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Waste moxa ash became a green and prospective adsorbent through ball milling with H2O2 for wastewater treatment.

Purpose: To establish an effective genomic diagnosis pipeline for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for its genetic etiology and intervention.Methods: A cohort of 354 autism spectrum disorder patients were obtained from Beijing Children’s Hospital, Capital Medical University. Peripheral blood samples of the patients were collected for whole genome sequencing (WGS) and RNA sequencing (RNAseq). Sequencing data analyses were performed for mining the single nucleotide variation (SNV), copy number variation (CNV) and structural variation (SV). Sanger sequencing and quantitative PCR were used to verify the positive results.Results: Among 354 patients, 9 cases with pathogenic/likely pathogenic copy number variation and 10 cases with pathogenic/likely pathogenic single nucleotide variations were detected, with a total positive rate of 5.3%. Among these 9 copy number variation cases, 5 were de novo and 4 were inherited. Among the 10 de novo single nucleotide variations, 7 were previously unreported. The pathological de novo mutations account for 4.2% in our cohort.Conclusion: Rare mutations of copy number variations and single nucleotide variations account for a relatively small proportion of autism spectrum disorder children, which can be easily detected by a genomic testing pipeline of combined whole genome sequencing and RNA sequencing. This is important for early etiological diagnosis and precise management of autism spectrum disorder with rare mutations.

Arrow Energy is a 50/50 joint venture between Shell and China National Petroleum Corporation. It holds vast coal bed methane gas resources in the Surat and Northern Bowen basins of Queensland, Australia. Recently the well design in the north Bowen asset has evolved to a heel intersect multilateral concept to further reduce the surface footprint, extend reservoir access and improve cost-effectiveness. The new well design components consist of a vertical producing well intersected by a horizontal multilateral well. It was tested on several targeted reservoirs and areas. There were a number of key learnings developed during the horizontal well construction, such as underbalanced drilling, intersect well technology, and directional drilling learning curve. Post completion, special considerations have been given on initial dewatering rates and solids-related production trends as a holistic well production strategy to assess the well concept selection effectiveness. This paper describes the key challenges and learnings from the well construction and production phases of the heel intersect multilateral well trials. This program has significantly helped Arrow Energy to mature the well design concept for future campaigns.

Manufacturing industry is very important to Anhui's economic development. With the sustained development of national economy and society, Anhui's manufacturing industry can't fully adapt to the development of social economy. Anhui's manufacturing industry is big but not strong. At present, Anhui's manufacturing industry is undergoing a service-oriented transformation. Starting from the connotation and characteristics of manufacturing service, systematically analyzing the present situation and problems of Anhui's manufacturing service-oriented transformation is of great significance to the development of Anhui's manufacturing export trade structure, and to the transformation of China's overall manufacturing export trade structure from labor-intensive to technology-intensive and capital-intensive.

Reintroduction of captive-bred Chinese giant salamanders is a primary approach for restoring wild populations. Despite previous studies have investigated the habitat preferences of reintroduced Chinese giant salamanders, the intraspecific variation in their habitat selection has been neglected. In the present study, 30 captive-bred Chinese giant salamanders belonging to 3 groups (i.e., 10 males, 10 females, and 10 juveniles) were released into a montane stream to explore whether intraspecific variation in habitat selection occurred in this species using radiotelemetry. Our results indicated that linear home range and daily movement of males were significantly higher than those of females and juveniles. Male sedentariness was significantly lower than that of females and juveniles. No significant differences were detected between females and juveniles in these measures. Importantly, we found that males preferred microhabitats with low water conductivity and deep water depth. Females preferred microhabitats with high water conductivity, low dissolved oxygen and ammonium-nitrogen, and slow current velocity, while juveniles occupied microhabitats with low ammonium-nitrogen. In addition, males and juveniles exhibited higher niche breadth than females. Niche overlap was high between adults and juveniles but low between males and females. Our study revealed the presence of spatial segregation in reintroduced Chinese giant salamanders. Males, females, and juveniles exhibited variation in microhabitat selection. These results provide important information for use when planning strategies for conservation of Chinese giant salamanders.

