switching.

For early cancer diagnosis and treatment, a nanocarrier system is designed and developed with key components uniquely structured at nanoscale according to medical requirements. For imaging, quantum dots with emissions in the near-infrared range (∼800 nm) are conjugated onto the surface of a nanocomposite consisting of a spherical polystyrene matrix (∼150 nm) and the internally embedded, high fraction of superparamagnetic Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles (∼10 nm). For drug storage, the chemotherapeutic agent paclitaxel (PTX) is loaded onto the surfaces of these composite multifunctional nanocarriers by using a layer of biodegradable poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA). A cell-based cytotoxicity assay is employed to verify successful loading of pharmacologically active drug. Cell viability of human, metastatic PC3mm2 prostate cancer cells is assessed in the presence and absence of various multifunctional nanocarrier populations using the MTT assay. PTX-loaded composite nanocarriers are synthesized by conjugating anti-prostate specific membrane antigen (anti-PSMA) for targeting. Specific detection studies of anti-PSMA-conjugated nanocarrier binding activity in LNCaP prostate cancer cells are carried out. LNCaP cells are targeted successfully in vitro by the conjugation of anti-PSMA on the nanocarrier surfaces. To further explore targeting, the nanocarriers conjugated with anti-PSMA are intravenously injected into tumor-bearing nude mice. Substantial differences in fluorescent signals are observed ex vivo between tumor regions treated with the targeted nanocarrier system and the nontargeted nanocarrier system, indicating considerable targeting effects due to anti-PSMA functionalization of the nanocarriers.

The combination of persulfates (peroxydisulfate (PDS) and peroxymonosulfate (PMS)) and electrolysis using boron-doped diamond (BDD) anode is a promising green advanced oxidation process. In comparison with electrolysis alone, electrochemical activation of persulfates at BDD anode considerably enhanced the degradation of carbamazepine (CBZ). The experimental results indicate that the surface-adsorbed hydroxyl radical (HO) played the dominant role. The generally proposed nonradical oxidation mechanism ignored hydroxyl radical (HO) oxidation because low concentration of radical scavenger (<10 M methanol or 5 M tertbutanol) could not effectively scavenge the surface-adsorbed HO. The quasi steady-state concentration of HO was estimated to be about 5.0–9.1 × 10−12 M for electrolysis with BDD anode, and it was increased to 1.1–1.6 × 10−11 M and 3.2–5.0 × 10−11 M for addition of 5 mM PDS and PMS, respectively. The results of cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry as well as evolution of dissolved oxygen (DO) reveal that the electrochemically activated persulfates molecule (PDS∗/PMS∗) promoted the production of HO via water dissociation at BDD anode and enhanced the direct electron transfer (DET) reaction, which otherwise inhibited the oxygen evolution side reaction. Therefore, higher current efficiency was achieved in electrochemical activation of persulfates process compared with electrolysis process. Additionally, the transformation products of CBZ were also investigated and their formation pathways were proposed.

A multifaceted coating for hard tissue implants, with favorable osteogenesis, angiogenesis, and osteoimmunomodulation abilities, would be of great value since it could improve osseointegration and alleviate prosthesis loosening. However, to date there are few coatings that fully satisfy these criteria. Herein we describe a microporous TiO2 coating decorated with hydroxyapatite (HA) nanoparticles that is generated by micro-arc oxidation of pure titanium (Ti) and followed annealing. By altering the annealing temperature, it is possible to simultaneously tune the coating's physical (morphology and wettability) and chemical (composites and crystallinity) properties. A coating produced with micro-arc oxidization (MAO) with an annealing temperature of 650 °C (MAO-650) exhibits numerous favorable physicochemical properties, such as hybrid micro-nano morphology, superhydrophilicity, and highly crystalline HA nanoparticles. In vitro experiments reveal that the MAO-650 coating not only supports proliferation and differentiation of both osteoblasts and endothelial cells, but also inhibits the inflammatory response of macrophages and enables a favorable osteoimmunomodulation to facilitate osteo/angio-genesis. In vivo evaluation mirrors these results, and shows that the MAO-650 coating results in ameliorative osseointegration when compared with the pristine MAO coating. These data highlight the profound effect of surface physicochemical properties on the regulation of osteo/angio-genesis and osteoimmunomodulation in the enhancement of osseointegration.

Cassava is a major tropical food crop in the Euphorbiaceae family that has high carbohydrate production potential and adaptability to diverse environments. Here we present the draft genome sequences of a wild ancestor and a domesticated variety of cassava and comparative analyses with a partial inbred line. We identify 1,584 and 1,678 gene models specific to the wild and domesticated varieties, respectively, and discover high heterozygosity and millions of single-nucleotide variations. Our analyses reveal that genes involved in photosynthesis, starch accumulation and abiotic stresses have been positively selected, whereas those involved in cell wall biosynthesis and secondary metabolism, including cyanogenic glucoside formation, have been negatively selected in the cultivated varieties, reflecting the result of natural selection and domestication. Differences in microRNA genes and retrotransposon regulation could partly explain an increased carbon flux towards starch accumulation and reduced cyanogenic glucoside accumulation in domesticated cassava. These results may contribute to genetic improvement of cassava through better understanding of its biology.

Experimental demonstration of resistive neural networks has been the recent focus of hardware implementation of neuromorphic computing. Capacitive neural networks, which call for novel building blocks, provide an alternative physical embodiment of neural networks featuring a lower static power and a better emulation of neural functionalities. Here, we develop neuro-transistors by integrating dynamic pseudo-memcapacitors as the gates of transistors to produce electronic analogs of the soma and axon of a neuron, with "leaky integrate-and-fire" dynamics augmented by a signal gain on the output. Paired with non-volatile pseudo-memcapacitive synapses, a Hebbian-like learning mechanism is implemented in a capacitive switching network, leading to the observed associative learning. A prototypical fully integrated capacitive neural network is built and used to classify inputs of signals.

Electrochemical activation of peroxydisulfate (PDS) at Ti/Pt anode was systematically investigated for the first time in this work. The synergistic effect produced from the combination of electrolysis and the addition of PDS demonstrates that PDS can be activated at Ti/Pt anode. The selective oxidation towards carbamazepine (CBZ), sulfamethoxazole (SMX), propranolol (PPL), benzoic acid (BA) rather than atrazine (ATZ) and nitrobenzene (NB) was observed in electrochemical activation of PDS process. Moreover, addition of excess methanol or tert-butanol had negligible impact on CBZ (model compound) degradation, demonstrating that neither sulfate radical (SO4-) nor hydroxyl radical (HO) was produced in electrochemical activation of PDS process. Direct oxidation (PDS oxidation alone and electrolysis) and nonradical oxidation were responsible for the degradation of contaminants. The results of linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and chronoamperometry suggest that electric discharge may integrate PDS molecule with anode surface into a unique transition state structure, which is responsible for the nonradical oxidation in electrochemical activation of PDS process. Adjustment of the solution pH from 1.0 to 7.0 had negligible effect on CBZ degradation. Increase of either PDS concentration or current density facilitated the degradation of CBZ. The presence of chloride ion (Cl-) significantly enhanced CBZ degradation, while addition of bicarbonate (HCO3-), phosphate (PO43-) and humic acid (HA) all inhibited CBZ degradation with the order of HA >> HCO3- > PO43-. The degradation products of CBZ and chlorinated products were also identified. Electrochemical activation of PDS at Ti/Pt anode may serve as a novel technology for selective oxidation of organic contaminants in water and soil.

Folic acid (FA) and doxorubicin (DOX) are coupled separately onto Fe3 O4 @SiO2 and polystyrene surfaces of a unique polystyrene/Fe3 O4 @SiO2 Janus structure. This super-paramagnetic, dual-functionalized Janus nanocomposite enables effective tumor cell targeting and internalization via the folate receptor, and induces significant cancer cell death by controlled, stimulus-induced drug release under acidic conditions in endosomal compartments.

Sonodynamic therapy is considered as a minimally invasive method for pathogen elimination and cancer therapy with high spatial and temporal accuracy. However, sonosensitizers with good biocompatibility and high efficiency are still urgently needed. Herein, we have developed a piezoelectric nanocomposite, barium titanate (BaTiO3, BTO) nanocubes with Schottky junction modified by Au nanoparticles ([email protected]) as a new kind of sonosensitizer for high-efficient sonodynamic therapy. Ultrasound as an exogenous mechanical wave can trigger the piezotronic effect of [email protected] to facilitate the separation and migration of charge carriers at the piezoelectric/metal interface, which further effectively increases reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation via redox reaction. Due to the high ROS generation efficiency, [email protected] as the sonosensitizer shows a high antibacterial efficiency against representative Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. Furthermore, the in vitro and in vivo results illustrate that the sonodynamic process also promotes fibroblast migration, which contributes to dermal wound healing in mice. The proposed piezoelectric nanocomposite as a new kind of sonosensitizer has great potential for sonodynamic therapy.

The design of application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) is at the core of modern ultra-high-speed transponders employing advanced digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms. This manuscript discusses the motivations for jointly utilizing transmission techniques such as probabilistic shaping and digital sub-carrier multiplexing in digital coherent optical transmissions systems. First, we describe the key-building blocks of modern high-speed DSP-based transponders working at up to 800G per wave. Second, we show the benefits of these transmission methods in terms of system level performance. Finally, we report, to the best of our knowledge, the first long-haul experimental transmission – e.g., over 1000 km – with a real-time 7 nm DSP ASIC and digital coherent optics (DCO) capable of data rates up to 1.6 Tb/s using two waves (2 × 800G).

A Pt/NbOx/TiOy/NbOx/TiN stack integrated on a 30 nm contact via shows a programming current as low as 10 nA and 1 pA for the set and reset switching, respectively, and a self-rectifying ratio as high as ∼105, which are suitable characteristics for low-power memristor applications. It also shows a forming-free characteristic. A charge-trap-associated switching model is proposed to account for this self-rectifying memrisive behavior. In addition, an asymmetric voltage scheme (AVS) to decrease the write power consumption by utilizing this self-rectifying memristor is also described. When the device is used in a 1000 × 1000 crossbar array with the AVS, the programming power can be decreased to 8.0% of the power consumption of a conventional biasing scheme. If the AVS is combined with a nonlinear selector, a power consumption reduction to 0.31% of the reference value is possible.

A number of important commercial applications would benefit from the introduction of easily manufactured devices that exhibit current-controlled, or “S-type,” negative differential resistance (NDR). A leading example is emerging non-volatile memory based on crossbar array architectures. Due to the inherently linear current vs. voltage characteristics of candidate non-volatile memristor memory elements, individual memory cells in these crossbar arrays can be addressed only if a highly non-linear circuit element, termed a “selector,” is incorporated in the cell. Selectors based on a layer of niobium oxide sandwiched between two electrodes have been investigated by a number of groups because the NDR they exhibit provides a promisingly large non-linearity. We have developed a highly accurate compact dynamical model for their electrical conduction that shows that the NDR in these devices results from a thermal feedback mechanism. A series of electrothermal measurements and numerical simulations corroborate this model. These results reveal that the leakage currents can be minimized by thermally isolating the selector or by incorporating materials with larger activation energies for electron motion.

In this work, a novel advanced oxidation process (AOP) by the combination of ferrate (Fe(VI)) and sulfite for the treatment of recalcitrant contaminants was proposed and verified by experiments. The results showed that sulfite could significantly enhance the transformation of an emerging contaminant N,N-diethyl-3-toluamide (DEET) (a widely used insect repellent) by Fe(VI) (e.g., ∼78% of DEET lost within 10 s), whereas DEET showed negligible reactivity with Fe(VI) alone. Sulfate radical (SO4−) was demonstrated to be the primary active species in the Fe(VI)/sulfite system based on the radical scavenging experiments and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) experiments. The reaction pathway involving hydroxylation, de-alkylation, and alkylic-oxidation was proposed on the basis of the detected products. The degradation efficiency of DEET in the Fe(VI)/sulfite system was closely related to dosages of sulfite and Fe(VI), the initial concentration of DEET, and solution pH. The presence of humic acid (HA), Cl− and HCO3−/CO32− distinctly inhibited the transformation of DEET due to their quenching effect on SO4−. The effectiveness of DEET removal in real waters by a combined use of Fe(VI) and sulfite was also confirmed.

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder. Although the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease is not entirely clear, the aberrant aggregation of α-synuclein has long been considered as an important risk factor. Elucidating the mechanisms that influence the aggregation of α-synuclein is essential for developing an effective diagnostic, preventative and therapeutic strategy to treat this devastating disease. The aggregation of α-synuclein is influenced by several post-translational modifications. Here, we summarized the major post-translational modifications (phosphorylation, ubiquitination, truncation, nitration, O-GlcNAcylation) of α-synuclein and the effect of these modifications on α-synuclein aggregation, which may provide potential targets for future therapeutics.

In this study, we attempt to enhance the permeability, biofouling resistance, and long-term stability of thin-film composite (TFC) nanofiltration membrane by tailoring the substrate membrane. Firstly, an imidazole-modified carboxylated graphene oxide (Im-CGO) with improved antibacterial property was synthesized. Next, the imidazole-modified carboxylated graphene oxide/polyethersulfone (Im-CGO/PES) ultrafiltration membrane was fabricated, and the corresponding TFC nanofiltration membrane was obtained based on the Im-CGO/PES substrate by interfacial polymerization. The pore structures, surface hydrophilicity, and permeability of Im-CGO/PES substrate membrane are improved by the introduction of membrane modifier (Im-CGO). Significantly, the water permeability of Im-CGO/PES based TFC membrane is greatly enhanced. The pure water flux of NF-0.5 membrane is 69.8 L m-2 h-1 at 0.6 MPa, and which is 80.8% higher than that of NF-0 membrane. The corresponding anti-biofouling test results suggest that Im-CGO/PES based TFC membrane possesses good anti-biofouling performance owing to the great increased surface hydrophilicity and a large number of antibacterial imidazole groups in substrate membrane. Furthermore, the long-term stability of Im-CGO/PES based TFC membrane is also enhanced compared to the PES based TFC membrane, attributing to the covalent connection between polyamide layer and Im-CGO/PES substrate.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) production efficiencies of the nanocatalysts are highly desired for cancer therapy, but currently the ROS generation efficiency is still far from defecting the tumors. Therefore, improving their ROS generation ability is highly desirable for cancer therapy. Herein, inspired by the electrostatic preorganization effect during the catalysis of natural protein enzymes, a human self-driven catalysis-promoting system, TENG-CatSystem is developed, to improve catalytic cancer therapy. The TENG-CatSystem is mainly composed of three elements: a human self-driven triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) as the electric field stimulator to provide electric pulses with high biosafety, a nanozyme comprising a 1D ferriporphyrin covalent organic framework coated on a carbon nanotube (COF-CNT) to generate ROS, and a COF-CNT-embedded conductive hydrogel that can be injected into the tumor tissues to increase local accumulation of COF-CNT and decrease the electrical impedances of tissues. Under the human self-generated electric field provided by the wearable TENG, the peroxidase-like activity of the COF-CNT is fourfold higher than that without an electric field. Highly malignant 4T1 breast carcinoma in mice is significantly suppressed using the TENG-CatSystem. The human self-driven TENG-CatSystem not only demonstrates high catalytic ROS generation efficiency for improved cancer therapy, but also offers a new therapeutic mode for self-driven at-home therapy.

