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Electrochemical reduction (ECR) of CO2to C2H4has a potential key role in realizing the carbon neutral future, which ultimately relies on the availability of an efficient electrocatalyst that can exhibit a high Faradaic efficiency (FE) for C2H4production and robust, long-term operational stability. Here, for the first time, we report that upon applying reductive potential and electrolyte to the benchmark La2CuO4catalyst, surface reconstruction occurred, i.e., the appearance of a distinctive phase evolution process over time, which was successfully monitored using ex situ powder XRD and operando Mott–Schottky (M–S) measurements of La2CuO4samples that were soaked into the electrolyte and subjected to CO2-ECR for different durations. At the end of such a reconstruction process, an outermost layer consisting of lanthanum carbonate, a thin outer layer made of an amorphous Cu+material formed over the core bulk La2CuO4, as confirmed by various characterization techniques, which resulted in the redistribution of interfacial electrons and subsequent formation of electron-rich and electron-deficient interfaces. This contributed to the enhancement in FE for C2H4, reaching as much as 58.7%. Such surface reconstruction-induced electronic structure tuning gives new explanations for the superior catalytic performance of La2CuO4perovskite and also provides a new pathway to advance CO2-ECR technology.

ABSTRACTMainstream environmental politics tends to measure the success of a policy through its quantitative environmental performance. Under Xi's rule, China's model of ‘Authoritarian Environmentalism’ is often assessed for its effectiveness; however, the facets of policy legitimacy have largely been overlooked. This research explores the policy legitimacy deficit of China's authoritarian environmentalism by examining the case of ‘Ban on Coal Furnace’ (BCF) project in Hebei province. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and policy discourse analysis, this article suggests that while the BCF project succeeded in environmental performance, both in policy outputs and outcomes, it failed in maintaining policy legitimacy essential for sustaining these policy outcomes over the long term. Integrating the three distinctive aspects of policy outputs, outcomes and legitimacy, this study highlights an inherent Performance-Legitimacy dilemma within China's Authoritarian Environmentalism: on the one hand, the top leader's strong political will is crucial for achieving effective performance. On the other hand, however, policy legitimacy may suffer when local officials adopt an excessively coercive campaign-style implementation approach that overlooks local needs and interests.

In recent years, gesture perception has become crucial to human–computer interaction (HCI) technologies. Among various techniques, gesture recognition based on surface electromyography (sEMG) signals has gained significant prominence, with deep-learning methods playing a pivotal role in this domain. However, as the demand for accurate gesture recognition continues to rise, there is a growing inclination toward selecting complex deep neural network architectures. This trend, however, poses challenges in terms of performance and runtime requirements for computing devices. This article introduces a novel gesture recognition method utilizing the multilayer perceptron (MLP)-Mixer framework combined with Stacking ensemble learning to address these challenges. The proposed method effectively captures the features of sEMG data by employing simple MLPs, achieving a level of accuracy comparable to complex networks while simultaneously reducing inference time. Experimental results demonstrate that the method performs a classification accuracy of 80.03% and 81.13% for 49 actions in the open-source dataset NinaPro DB2, using window lengths of 200 and 300 ms, respectively. Furthermore, the method achieves a single inference speed of 54.77 ms with a window length of 200 ms. In NinaPro DB5, with window lengths of 250 and 300 ms, the method presented in this article achieves accuracy rates of 73.39% and 74.82%, respectively, completing inference in just 11.45 ms using the 300-ms window length. Notably, the technique also demonstrates its ability to mitigate the impact of individual differences in sEMG data on recognition accuracy.

Semi-supervised learning methods have been explored to mitigate the scarcity of pixel-level annotation in medical image segmentation tasks. Consistency learning, serving as a mainstream method in semi-supervised training, suffers from low efficiency and poor stability due to inaccurate supervision and insufficient feature representation. Prototypical learning is one potential and plausible way to handle this problem due to the nature of feature aggregation in prototype calculation. However, the previous works have not fully studied how to enhance the supervision quality and feature representation using prototypical learning under the semi-supervised condition. To address this issue, we propose an implicit-explicit alignment (IEPAlign) framework to foster semi-supervised consistency training. In specific, we develop an implicit prototype alignment method based on dynamic multiple prototypes on-the-fly. And then, we design a multiple prediction voting strategy for reliable unlabeled mask generation and prototype calculation to improve the supervision quality. Afterward, to boost the intra-class consistency and inter-class separability of pixel-wise features in semi-supervised segmentation, we construct a region-aware hierarchical prototype alignment, which transmits information from labeled to unlabeled and from certain regions to uncertain regions. We evaluate IEPAlign on three medical image segmentation tasks. The extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other popular semi-supervised segmentation methods and achieves comparable performance with fully-supervised training methods.