Dissolved gas analysis (DGA) method is widely used to detect the incipient fault of power transformers. This paper presents a novel DGA method for power transformer fault diagnosis based on Harris-Hawks-optimization (HHO) algorithm optimized kernel extreme learning machine (KELM). The non-code ratios of the gases are used as the characterizing vector for the KELM model, and the Harris-Hawks-optimization (HHO) algorithm is introduced to optimize the KELM parameters, which promotes the fault diagnostic performance of KELM. Based on dataset collected from IEC TC 10, the fault diagnosis capability of the proposed method is validated by different characterizing vectors and is compared with conventional KELM and other optimized KELM. Moreover, the generalization ability of the proposed method is confirmed by China DGA data. The results demonstrate that the proposed method is superior to other methods and is more effective and stable for power transformer fault diagnosis with high accuracy.

The electric-field-controlled (E-controlled) photoluminescence (PL) effect in inorganic materials has aroused great interest because of its potential applications in displays, optical communication, and data storage.

An enhancement of the electrocaloric effect with incomplete overlap of the FE–FE and FE–PE phase boundaries in KNN-based ceramics.

The novel 3D “Fistular onion flower” CNCP-350 benefits from the abundance of dual-category activity sites, demonstrating an excellent efficient catalytic performance in UOR and HER.

Background Functional diversity is important to maintain ecosystem functioning. Species with different ecomorphological traits may display distinct functional roles in ecosystems. Accordingly, functionally extreme species are more important as they can exhibit specific strategies. However, little is known about the distribution patterns of functionally extreme species at a local scale and whether the prior extinction of extreme species can cause significant effects on functional diversity. In addition, no empirical studies have been conducted on the microhabitat determinants of extreme species to maintain the functional diversity. Results This study collected 1470 tadpoles belonging to 6 families and 20 anuran species. These species were subsequently divided into 65 functional entities based on their developmental stages to incorporate intraspecific traits variability. As a result, we detected seven extreme functional entities, accounting for 10.7% of the total number of entities. Moreover, the prior extinction of extreme entities can lead to a significant decrease in functional diversity compared with the random extinction of entities. Microhabitat variables such as conductivity, water depth, and current velocity determined the distribution of extreme entities. Conclusion Although the functionally extreme entities only represented a small proportion of the total number of tadpoles, they played irreplaceable roles in maintaining functional diversity. Their extinction may induce high functional vulnerability in tadpole communities. Therefore, anuran species with extreme tadpole traits need to be projected for amphibian conservation.

Microorganisms play as fundamental contributors to maintain hosts’ fitness, which can be shaped by external environment. Moreover, symbiotic microbiome also varied within species (e.g., between sexes and developmental stages). However, we still need more studies to quantify whether the intraspecific variation patterns of symbiotic microbes can be modified with the change of environment. The Chinese giant salamander (CGS; Andrias davidianus) is a Critically Endangered species. Despite quantitative captive bred individuals were released to rebuild wild populations, the effectiveness is limited. More importantly, no studies have revealed the adaptation of released CGSs to the complex field conditions. In the present study, we explored whether reintroduction can reshape the intraspecific variations of symbiotic microbiota in captive bred CGSs using high-throughput amplicon sequencing of the16S rRNA gene. We found no significant difference of symbiotic microbiome in captive bred males and females, but released males and females differed significantly in skin microbiome. Juveniles had higher diversity of microbial symbiont than adults in hatchery, but lower diversity in field. Moreover, dominant bacterial taxa differed between juveniles and adults in both hatchery and field. Importantly, this symbiotic microbiome variations within species can be modified (alpha and beta diversity, and community composition) when captive bred individuals were released to the field. Overall, we observed a lower alpha diversity and higher relative abundance of Chryseobacterium, Plesiomonas, and Acinetobacter in the bacterial community of captive bred individuals. Instead, higher alpha diversity of symbiotic microbiota and higher relative abundance of S24-7 and Lactobacillus was detected in released individuals. These modifications may associate with the change of living environment, as well as the specific behavior within CGSs (e.g., movement patterns and foraging activities). Future studies can incorporate other approaches (e.g., blood physiology) to better evaluate the growth and health of reintroduced CGSs.