Constructing heterojunction photocatalysts has been proven as an ingenious tactic to adjust the lifetimes of the higher redox-active charge-carriers toward highly-efficient photocatalytic applications. Numerous recent efforts focused on the short-range spatial separation of charge-carriers in the heterojunction photocatalysts. However, engineering a long-range transfer channel in the well-designed heterojunction photocatalyst to further spatially separate the charge-carriers is still a huge challenge. In this contribution, we developed a facile photo-assisted self-assembly strategy to synthesize the all 2D-layered heterojunction photocatalysts of SnS2/RGO/g-C3N4 nanosheets (NSs). During the synthesis process, the precursor of 2D graphene-oxide (GO) NSs was converted into the reduced GO (RGO) NSs by the photoactive semiconductors of 2D SnS2 and g-C3N4 NSs. Meanwhile, the above two 2D semiconductors were simultaneously anchored onto the surface of the RGO NSs. Upon visible-light irradiation of the synthesized SnS2/RGO/g-C3N4 NSs, the 2D RGO component could provide a broad electron-transfer surface for the long-range spatial-separation of charge-carriers in the semiconductor components of the NSs. Thus, this all 2D-layered heterojunction photocatalyst exhibited ∼ 9.2 and ∼ 4.6-fold enhancement on the photocatalytic oxidation degradation of the organic dye, and ∼ 68 and ∼ 3.4-fold enhancement on photocatalytic protons reduction as compared to the pure SnS2 and g-C3N4 NSs, respectively.

Crystal plane effect has attracted remarkable attention in the process of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation in water. In this work, nanocube-Co3O4 (Co3O4-NC), nanoplate-Co3O4 (Co3O4-NP) and nanorod-like Co3O4 (Co3O4-NR) with (100), (111) and (110) plane predominant exposure is prepared by a facile hydrothermal method. Co3O4-NR with (110) plane exposed possesses more lattice defects (oxygen vacancies, Ov) and low oxidation state Co (Co2+), consequently, it exhibits a superior activity for PMS activation to efficiently remove bisphenol A (BPA) in water. Furthermore, it could be used in a widely water pH values ranging from 5.0 to 9.0 with an excellent PMS activited effects. During Co3O4-NR/PMS oxidation process, it is found that singlet oxygen (1O2) plays a dominant role in BPA degradation. However, Co3O4-NR treated by H2O2 shows a poor PMS activation performance, confirming Ov acting as the active site during such oxidation process. The important effect of dissolved oxygen is tested by Ar introduction into the reaction system and the Ov-O* metastable intermediate is proposed. In situ Raman proves the interaction between dissolved oxygen and Ov and then the intermediate activates PMS to degrade BPA. This work not only explores the effect of different crystal plane exposures on PMS activation in Co3O4/PMS system, but investigates the evolution of Ov during the PMS activation.

To enhance the anti-fouling performance of ultrafiltration (UF) membrane, a novel zwitterionic poly(aryl ether oxadiazole) containing benzimidazole (ZB-PAEO) was synthesized through a two-step process consisting of low-temperature polycondensation and quaternization, which contains two pairs of zwitterionic groups in one polymerization unit and the anti-bacterial imidazole groups. A series of ZB-PAEO membranes with different ZB-PAEO contents were fabricated by the phase inversion process, and their microstructure and performances were tested and characterized. The introduction of carboxymethyl imidazolium groups enhanced the membrane hydrophilicity, substantially strengthening the anti-fouling property and reducing irreversible fouling. Likewise, ZB-PAEO membranes exhibited outstanding anti-biofouling property due to the strong hydration shell formed by the combination of two pairs of zwitterions in a repeating unit with abundant water molecules and the anti-biofouling resistance of the carboxymethyl imidazolium groups. This zwitterionic modification method can be readily extended to various materials and membrane systems to upgrade the anti-fouling property and water permeability.

Osteocytes play a critical role in maintaining bone homeostasis and in regulating skeletal response to hormones and mechanical loading. Substantial evidence have demonstrated that osteocytes and their lacunae exhibit morphological changes in aged bone, indicating the underlying involvement of osteocytes in bone aging. Notably, recent studies have deciphered aged osteocytes to have characteristics such as impaired mechanosensitivity, accumulated cellular senescence, dysfunctional perilacunar/canalicular remodeling, and degenerated lacuna-canalicular network. However, detailed molecular mechanisms of osteocytes remain unclear. Nonetheless, osteocyte transcriptomes analyzed via advanced RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) techniques have identified several bone aging-related genes and signaling pathways, such as Wnt, Bmp/TGF, and Jak-STAT. Moreover, inflammation, immune dysfunction, energy shortage, and impaired hormone responses possibly affect osteocytes in age-related bone deterioration. In this review, we summarize the hallmarks of aging bone and osteocytes and discuss osteocytic mechanisms in age-related bone loss and impaired bone quality. Furthermore, we provide insights into the challenges faced and their possible solutions when investigating osteocyte transcriptomes. We also highlight that single-cell RNA-seq can decode transcriptomic messages in aged osteocytes; therefore, this technique can promote novel single cell-based investigations in osteocytes once a well-established standardized protocol specific for osteocytes is developed. Interestingly, improved understanding of osteocytic mechanisms have helped identify promising targets and effective therapies for aging-related osteoporosis and fragile fractures.

Polymer solid-state electrolyte (SSE) still confronts low room-temperature ionic conductivity for broad application in solid-state batteries. Herein, an eye-catching polymer-in-salt PVDF-HFP/LiFSI/LLZTO composite SSE with ultrahigh ionic conductivity is elaborately designed. In this electrolyte system, poly (vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) matrix provides the electrolyte well mechanical property and Li salt solubility, high content of lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl) imide (LiFSI) with low dissociation energy contributes to extra Li+ hopping transmission path, and Li6.4La3Zr1.4Ta0.6O12 (LLZTO) filler endows the SSE enhanced electrochemical stability. As a consequence, this polymer-in-salt composite SSE exhibits an ionic conductivity of 1.67 × 10−3 S cm−1 and superior critical current density (CCD) of 3.2 mA cm−2 at room temperature (25 °C). Moreover, Li||Li symmetric battery holds uniform polarization over 240 h at 0.3 mA cm−2 and 0.3 mAh cm−2. And Li||LiFePO4 full cell exhibited a high capacity retention ratio of 97.2% with Coulombic efficiency of 99.75% after 300 cycles.

The commercialization of high-voltage lithium (Li) metal batteries (LMBs) has been severely hindered due to the lack of advanced electrolytes that can simultaneously support a stable lithium metal anode (LMA) and high-voltage cathode (>4 V vs Li+/Li). Here, we propose a tetrahydropyran (THP)-based weakly solvating electrolyte (WSE) to regulate Li+ solvation structures and interfacial behaviors. The anion-rich Li+ solvation in THP-based WSE effectively promotes the formation of inorganic-rich solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layers, firm cathode electrolyte interphase (CEI) films, and protective passivation films on an Al current collector. The optimized interfacial behaviors contribute to the highly compact Li deposition, high-voltage stability, and inhibition of transition metal ion dissolution and Al corrosion. Finally, the Li||LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2 full cell delivered stable cycling performance at high cutoff voltages of 4.3 and even 4.5 V. This study demonstrates an exciting approach to enable ether-based electrolytes for high-voltage LMBs and could be developed for other battery systems.

Constructing a stable artificial solid-electrolyte interphase has become one of the most effective strategies to overcome the poor reversibility of lithium metal anode, yet the protection role is still insufficient at elevated current densities over 10 mA cm-2 and large areal capacities over 10 mAh cm-2. Herein, we propose a dynamic gel with reversible imine groups, which is prepared via a cross linking reaction between flexible dibenzaldehyde-terminated telechelic poly(ethylene glycol) and rigid chitosan, to fabricate a protective layer for Li metal anode. The as-prepared artificial film shows combined merits of high Young's modulus, strong ductility and high ionic conductivity. When the artificial film is fabricated on a lithium metal anode, the thin protective layer shows a dense and uniform surface owing to the interactions between the abundant polar groups and lithium metal. Besides, the polar groups in the artificial film can homogenize the distribution of Li+ at the electrode/electrolyte interface. As a result, cycle stability over 3200 h under an areal capacity of 10 mAh cm-2 and a current density of 10 mA cm-2 has been obtained for the protected lithium metal anodes. Moreover, cycling stability and rate capability has been also improved in the full cells.

In this work, a neural-networks (NNs)-based adaptive asymptotic tracking control scheme is presented for a class of uncertain nonstrict feedback nonlinear systems with time-varying full-state constraints. First, we construct a novel exponentially decaying nonlinear mapping to map the constrained system states to new system states without constraints. Instead of the traditional barrier Lyapunov function methods, the feasible conditions which require the virtual control signals satisfying the constraint requirements are removed. By employing the Nussbaum design method to eliminate the effect of unknown control gains, the general assumption about the signs of the unknown control gains is relaxed. Then, the nonstrict feedback form of the system can be pulled back to the strict feedback form through the basic properties of radial basis function NNs. Simultaneously, the intermediate control signals and the desired controller are constructed by the backstepping process and the Nussbaum design method. The designed controller can ensure that all signals in the whole closed-loop system are bounded without the violation of the constraints and hold the asymptotic tracking performance. In the end, a practical example about a brush dc motor driving a one-link robot manipulator is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design scheme.

Abstract Multi‐celled corrugated‐plate CFST walls (MC‐CFST walls) are innovative composite members for load bearing and energy dissipation. The corrugated steel plates effectively enhance the confinement capacity of the infilled concrete and reduce steel consumption. In this study, the seismic behavior of MC‐CFST walls was investigated through experimental, numerical, and theoretical analyses. Eight specimens were designed considering different key parameters, including the width and depth of the corrugated cell, the amplitude of the corrugated steel plate, and the type of boundary columns. These specimens were tested under axial compression and horizontal cyclic loading. The test results indicated that MC‐CFST walls exhibited excellent energy dissipation capacity and ductility. Specimens with boundary columns exhibited shear failure modes, while those without boundary columns exhibited flexural failure modes. Increasing the width of the corrugated cell or reducing the effective depth of the composite wall had a significant negative impact on its seismic performance. Subsequently, the finite element (FE) model was established and verified against experimental results. Finally, based on the full‐sectional plasticity assumption and the superposition principle, theoretical formulas for predicting the compression‐bending and shear capacities of MC‐CFST walls were proposed and validated against experimental data. The results showed that both theoretical formulas could effectively and accurately predict the shear resistance of MC‐CFST walls, providing valuable references for practical designs.

This article reviews recent research on swift heavy-ion irradiations and high-pressure studies on pyrochlores of the Gd2Zr2−xTixO7 binary [1], [2], [3], [4]. Applying three complementary analytical techniques (synchrotron X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy) allowed for the investigation of the response of pyrochlore to irradiation and/or pressure. The chemical composition of pyrochlore has a strong effect on the character and energetics of the type of structural modifications that can be obtained under pressure or irradiation: For Ti-rich pyrochlores, the crystalline-to-amorphous transition is the dominant process. When Zr is substituted for Ti, an order–disorder transformation to the defect-fluorite structure becomes the increasingly dominant process. Except for Gd2Zr2O7, single ion tracks in pyrochlore consist of an amorphous core, surrounded by a crystalline, but disordered, defect-fluorite shell. This shell is surrounded by a defect-rich pyrochlore region. In contrast to similar effects observed when pressure or irradiation are applied separately, the response of the pyrochlore structure is significantly different when it is exposed simultaneously to pressure and irradiation. The combination of relativistic heavy ions with high pressure results in the formation of a new metastable pyrochlore phase. TEM and quantum–mechanical calculations suggest that these novel structural modifications are caused by the formation of nanocrystals and the modified energetics of nanomaterials.

Cassava ranks fifth among crops in global starch production. It is used as staple food in many tropical countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. In (the) People's Republic of China, although not yet a staple food, cassava is of major economic importance for starch for a large area of southern (the) PRC, especially in the provinces of Guangdong, Guanxi, Yunnan and Hainan. Recently, cassava-derived bioethanol production has been increasing due to its economic benefits compared to other bioethanol-producing crops in the country. We discuss here the possible potentials of cassava for bioethanol production.

A 10-week feeding trial in seawater floating cages (1.5 × 1.5 × 2.0 m) was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary canola meal (CM) levels on growth, survival, digestion and selected immune parameters of Japanese seabass (initial average weight 8.3 ± 0.15 g). Six isonitrogenous (crude protein 43%) and isoenergetic (20 kJg−1) practical diets were formulated by replacing 0 (the control), 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50% of protein from fish meal with CM. Each diet was randomly fed to triplicate groups of fish, and each cage was stocked with 20 fish. Fish were fed twice daily (06:30 and 16:30) to apparent satiation. The results showed that with increasing dietary CM levels, the survival, specific growth rate (SGR) and feed efficiency (FE) decreased. The survival was significantly lower compared to the control group (P < 0.05) with a 40% substitution level. Fish fed the diet with 20% or more protein from CM had significantly lower SGR than the control group (P < 0.05), but there was no significant difference in FE at this level (P > 0.05). The activities of digestive enzymes and apparent digestibility coefficients of dry matter, protein, lipid and phosphorus significantly decreased with increasing dietary CM level. A similar trend was observed in the immune response where lysozyme activity significantly decreased compared with the control group when the substitution level was more than 20%. Results of the present study indicated that protein from CM could substitute less than 20% for fish meal protein without influencing the growth of Japanese seabass. The higher substitution levels of CM induced negative influences on growth, survival and serum lysozyme of Japanese seabass.

Photoluminescence (PL) of Fe3O4 nanoparticle was observed from the visible to near-infrared (NIR) range by laser irradiation at 407 nm. PL spectra of ∼10 nm diameter Fe3O4 nanoparticles organized in different spatial configuration, showed characteristic emissions with a major peak near 560 nm, and two weak peaks near 690 nm and 840 nm. Different band gap energies were determined for these Fe3O4 nanoparticle samples corresponding to, respectively, the electron band structures of the octahedral site (2.2 eV) and the tetrahedral site (0.9 eV). Photothermal effect of Fe3O4 nanoparticles was found to be associated with the photoluminescence emissions in the NIR range. Also discussed is the mechanism responsible for the photothermal effect of Fe3O4 nanoparticles in medical therapy.

Swift xenon ions (1.43 GeV) were used to systematically investigate the radiation response of pyrochlores in the ${\text{Gd}}_{2}{\text{Zr}}_{2\ensuremath{-}x}{\text{Ti}}_{x}{\text{O}}_{7}$ binary in the electronic energy loss regime. Ion-induced structural modifications were characterized by synchrotron x-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The structure of ion tracks depends on the pyrochlore composition, and the damage cross section increases with the Ti content. In general, single ion tracks consist of an amorphous track core, surrounded by a crystalline, but disordered, defect-fluorite-structured shell. That is in turn surrounded by a defect-rich pyrochlore region. The decrease in the size of these different track zones, with increasing Zr content, is a result of the enhanced radiation stability of Zr-rich pyrochlore within individual swift heavy ion tracks.