The loaded acid–base bifunctional catalysts exhibit good catalytic performance in the synthesis of methyl methacrylate via aldol condensation of methyl propionate with formaldehyde, but they still suffer from deactivation caused by coke deposition. In this paper, coke deposition as well as consequential deactivation behavior of Cs/SiO2catalyst loaded with various amounts of Al was investigated under different reactant compositions by using nuclear magnetic resonance, thermogravimetric, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, and Raman analysis. As a result, coke on the catalyst was characterized by amorphous coke deposition, which was mainly composed of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and aliphatic substances. Al added to the 10Cs/SiO2catalyst significantly reduced the amount of coke deposition and inhibited the C/H ratio of coke. Appropriate amounts of Al and reactant compositions could ultimately increase the stability of the catalyst. Moreover, the kinetics of coke deposition observed on the Al–Cs/SiO2catalyst was studied. It was found that the Voorhies equation modified using the variables of reaction temperature and reactants composition could accurately forecast coke accumulation on the 3.5Al-10Cs/SiO2catalyst under specific conditions.

Organic matter in soft coal (SC) and hard coal (HC) from the same mine was extracted by sequential thermal dissolution (TD) followed by oxidative depolymerisation (OD) to obtain soluble components, which were studied using both gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and Orbitrap-MS to acquire detailed molecular structure information. Toluene (TOL), tetrahydrofuran (THF), and methanol (ME) were the three solvents used in sequential TD. TOL relaxes the macromolecular structure in coals and exhibits a good solubilisation effect on arenes, THF further destroys non-covalent bonds through swelling, and ME weakens hydrogen bonds among macromolecules and attacks the weak -C-O- bridged bonds. With a higher coalification degree, soluble components from HC show more aromatised structure compared to SC. After the OD treatment, aromatic compounds with a higher degree of condensation were detected in the OD products, and HC contains more fused aromatic rings. [Received: 13 March 2023; Accepted: 28 August 2023]

Tungsten (W), as a plasma-facing material, is subjected to high fluence plasma, resulting in both radiation damage and deuterium (D) retention. This study explores the blistering behavior and D supersaturated layers in both pre-damaged and undamaged W samples. To achieve a uniform damage profile similar to neutron irradiation, carbon (C) ions with multiple energies and angles were employed. The samples were further irradiated with low-energy D ions under two fluences at temperatures from ~ 380 to 640 K. Using various experimental techniques, we found that pre-damaged W samples can effectively suppress the formation of blistering and lower the threshold temperature at which the surface remains free of blistering. We also observed the prominent D supersaturated peaks within the depth of 20 nm in both pre-damaged and undamaged W. Furthermore, a close correlation between blistering and the D supersaturation was investigated. The results suggest that neutron irradiation in the fusion reactors could increase the critical D concentration for blistering, while a greater depth of damage facilitated the inward diffusion of D, thereby reducing the D concentration gradient and alleviating surface blistering.

The advent of generative artificial intelligence and large language models has ushered in transformative applications within medicine. Specifically in ophthalmology, large language models offer unique opportunities to revolutionise digital eye care, address clinical workflow inefficiencies, and enhance patient experiences across diverse global eye care landscapes. Yet alongside these prospects lie tangible and ethical challenges, encompassing data privacy, security, and the intricacies of embedding large language models into clinical routines. This Viewpoint highlights the promising applications of large language models in ophthalmology, while weighing up the practical and ethical barriers towards their real-world implementation. This Viewpoint seeks to stimulate broader discourse on the potential of large language models in ophthalmology and to galvanise both clinicians and researchers into tackling the prevailing challenges and optimising the benefits of large language models while curtailing the associated risks.