Most photochromic ceramics can back up post-irradiation to achieve color state transition. Unfortunately, color recovery usually requires exposure of material to external physical fields (such as light and heat), which severely limits the application as a convenient energy building material such as smart windows. Here, we report a kind of sodium niobate translucent ceramics whose photochromic effect can be completely self-recoverable without any external physical field stimulation. Based on the analysis of time-response transmittance, up-conversion emission spectra and thermoluminescence spectra, the behavior of carrier migration and trap capture/release in the process of self-recovery photochromic reaction has been proposed. It is believed that the emergence of intermediate trap level is an important factor to produce this spontaneous behavior. Moreover, by controlling the amount of rare earth doping and designing two types of materials with different carrier behaviors, Sm/Er-codoped NaNbO3 ceramics are regarded as an appropriate candidate for tracing the time of light irradiation and intelligent regulation of smart building materials. This work can promote the fundamental understanding and practical applications of self-recoverable photochromic bulk materials.

Environmentally friendly potassium sodium niobate (KNN)-based ceramics are potential electronic functional materials due to multiphase coexistence. Aliovalent doping on the A-site with different ions plays a key role in phase boundary engineering. However, the difference of contribution to the phase boundary from various A-site dopants is not clear in multielement high performance KNN-based ceramics. Herein, the individual contribution to phase structure and comparison of typical aliovalent ions (Bi

Low temperature imposes strong selective pressure on ectotherms. To maximize their overall fitness under cold conditions, the ectotherms may either try to maintain their physiological activities through metabolic compensation or enter into metabolic depression; however, some species adopt both strategies to cope with different degrees of cold. Nevertheless, how these two seemingly opposite strategies are coordinated has rarely been elucidated. Here, we investigated the molecular strategy underlying the cold acclimation of Andrias davidianus , the largest extant amphibian, using multi-organ metabolomics and transcriptomics. The results showed remarkable organ heterogeneity in response to cold. While most organs showed transcriptional upregulation of metabolic processes, the heart exhibited downregulation. This heterogeneity explained the adaptive reorganization in resource allocation, which compensates for metabolic maintenance by compromising growth. Importantly, the cardiac function might constitute a ‘ceiling’ to constrain the space for compensation, especially under colder conditions. Additionally, the opposite transcriptional regulation of oxidative phosphorylation and other pathways might also shape the overall metabolic capacity under cold conditions. The heterogeneity in cold responses may have directed a shift in cold adaptive strategy from compensation to depression with a drop in temperature. These results provide a novel insight into the regulatory mechanisms underlying cold survival strategies of ectotherms.

Recently, the lead-free piezoelectric material Bi

Rare earth Tb

The synergistic piezo-photocatalysis with enhanced efficiency for degrading obstinate pollutants in wastewater is considered as an advanced way to ameliorate the global water contamination. In this work, we report a facile route to construct the Bi

Robust neuromorphic computing in the Big Data era calls for long-term stable crossbar-array memory cells; however, the elemental segregation in the switch unit and memory unit that inevitably occurs upon cycling breaks the compositional and structural stability, making the whole memory cell a failure. Searching for a novel material without segregation that can be used for both switch and memory units is the major concern to fabricate robust and reliable nonvolatile cross-array memory cells. Tellurium (Te) is found recently to be the only peculiar material without segregation for switching, but the memory function has not been demonstrated yet. Herein, apparent piezoelectricity is experimentally confirmed with spontaneous polarization behaviors in elementary 2D Te, even in monolayer tellurene (0.4 nm), due to the highly oriented polarization of the molecular structure and the non-centrosymmetric lattice structure. A large memory window of 7000, a low working voltage of 2 V, and high on switching current up to 36.6 µA µm