In this work, the effect of nanoparticle confinement on the magnetic relaxation of iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles (NP) was investigated by measuring the hyperthermia heating behavior in high frequency alternating magnetic field. Three different Fe3O4 nanoparticle systems having distinct nanoparticle configurations were studied in terms of magnetic hyperthermia heating rate and DC magnetization. All magnetic nanoparticle (MNP) systems were constructed using equivalent ~10nm diameter NP that were structured differently in terms of configuration, physical confinement, and interparticle spacing. The spatial confinement was achieved by embedding the Fe3O4 nanoparticles in the matrices of the polystyrene spheres of 100 nm, while the unconfined was the free Fe3O4 nanoparticles well-dispersed in the liquid via PAA surface coating. Assuming the identical core MNPs in each system, the heating behavior was analyzed in terms of particle freedom (or confinement), interparticle spacing, and magnetic coupling (or dipole-dipole interaction). DC magnetization data were correlated to the heating behavior with different material properties. Analysis of DC magnetization measurements showed deviation from classical Langevin behavior near saturation due to dipole interaction modification of the MNPs resulting in a high magnetic anisotropy. It was found that the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) of the unconfined nanoparticle systems were significantly higher than those of confined (the MNPs embedded in the polystyrene matrix). This increase of SAR was found to be attributable to high Néel relaxation rate and hysteresis loss of the unconfined MNPs. It was also found that the dipole-dipole interactions can significantly reduce the global magnetic response of the MNPs and thereby decrease the SAR of the nanoparticle systems.

The basal plane of molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) was recently activated for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) by creating sulfur (S) vacancies (MoS 2-x ).However, the HER activity of those S-vacancies depends on the concentration of S-vacancies, imposing a dilemma for either improving activity per site or increasing overall active site density.Herein, we use density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experiments to show that the HER activities of MoS 2-x are greatly enhanced by adding cobalt (Co) clusters on the basal plane.Our DFT results show that the highest HER activity is achieved when the Co clusters are anchored on the S-vacancies with the interface of Co-Mo as the preferred active site.Our experiments confirm that the addition of Co enhances the activity per unit active site and increases the electrochemical active surface area.These results demonstrate the basal plane activity of MoS 2-x can be enhanced by decorating Svacancies with transition-metal clusters.

Key advances which enabled the InP photonic integrated circuit (PIC) and the subsequent progression of InP PICs to fully integrated multichannel DWDM system-on-chip (SOC) PICs are described. Furthermore, the current state-of-the-art commercial multichannel SOC PICs are reviewed as well as key trends and technologies for the future of InP-based PICs in optical communications.

We report that highly crystallized iron oxide nanoparticles (HCIONPs) made by thermal decomposition and further coating with a polysiloxane-containing copolymer can be used as effective mediators for photothermal therapy. Irradiation of a HCIONP solution containing 0.5 mg mL-1 Fe, for instance, with an 885 nm diode laser at a power of 2.5 W cm-2, induces a temperature increase of 33 °C from room temperature, while water produced only a ∼3 °C increase as the control. In vivo studies are further evaluated for effective photothermal therapy using the as-prepared HCIONPs. Benefiting from the great antibiofouling property of the polymer coating and minimized hydrodynamic size (whole particle size: 24 nm), the nanoparticles intravenously administered to SUM-159 tumor-bearing mice can effectively accumulate within the tumor tissue (5.3% of injection dose) through the enhanced permeability and retention effect. After applying the same laser conditions to irradiate the tumors, complete tumor regression is observed within three weeks without disease relapse over the course of three months. Conversely, control mice exhibit continuous tumor growth leading to animal mortality within four weeks. To better understand the photothermal effect of HCIONPs and potentially improve their photothermal efficiency, we compare their photothermal effect and crystal structures with commercially available magnetic nanoparticles. Our data show that after applying the same laser to commercially available magnetic nanoparticles from FeREX at the same iron concentration, the temperature is only increased by 7.4 °C. We further use synchrotron-XRD and high-resolution TEM to compare the crystal structures of both magnetic nanoparticles. The data show that both magnetic nanoparticles are Fe3O4 but as-prepared HCIONPs are highly crystalline and have preferred lattice plane orientations, which may be the cause of their enhanced photothermal efficiency. Taken together, these data suggest that HCIONPs, with unique lattice orientations and small size as well as antifouling coating, can be used as promising mediators for photothermal cancer therapy.

A sensitivity-enhanced temperature sensor based on a poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-coated long period fiber grating (LPFG) has been proposed and experimentally investigated. By embedding the LPFG in a temperature-sensitive elastomeric polymer, the temperature sensitivity of the proposed sensor could be effectively improved by 4 times higher than those of the conventional bare LPFG sensors due to the high thermo-optic coefficient (TOC) of PDMS. It can be found that the temperature sensitivities of higher-order modes are higher than those of lower-order modes by analyzing transmission spectra characteristics of the sensor. Because of LPFG is sensitive to surrounding refractive index (RI), the PDMS-coated LPFG will have a high temperature sensitivities of 255.4 pm/°C in the range of 20–80 °C. Due to the high measurement resolution of 0.078 °C, the sensor is promising to be applied to the fields that high-precision temperature measurement is required.

An integrated memory cell with a mem­ristor and a trilayer crested barrier selector, showing repeatable nonlinear current–voltage switching loops is presented. The fully atomic-layer-deposited TaN1+x/Ta2O5/TaN1+x crested barrier selector yields a large nonlinearity (>104), high endurance (>108), low variability, and low temperature dependence. In order to achieve extremely high densities on a nonvolatile memory (NVM) die (>100 Gbit cm–2), resistance switches, or memristors, need to be connected together in large arrays to amortize the silicon circuitry utilized to address, write, and read individual bits.1-3 Although individual devices with sub-10 nm feature sizes and promising switching characteristics have been demonstrated,3, 4 the leakage current through unselected devices during WRITE and/or READ operations limits the size of the array and thus the bit density of a NVM die. Thus, unless the memristor itself has a large intrinsic nonlinear current–voltage (i–v) response, some type of selector is required in series with the switch in a memory cell to form the so-called 1S1R configuration. For unipolar devices, the selector can be a diode, but for bipolar memristors, the selector needs to have a large and roughly symmetric i–v nonlinearity in order to block current flow in either direction at low voltage magnitudes while allowing a much larger (e.g., >100×) current at higher voltages. Therefore, two-terminal selectors with a scalability comparable to that of memristors are essential to realize the large array sizes needed to be competitive with the bit densities of alternate NVM technologies.2, 3, 5-13 Accordingly, a significant effort has recently introduced a variety of new selectors, including an Ovonic threshold switch,11, 14 a mixed ionic–electronic conductor,9 an insulator–metal-transition5, 15, 16 selector, tunneling devices,12, 17-20 and others.6, 13 Among these selectors, tunnel barriers are especially promising because of their high durability and intrinsic speed. The endurance of a selector needs to be significantly greater than that of its companion memristor because the selector should be turned ON not only for every memristor programming event but also for every READ operation. Reproducibility of their i–v characteristics is required to enable consistent switching from cycle to cycle and minimize variability in the READ signal. In principle, tunnel selectors possess other advantages, such as well-understood physical mechanisms and accurate mathematical modeling, low (possibly no) temperature dependence of resistance and low energy consumption (no Joule heating required). Despite the advantages of tunneling, the i–v nonlinearity of a single-layer barrier of any commonly available material is usually insufficient for selector applications. Likharev proposed and demonstrated theoretically that a graded or crested tunnel barrier could be engineered to enhance the nonlinearity.21 Simulations have been used to show that a simple trilayer structure consisting of a dielectric with a smaller electron affinity (usually larger bandgap) sandwiched between two other dielectric layers with a larger electron affinity (usually smaller bandgap) can yield a very large nonlinearity.21, 22 A high nonlinearity was observed experimentally in a TaOx/TiO2/TaOx trilayer structure and attributed to the crested barrier effect.12 However, the electron affinity of the middle layer (TiO2, ≈4.1 eV)12, 23, 24 should be larger than that of the outer layers (Ta2O5, ≈3.2 eV)12, 25 in this case, which was opposite to the proposed design of a crested barrier.21, 22 Defects created by the diffusion of Ta into TiO2 were assumed to somehow lead to the formation of a crested barrier, but this proposal requires further clarification.12 Recently, encouraging i–v nonlinearity and current density were obtained from multilayered selector devices inspired by the crested barrier concept, such as a-Si/SiNx/a-Si and Ta2O5/TaOx/TiO2 trilayers.18, 20, 26 Therefore, it is of great interest to carefully examine the crested barrier concept by understanding the physics and chemistry of the multilayer and its components, as well as the complicated interfaces and barrier structures. We have observed a significant increase in i–v nonlinearities for a trilayer tunnel barrier (TLTB) compared to a single-layer dielectric, and demonstrate here the feasibility of integrating a TLTB selector with a typical TaOx memristor, which normally has a fairly linear i–v characteristic, to obtain highly nonlinear integrated cells. Figure 1a shows the quasistatic i–v plots of junction devices with different barrier layers: a 27 nm stoichiometric TaN layer, single TaN1+x semiconducting layers (5 and 10 nm), and a TLTB stack of TaN1+x (3 nm)/Ta2O5 (2.5 nm)/TaN1+x (3 nm). Metallic nitride materials, such as TaN, TiN, and WN, are widely used as contact electrodes in the complementary metal–oxide semiconductor (CMOS) fab. Ta2O5 is one of the leading memristive materials and also available in the CMOS fab. TaN1+x exhibits a transition from metal to insulator with increasing nitrogen content.27 The insulator phase has a smaller bandgap (≈2 eV) than Ta2O5 and a larger electron affinity, which together with its chemical compatibility with the TaN electrode makes TaN1+x a natural choice for the outer layers of a crested barrier consisting of Ta2O5 (larger bandgap and smaller electron affinity) as the middle layer. In order to maintain the chemical integrity of the electrode/barrier interfaces so that the intrinsic properties of the barrier layers could be studied, the inert metal Pt was adopted for both top and bottom electrodes, which were patterned by shadow masks (10 μm × 10 μm in a cross-point configuration) instead of photolithography and etching to further minimize possible interlayer chemical contamination. The TLTB device exhibited a highly nonlinear i–v characteristic, i.e., fairly insulating under low bias (e.g., ≈270 nA at +1 V) and highly conductive at high bias (e.g., ≈3 mA at +2 V). We define the nonlinearity k of an i–v curve as k = i(vop)/i(vop/2) for the half-voltage operation scheme, in which half of the operation voltage vop (applied on the selected cell for reading or writing) drops across all the cells that share a column or row in a crossbar with the selected cell. The k value is exactly 2 for a linear i–v characteristic (e.g., the stoichiometric and metallic TaN in Figure 1a) and is higher for nonlinear i–v curves (e.g., the semiconducting layers in Figure 1a). According to this definition, the TLTB device exhibits a k value of 11,000 at Vop = +2 V, while single layers of TaN1+x or Ta2O5 yield k values of only 50 or below at Vop = +2 V. A higher “operating” voltage on the TLTB selector usually leads to an even larger k value, but this voltage should match the operating voltages of the companion memristor and is constrained by the total voltage available from the driving circuitry for a crossbar. The thickness dependence of the constituent layers of a TLTB device was examined. The i–v curves from three different samples are shown in Figure 1b. The samples are identified with the following notation: TaN1+x (a nm)/Ta2O5 (b nm)/TaN1+x (c nm), where a/b/c = 2/1/2, 3/1/3, or 3/2.5/3. The resistance and nonlinearity of the TLTB selector are sensitive to the thickness values of both the TaN1+x and Ta2O5 layers. As shown in Figure 1a, doubling the single-layer TaN1+x film thickness from 5 to 10 nm only moderately increased the resistance, suggesting that tunneling through the barrier was not the dominant electron transport mechanism in TaN1+x. Moreover, the i–v nonlinearities of both the 5 and 10 nm layers remain low (<50) and insensitive to the barrier layer thickness. In contrast (Figure 1b), the k value of the TLTB devices increased dramatically to 580 (Vop = +1.9 V) in the 2/1/2 device and 1650 (Vop = +2 V) in the 3/1/3 device by inserting a 1 nm layer of Ta2O5 into the TaN1+x films. In the TLTB devices, a greater TaN1+x thickness increased not only the device resistance but also the nonlinearity. In addition, the k value was increased almost another order of magnitude to 11 000 by increasing the thickness of theTa2O5 layer in the 3/2.5/3 device. The band diagrams of the single barrier and TLTB devices are illustrated schematically in Figure 1c, and will be discussed in more detail below. A TLTB selector was electrically connected to a discrete TaOx memristor microdevice to evaluate the behavior of a combined 1S1R memory cell, as illustrated in Figure 2a. Compared with the integrated cell to be shown later, this configuration allowed measurement of each component of the 1S1R cell separately to characterize their isolated behavior and then understand how they interact when connected in series. Figure 2b shows the measured i–v curves of the memristor, selector, and the 1S1R cell. The selector used for this experiment had a k value of ≈1300 at Vread = +2 V (black curve), which was selected for the demonstration because it provided voltage and current levels that best matched (among our existing TLTB selectors) the switching voltage and current of the TaOx memristor. The TaOx device displayed a linear i–v in the ON state. As can be seen from the i–v curves of the combined cell (blue curve), the selector limited the device current flow within the low bias voltage range (<1 V) while at high bias (>1 V) the selector was so conductive that the OFF state of the memristor limited the current (if the memristor was in its OFF state). The 1S1R cell switched ON at ≈+2.3 V. For RESET, a relatively high negative bias of ≈–5 V was needed to switch the 1S1R cell, because most of the applied voltage dropped across the selector and the wire until the memristor is switched nearly in its OFF state. The switching characteristics of the cell were examined by programming and reading open loop with sequential SET, READ, RESET, and READ electrical pulses for 100 million cycles, as shown in Figure 2. Voltage pulses of +3.6 and –7 V were used for SET and RESET, respectively. Pulses of +2 and +1 V were consecutively applied for READ operations. All of the pulse widths were 2 μs, which was the shortest pulse duration in the purpose-built measurement system. The noise and other variability in the ON and OFF currents were much smaller than the difference between the two currents, making reading of the state very reliable. Because of the large cell k value of ≈1000, the leakage current levels for the ON and OFF states were both very low and barely distinguishable at half the READ voltage (1 V), showing that, in principle, such a system could support a large array of cells. In addition to providing nonlinearity for the cell, the selector acted as an internal regulator to dynamically adjust the electrical bias on the memristor and prevent runaway conductance changes during programming, which may have significantly contributed to the low cycle to cycle variability observed in Figure 2c. Prevention of capacitive charging currents and thermal disturbances from the circuits and neighboring memristors could be an advantage for this tunnel-based selector in a large array.7, 28, 29 To further understand the TLTB devices, we performed detailed physical and electrical characterization of the individual layers and multilayered structures. The TaN1+x films were grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) using an N-containing Ta metal organic precursor and an N2:H2 gas mixture (see the Experimental Section). As shown in Figure S1 (Supporting Information), results from X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscope measurements revealed that the hypostoichiometric TaN1+x film was amorphous. In contrast, stoichiometric TaN films grown by ALD using the same Ta precursor but NH3 gas (see the Experimental Section) were crystalline. Although the detailed chemical reactions of Ta precursor molecules with NH3 (75% of H2) plasma or mixed N2:H2 (2% of H2) plasma are not known, plasma-activated hydrogen radicals have been reported to serve as an efficient reducing agent for the metal organic precursors.30, 31 The Ta precursors in these experiments contained amine groups, which can either form a stoichiometric TaN film after being reduced by abundant hydrogen radicals (e.g., in NH3 plasma) or form a hypostoichiometric TaN1+x when hydrogen radicals are more scarce (e.g., in the N2: 2% H2 plasma).30-33 X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements on the ALD films indicated that the TaN film using NH3 plasma had a higher carbon impurity, which may also contribute to the conductivity of this nitride film by forming some Ta carbide inclusion in it. It was reported that Ta carbide has a much lower resistivity (≈20 μΩ cm) compared to that of TaN (≈250 μΩ cm) or Ta2N. Decomposition of Ta precursors with a high plasma power may facilitate the formation of Ta–C rather than Ta–N compounds.34 The indirect optical bandgap of a TaN1+x film was determined by UV–vis absorption measurements to be about 2 eV (Figure S2, Supporting Information), close to reported values for Ta3N5 films.32, 35 The bandgap of the ALD Ta2O5 film was determined to be about 4.1 eV, much higher than that of the TaN1+x films. The i–v curves for devices made using a single-layer barrier composed of the ALD Ta nitride films revealed essentially linear behavior consistent with stoichiometric TaN whereas devices incorporating the TaN1+x films exhibited a nonlinear semiconducting behavior that is similar to that observed from a sputter-grown Ta3N5 barrier (Figure S3, Supporting Information). The impact of N content and crystallinity of the TaN1+x film was also investigated. A higher N content and crystallinity enhanced the nonlinearity of TaN1+x film (Figure S3, Supporting Information). Temperature-dependent i–v curves provide more information on the electron transport mechanisms of the single barrier and TLTB elements, as shown in Figure 3. Interestingly, the element with the thicker barrier (7 nm TLTB) showed a weaker temperature dependence than that of the element with the thinner barrier (single 5 nm TaN1+x layer). As shown in Figure 3c, the conduction data for the Pt/5 nm TaN1+x/Pt device are consistent with the Schottky emission model, yielding a Schottky barrier height of about 0.6 eV from the y-intercept of the extrapolated data and a high-frequency dielectric constant of about 3.4 from the slope of the curve measured at room temperature (300 K). Here, the net current density (J*) was determined by factoring out the backward current under the applied potential, , and a correction factor (λ = 0.5) for the Richardson constant (AR) was used in determining the Schottky barrier height from the y-intercept of Figure 3c.36 The low barrier height indicates possible Fermi level pinning at the interface. The dielectric constant was almost identical to the value determined using single-wave ellipsometry of a similarly deposited film (using the relation εi = n2).37 A similar result was obtained from the estimation of the zero-field Schottky barrier height using the plot of ln(J/T2) as a function of 1000/T at the low field region (40–640 kV cm–1), as noted in Figure S4 (Supporting Information).38 The addition of a thin Ta2O5 layer with its larger bandgap should make Schottky emission over the barrier negligible at the temperatures used to test the TLTB device. As anticipated, the transport mechanism in the TLTB device more resembled tunneling, as indicated by the significantly weaker temperature dependence of the current. When the applied electric field was sufficiently high (>1.4 MV cm–1), the dependence of current on field mimicked that of Fowler–Nordheim tunneling, as shown in Figure 3d. The effective equivalent single-layer barrier height, øb, under high electric field was ≈2.2 eV, as determined from the relation: where q is the elementary charge, h is the Plank constant, K is the slope of the data plot, and m* is the effective electron mass (fixed to 0.3 m0).39, 40 The higher nonlinearity provided by the TLTB device was not surprising given its expected “crested” nature. The electron affinity of Ta3N5 is ≈4 eV,33 which is larger than that generally reported for the middle Ta2O5 barrier layer (≈3.2 eV).12, 25, 41 Thus, we expected the tunneling barrier provided by the TLTB devices to decrease not only in width but also in height, as predicted by Likharev21 at high applied fields, leading to the much higher nonlinearity observed in the TLTB selectors. Based on the conduction model and experimental results, nonlinearity and current density values are represented as a function of film thickness in single TaN1+x and TLTB devices in Figure 3e. A cell combining both TLTB and TaOx memristor layers was built and analyzed to demonstrate the feasibility of integration, as shown by the cross-section STEM (scanning transmission electron microscope) micrograph and EELS (electron energy loss spectroscopy) line profiles for some key elements in Figure 4a. Repeatable switching hysteresis loops obtained from the integrated cell are presented in Figure 4b, showing nonlinear i–v characteristics for the ON state that contrast with the linear i–v relation for a “bare” TaOx memristor. The switching voltages in this integrated cell were significantly reduced compared with the externally wired 1S1R cell in Figure 2a because of the higher resistance of the ON state of the memristor in the integrated cell. The reduced nonlinearity (≈100) in this integrated cell is attributed to the lower effective barrier height owing to the lower work function of the electrode material (WM), in this case, Ta (4 < WTa < 4.8 eV) or TiN (4.2 < WTa < 4.5 eV) compared to Pt (WPt ≈ 5.5 eV). In addition, the inert Pt electrode can alleviate the formation of an interfacial layer during an ALD or sputtering process. TiN or Ta electrodes may further reduce the effective barrier height, due to the formation of an interfacial layer, which results in an increased charge injection and diminished non­linearity as shown in Figure S3 (Supporting Information). Scalability and device variability are concerns because of the increased number of processes and film stacks with various thicknesses and compositions. The nonlinearity and variability (device to device) of the TLTB selector did not deteriorate when scaled down to 40 nm diameter (Figures S5 and S6, Supporting Information). However, the current level at a given voltage was also largely scaled down, which has to be solved by further optimizing materials and processes. In summary, only moderate i–v nonlinearities were obtained with single-layer tunnel barriers, while a significant increases in the nonlinearities were demonstrated by all ALD grown TaN1+x/Ta2O5/TaN1+x TLTBs. With the TLTB, both the barrier height and effective width were reduced simultaneously under high voltage bias, yielding a significantly larger nonlinearity exceeding 10 000 without any forming or conditioning process. High endurance (>108), low variability, and low temperature dependence were also observed with TLTBs. The feasibility of using this selector with a typical memristor has been demonstrated by externally wiring the selector to a discrete memristor as well as by physically integrating them into a multilayered 1S1R cell. Device Fabrication: Devices were fabricated on thermally grown 200 nm thick SiO2 on a Si substrate. Various thin films were deposited by remote plasma enhanced ALD using (t-butylimido)tris(dimethylamido)tantalum (TBTMET, SAFC Hitech) as a metal organic precursor. Mixed N2:H2 (40:1 SCCM) gas or NH3 (50 SCCM) was adopted as a reactant gas on purpose to change the physical properties of thin film devices. O2 (50 SCCM) plasma ALD process was used for creating the Ta2O5 barrier layer. ALD cycle and conditions for TaNx and Ta2O5 films are represented in Table S1 of the Supporting Information. Growth temperature was varied from 300 to 400 °C. For the cross-point device, a 20 nm thick electron-beam evaporated Pt ribbon was used as the bottom electrode, for which a very thin (≈1 nm) Ta film was used as the adhesion layer. Blanket thin film tunnel barriers were grown by ALD on top of the bottom electrode ribbon, and then a Pt top electrode was deposited by electron-beam evaporation through a shadow mask forming cross-point junction device. Characterization: The four-terminal i–v characteristics of the devices were measured using a semiconductor parameter analyzer (HP-4156), which can extract the actual voltage drop on the device from the total applied voltage. A quasi-DC voltage sweep was applied to the top electrode with the bottom contact grounded at ambient temperature in all the electrical measurements. The crystallinity of the films was analyzed using an X-ray diffractometer. The bandgap of the TaNx films was determined optically by UV–vis absorption spectroscopy. The atomic concentrations and contaminants in the TaNx thin film were measured by Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron microscopy, which revealed the mixed N2:H2 reactant gas may lead to slightly more N concentration in the film, while the NH3 reactant gas results in a few percent C impurity in the nitride film.The aberration-corrected STEM/EELS analysis was performed using a FEI Titan transmission electron microscopy at an accelerating voltage of 300 KV. B.J.C. was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2014R1A1A2054597). 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Selected members of the A₂B₃ (A = Sb, Bi; B = Se, Te) family are topological insulators. The Sb₂Se₃ compound does not exhibit any topological properties at ambient conditions; a recent high-pressure study, however, indicated that pressure transforms Sb₂Se₃ from a band insulator into a topological insulator above ~2 GPa; in addition, three structural transitions were proposed to occur up to 25 GPa. Partly motivated by these results, we have performed x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy investigations on Sb₂Se₃ under pressure up to 65 GPa. We have identified only one reversible structural transition: the initial Pnma structure transforms into a disordered cubic bcc alloy above 51 GPa. On the other hand, our high-pressure Raman study did not reproduce the previous results; we attribute the discrepancies to the effects of the different pressure transmitting media used in the high-pressure experiments. We discuss the structural behavior of Sb₂Se₃ within the A₂B₃ (A = Sb, Bi; B = Se, Te) series.