• Bi-doped SFM double perovskite oxides are first proposed as SOEC cathodes. • Bi-doping can greatly improve CO 2 adsorption ability and oxygen ionic conduction. • BSFM01 cathode exhibits excellent CO 2 reduction performance. • BSFM01 cathode demonstrates good operational stability within 200 h. Electrochemical conversion of CO 2 to CO is an economically feasible method for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Among various electrochemical approaches, solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs) show high potential for CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 -RR) due to their ability to operate at high temperatures, resulting in fast reaction kinetics and increased efficiency. Considering their main energy loss is still associated with the large overpotential at the fuel electrode, the development of the highly efficient and durable cathode for SOECs has been extensively searched after. Here, we propose an A-site doping strategy to enhance the properties of Sr 2 Fe 1.5 Mo 0.5 O 6− δ (SFM), which improve its performance as a cathode in SOECs for CO 2 -RR, demonstrating favorable activity and durability. The structural and physiochemical characterizations, together with DFT calculations, show that the partial replacement of Sr by Bi in the SFM double perovskite not only improves CO 2 adsorption capability at the catalyst surface but also enhances oxygen ionic conduction inside the bulk oxide, resulting in enhanced CO 2 electrocatalysis performance in SOECs. Specifically, a La 0.8 Sr 0.2 Ga 0.8 Mg 0.2 O 3− δ (LSGM) electrolyte-supported single cell with the new Bi-doped SFM cathode demonstrates a large current density of 1620 mA cm−2 at a cell potential of 1.6 V at 850 °C with good operational stability up to 200 h. Bi-doped SFM thus represents a highly promising cathode for ceramic CO 2 electrolyzers and could accelerate our transition towards a carbon-neutral society. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To quantify colloidal filtration, a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) with a silicon dioxide surface is embedded on the inner surface of a microfluidic channel to monitor the real-time particle deposition. Potassium chloride solution with micrometer-size polystyrene particles simulating bacterial strains flows down the channel. In the presence of intrinsic Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (DLVO) intersurface forces, particles are trapped by the quartz surfaces, and the increased mass shifts the QCM resonance frequency. The method provides an alternative way to measure filtration efficiency in an optically opaque channel and its dependence on the ionic concentration.

Two copper(I)-sulfide clusters were synergistically modified by alkylthiols and conjugated N,S-heterocyclic ligands, i.e., Cu6(tBuS)2(MBIZ)4(designated as Cu6) and Cu8(tBuS)4(MBIZ)4·CH3OH·2H2O (designated as Cu8) (MBIZ = 2-mercaptobenzimidazole; tBuS = tert-butyl mercaptan). Introducing more thiol ligands led to further growth of the cluster core, resulting in the transformation from an octahedral to a di-tetrahedral configuration, accompanied by a slight increase in the Cu···Cu distance. Notably, both clusters demonstrate high chemical stability and superhydrophobicity as a result of the modification with surface ligands, being stable at least 1 week in a wide range of pH (1–14 for Cu6and 3–11 for Cu8). Moreover, Cu8exhibited near-infrared (NIR) photoluminescence (PL) emission and better third-order nonlinear optical (NLO) performance, with nonlinear absorption coefficients (β) of 3.5 × 10–10m/W, 3.5 times than that of Cu6and superior to the majority of crystalline chalcogenide semiconductors. Theoretical calculations indicate that the organic ligands and cluster core jointly optimize the electronic configuration in a manner that regulates the optical properties. This work provides a new perspective into understanding the relationship between cluster core/surface compositions and optical properties at an atomically precise level, which is instrumental in the accurate design and synthesis of stable and efficient third-order NLO materials.

This article reviews the important advances in one- and zero-dimensional halide perovskites as new-generation passivators for high-efficiency and stable perovskite solar cells.

Remelting rejected electrolytic manganese metal (EMM) scrap was investigated by electroslag remelting (ESR) process through industrial experiment. The results indicated that the ANF-6 slag (70 wt.% CaF2+ 30 wt.% Al2O3) and deoxidizer could promote the desulfurization of ESR manganese in an air atmosphere. Under an air atmosphere, the sulfur in the ingot decreased to 0.0534 wt.% with a desulfurization ratio of ESR manganese of 53.2% by using ANF-6 slag and water-cooled copper electrode electroslag remelting rejected EMM scrap, suggesting its efficient removal. The electroslag ingots exhibited uneven chemical composition in an air atmosphere and cooling condition of the ESR process. The metal manganese could be oxidized by electroslag remelting of rejected EMM scrap in an air atmosphere with MnO content in the final slag of 21.9 wt.%. Besides, the activity of MnO in slag increased with increasing remelting temperature, resulting in a reduction in the slag–manganese sulfur partition ratio and desulfurization ratio. Moreover, with the accumulation of sulfur in slag and the oxidation of metallic manganese liquid, the slag showed a lower cleanliness and more oxidation, leading to an increase in sulfur and oxygen content in the electroslag ingot with the increase in ingot height.