Understanding mechanisms determining the coexistence between different species is one of the key issues in community ecology and biodiversity conservation. Microhabitat segregation is a way for species to coexist, which reflects the specific habitat selection of coexisting species in a finer spatial scale. Despite quantitative studies have been conducted to investigate the microhabitat segregation of coexisting species, this type of studies was not often performed on tadpoles. In this study, we assessed the habitat selection of two coexisting tadpoles (Quasipaa boulengeri and Leptobrachium boringii) in a stream on Emei Mountain, China. Our results demonstrated that L. boringii and Q. boulengeri tadpoles occupied different microhabitats. Specifically, Q. boulengeri tadpoles preferred deep, narrow, and weak acid stream segments with slow current velocity and low value of conductivity, while L. boringii tadpoles tended to occur in a wide, shallow water bodies with relatively higher pH, conductivity, and current velocity. Overall, our study supported the Hutchinson’s niche concept, showing that at least one dimension of niche differentiation (i.e., microhabitat) occurred between coexisting tadpole species.

Lead‐free ferroelectric electrocaloric ceramics that could convert electrical energy into heat are the promising candidate for environment‐friendly cooling devices. For refrigeration devices, a large temperature change (ΔT) and good temperature stability are required, which are highly related to the phase structure and the applied electric field. In this work, a diffused ferroelectric–paraelectric (FP) phase transition is formed in (K, Na)NbO3 (KNN) by using appropriate composition engineering. The relaxor ferroelectrics in this work present both a large ΔT of 1.24 K and a high ΔT/ΔE of 0.19 K mm/kV. In addition, a wide temperature span exceeds 55 °C at the high electrocaloric effect (ECE) criterion (ΔT ≥ 0.5 K) could also be observed. This work not only opens a new strategy for obtaining high‐performance ceramics for refrigeration devices but also extends the application area of the KNN‐based lead‐free ferroelectrics from sensors, actuators and energy harvesting to solid‐state cooling applications.

The piezoelectric constant (d33) and converse piezoelectric coefficient (d33*) of a piezoelectric material are critically important parameters for sensors and actuators. Here, we simultaneously achieve a high d33 of 595 ± 10 pC/N and a large d33* of ∼776 ± 20 pm/V in (K,Na)NbO3 (KNN)-based ceramics, which exceed those of PZT5H and PZT4 ceramics, presenting good potential for practical piezoelectric applications. Moreover, the ceramic exhibits a relaxor-like and diffuse dielectric behavior due to the occurrence of local heterogeneity. According to the experiments and atomic resolution polarization mapping by Z-contrast imaging, hierarchical architecture of nanodomains and even smaller polar nanoregions with multiphase coexistence caused by compositional modification is the structural origin of the enhanced piezoelectric properties in this work. This work would pave a practical way to future applications of lead-free KNN-based ceramics.

The development of an efficient electrocaloric (EC) material for refrigeration is of extreme importance for microelectronic and integrated electronic areas. No-lead-footprint 0.94(Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3–0.06BaTiO3 (BNT–BT) accompanied with a depolarization temperature (Td) and impressive ferroelectric property emerges as a potential material for EC cooling. However, its long-term room-temperature EC behavior has been restricted by its relatively low breakdown electric field (Eb) and high Td. This study reports that simultaneous Zr addition and AlN doping in BNT–BT (BNT–BZxT: yAlN) leads to a significant decrease of Td and enhancement of Eb. Satisfying EC performances (temperature change ΔT of 3.2 K and EC strength ΔT/ΔE of 0.32 K mm kV−1) close to the room temperature are realized with the composition of x = 0.2 and y = 0.2 wt% (BNT–BZ0.2T: 0.2 wt%). Such excellent EC behaviors surpass most reported no-lead ceramics, which are even superior to 0.9Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.1PbTiO3 ceramics. Most important of all, the present study offers an avenue for developing no-lead ceramics with an excellent room temperature ΔT towards solid-state cooling.