Cassava is an important tropical and sub-tropical root crop that is adapted to drought environment. However, severe drought stress significantly influences biomass accumulation and starchy root production. The mechanism underlying drought-tolerance remains obscure in cassava. In this study, changes of physiological characters and gene transcriptome profiles were investigated under dehydration stress simulated by polyethylene glycol (PEG) treatments. Five traits, including peroxidase (POD) activity, proline content, malondialdehyde (MDA), soluble sugar and soluble protein, were all dramatically induced in response to PEG treatment. RNA-seq analysis revealed a gradient decrease of differentially expressed (DE) gene number in tissues from bottom to top of a plant, suggesting that cassava root has a quicker response and more induced/depressed DE genes than leaves in response to drought. Overall, dynamic changes of gene expression profiles in cassava root and leaves were uncovered: genes related to glycolysis, abscisic acid and ethylene biosynthesis, lipid metabolism, protein degradation, and second metabolism of flavonoids were significantly induced, while genes associated with cell cycle/organization, cell wall synthesis and degradation, DNA synthesis and chromatin structure, protein synthesis, light reaction of photosynthesis, gibberelin pathways and abiotic stress were greatly depressed. Finally, novel pathways in ABA-dependent and ABA-independent regulatory networks underlying PEG-induced dehydration response in cassava were detected, and the RNA-Seq results of a subset of fifteen genes were confirmed by real-time PCR. The findings will improve our understanding of the mechanism related to dehydration stress-tolerance in cassava and will provide useful candidate genes for breeding of cassava varieties better adapted to drought environment.

Variation of maternal gut microbiota may increase the risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in offspring. Animal studies have indicated that maternal gut microbiota is related to neurodevelopmental abnormalities in mouse offspring, while it is unclear whether there is a correlation between gut microbiota of ASD children and their mothers. We examined the relationships between gut microbiome profiles of ASD children and those of their mothers, and evaluated the clinical discriminatory power of discovered bacterial biomarkers. Gut microbiome was profiled and evaluated by 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing in stool samples of 59 mother–child pairs of ASD children and 30 matched mother–child pairs of healthy children. Significant differences were observed in the gut microbiome composition between ASD and healthy children in our Chinese cohort. Several unique bacterial biomarkers, such as Alcaligenaceae and Acinetobacter, were identified. Mothers of ASD children had more Proteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, Moraxellaceae, and Acinetobacter than mothers of healthy children. There was a clear correlation between gut microbiome profiles of children and their mothers; however, children with ASD still had unique bacterial biomarkers, such as Alcaligenaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, and Clostridium. Candidate biomarkers discovered in this study had remarkable discriminatory power. The identified patterns of mother–child gut microbiome profiles may be important for assessing risks during the early stage and planning of personalized treatment and prevention of ASD via microbiota modulation.

Fatigue driving can easily lead to road traffic accidents and bring great harm to individuals and families. Recently, electroencephalography- (EEG-) based physiological and brain activities for fatigue detection have been increasingly investigated. However, how to find an effective method or model to timely and efficiently detect the mental states of drivers still remains a challenge. In this paper, we combine common spatial pattern (CSP) and propose a light-weighted classifier, LightFD, which is based on gradient boosting framework for EEG mental states identification. The comparable results with traditional classifiers, such as support vector machine (SVM), convolutional neural network (CNN), gated recurrent unit (GRU), and large margin nearest neighbor (LMNN), show that the proposed model could achieve better classification performance, as well as the decision efficiency. Furthermore, we also test and validate that LightFD has better transfer learning performance in EEG classification of driver mental states. In summary, our proposed LightFD classifier has better performance in real-time EEG mental state prediction, and it is expected to have broad application prospects in practical brain-computer interaction (BCI).

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease characterized by progressive loss of cartilage, osteophyte formation and subchondral bone sclerosis. Although some animal experiments have reported that fibroblast growth factor 18 (FGF18) attenuates cartilage degradation, the effect of FGF18 on chondrocytes and its underlying mechanism at the cellular level remain largely unknown. In this study, we found that an intra-articular injection of FGF18 attenuates cartilage degradation, increases Collagen II deposition and suppresses matrix metallopeptidase 13 (MMP13) expression in rat post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA). At the cellular level, FGF18 promotes chondrocyte proliferation through PI3K-AKT signaling and migration through PI3K signaling. We found that FGF18 attenuates IL-1β-induced apoptosis, restores mitochondrial function and reduces Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) production through PI3K-AKT signaling. Moreover, the mitochondrial fusion and fission of chondrocytes were enhanced by a short duration of treatment (within 24 h) of IL-1β and suppressed by prolonged treatment (48 h). FGF18 significantly enhances the mitochondrial fusion and fission, restoring mitochondrial function and morphology, and reduces ROS production. We also found that the FGFR1/FGFR3 ratio, which might contribute to the progression of osteoarthritis, was upregulated by IL-1β and downregulated by FGF18. To the best of our knowledge, our data demonstrated the anti-osteoarthritic effect of FGF18 at the cellular level for the first time and suggested that PI3K-AKT signaling and mitochondrial fusion and fission might play critical roles during the process. Our study proved that FGF18 might be a promising drug for the treatment of early stage osteoarthritis and is worth further study.

1S1R (1 selector and 1 memristor) is a laterally scalable and vertically stackable scheme that can lead to the ultimate memristor density for either memory or neural network applications. In such a scheme, the memristor device needs to be truly electroforming‐free and operated at both low currents and low voltages in order to be compatible with a two‐terminal selector. In this work, a new type of memristor with a preconditioned tunneling conductive path is developed to achieve the required performance characteristics, including truly electroforming‐free, low current below 30 µA (potentially &lt;1 µA), and simultaneously low voltage ≈±0.7 V in switching operations. Such memristors are further integrated with two types of recently developed selectors to demonstrate the feasibility of 1S1R integration.

Sulfadiazine (SDZ) is a high priority sulfonamide antibiotic and was always detected in environmental samples. This study explored the removal of SDZ in microbial fuel cells (MFCs), in terms of MFC operation, degradation products, reaction mechanism, SDZ biotoxicity removal, and the correlation between microbial community and SDZ removal. SDZ would greatly impact the activity of reactor microbes, and longtime acclimation is required for the biodegradation of SDZ in MFCs. After acclimation, 10 mg/L of SDZ could be removed within 48 h. Liquid chromatographic-mass spectroscopic analysis showed that SDZ could be degraded into 2-aminopyrimidine, 2-amino-4-hydroxypyrimidine and benzenesulfinic acid. Compared with published SDZ biodegradation mechanism, we found that the sulfanilamide part (p-Anilinesulfonic acid) of SDZ would be degraded into benzenesulfinic acid in the system. The effects of background constituents on SDZ biodegradation were explored, and co-existed humic acid (HA) and fulvic acid (FA) could accelerate the removal of SDZ in MFCs. After analyzing the reactor microbial community and the removal of SDZ at different operation cycles, it was found that the relative abundance of Methanocorpusculum, Mycobacterium, Clostridium, Thiobacillus, Enterobacter, Pseudomonas, and Stenotrophomonas was highly correlated with the removal of SDZ throughout the experiment.