The organic matter in Xiaolongtan lignite was thermally dissolved with cyclohexane, methanol and isopropanol (2-propanol) in sequence to obtain thermal dissolution (TD) extracts. Co-Mo/?-Al2O3was used as the catalyst for the catalytic hydrogenation of TD extracts to remove oxygen. Both TD extracts and the corresponding catalytic products were analyzed by the combination of gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and Orbitrap MS to reveal more molecular details. GC/MS analysis shows that cyclohexane can extract low polar organic matter in coal, while methanol and isopropanol as nucleophilic reagents can break C-O bonds in coal, thus removing oxygen. The catalyst can trigger the fracture of alkyl chains and the activation of H2, thus promoting the removal of oxygen atom and the generation of aromatics. Double bond equivalent (DBE) value and carbon number (CN) were obtained through Orbitrap MS data. The decrease of both DBE and CN after catalytic conversion indicates the breaking of bridged bonds. The introduction of various MS systems provides an effective analytical tool for studying the catalytic deoxidation of lignite, thereby guiding the conversion of lignite to clean liquid fuels and high value-added chemicals.Co-Mo/?-Al2O3catalysts activates H2to H…H, which further splits into H+and H-. H…H deoxygenates by hydrogenating C=C bond, attacking C-O bond or directly attacking oxygen atom. H+will preferentially attack oxygen atom with high electronegativity, and break Cal-O bridge bond to achieve deoxygenation, thus reducing the relative abundance of oxygen containing compounds.

For the purpose of searching for new biological fluorophore, we assess the photophysical properties of two indole derivatives, 4-cyano-7-azaindole (4CN7AI) and 1-methyl-4-cyano-7-azaindole (1M4CN7AI), in a series of solvents. We find that (1) the absorption spectra of both derivatives are insensitive to solvents and are red-shifted from that of indole, having a maximum absorption wavelength of ca. 318 nm and a broad profile that extends beyond 370 nm; (2) both derivatives emit in the blue to green spectral range with a large Stokes shift, for example, in H2O, the maximum emission wavelength of 4CN7AI (1M4CN7AI) is at ca. 455 nm (470 nm); (3) 4CN7AI has a higher fluorescence quantum yield (QY) and a longer fluorescence lifetime (τF) in aprotic solvents than in protic solvents, for example, QY (τF) = 0.72 ± 0.04 (7.6 ± 0.8 ns) in tetrahydrofuran and QY (τF) = 0.29 ± 0.03 (6.2 ± 0.6 ns) in H2O; (4) in all of the solvents used except H2O, the fluorescence QY (τF) of 1M4CN7AI is equal to or higher (longer) than 0.69 ± 0.03 (11.2 ± 0.7 ns). Taken together, these results suggest that the corresponding non-natural amino acids, 4-cyano-7-azatryptophan and 1-methyl-4-cyano-7-azatryptophan, could be useful as biological fluorophores.

Micron-size spherical polystyrene colloidal particles are mechanically stretched to a prolate geometry with desirable aspect ratios. The particles in an aqueous medium with specific ionic concentration are then introduced into a microchannel and allowed to settle on a glass substrate. In the presence of unidirectional flow, the loosely adhered particles in the secondary minimum of surface interaction potential are easily washed off, but the remnant in the strong primary minimum preferentially aligns with the flow direction and exercises in-plane rotation. A rigorous theoretical model is constructed to account for filtration efficiency in terms of hydrodynamic drag, intersurface forces, reorientation of prolate particles, and their dependence on flowrate and ionic concentration.

Heavy metal ion pollution of water resources is becoming increasingly serious, and adsorption is one of the most effective strategies for removing heavy metal ions. In the paper, hydrated hydrogen sodium vanadium oxide (HNaV6O16⋅4H2O) film developed for heavy metal ion adsorption was prepared directly via a low-temperature liquid-phase deposition approach. The prepared film shows an interesting porous flower-like morphology and has large spacing (d= 10.87 Å). The highest adsorption capacity of the obtained HNaV6O16⋅4H2O film for Pb2+, Cu2+, Cd2+and Mn2+is 513 mg/g (2565 mg/m2), 430 mg/g (2150 mg/m2), 134 mg/g (875 mg/m2) and 175 mg/g (670 mg/m2), respectively. The adsorption percentage of the sample decreased from 92.2 to 86.3% after 4 cycles. The adsorption process follows the Langmuir adsorption isotherm and the pseudo second-order dynamic model, indicating that heavy metal ion adsorption by the film is a single molecular layer chemical adsorption. In combination with various characterizations and comparison tests of samples after adsorption, the adsorption mechanisms include surface electrostatic attraction, complexation, and cation exchange. The results indicate that the film is a potential material to remove heavy metal ions from the aqueous solution.