Electrocaloric refrigeration emerges as a newly developing technology with potential to be the next generation of coolers. However, the combination of large adiabatic temperature change (ΔT) and good temperature stability remains a long-term issue in lead-free ceramics for developing practical electrocaloric refrigeration devices. Herein, no-lead-footprint (0.9 − x)NaNbO3–0.1BaTiO3–xBaZrO3 (abbreviated here as NN–BT–xBZ) ceramics are optimized to select a special crossover state between ferroelectric and relaxor states. NN–BT–0.04BZ ceramic located at the crossover region benefits from multiple aspects involving large polarization, low-temperature ferro–paraelectric transition as well as the relaxor feature. Thus, a desired ΔT of 1.14 K and superior temperature stability (52 K, within ±5% variation in maximal ΔT) were achieved in the vicinity of room temperature. Such an excellent ΔT is almost two times larger than those of other niobate-based ceramics. Our work not only provides a promising electrocaloric material but expands NN-based materials to the electrocaloric refrigeration area, and offers a feasible design strategy for searching practical electrocaloric coolers in other systems.

Relaxor behavior is proved to be responsible for high piezoelectricity in piezoelectric materials due to the promoted polarization rotation, and an ultrahigh piezoelectricity can be also induced in potassium sodium niobate [(K,Na)NbO3, KNN]-based ceramics by dielectric relaxation at the multiphase coexistence region. However, it is still absent of the association study between domain evolution and relaxor behavior created by nanoscale multiphase coexistence. Herein, the frequency-dependent domain response, dwell-time dependence of domain radius and voltage-dependent domain switching are characterized in KNN-based ceramics with relaxor R–T phase boundary. These novel domain evolutions further illustrate the contribution of relaxor behavior on high piezoelectricity, yielding to easy polarization rotation based on low energy barrier of polar nanoregions merging into long-range ordering states. And an improved temperature stability is observed at 30−60 °C for relaxor R–T due to the unusual domain evolution. This study affords a new perspective in the mechanism of high-performance lead-free piezoelectrics.

Electrocaloric effect represents an environmentally friendly cooling alternative to replace the currently ubiquitous vapor-compression-based refrigeration. Previous studies have shown that large electrocaloric response is associated with the polarization change, which peaks around the phase transition temperature. However, there is only little focus on the effect of the detailed phase structure on the electrocaloric properties, particularly on the electrocaloric strength (ΔT/ΔE). For the first time, the correlation between ΔT/ΔE and the phase structure of perovskite ferroelectric materials was investigated, and a new frame to obtain optimized ΔT/ΔE related to the phase structure regulation was revealed. Given the simple and legible phase structure, BaTiO3-based ceramics are selected as a platform to reveal this relationship by employing both indirect and direct measurements. A striking variation of ΔT/ΔE and entropy change coefficient versus the electric field was first noticed at different phase structures: decreasing at the phase boundaries, whereas increasing in the pure phase regions, which could attribute to distinct entropy change mechanisms stemming from the discrepant energy profile at different phase structures. Beyond that, the maximum electrocaloric temperature change of ∼1 K and a large ΔT/ΔE of 0.48–0.25 × 10−6 K m V−1 were achieved under 5–40 kV cm−1. Also, a broad temperature span of 58 K with high ΔT/ΔE was maintained under 40 kV cm−1, and a desired electric field-stable ΔT/ΔE could be acquired. Our research provides a new paradigm for further designing and optimizing the electrocaloric performance of lead-free perovskite ferroelectrics.

The electrocaloric effect (ECE) is significantly critical for environmentally friendly cooling technologies to replace vapor compression-based refrigeration. Lead-free bismuth sodium titanate-based...