Background: The associations between oral bacteria and increased risk of lung cancer have been reported in several previous studies, however, the potential associations between salivary microbiome with non-smoking female lung cancer have not been evaluated. There is also no report on the relationship between immunocytochemistry markers and salivary microbiota. Method: In this study, we assessed the salivary microbiome from 75 non-smoking female lung cancer patients and 172 matched healthy individuals using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. We also calculated the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient between salivary microbiota and three immunohistochemical markers (TIF-1, Napsin A and CK7) Result: We analyzed the salivary microbiota of 247 subjects and found that non-smoking female lung cancer patients exhibited oral microbial dysbiosis. Significantly lower microbial diversity and richness were found in lung cancer patients when compared to the control group (Shannon index, P < 0.005; Ace index, P < 0.0001). Based on the analysis of similarities, the composition of the microbiota in lung cancer patients was also different from that of the control group (r = 0.454, P < 0.005, unweighted UniFrac; r = 0.113, P < 0.005, weighted UniFrac). The relative abundance of the bacterial genera Sphingomonas (P < 0.0001) and Blastomonas (P < 0.0001) were enriched in non-smoking female lung cancer patients, whereas Acinetobacter (P < 0.0001) and Streptococcus (P < 0.0001) were enriched in controls. Based on the Spearman correlation analysis, a significantly positive correlation can be observed between CK7 and Enterobacteriaceae (r = 0.223, P < 0.05). Meanwhile, Napsin A was positively associated with genera Blastomonas (r = 0.251, P < 0.005). TTF-1 exhibited a significantly positive correlation with Enterobacteriaceae (r = 0.262, P < 0.05). Functional analysis from inferred metagenomes indicated that oral microbiome in non-smoking female lung cancer were related to pathways in cancer, p53 signaling pathway, apoptosis and tuberculosis. Conclusions: Our study identified distinct salivary microbiome profiles in non-smoking female lung cancer, revealed potential correlations of salivary microbiome with immunocytochemistry markers used in clinical diagnostics, and provided proof of salivary microbiota as an informative source for discovering non-invasive biomarkers of lung cancer.

The switching parameters and device performance of memristors are predominately determined by their mobile species and matrix materials. Devices with oxygen or oxygen vacancies as the mobile species usually exhibit a great retention but also need a relatively high switching current (e.g., >30 µA), while devices with Ag or Cu as cation mobile species do not require a high switching current but usually show a poor retention. Here, Ru is studied as a new type of mobile species for memristors to achieve low switching current, fast speed, good reliability, scalability, and analog switching property simultaneously. An electrochemical metallization-like memristor with a stack of Pt/Ta2 O5 /Ru is developed. Migration of Ru ions is revealed by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy mapping and in situ transmission electron microscopy within a sub-10 nm active device area before and after switching. The results open up a new avenue to engineer memristors for desired properties.

Abstract Resonance interaction between a molecular transition and a confined electromagnetic field can lead to weak or strong light-matter coupling. Considering the substantial exciton–phonon coupling in thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) materials, it is thus interesting to explore whether weak light-matter coupling can be used to redistribute optical density of states and to change the rate of radiative decay. Here, we demonstrate that the emission distribution of TADF emitters can be reshaped and narrowed in a top-emitting organic light-emitting device (OLED) with a weakly coupled microcavity. The Purcell effect of weak microcavity is found to be different for TADF emitters with different molecular orientations. We demonstrate that radiative rates of the TADF emitters with vertical orientation can be substantial increased in weakly coupled organic microcavity. These observations can enhance external quantum efficiencies, reduce efficiency roll-off, and improve color-purities of TADF OLEDs, especially for emitters without highly horizontal orientation.

Multi-organ segmentation is a challenging task due to the label imbalance and structural differences between different organs. In this work, we propose an efficient cascaded V-Net model to improve the performance of multi-organ segmentation by establishing dense Block Level Skip Connections (BLSC) across cascaded V-Net. Our model can take full advantage of features from the first stage network and make the cascaded structure more efficient. We also combine stacked small and large kernels with an inception-like structure to help our model to learn more patterns, which produces superior results for multi-organ segmentation. In addition, some small organs are commonly occluded by large organs and have unclear boundaries with other surrounding tissues, which makes them hard to be segmented. We therefore first locate the small organs through a multi-class network and crop them randomly with the surrounding region, then segment them with a single-class network. We evaluated our model on SegTHOR 2019 challenge unseen testing set and Multi-Atlas Labeling Beyond the Cranial Vault challenge validation set. Our model has achieved an average dice score gain of 1.62 percents and 3.90 percents compared to traditional cascaded networks on these two datasets, respectively. For hard-to-segment small organs, such as the esophagus in SegTHOR 2019 challenge, our technique has achieved a gain of 5.63 percents on dice score, and four organs in Multi-Atlas Labeling Beyond the Cranial Vault challenge have achieved a gain of 5.27 percents on average dice score.

Desiccation cracks on a soil slope can significantly increase permeability, reduce shear strength, and potentially result in shallow landslides. To reveal the slope failure mechanism induced by desiccation cracks, a full-scale model test was conducted on a cracked soil slope under rainfall–evaporation cycles. Image processing techniques were used to quantify the crack characteristics at the slope crest (SC), around the slope shoulder (SS), and at the slope foot (SF), and hydrologic sensors were used to monitor the moisture content, matric suction, and pore water pressure at different depths in the crack areas. The results showed dynamic variations in the desiccation crack patterns in accordance with their position on the slope and the rainfall–evaporation cycle. Preferential flow induced by the desiccation cracks in response to rainfall was detected earlier by the lower hydrologic sensors than the upper ones, and the desiccation cracks significantly increased the infiltration depth by up to four or five times the crack depth. Experimental evidence confirmed that preferential flow through desiccation cracks can trigger slope failure or landslides by forming local perched water zones near the crack tips. Based on this investigation, the failure process of the cracked soil slope was separated into three stages according to the crack patterns and failure modes: (I) generation of desiccation cracks, with surface erosion as the failure mode; (II) development and transformation of cracks, with flow-slip and local failure as the failure modes; and (III) renewal and further development of cracks, with overall failure as the failure mode. These conclusions suggest that when simulating the seepage and stability of a cracked soil slope, further modifications should consider the dynamic changes that occur within desiccation cracks. In addition, the use of specific treatment measures to avoid slope failure during the different stages is suggested.

Common fully glazed facades and transparent objects present architectural barriers and impede the mobility of people with low vision or blindness, for instance, a path detected behind a glass door is inaccessible unless it is correctly perceived and reacted. However, segmenting these safety-critical objects is rarely covered by conventional assistive technologies. To tackle this issue, we construct a wearable system with a novel dual-head Transformer for Transparency (Trans4Trans) model, which is capable of segmenting general and transparent objects and performing real-time wayfinding to assist people walking alone more safely. Especially, both decoders created by our proposed Transformer Parsing Module (TPM) enable effective joint learning from different datasets. Besides, the efficient Trans4Trans model composed of symmetric transformer-based encoder and decoder, requires little computational expenses and is readily deployed on portable GPUs. Our Trans4Trans model outperforms state-of-the-art methods on the test sets of Stanford2D3D and Trans10K-v2 datasets and obtains mIoU of 45.13% and 75.14%, respectively. Through various pre-tests and a user study conducted in indoor and outdoor scenarios, the usability and reliability of our assistive system have been extensively verified.

Abstract Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most frequent musculoskeletal diseases characterized by degeneration of articular cartilage, subchondral bone remodeling, and synovial membrane inflammation, which is a leading cause of global disability, morbidity, and decreased quality of life. Interpreting the potential mechanisms of OA pathogenesis is essential for developing novel prevention and disease-modifying therapeutic interventions. Gut microbiota is responsible for a series of metabolic, immunological, and structural and neurological functions, potentially elucidating the heterogeneity of OA phenotypes and individual features. In this narrative review, we summarized research evidence supporting the hypothesis of a “gut-joint axis” and the interaction between gut microbiota and the OA-relevant factors, including age, gender, genetics, metabolism, central nervous system, and joint injury, elucidating the underlying mechanisms of this intricate interaction. In the context, we also speculated the promising manipulation of gut microbiota in OA management, such as exercise and fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), highlighting the clinical values of gut microbiota. Additionally, future research directions, such as more convincing studies by the interventions of gut microbiota, the gene regulation of host contributing to or attributed to the specific phenotypes of gut microbiota related to OA, and the relevance of distinct cell subgroups to gut microbiota, are expected. Moreover, gut microbiota is also the potential biomarker related to inflammation and gut dysbiosis that is able to predict OA progression and monitor the efficacy of therapeutic intervention.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs), a class of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), may modulate gene expression by binding to miRNAs. Additionally, recent studies show that circRNAs participate in some pathological processes. However, there is a large gap in the knowledge about circDOCK1 expression and its biological functions in osteogenic sarcoma (OS).Differentially expressed circRNAs in OS cell lines and tissues were identified by circRNA microarray analysis and quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). To explore the actions of circDOCK1 in vivo and in vitro, circDOCK1 was knocked down or overexpressed. To assess the binding and regulatory associations among miR-339-3p, circDOCK1 and IGF1R, we performed rescue experiments, RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP), RNA pulldown assays and dual-luciferase assays. Moreover, we performed apoptosis assays to reveal the regulatory effects of the circDOCK1/miR-339-3p/IGF1R axis on cisplatin sensitivity.CircDOCK1 expression remained stable in the cytoplasm and was higher in OS tissues and cells than in the corresponding controls. Overexpression of circDOCK1 increased oncogenicity in vivo and malignant transformation in vitro. In the U2OS and MG63 cell lines, circDOCK1 modulated tumor progression by regulating IGF1R through sponging of miR-339-3p. Additionally, in the U2OS/DDP and MG63/DDP cell lines, cisplatin sensitivity was regulated by circDOCK1 via the miR-339-3p/IGF1R axis.CircDOCK1 can promote progression and regulate cisplatin sensitivity in OS via the miR-339-3p/IGF1R axis. Thus, the circDOCK1/miR-339-3p/IGF1R axis may be a key mechanism and therapeutic target in OS.

Convolutional Networks (ConvNets) excel at semantic segmentation and have become a vital component for perception in autonomous driving. Enabling an all-encompassing view of street-scenes, omnidirectional cameras present themselves as a perfect fit in such systems. Most segmentation models for parsing urban environments operate on common, narrow Field of View (FoV) images. Transferring these models from the domain they were designed for to 360° perception, their performance drops dramatically, e.g., by an absolute 30.0% (mIoU) on established test-beds. To bridge the gap in terms of FoV and structural distribution between the imaging domains, we introduce Efficient Concurrent Attention Networks (ECANets), directly capturing the inherent long-range dependencies in omnidirectional imagery. In addition to the learned attention-based contextual priors that can stretch across 360° images, we upgrade model training by leveraging multi-source and omni-supervised learning, taking advantage of both: Densely labeled and unlabeled data originating from multiple datasets. To foster progress in panoramic image segmentation, we put forward and extensively evaluate models on Wild PAnoramic Semantic Segmentation (WildPASS), a dataset designed to capture diverse scenes from all around the globe. Our novel model, training regimen and multi-source prediction fusion elevate the performance (mIoU) to new state-of-the-art results on the public PASS (60.2%) and the fresh WildPASS (69.0%) benchmarks. <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup>

Lithium (Li) metal has been considered as an ideal anode for high-energy density rechargeable batteries. However, it faces huge obstacles toward practical application due to the growth of Li dendrites and the uncontrollable side reactions with electrolyte. Here, we demonstrate a novel gallium-lithium alloy based dual-protection interface layer for Li metal by a facile in-situ ion-exchange reaction that possesses long service life for effectively alleviating the extra consumption of active Li as well as homogenizing the Li deposition. Such dual-protected feature is attributed to its outstanding stability, excellent Li affinity and favorable charge transfer kinetics. By means of in-situ visualization electrodeposition studies, the modified Li metal (GaLi-Li) anode can effectively suppress the Li dendrite even under a high deposition capacity of 7 mAh cm−2. Moreover, the GaLi-Li based symmetric cell achieves excellent cycling stability for over 1500 cycles at a high current density of 5 mA cm−2. Pairing the GaLi-Li anodes with LiFePO4 and LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 cathodes, the cells also realize better long-term cycling stability with higher discharge capacity than that of the bare Li. Our strategy offers a practical way to realize highly stable and safety Li metal batteries.

CoCrFeNi high entropy alloy (HEA) has attracted extensive attention due to its excellent corrosion resistance, but the low strength limits its engineering application prospects. In order to develop CoCrFeNi based HEAs with high strength, ductility and corrosion resistance, the effects of Zr content on the microstructure, mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of heterogeneous CoCrFeNiZrx (x = 0, 0.25, 0.5 and 1) HEAs were investigated in this work. The results indicate that the increase of Zr content can significantly affect the phase stability of the alloy, and promote the formation of intermetallic compounds (Ni7Zr2 and/or Laves phase) and the transformation of solid solution from face-centered cubic (FCC) structure (x = 0, 0.25 and 0.5) to body-centered cubic (BCC) structure (x = 1). Reasonable control of the Zr content can endow the alloy excellent comprehensive properties. Especially, for CoCrFeNiZr0.25 alloy, composed of FCC matrix and a small amount of Ni7Zr2 phases, the yield strength (∼655 MPa) is increased by nearly four times higher than that of Zr-free alloy, and it also has good ductility (fracture stain > 50%). Meanwhile, the corrosion resistance of CoCrFeNiZr0.25 alloy is better than that of SS304. The EIS results show that the addition of Zr reduces the stability of the passive film on the alloy, which can be related to the content of the beneficial oxide in the passive film and the thickness of the passive film through XPS analysis. Moreover, the work functions of different phases in CoCrFeNiZrx alloys were obtained by first-principles calculations, which further confirmed the selective corrosion mechanism of the CoCrFeNiZrx alloy combining the experimental results.

The Reverse osmosis (RO) membrane technology is a promising technology for wastewater treatment and seawater or brackish water desalination. However, membrane biofouling caused by nonspecific interactions between a membrane surface and microorganisms is a major obstacle to the widespread application of this technology, usually reducing production capacity and increasing operating and maintenance costs. This article reviews recent highlights in the construction of antibiofouling membranes, emphasizing the scale inhibition mechanism and modification strategy. Influencing factors contributing to the biofouling of RO membranes, including the characteristics of microorganisms, membrane surface characteristics, and operating conditions, were introduced, and methods for controlling biofouling were summarized. Meanwhile, the current research status of antibiofouling membranes and efforts for mitigating membrane biofouling were reviewed. Nanomaterials have unique properties that improve the antibiofouling capability of RO membranes according to the current literature. Specific challenges and future research focus were discussed, namely, the urgent need to develop novel, high-performance, and antibacterial membrane materials based on the in-depth study of microbial scale inhibition mechanisms. Thus, this review can provide some guidance for researchers and a valuable reference for the development of antibacterial membranes in the future.