Recognizing facial expressions is crucial for adaptive social interaction. Prior empirical research on facial expression processing has primarily focused on isolated faces; however, facial expressions appear embedded in surrounding scenes in everyday life. In this study, we attempted to demonstrate how the online car‐hailing scene affects the processing of facial expression. This study examined the processing of drivers' facial expressions in scenes by recording event‐related potentials, in which neutral or happy faces embedded in online car‐hailing orders were constructed (with type of vehicle, driver rating, driver surname, and level of reputation controlled). A total of 35 female volunteers participated in this experiment and were asked to judge which facial expressions that emerged in scenes of online car‐hailing were more trustworthy. The results revealed an interaction between facial expression scenes, brain areas, and electrode sites in the late positive potential, which indicated that happy faces elicited larger amplitudes than did neutral ones in the parietal areas and that scenes with happy facial expressions had shorter latencies than did those with neutral ones. As expected, the late positive potential evoked by happy facial expressions in a scene was larger than that evoked by neutral ones, which reflected motivated attention and motivational response processes. This study highlights the importance of scenes as context in the study of facial expression processing.

Hyperspectral image super-resolution (HISR) is about fusing a low-resolution hyperspectral image (LR-HSI) and a high-resolution multispectral image (HR-MSI) to generate a high-resolution hyperspectral image (HR-HSI). Recently, convolutional neural network (CNN)-based techniques have been extensively investigated for HISR yielding competitive outcomes. However, existing CNN-based methods often require a huge amount of network parameters leading to a heavy computational burden, thus, limiting the generalization ability. In this article, we fully consider the characteristic of the HISR, proposing a general CNN fusion framework with high-resolution guidance, called GuidedNet. This framework consists of two branches, including 1) the high-resolution guidance branch (HGB) that can decompose the high-resolution guidance image into several scales and 2) the feature reconstruction branch (FRB) that takes the low-resolution image and the multiscaled high-resolution guidance images from the HGB to reconstruct the high-resolution fused image. GuidedNet can effectively predict the high-resolution residual details that are added to the upsampled HSI to simultaneously improve spatial quality and preserve spectral information. The proposed framework is implemented using recursive and progressive strategies, which can promote high performance with a significant network parameter reduction, even ensuring network stability by supervising several intermediate outputs. Additionally, the proposed approach is also suitable for other resolution enhancement tasks, such as remote sensing pansharpening and single-image super-resolution (SISR). Extensive experiments on simulated and real datasets demonstrate that the proposed framework generates state-of-the-art outcomes for several applications (i.e., HISR, pansharpening, and SISR). Finally, an ablation study and more discussions assessing, for example, the network generalization, the low computational cost, and the fewer network parameters, are provided to the readers. The code link is: https://github.com/Evangelion09/GuidedNet.

A Transformer has received a lot of attention in computer vision. Because of global self-attention, the computational complexity of Transformer is quadratic with the number of tokens, leading to limitations for practical applications. Hence, the computational complexity issue can be efficiently resolved by computing the self-attention in groups of smaller fixed-size windows. In this article, we propose a novel pyramid Shuffle-and-Reshuffle Transformer (PSRT) for the task of multispectral and hyperspectral image fusion (MHIF). Considering the strong correlation among different patches in remote sensing images and complementary information among patches with high similarity, we design Shuffle-and-Reshuffle (SaR) modules to consider the information interaction among global patches in an efficient manner. Besides, using pyramid structures based on window self-attention, the detail extraction is supported. Extensive experiments on four widely used benchmark datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed PSRT with a few parameters compared with several state-of-the-art approaches. The related code is available at https://github.com/Deng-shangqi/PSRT.

For supported catalysts, it is particularly important to ensure the effective loading of the active component on the support. A new industrial Cs-P/γ-Al2O3catalyst with controllable distribution of active components was developed and applied to the aldol condensation reaction of methyl propionate and formaldehyde. The distribution of active components was controlled by adjusting the preparation conditions, especially the adsorption time, to form the catalyst with a gradient concentration of active components, which had been confirmed by the EMPA and SEM-EDS characterization. In addition, the kinetic equations including pseudo-first- and pseudo-second-order kinetic models as well as isotherm equations based on Freundlich and Langmuir models were used to describe the adsorption process to provide valuable process parameters for industrial production of catalysts.