Emerging bio-nanotechnology has greatly favored the innovation of orthopedic therapies through more comprehensive mimicry of native bone tissue. More detailed depictions on bone biophysiology, pathogenesis, and progression of diverse bone diseases promote optimization of disease-specific therapy by biomimetic nanotechnology. Biomimetic integration of structure, composition, biomineralization, cells, biochemical, and biomechanical factors is vital for developing artificial constructs for healing bone and cartilage defects. Surface functionalization with biomimetic features can endow nanocarriers with improved biocompatibility, targeting capability, and better therapeutic efficiency for delivering therapeutic agents in curing bone tumor, inflammatory, infection, and osteoporosis. Orthopedic diseases (e.g., fracture, bone tumor, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, chronic inflammation, and infection) can result in locomotion disability, loss of protection for other soft tissues/organs, or dysfunction of hematopoiesis, mineral homeostasis, and other functions. The development of biomimetic nanotechnology has advanced the innovation of orthopedic therapies for restoring the structure, composition, and biophysiological functions of the natural bone tissue. Identification of the pathogenesis and understanding the disease progression can greatly benefit the design and optimization of disease-specific therapy. Herein, we summarize guidelines on how biomimetic nanotechnology can be utilized in more efficiently treating various orthopedic diseases. We also discuss unmet needs and current challenges that might hinder the clinical implementation of biomimetic nanotechnology-based orthopedic therapies. Orthopedic diseases (e.g., fracture, bone tumor, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, chronic inflammation, and infection) can result in locomotion disability, loss of protection for other soft tissues/organs, or dysfunction of hematopoiesis, mineral homeostasis, and other functions. The development of biomimetic nanotechnology has advanced the innovation of orthopedic therapies for restoring the structure, composition, and biophysiological functions of the natural bone tissue. Identification of the pathogenesis and understanding the disease progression can greatly benefit the design and optimization of disease-specific therapy. Herein, we summarize guidelines on how biomimetic nanotechnology can be utilized in more efficiently treating various orthopedic diseases. We also discuss unmet needs and current challenges that might hinder the clinical implementation of biomimetic nanotechnology-based orthopedic therapies. the ability developed by microbes to protect them from antimicrobial treatments (e.g., antibiotics). harvesting a substituted bone graft from a donor area of the patient. a complex structure composed of one or more microbial cells and an extracellular polymeric matrix, generally adhering to a surface. participates in inhibition of the Wnt signaling pathway. a membrane-bound extracellular vesicle loaded with proteins, lipids, or nucleic acids of cells. a complex 3D network that is mainly composed of macromolecules (e.g., collagen, glycoproteins) and minerals (e.g., hydroxyapatite) for biochemically and structurally supporting cells. stromal cells capable of multipotent differentiation into various cell types; they can be harvested from bone marrow, adipose tissue, umbilical cord, etc. a peptide hormone that can regulate the calcium concentration in serum and thus will activate osteoclast to resorb bone matrix and release more calcium ions when serum calcium is low. a member of tumor necrosis factor that regulates apoptosis and participates in modulating immune response and bone regeneration. a solution with formulated ionic concentrations that mimic those of human blood plasma. removal of normal loads will hinder bone remodeling, leading to decreased bone density and strength. a significant increase of structure stiffness in response to a stress beyond critical value.

Cadmium (Cd) pollution in croplands is a global environmental problem. Measures to improve the tolerance of sensitive crops and reduce pollutant absorption and accumulation are needed in contaminated agricultural areas, and inoculation with rhizosphere microorganisms to regulate plant resistance and heavy metal transport can provide an effective solution. A pot experiment was conducted to analyse the impact of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) on alfalfa oxidase activity, heavy metal resistance genes and transport proteins, metabolism, and other biochemical regulation mechanisms that lead to complexation, compartmentalisation, efflux, enrichment, and antioxidant detoxification pathways. The AMF reduced shoot and protoplasm Cd inflow, and promoted organic compound production (e.g., by upregulating HM-Res4 for 1.2 times), to complex with Cd, reducing its biological toxicity. The AMF increased the ROS scavenging efficiency and osmotic regulatory substance content of the alfalfa plants, reduced oxidative stress (ROS dereased), and maintained homeostasis. It also alleviated Cd inhibition of photosynthetic electron transport, tricarboxylic acid circulation, and nitrogen assimilation. These AMF effects improved leaf and root biomass by 43.87% and 59.71% and facilitated recovery of a conservative root economic strategy. It is speculated that AMF induces the resistance signal switch by regulating the negative feedback regulation mode of indole acetic acid upward transport and methyl jasmonate downward transmission in plants.

The development of intelligent and wearable electronics raises an urgent requirement for stretchable, durable power sources and sensors. Especially, self-powered sensor that can work with high sensing sensitivity and stability in harsh environments is greatly desired for wilderness exploration and urgent rescue. Herein, an anti-freezing, stretch-matched, and liquid electrode-based TENG (Abbr. as AS-TENG) is developed and demonstrated for biomechanical sensing in extremely cold environments. The liquid electrode with the integration of lithium chloride electrolyte, graphene oxide micro-/nano- sheets and ethylene glycol (LiCl/GO/EG) acted as the electrode is encapsulated within a dielectric elastomer as the electrification layer, allowing the resultant single-electrode AS-TENG to achieve a high stretchability of 200% and high electrical performance output with open-circuit voltage of 317 V, short-circuit current of 27 μA, and short-circuit charge of 100 nC. It can be used as a self-powered wearable sensor to be attached on human body for monitoring the biomechanical motion, and can also be used as a power source of a self-charging system to power electronic devices. Most importantly, the AS-TENG can work under severe condition within a wide temperature range (−40 ~ +25 °C) without sacrificing its sensing performance. This work provides a broad application prospect for the development of anti-freezing, stretchable, and liquid electrode-based TENG as wearable sensor under harsh conditions.

Panoramic images with their 360° directional view encompass exhaustive information about the surrounding space, providing a rich foundation for scene understanding. To unfold this potential in the form of robust panoramic segmentation models, large quantities of expensive, pixel-wise annotations are crucial for success. Such annotations are available, but predominantly for narrow-angle, pinhole-camera images which, off the shelf, serve as sub-optimal resources for training panoramic models. Distortions and the distinct image-feature distribution in 360° panoramas impede the transfer from the annotation-rich pinhole domain and therefore come with a big dent in performance. To get around this domain difference and bring together semantic annotations from pinhole- and 360° surround-visuals, we propose to learn object deformations and panoramic image distortions in the Deformable Patch Embedding (DPE) and Deformable MLP (DMLP) components which blend into our Transformer for PAnoramic Semantic Segmentation (Trans4PASS) model. Finally, we tie together shared semantics in pinhole- and panoramic feature embeddings by generating multi-scale prototype features and aligning them in our Mutual Prototypical Adaptation (MPA) for unsupervised domain adaptation. On the indoor Stanford2D3D dataset, our Trans4PASS with MPA maintains comparable performance to fully-supervised state-of-the-arts, cutting the need for over 1,400 labeled panoramas. On the outdoor DensePASS dataset, we break state-of-the-art by 14.39% mIoU and set the new bar at 56.38%.

Copper (Cu)/peroxymonosulfate (PMS) is a complex coupling system due to its multiple activation pathways with the formation of diverse radical and nonradical species. However, the effects of CuO with different plane exposures on the properties of the coupling system are not clear. In this research, Cu atom-terminated (0 0 1) plane-exposed CuO (CuO-10) is synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method using NH3·H2O as the structure directing agent for the first time. CuO-10 has the excellent property of inducing PMS to degrade bisphenol A (BPA) in water, and its reaction rate constant (k) reaches 14 times higher than that of commercial CuO with exposed (0 1 0) plane terminated by O atoms (CuO-C). Meanwhile, CuO-10 exhibits a wide pHinitial adaptability, and its BPA degradation exceeds 87% in the pH range of 3–9. Furthermore, compared with CuO-C/PMS, less radical and 1O2 are found in CuO-10/PMS oxidation system. Compared to the UV/PMS system, organic contaminants in CuO/PMS systems are easier to oxidize via an oxygen-atom-transfer mechanism. Therefore, the ≡Cu(II)-OOSO3- metastable intermediate is speculated to play an important role in the CuO/PMS activation process, which oxidizes organic contaminants directly through oxygen-atom-transfer and single-electron-transfer pathways. Furthermore, the CuO-10/PMS system is more likely to degrade organic pollutants through the oxygen-atom-transfer pathway than the CuO-C/PMS system. This study not only explores the influence of CuO crystal planes in efficiently inducing PMS activation but also provides new insights into the PMS activation process in the CuO/PMS oxidation system.

During development, melanopsin-expressing intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) become light sensitive much earlier than rods and cones. IpRGCs project to many subcortical areas, whereas physiological functions of these projections are yet to be fully elucidated. Here, we found that ipRGC-mediated light sensation promotes synaptogenesis of pyramidal neurons in various cortices and the hippocampus. This phenomenon depends on activation of ipRGCs and is mediated by the release of oxytocin from the supraoptic nucleus (SON) and the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) into cerebral-spinal fluid. We further characterized a direct connection between ipRGCs and oxytocin neurons in the SON and mutual projections between oxytocin neurons in the SON and PVN. Moreover, we showed that the lack of ipRGC-mediated, light-promoted early cortical synaptogenesis compromised learning ability in adult mice. Our results highlight the importance of light sensation early in life on the development of learning ability and therefore call attention to suitable light environment for infant care.

High energy density lithium (Li) metal batteries (LMBs) hold great promise to become next-generation energy storage devices. However, their commercialization process is severely hindered by low Coulombic efficiency (CE) and potential safety hazard caused by non-uniform Li deposition and flammable electrolytes. Herein, a brand-new ultralow concentration (0.3 M) mixed ether electrolyte is proposed to regulate the electrolyte structure, flammability and solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) composition for LMBs. The high proportion of flame retarded inert solvent (94% by volume) remarkably improves the security of LMBs and promotes anions involving in Li+ solvent sheath structures. Therefore, differing from Li+−solvent dominant solvent sheaths in traditional low concentration electrolyte, the abundant Li+−anion aggregate cluster in this ULCE could lead to sufficient decomposition of anion and formation of inorganic-rich SEI. Based on this electrolyte design, the average Li deposition/stripping CE reaches > 99.3% under 2 mA cm−2 and 1 mAh cm−2 among 250 cycles. Moreover, superior electrochemical performance of Li||Li4Ti5O12 and Li||sulfur full cells also confirm the practical application value of this ULCE. This work proposes a fresh strategy to design low concentration electrolytes with unique solvated structures for high energy density metal batteries.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which lasted for three years, has had a great impact on the public health system, society and economy of cities, revealing the insufficiency of urban resilience under large-scale public health events (PHEs). Given that a city is a networked and multidimensional system with complex interactions, it is helpful to improve urban resilience under PHEs based on system thinking. Therefore, this paper proposes a dynamic and systematic urban resilience framework that incorporates four subsystems (governance, infrastructures, socioeconomy and energy-material flows). The composite index, system dynamics and epidemic simulation model are integrated into the framework to show the nonlinear relationships in the urban system and reflect the changing trend of urban resilience under PHEs. Then, urban resilience under different epidemic scenarios and response policy scenarios is calculated and discussed to provide some suggestions for decision-makers when faced with the trade-off between the control of PHEs and the maintenance of city operation. The paper concludes that control policies could be adjusted according to the characteristics of PHEs; strict control policies under a severe epidemic could lead to a significant decrease in urban resilience, while a more flexible control strategy can be adopted under a mild epidemic scenario to ensure the normal operation of urban functions. Moreover, the critical functions and impact factors of each subsystem are identified.

Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) is a promising technology for engineering applications in the biological treatment of sewage. New objective is to skip the conventional granulation step to integrate it into a continuous-flow reactor directly. This study proposed a method for integrating spherical pelletizing granular sludge (SPGS) into a new patented aerobic granular sludge bed (AGSB), a continuous up-flow reactor. AGSB system could be startup directly, and after 120 days of operation, the SPGS maintained a relatively intact spherical structure and stability. With an initial high chemical oxygen demand (COD) volume loading of over 2.0 kg/(m3·d), this system achieved the desired effect as the same as a mature AGS system. The final mixed liquid suspended solids, and the ratio of 30 min-5 min sludge volume index (SVI30/SVI5) were 20,000 mg/L, and 0.84, respectively. Although hydraulic elution and filamentous bacteria (FBs) had a slightly negative impact on initial phase pollutant removal, the final removal rates for COD, total nitrogen (TN), ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-H), and total phosphorus (TP) were 90%, 70%, 95%, and 85%, respectively. The presence of specific functional microorganisms promoted the secretion of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), from 90.65 to 209.78 mg/gVSS. The maturation process of SPGS altered the microbial community structures and reduced the species abundance of microbes in sludge.

• FHC(SO 4 2- ) shows better Cr(VI) removal performance than FHC(Cl - ) and FHC(CO 3 2- ). • Surface structural Fe(II) and surface -OH are the key factors of Cr(VI) removal. • Removal mechanisms are electrostatic attraction, reduction and co-precipitation. • Chemical cost and sludge yield are reduced by 71.3% and 54.1% in pilot-scale study. • Effective Fe-based materials to remediate electroplating wastewater are proposed. Low electron-transfer efficiency and cumbersome processes are widely known to negatively affect the application of Fe-based materials for treating electroplating wastewater. In this study, ferrous/ferric hydroxide complex (FHC) was successfully synthesized to greatly improve the electron-transfer efficiency for Cr(VI) removal; meanwhile, the effect of the interlayer type on Cr(VI) removal and the possible removal mechanisms were well investigated. The sulfate interlayer of FHC was shown to strongly promote Cr(VI) removal, with 10.4% and 29.0% improvements over those achieved by chloride and carbonate interlayers, respectively, in close association with the amounts of surface structural Fe(II), surface −OH, and adsorbed water. The initial pH value was demonstrated to exert almost no effect on Cr(VI) removal by FHC(SO 4 2− ) owing to the buffering effect of the surface –OH. These results were different from some previously reported Cr(VI) removal of Fe-based materials. Moreover, the results of characterization and lab-scale experiments indicated that most of Cr(VI) binds rapidly with the surface −OH owing to electrostatic attraction. The peak at 618 cm −1 in the FT-IR spectra shifted to 549 cm −1 and new peaks at 576.79 and 586.39 eV in the XPS spectra were observed after the reaction, which was attributed to the formation of CrOOH and FeCr 2 O 4 owing to reduction and coprecipitation. Pilot-scale experiments revealed that the chemical cost and sludge yield during the FHC process decreased by 71.3% and 54.1%, respectively, compared with those in the NaHSO 3 process. These findings provide new insight for utilizing different interlayers to improve the reactivity of FHCs in remediating electroplating wastewater containing Cr(VI).

There are positively charged Ca2+ and Mg2+, negatively charged colloids and lots of bacteria in seawater. The different surface potentials of ultrafiltration membranes may lead to different adsorption properties for contaminants in seawater when ultrafiltration membranes were applied to the pretreatment of Reverse Osmosis process. Herein, this work prepared modified ultrafiltration membranes with different surface potentials using three GO-based materials, and investigated the anti-fouling of Ca2+, Mg2+, humic acid, the anti-bacterial adhesion performance and mechanisms of modified ultrafiltration membranes under simulated seawater conditions. Results showed that the modified membranes exhibited enhanced hydrophilicity, anti-fouling performance, antibacterial property and permeability compared with the unmodified polyvinylidene fluoride membrane. Conspicuously, with the highest surface potential among all membranes, quaternized graphene oxide modified ultrafiltration membrane (QGO-M) presented the best anti-fouling property to Ca2+, Mg2+, humic acid and antibacterial property. In particular, the flux recovery rate against the simulated seawater solution containing humic acid and the surface bacteriostatic rate against salt-tolerant bacteria of QGO-M were 95.7% and 97.9%, respectively. The results can provide an important reference for the investigation of modified ultrafiltration membranes suitable for seawater filtration.

Chlorine dioxide (ClO2) bleaching wastewater from bagasse brings a threat to human health. The intimate coupling of photocatalysis and biodegradation (ICPB) as a prospective green technique can remove environmental pollutants. Therefore, this study innovatively integrates functional bacteria with the ICPB system (ICPFB) and discusses the degradation mechanism, pathway, kinetic model, and microbial response behavior of the system to wastewater. The results show that the ICPFB system can simultaneously remove 95% absorbable organic halogen (AOX), 91% COD and 85% dissolved organic carbon (DOC), outperforming single photocatalysis (AOX 72%, COD 80%, DOC 68%) and biodegradation (AOX 41.4%, COD 66%, DOC 45%). Meanwhile, the reaction kinetics model of the ICPFB system is dC/dt = -KC1.22. According to the GC-MS analysis of degradation products, the degradation of organic compounds in wastewater involves gradual dechlorination and aromatic ring opening. Lastly, the Biofilm analysis shows that the functional bacteria possess abilities of dechlorination, aromatic ring opening and carbon oxidation.

Abstract Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common degenerative joint disease urgently needing effective treatments. Bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cell-derived exosomes (Exo) are considered good drug carriers whereas they have limitations such as fast clearance and low retention. This study aimed to overcome the limitations of Exo in drug delivery using multiple strategies. Novel photocrosslinking spherical gelatin methacryloyl hydrogel (GelMA)-encapsulated cartilage affinity WYRGRL (W) peptide-modified engineered Exo were developed for OA treatment and the performance of the engineered Exo (W-Exo@GelMA) loaded with a small inhibitor LRRK2-IN-1 (W-Exo-L@GelMA) was investigated in vitro and in vivo. The W-Exo-L@GelMA showed an effective targeting effect on chondrocytes and a pronounced action on suppressing catabolism and promoting anabolism in vitro. Moreover, W-Exo-L@GelMA remarkably inhibited OA-related inflammation and immune gene expression, rescuing the IL-1β-induced transcriptomic responses. With enhanced retention in the joint, W-Exo-L@GelMA demonstrated superior anti-OA activity and cartilage repair ability in the OA murine model. The therapeutic effect was validated in the cultured human OA cartilage. In conclusion, photocrosslinking spherical hydrogel-encapsulated targeting peptide-modified engineered Exo exhibit notable potential in OA therapy. Engineering Exo by a series of strategies enhanced the targeting ability and retention and cartilage-targeting and Exo-mediated drug delivery may offer a novel strategy for OA treatment. Clinical trial registration : Not applciable. Graphical Abstract

The coordination polymer Cd-MOF with three-dimensional network structure was successfully synthesized by conventional solvothermal method, which possesses excellent chemical and structural stability. Among the 20 amino acids, only tryptophan (Trp) showed a significant fluorescence enhancement effect on Cd-MOF, which was attributed to the large overlap between the UV absorption peak of tryptophan and the fluorescence excitation spectrum of Cd-MOF, indicating that the UV absorption of them is competitive, which enhanced the UV absorption of Cd-MOF and thus enhanced the luminescence intensity simultaneously. The Cd-MOF was further found to have a low detection limit of 1.7µM, a relatively wide linear range (0-100µM) and a stable response time for the recognition of tryptophan, as well as a good resistance to the interference of other amino acids. The method has been successfully applied to the spiked recovery determination of tryptophan in milk with the recoveries of 99.6%-101% and RSD≤1.50%. Therefore, this work demonstrated that Cd-MOF can be used as a fluorescent probe for the selective detection of tryptophan, and also may provide new opportunities for the rational design of future tryptophan fluorescent probes.

Structural complexity of glycans derived from the diversities in composition, linage, configuration, and branching considerably complicates structural analysis. Nanopore-based single-molecule sensing offers the potential to elucidate glycan structure and even sequence glycan. However, the small molecular size and low charge density of glycans have restricted direct nanopore detection of glycan. Here we show that glycan sensing can be achieved using a wild-type aerolysin nanopore by introducing a facile glycan derivatization strategy. The glycan molecule can induce impressive current blockages when moving through the nanopore after being connected with an aromatic group-containing tag (plus a carrier group for the neutral glycan). The obtained nanopore data permit the identification of glycan regio- and stereoisomers, glycans with variable monosaccharide numbers, and distinct branched glycans, either independently or with the use of machine learning methods. The presented nanopore sensing strategy for glycans paves the way towards nanopore glycan profiling and potentially sequencing.

Multimodal fusion can make semantic segmentation more robust. However, fusing an arbitrary number of modalities remains underexplored. To delve into this problem, we create the Deliver arbitrary-modal segmentation benchmark, covering Depth, LiDAR, multiple Views, Events, and RGB. Aside from this, we provide this dataset in four severe weather conditions as well as five sensor failure cases to exploit modal complementarity and resolve partial outages. To make this possible, we present the arbitrary cross-modal segmentation model CMNEXT. It encompasses a Self-Query Hub (SQ-Hub) designed to extract effective information from any modality for subsequent fusion with the RGB representation and adds only negligible amounts of parameters ~0.1M) per additional modality. On top, to efficiently and flexibly harvest discriminative cues from the auxiliary modalities, we introduce the simple Parallel Pooling Mixer (PPX). With extensive experiments on a total of six benchmarks, our CMNEXT achieves state-of-the-art performance on the Deliver, Kitti-360, MFNet, NYU Depth V2, UrbanLF, and MCubeS datasets, allowing to scale from 1 to 81 modalities. On the freshly collected Deliver, the quad-modal CMNEXT reaches up to 66.30% in mIoU with a +9.10% gain as compared to the mono-modal baseline. <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup> <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup> The Deliver dataset and our code will be made publicly available at https://jamycheung.github.io/DELIVER.html.

Electromagnetic wave absorption materials featuring small thicknesses and wide effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) are highly required for next-generation portable devices, wearable electronics, and blooming military applications. However, traditional EM particle absorbents, such as carbon-based, magnetic metal-based, and MXene-based materials are always visible black, which severely hinders their utilization as microwave-stealth smart window alternatives. Therefore, it is a critical challenge to fabricate flexible windows simultaneously possessing high optical transmittance and excellent EM wave absorption properties. Herein, we prepared a transparent wood composite with an optical transmittance value of more than ∼83% through a delignification and polymer composite immersion method. The delignification process could remove the light-absorbing lignin component, and the transparent woods were realized by immersing the delignified wood into refractive-index-matched pre-polymerized acrylamide (AM) including minor silver nanowires, carbon nanotubes, and reduced graphene oxides. In addition, due to the presence of numerous polarization centers originating from hydrophilic functional groups and conductive fillers, the transparent wood composite showed superior EM absorption performance, and EAB can reach 9.5 GHz, almost occupying the whole X band (8.2–12.4 GHz) and Ku band (12.4–18 GHz) at a thickness of 2.0 mm. Furthermore, the transparent wood presented a great insulative thermal performance with a low thermal conductivity of 0.45 W m−1 K−1 (half of common glass). The developed transparent wood composites offered significant potential as smart energy-efficient windows with the expectation to survive military equipment and alleviate EM pollution.

By introducing more nitrogen atoms into molecular skeleton, deep-red-emitting Ir(qabt)2IPO exhibits higher PLQY and EQE compared with referent Ir(iqbt)2IPO.

The radiation response of nanostructured materials is of great interest because of the potential of nanoscale materials design for mitigating radiation damage. We report a greatly enhanced resistance to radiation-induced amorphization in nanocrystalline Gd2(Ti0.65Zr0.35)2O7 at a particle size less than 20 nm while larger crystals with the size &amp;gt;100 nm are radiation sensitive. The grain size of pyrochlore, Gd2(Ti0.65Zr0.35)2O7, can be controlled by mechanical milling and subsequent thermal treatment (from 800 to 1500 °C), offering the possibility of designing pyrochlore materials at the nanoscale with enhanced performance for specific radiation environments.

Abstract A general enantioselective synthesis of functionalized nitrocyclopropanes by organocatalytic conjugate addition of a variety of bromonitroalkanes to α,β‐unsaturated enone systems is presented. The process, efficiently catalyzed by the salts of 9‐amino‐9‐deoxyepiquinine 1 d serves as a powerful approach to the preparation of synthetically and biologically important cyclopropanes with high levels of enantio‐ and diastereoselectivities. Since only 0.6 equivalents of bromonitromethane are used as a reagent, ( S )‐ 2 e is obtained enantiomerically pure by employing chiral 1 d as a highly efficient catalyst for its kinetic resolution (97 % ee at 51 % conversion, selectivity s =120).

Myrosinases (EC 3.2.1.147) are beta-thioglucoside glucosidases present in Brassicaceae plants. These enzymes serve to protect plants against pathogens and insect pests by initiating breakdown of the secondary metabolites glucosinolates into toxic products. Several forms of myrosinases are present in plants but the properties and role of different isoenzymes are not well understood. The dicot plant model organism Arabidopsis thaliana seems to contain six myrosinase genes (TGG1-TGG6). In order to compare the different myrosinases, cDNAs corresponding to TGG1 from leaves and TGG4 and TGG5 from roots were cloned and overexpressed in Pichia pastoris. The His-tagged recombinant proteins were purified using affinity chromatography and the preparations were homogenous according to SDS-PAGE analysis. Myrosinase activity was confirmed for all forms and compared with respect to catalytic activity towards the allyl-glucosinolate sinigrin. There was a 22-fold difference in basal activity among the myrosinases. The enzymes were active in a broad pH range, are rather thermostable and active in a wide range of salt concentrations but sensitive to high salt concentrations. The myrosinases showed different activation-inhibition responses towards ascorbic acid with maximal activity around 0.7-1 mM. No activity was registered towards desulphosinigrin and this compound did not inhibit myrosinase activity towards sinigrin. All myrosinases also displayed O-beta-glucosidase activity, although with lower efficiency compared to the myrosinase activity. The differences in catalytic properties among myrosinase isozymes for function in planta are discussed.

Abstract A multi‐component nanosystem based on graphene and comprising individual cyclodextrins at its surface is assembled, creating hybrid structures enabling new and important functionalities: optical imaging, drug storage, and cell targeting for medical diagnosis and treatment. These nanohybrids are part of a universal system of interchangeable units, capable of mutilple functionalities. The surface components, made of individual β‐cyclodextrin molecules, are the “hosts” for functional units, which may be used as imaging agents, for anti‐cancer drug delivery, and as tumor‐specific ligands. Specifically, individual β‐cyclodextrin (β‐CD), with a known capability to host various molecules, is considered a module unit that is assembled onto graphene nanosheet (GNS). The cyclodextrin‐functionalized graphene nanosheet (GNS/β‐CD) enables “host–guest” chemistry between the nanohybrid and functional “payloads”. The structure, composition, and morphology of the graphene nanosheet hybrid have been investigated. The nanohybrid, GNS/β‐CD, is highly dispersive in various physiological solutions, reflecting the high biostability of cyclodextrin. Regarding the host capability, the nanohybrid is fully capable of selectively accommodating various biological and functional agents in a controlled fashion, including the antivirus drug amantadine, fluorescent dye [5(6)‐carboxyfluorescein], and Arg‐Gly‐Asp (RGD) peptide‐targeting ligands assisted by an adamantine linker. The loading ratio of 5(6)‐carboxyfluorescein is as high as 110% with a drug concentration of 0.45 mg mL −1 . The cyclic RGD‐functionalized nanohybrid exhibits remarkable targeting for HeLa cells.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an adult-onset neurodegenerative disease that leads invariably to fatal paralysis associated with motor neuron degeneration and muscular atrophy. One gene associated with ALS encodes the DNA/RNA-binding protein Fused in Sarcoma (FUS). There now exist two Drosophila models of ALS. In one, human FUS with ALS-causing mutations is expressed in fly motor neurons; in the other, the gene cabeza (caz), the fly homolog of FUS, is ablated. These FUS-ALS flies exhibit larval locomotor defects indicative of neuromuscular dysfunction and early death. The locus and site of initiation of this neuromuscular dysfunction remain unclear. We show here that in FUS-ALS flies, motor neuron cell bodies fire action potentials that propagate along the axon and voltage-dependent inward and outward currents in the cell bodies are indistinguishable in wild-type and FUS-ALS motor neurons. In marked contrast, the amplitude of synaptic currents evoked in the postsynaptic muscle cell is decreased by >80% in FUS-ALS larvae. Furthermore, the frequency but not unitary amplitude of spontaneous miniature synaptic currents is decreased dramatically in FUS-ALS flies, consistent with a change in quantal content but not quantal size. Although standard confocal microscopic analysis of the larval neuromuscular junction reveals no gross abnormalities, superresolution stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy demonstrates that the presynaptic active zone protein bruchpilot is aberrantly organized in FUS-ALS larvae. The results are consistent with the idea that defects in presynaptic terminal structure and function precede, and may contribute to, the later motor neuron degeneration that is characteristic of ALS.

Swift heavy ion (2 GeV 181Ta) irradiation-induced amorphization and temperature-induced recrystallization of cubic pyrochlore Gd2Ti2O7 (Fd3¯m) are compared with the response of a compositionally-similar material with a monoclinic-layered perovskite-type structure, La2Ti2O7 (P21). The averaged electronic energy loss, dE/dx, was 37 keV/nm and 35 keV/nm in Gd2Ti2O7 and La2Ti2O7, respectively. Systematic analysis of the structural modifications was completed using transmission electron microscopy, synchrotron X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and small-angle X-ray scattering. Increasing ion-induced amorphization with increasing ion fluence was evident in the X-ray diffraction patterns of both compositions by a reduction in the intensity of the diffraction maxima concurrent with the growth in intensity of a broad diffuse scattering halo. Transmission electron microscopy analysis showed complete amorphization within ion tracks (diameter: ∼10 nm) for the perovskite-type material; whereas a concentric, core–shell morphology was evident in the ion tracks of the pyrochlore, with an outer shell of disordered yet still crystalline material with the fluorite structure surrounding an amorphous track core (diameter: ∼9 nm). The radiation response of both titanate oxides with the same stoichiometry can be understood in terms of differences in their structures and compositions. While the radiation damage susceptibility of pyrochlore A2B2O7 materials decreases as a function of the cation radius ratio rA/rB, the current study correlates this behavior with the stability field of monoclinic structures, where rLa/rTi > rGd/rTi. Isochronal annealing experiments of the irradiated materials showed complete recrystallization of La2Ti2O7 at 775 °C and of Gd2Ti2O7 at 850 °C. The annealing behavior is discussed in terms of enhanced damage recovery in La2Ti2O7, compared to the pyrochlore compounds Gd2Ti2O7. The difference in the recrystallization behavior may be related to structural constraints, i.e., reconstructing a low symmetry versus a high symmetry phase.