Two highly oxygenated pentacyclic polyketides with two new carbon skeletons, trichopsistide A (1) and trichopsistide B (2), were isolated from the plant endophyte Trichoderma koningiopsisWZ-196 derived from the leaf of Rubia podanthaDiels. The structures of these polyketides with full configurations were determined by comprehensive spectroscopic analysis, computer-assisted structure elucidation software, computational calculation, and X-ray crystal diffraction. Among them, 1represented the first example of an unprecedented 5/6/6/6/5 pentacyclic ketal-containing polyketide pyridine alkaloid, and 2possessed a novel 6/6/6/6/5 pentacyclic ketal-containing polyketide scaffold fused with an α-pyrone. The plausible biosynthetic route for 1and 2was also proposed. Moreover, biological activity assays showed that 1and 2possessed inhibitory effects on the NF-κB signaling pathway with IC50values of 14.77 and 8.58 μM, respectively. Furthermore, 1and 2could also inhibit the expression of IκBα and p65 phosphorylation, decrease the expression of MCP-1, E-selectin, and IL-8at the mRNA level, and inhibit the TNF-α-induced nuclear translocation of p65.

• Slightly Ru doping promotes the exsolution of alloy nanoparticles in perovskite anode. • Ru doping greatly reduces the particle size and increase the amount of exsolved alloy nanoparticles. • Ru doped perovskite anode shows superior catalytic activity for NH 3 decomposition and anti-sintering capability. • DA-SOFCs with Ru doped perovskite anode exhibits a superior operational stability to Ru-free counterpart. Fuel flexibility is one of the most distinguished advantages of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) over other low-temperature fuel cells. Furthermore, the combination of ammonia fuel and SOFCs technology should be a promising clean energy system after considering the high energy density, easy transportation/storage, matured synthesis technology and carbon-free nature of NH 3 as well as high efficiency of SOFCs. However, the large-scale applications of direct-ammonia SOFCs (DA-SOFCs) are strongly limited by the inferior anti-sintering capability and catalytic activity for ammonia decomposition reaction of conventional nickel-based cermet anode. Herein, a slightly ruthenium (Ru) doping in perovskite oxides is proposed to promote the alloy nanoparticle exsolution, enabling better DA-SOFCs with enhanced power outputs and operational stability. After treating Ru-doped Pr 0.6 Sr 0.4 Co 0.2 Fe 0.75 Ru 0.05 O 3-δ single-phase perovskite in a reducing atmosphere, in addition to the formation of two layered Ruddlesden-Popper perovskites and Pr 2 O 3 nanoparticles (the same as the Ru-free counterpart, Pr 0.6 Sr 0.4 Co 0.2 Fe 0.8 O 3-δ), the exsolution of CoFeRu-based alloy nanoparticles is remarkably promoted. Such reduced Pr 0.6 Sr 0.4 Co 0.2 Fe 0.75 Ru 0.05 O 3-δ composite anode shows superior catalytic activity and stability for NH 3 decomposition reaction as well as anti-sintering capability in DA-SOFCs to those of reduced Pr 0.6 Sr 0.4 Co 0.2 Fe 0.8 O 3-δ due to the facilitated nanoparticle exsolution and stronger nanoparticle/substrate interaction. This work provides a facile and effective strategy to design highly active and durable anodes for DA-SOFCs, promoting large-scale applications of this technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A new NaF sacrificing layer is introduced into the TiO 2 ETL/perovskite interface. • NaF is partially incorporated into mesoporous TiO 2 ETL to reduce its defect amount and photocatalytic activity. • The introduction of NaF into the ETL constructs a well-matched energy level alignment. • NaF is partially penetrated into the perovskite layer to improve the film quality. • The device with NaF sacrificing layer displays a high PCE of 20.9% with enhanced moisture/thermal/sunlight stability. As next-generation photovoltaic devices, methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI 3)-based organic-inorganic halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have received considerable attention because of their cost effectiveness and high efficiency. However, their practical applications are retarded due to severe instability under moisture, thermal and sunlight conditions, which are closely related to the insufficient perovskite film quality and high photocatalytic activity of defective TiO 2 electron-transporting layer (ETL) to accelerate the perovskite decomposition. Herein, remarkably enhanced power conversion efficiency (PCE) and stability of MAPbI 3 -based PSCs is reached through the use of a new sodium fluoride (NaF) sacrificing layer, which, introduced between the perovskite layer and ETL, is sacrificed during cell fabrication by penetrating into the perovskite layer, improving the perovskite film quality, while partial NaF is incorporated into the mesoporous TiO 2 ETL during NaF layer fabrication to passivate TiO 2 and construct a well-matched energy level alignment. As a result, the optimized PSC generates a high PCE of 20.9%, which is 17% higher than that of the pristine cell (17.9%), and outstanding performance stability due to remarkably enhanced moisture, thermal and sunlight stability. This study highlights a simple and effective approach to boost the PCE and durability of MAPbI 3 -based PSCs simultaneously, accelerating the commercialization of this technology. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel Al-promoted Cs-SiO2catalyst was synthesized via impregnation methods and applied in the aldol condensation reaction of methyl acetate (Ma) with formaldehyde (FA) to synthesize methyl acrylate (MA). Promotion effects of Al oxides on Cs-SiO2catalysts were systematically investigated. The physical–chemical properties of synthesized catalysts were characterized through XRD, FT-IR, EDS mapping, N2physical adsorption, NH3-/CO2-TPD, Py-IR, XPS, solid-state MAS NMR, and TG. Subsequently, the catalytic performance of fabricated catalysts was evaluated in a fixed-bed microreactor. Reaction parameters, Cs2O and Al2O3contents, as well as calcination temperature were optimized. The evaluation of catalytic stability was conducted under optimal reaction conditions. As a result, the introduction of Al species into Cs-SiO2endowed the Al–Cs–SiO2catalyst with superior catalytic performance and good reusability.