Remarkable atrazine degradation in the S(IV) autoxidation process catalyzed by Fe2+-Mn2+ (Fe2+/Mn2+/sulfite) was demonstrated in this study. Competitive kinetic experiments, alcohol inhibiting methods and electron spin resonance (ESR) experiments proved that sulfur radicals were not the major oxidation species. Mn(III) was demonstrated to be the primary active species in the Fe2+/Mn2+/sulfite process based on the comparison of oxidation selectivity. Moreover, the inhibiting effect of the Mn(III) hydrolysis and the S(IV) autoxidation in the presence of organic contaminants indicated the existence of three Mn(III) consumption routes in the Fe2+/Mn2+/sulfite process. The absence of hydroxyl radical and sulfate radical was interpreted by the competitive dynamics method. The oxidation capacity of the Fe2+/Mn2+/sulfite was independent of the initial pH (4.0–6.0) because the fast decay of S(IV) decreased initial pH below 4.0 rapidly. The rate of ATZ degradation was independent of the dissolved oxygen (DO) because that the major DO consumption process was not the rate determining step during the production of SO5•-. Phosphate and bicarbonate were confirmed to have greater inhibitory effects than other environmental factors because of their strong pH buffering capacity and complexing capacity for Fe3+. The proposed acetylation degradation pathway of ATZ showed the application of the Fe2+/Mn2+/sulfite process in the research of contaminants degradation pathways. This work investigated the characteristics of the Fe2+/Mn2+/sulfite process in the presence of organic contaminants, which might promote the development of Mn(III) oxidation technology.

To address the huge volumetric change and unstable solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) issues of Sn-based anodes, this paper proposes a Sn–Co–C ternary composite with a cubic yolk–shell structure. The proposed Sn–Co nanoalloys encapsulated in N-doped carbon hollow cubes (Sn–Co@C) are simply synthesized by the conformal polydopamine coating of home-made CoSn(OH)6 hollow nanocubes subsequent with hydrogen reduction. The cubic Sn–Co@C yolk–shell structure possessing an optimized carbon shell thickness displays excellent cyclic performance and superior rate capability when utilized as an anode for lithium-ion batteries. The composite shows an initial discharge capacity of 885 mA h g–1 at 200 mA g–1 with a high capacity retention of ∼91.2% after 180 cycles. It can still deliver a considerable capacity of 560 mA h g–1 at a high current density of 1 A g–1 after 200 cycles. This attractive electrochemical characteristic can be ascribed to the distinct cubic yolk–shell architecture, in which the inner inactive Co can buffer the volumetric expansion of Sn, the void can provide external space for the volumetric change of Sn, and the outer carbon shell can effectively prevent the agglomeration of Sn–Co nanoalloys and maintain the stability of SEI films.

Abstract Aberrant overexpression of long non‐coding RNA CRNDE (Colorectal Neoplasia Differentially Expressed) is confirmed in various human cancers, which is correlated with advanced clinicopathological features and poor prognosis. CRNDE promotes cancer cell proliferation, migration and invasion, and suppresses apoptosis in complicated mechanisms, which result in the initialization and development of human cancers. In this review, we provide an overview of the oncogenic role and potential clinical applications of CRNDE .

P2X4 receptors (P2X4R) are a family of ATP-gated non-selective cation channels. We previously demonstrated that activation of P2X4R in spinal microglia is crucial for neuropathic pain, a highly debilitating chronic pain condition, suggesting that P2X4R is a potential therapeutic target for treating neuropathic pain. Thus, the identification of a compound that has a potent inhibitory effect on P2X4R is an important clinical challenge. In the present study, we screened a chemical library of clinically approved drugs and show for the first time that duloxetine, a serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor, has an inhibitory effect on rodent and human P2X4R. In primary cultured microglial cells, duloxetine also inhibited P2X4R-, but not P2X7R-, mediated responses. Moreover, intrathecal administration of duloxetine in a model of neuropathic pain produced a reversal of nerve injury-induced mechanical allodynia, a cardinal symptom of neuropathic pain. In rats that were pretreated with a serotonin-depleting agent and a noradrenaline neurotoxin, the antiallodynic effect of duloxetine was reduced, but still remained. Based on these results, we suggest that, in addition to duloxetine’s primary inhibitory action on serotonin and noradrenaline transporters, an inhibitory effect on P2X4R may be involved at least in part in an antiallodynic effect of intrathecal duloxetine in a model of neuropathic pain.

Deep learning (DL) methods have been used increasingly widely, such as in the fields of speech and image recognition. However, how to design an appropriate DL model to accurately and efficiently classify electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is still a challenge, mainly because EEG signals are characterized by significant differences between two different subjects or vary over time within a single subject, non-stability, strong randomness, low signal-to-noise ratio. SincNet is an efficient classifier for speaker recognition, but it has some drawbacks in dealing with EEG signals classification. In this paper, we improve and propose a SincNet-based classifier, SincNet-R, which consists of three convolutional layers, and three deep neural network (DNN) layers. We then make use of SincNet-R to test the classification accuracy and robustness by emotional EEG signals. The comparable results with original SincNet model and other traditional classifiers such as CNN, LSTM and SVM, show that our proposed SincNet-R model has higher classification accuracy and better algorithm robustness.

A graphite felt electrode with electrode aeration (GF-EA) was used for the Electro-Fenton treatment of dimethyl phthalate (DMP) wastewater. At pH 3.0, removal efficiencies of 200 mg/L DMP and solution TOC by EA were 50.0% and 55.4% higher than solution aeration (SA), respectively. At pH 4.0 and 5.5, EA showed 36.4–56.1% and 9.4–35.7% higher removal for 20–50 mg/L DMP and TOC than SA, respectively. High effective degradation performance of EA was attributed to the enhanced mass transfer of O2 and the solution, which provided the sufficient active area for H2O2 electro-generation and promoted the Fe3+/Fe2+ cycling, thus increasing the OH content. Using EA, GF could collect iron sludge at low O2 flux, and then strip it for reuse at large air flux. This process regenerated GF electrode and elided the disposal of iron sludge. By supplementing one-fifth of the original FeSO4 dosage, the operation costs of the iron-sludge-stripping EA system were 35% and 27% of those in SA system for the same removal of 200 mg/L and 20 mg/L DMP, respectively. During long-term use, DMP degradation performance of EA gradually improved due to the increased hydrophilic property and oxygen-containing functional groups, while the decreased DMP removal with SA was ascribed to the electrode poisoning caused by iron sludge deposition.

A novel aromatic polyamide (PA) reverse osmosis membrane with nanoscale water channels and hydrophilic molecular skin surface, similar to those of biomimetic neural networks, was realized for textile wastewater treatment <italic>via</italic> the facile strategy of interfacial polymerization with the addition of free radicals.

Silicon (Si) attracts extensive attention as the advanced anode material for lithium (Li)-ion batteries (LIBs) because of its ultrahigh Li storage capacity and suitable voltage plateau. Hollow porous structure and dopant-induced lattice expansion can enhance the cycling stability and transporting kinetics of Li ions. However, it is still difficult to synthesize the Si anode possessing these structures simultaneously by a facile method. Herein, the lightly boron (B)-doped spherical hollow-porous Si (B-HPSi) anode material for LIBs is synthesized by a facile magnesiothermic reduction from B-doped silica. B-HPSi exhibits local lattice expansion located on boundaries of refined subgrains. B atoms in Si contribute to the increase of the conductivity and the expansion of lattices. On the basis of the first-principles calculations, the B dopants induce the conductivity increase and local lattice expansion. As a result, B-HPSi electrodes exhibit a high specific capacity of ∼1500 mAh g–1 at 0.84 A g–1 and maintains 93% after 150 cycles. The reversible capacities of ∼1250, ∼1000, and ∼800 mAh g–1 can be delivered at 2.1, 4.2, and 8.4 A g–1, respectively.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as playing crucial roles in abiotic stress responsive regulation, however, the mechanism of lncRNAs underlying drought-tolerance remains largely unknown in cassava, an important tropical and sub-tropical root crop of remarkable drought tolerance. In this study, a total of 833 high-confidence lncRNAs, including 652 intergenic and 181 anti-sense lncRNAs, were identified in cassava leaves and root using strand-specific RNA-seq technology, of which 124 were drought-responsive. Trans-regulatory co-expression network revealed that lncRNAs exhibited tissue-specific expression patterns and they preferred to function differently in distinct tissues: e.g., cell-related metabolism, cell wall, and RNA regulation of transcription in folded leaf (FL); degradation of major carbohydrate (CHO) metabolism, calvin cycle and light reaction, light signaling, and tetrapyrrole synthesis in full expanded leaf (FEL); synthesis of major CHO metabolism, nitrogen-metabolism, photosynthesis, and redox in bottom leaf (BL); and hormone metabolism, secondary metabolism, calcium signaling, and abiotic stress in root (RT). In addition, 27 lncRNA-mRNA pairs referred to cis-acting regulation were identified, and these lncRNAs regulated the expression of their neighboring genes mainly through hormone metabolism, RNA regulation of transcription, and signaling of receptor kinase. Besides, 11 lncRNAs were identified acting as putative target mimics of known miRNAs in cassava. Finally, five drought-responsive lncRNAs and 13 co-expressed genes involved in trans-acting, cis-acting, or target mimic regulation were selected and confirmed by qRT-PCR. These findings provide a comprehensive view of cassava lncRNAs in response to drought stress, which will enable in-depth functional analysis in the future.

Introduction:Helicobacter pylori infection consistently leads to chronic and low degree of inflammatory response in gastric mucosa and is closely related with gastrointestinal and extra-gastric diseases. Effects of local microbiome in the stomach have been studied in adults and children with H. pylori infection. It is, however, not known whether the intestinal microbial community differs in children with varying H. pylori infection. The aim of this study is to characterize the altered composition of microbiome induced by H. pylori infection and in gastritis. Materials and Methods: This study involved 154 individuals, including 50 children affected by H. pylori-induced gastritis, 42 children with H. pylori-negative gastritis, and 62 healthy controls. Gut microbiome composition was analyzed using 16S rRNA gene-based pyrosequencing. Fecal bacterial diversity and composition were then compared. Results: On the basis of an analysis of similarities and differences, we found that children with H. pylori-induced gastritis exhibited gut bacteria dysbiosis. The ratio of Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes (F:B) at the phylum level had dramatically decreased in H. pylori-positive gastritis group (HPG) and H. pylori-negative gastritis group (HNG), compared with the healthy control group (HCG). At the family and genus levels, relative abundance of Bacteroidaceae and Enterobacteriaceae was prevalent in HPG and HNG, whereas relative abundance of Lachnospiraceae, Bifidobacteriaceae, and Lactobacillaceae was seen in HCG. Prevalence of different taxa of gut microbiome at the class, order, family, and genus levels was also observed among the three groups. Conclusions: Gastritis can cause changes in composition of fecal microbiome, which is exacerbated by H. pylori infection. These changes in gut microbiome may be related to drug resistance and development of chronic gastrointestinal diseases.

The inner cell mass (ICM) in blastocyst is the origin of all somatic and germ cells in mammals and pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) in vitro. As the conserved principles between pig and human, here we performed comprehensive single-cell RNA-seq for porcine early embryos from oocyte to early blastocyst (EB). We show the specification of the ICM and trophectoderm in morula and the molecular signature of the precursors. We demonstrate the existence of naïve pluripotency signature in morula and ICM of EB, and the specific pluripotent genes and the activity of signalling pathways highlight the characteristics of the naïve pluripotency. We observe the absence of dosage compensation with respect to X-chromosome (XC) in morula, and incomplete dosage compensation in the EB. However, the dynamics of dosage compensation may be independent of the expression of XIST induced XC inactivation. Our study describes molecular landmarks of embryogenesis in pig that will provide a better strategy for derivation of porcine PSCs and improve research in regenerative medicine.

Abstract Mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to osteoarthritis (OA) onset and progress. Mitochondrial dynamics, coupled with mitophagy, is critical for the maintenance of mitochondrial fitness, involving many cellular processes, such as proliferation and apoptosis. Excessive mechanical stress induces chondrocyte apoptosis; however, the effects of mechanical stress on mitochondrial dynamics remain elusive. In this study, we performed fluorescence staining, flow cytometry, transmission electron microscope, Western blot analysis, and RNA‐sequencing to assess the effects of different strength of mechanical stimulation on mitochondrial functions of chondrocyte treated with interleukin‐1β (IL‐1β). We found that moderate mechanical stress reduced the IL‐1β‐induced apoptosis by maintaining mitochondrial function and scavenging the reactive oxygen species, while excessive mechanical stress induced strong mitochondrial dysfunction and apoptosis. Moreover, RNAsequencing revealed that mitophagy and mitochondrial dynamics were involved in the regulation of mechanical stress on chondrocyte biology. In addition to the elevated mitophagy, moderate mechanical stress also promoted mitochondrial dynamics by enhancing the expression of MFN1/2 and OPA1 and the translocation of dynamin‐related protein 1 from the cytoplasm to the mitochondria. However, an uncoupling of mitochondrial dynamics, characterized by strongly elevated fission, resulted in the unfavorable apoptosis of excessive mechanical stress‐stimulated chondrocytes. This study revealed the effects of mechanical stress upon mitochondrial dynamics in chondrocyte.

To improve the anti-biofouling property of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane, three kinds of antibacterial graphene oxide (GO) derivatives were prepared, including imidazole-functionalized GO (Im-GO) and quaternized GO (Q-GO) synthesized by chemical grafting method, and GO loaded with silver nanoparticles (GO-Ag) synthesized by in-site reduction method. The structural characteristics and antibacterial abilities of three kinds of GO derivatives were characterized and investigated. It was demonstrated that GO could be used as a good carrier to prepare the anti-biofouling modifiers. Correspondingly, Im-GO/PVDF, Q-GO/PVDF, and GO-Ag/PVDF ultrafiltration membranes were fabricated using the phase inversion method. In contrast with the blank PVDF membrane, all the GO derivatives/PVDF membranes showed greatly improved permeability and anti-biofouling property. Significantly, the inhibition zone test and fluorescence staining experiment were carried out to investigate the differences between Im-GO, Q-GO, and GO-Ag in the antibacterial mechanisms. The corresponding results suggest that the imidazole and quaternary ammonium salt groups grafted on Im-GO and Q-GO possess great anti-leaching characteristics, while the loss of Ag+ from GO-Ag is relatively obvious. Therefore, Im-GO and Q-GO synthesized by chemical grafting method have greater potential as the anti-biofouling membrane modifiers, considering the accumulation of harmful ions in water and possible reduction in antibacterial stability for GO-Ag.

Flexible displays are essential to provide information in real time for human–machine interactions. As a next-generation display technology, quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) are potentially serving as key components for flexible displays. However, it is still challenging for QLEDs to simultaneously achieve flexibility, large-scale production, and high efficiencies. To this end, a strategy is proposed here by combining a top-emitting structure, optical microcavity optimization, and large-scale film preparation. A top-emitting microcavity with semitransparent and reflective metals is designed to achieve flexibility, efficient carrier injection, and high light extraction efficiency. Precision manufacturing of large-area QLEDs with the designed top-emitting microcavity is achieved by combining surfactant-assisted blade-coating and vacuum thermal evaporation processes. With this strategy, a large-area flexible QLED with an active area of 400 mm2 and a maximum external quantum efficiency of 21.8% is developed. This strategy provides a promising approach toward the development of flexible displays with the demonstration of a 1.3 in. passive-matrix flexible QLED display of 19 by 19 pixels.