• Four types of forces acting on particles are extracted from the inherent kinematic analogy of PSO's nature. • The stochastic composite dynamic model for PSO is proposed. • The stochastic stability of PSO is analyzed via constructing the corresponding Lyapunov functions. • The different influences from optimization functions to PSO's stability are discussed. • The convergence time is defined to measure the computing efficiency of PSO. The stochastic stability analysis for particle swarm optimization (PSO) has met formidable challenges due to the intricate influences on particles' motion from collaboration capability, cognitive competence, selective randomness and environmental complexity. This paper firstly regards the above-mentioned factors as forces acting on particles of PSO: interaction, damping, randomness and external forces. Based on this mechanical analogy, a novel stochastic composite dynamic model (SCDM) for PSO is proposed which can be classified into two parts: diffusion process and drift process. The diffusion process can not be easily obtained by analytical analysis, but its approximate distribution can be experimentally justified to obey Gaussian model, and the drift process is partly determined by its optimization function.To analyze the influence on PSO from the external environment, linear and quadratic optimization functions are chose to simplify the analysis. And the SCMD's stability is discussed via constructing the responding Lyapunov functions. We conclude that the gradient of linear function only decides the uniform ultimate bound while the gradient of quadratic function affects the stable conditions besides the uniform ultimate bound. Furthermore, the stable point of PSO is proved to be the optimum of quadratic function. The convergence time is also discussed to measure PSO's performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

•We constructed a model identified with fatty acid metabolism in breast cancer, and the score of which decreased after anti-PD-1 monotherapy.•The expression level of ALDH1A1, one of 14-gene-signature, was reduced after anti-PD-1 mAb immunotherapy.•The results brought up the crosstalk between immune components and fatty acid metabolism in breast cancer microenvironment, providing a new possibility of targeting fatty acid metabolism for combination therapy in breast cancer immunotherapy.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are dysregulated in different cancer types, and thus have emerged as important regulators of the initiation and progression of human cancers. However, the biological functions and the underlying mechanisms responsible for their functions in gastric cancer (GC) remain poorly understood. Here, by lncRNA microarray, we identified 1414 differentially expressed lncRNAs, among which THAP7-AS1 was significantly upregulated in GC tissues compared with non-tumorous gastric tissues. High expression of THAP7-AS1 was correlated with positive lymph node metastasis and poorer prognosis. SP1, a transcription factor, could bind directly to the THAP7-AS1 promoter region and activate its transcription. Moreover, the m6A modification of THAP7-AS1 by METTL3 enhanced its expression depending on the “reader” protein IGF2BP1-dependent pathway. THAP7-AS1 promoted GC cell progression. Mechanistically, THAP7-AS1 interacted with the 1-50 Amino Acid Region (nuclear localization signal) of CUL4B through its 1-442 nt Sequence, and it promoted interaction between nuclear localization signal (NLS) and importin α1, and improved the CUL4B protein entry into the nucleus, repressing miR-22-3p and miR-320a expression by CUL4B-catalyzed H2AK119ub1 and the EZH2-mediated H3K27me3, subsequently activating PI3K/AKT signaling pathway to promote GC progression. Moreover, LV-sh-THAP7-AS1 treatment could suppress GC growth, invasion and metastasis, indicating that THAP7-AS1 may act as a promising molecular target for GC therapies. Taken together, our results show that THAP7-AS1, transcriptionally activated by SP1 and then modified by METTL3-mediated m6A, exerts oncogenic functions, by promoting interaction between NLS and importin α1 and then improving the CUL4B protein entry into the nucleus to repress the transcription of miR-22-3p and miR-320a.

The high cost and poor durability of the catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) remain two stumbling blocks to the broad commercialization of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Herein, novel two-dimensional (2D)-structured carbon sheets with high specific surface areas and Mn–Nxsites are rationally designed and synthesized with a facile method. Also, after being coupled with the highly dispersed Pt nanoparticles, the carbon composite with dual ORR active sites [Pt/(Mn–N)@C] successfully outperforms the commercialized Pt/C in both mass activity (0.50 A mgPt–1) and specific activity (0.54 mA cmPt–1). Meanwhile, it maintains outstanding durability after 30,000 cycles of an accelerated durability test with a performance loss of only 14.1 %. Furthermore, the excellent performance (1.18 W cm–2) revealed in the single-cell configuration demonstrates the promising application of Pt/(Mn–N)@C in PEMFCs.

In this work, a novel metal-organic framework (MOF) based on 2,6-di(1H-imidazol-1-yl)naphthalene (L) and biphenyl-3,4′,5-tricarboxylic acid (H3bptc), namely [Co(L)(Hbptc)(H2O)] (1), has been prepared. 1has a distinct infinite chain structure, further linked together by winding interactions to give the three-dimensional (3D) network structure. 1was characterized by X-ray crystallography, infrared spectra (IR) spectroscopy, elemental and thermal analysis. Photoluminescence studies revealed that 1shows a strong emission at 361 nm upon excitation at 290 nm at room temperature. Moreover, 1can efficiently detect Fe3+ions by luminescence quenching.

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a cardiopulmonary disease characterized by a progressive increase in pulmonary vascular resistance. One of the initial pathogenic factors of PH is pulmonary arterial remodeling under various stimuli. Current marketed drugs against PH mainly relieve symptoms without significant improvement in overall prognosis. Discovering and developing new therapeutic drugs that interfere with vascular remodeling is in urgent need. Puerarin is an isoflavone compound extracted from the root of Kudzu vine, which is widely used in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. In the present study, we evaluated the efficacy of puerarin in the treatment of experimental PH. PH was induced in rats by a single injection of MCT (50 mg/kg, sc), and in mice by exposure to hypoxia (10% O2) for 14 days. After MCT injection the rats were administered puerarin (10, 30, 100 mg · kg−1· d−1, i.g.) for 28 days, whereas hypoxia-treated mice were pre-administered puerarin (60 mg · kg−1· d−1, i.g.) for 7 days. We showed that puerarin administration exerted significant protective effects in both experimental PH rodent models, evidenced by significantly reduced right ventricular systolic pressure (RVSP) and lung injury, improved pulmonary artery blood flow as well as pulmonary vasodilation and contraction function, inhibited inflammatory responses in lung tissues, improved resistance to apoptosis and abnormal proliferation in lung tissues, attenuated right ventricular injury and remodeling, and maintained normal function of the right ventricle. We revealed that MCT and hypoxia treatment significantly downregulated BMPR2/Smad signaling in the lung tissues and PPARγ/PI3K/Akt signaling in the lung tissues and right ventricles, which were restored by puerarin administration. In addition, we showed that a novel crystal type V (Puer-V) exerted better therapeutic effects than the crude form of puerarin (Puer). Furthermore, Puer-V was more efficient than bosentan (a positive control drug) in alleviating the abnormal structural changes and dysfunction of lung tissues and right ventricles. In conclusion, this study provides experimental evidence for developing Puer-V as a novel therapeutic drug to treat PH.

Objective: This study aimed to explore the orthographic processing of simplified Chinese characters in developmental dyslexic children in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China, and provide a theoretical basis for intervention strategies for developmental dyslexia in Chinese. Methods: Using event-related potential (ERP) measures, 18 developmental dyslexic children and 23 typically developing children performed a character decision task with three types of stimuli: real characters (RCs), pseudocharacters (PCs), and noncharacters (NCs). Results: Behavioral results showed that the control children displayed a faster and higher accurate performance than the dyslexic children across PCs and NCs. ERP data revealed that the RCs and PCs elicited a stronger P200 than the NCs. Compared with the RCs and NCs, children in the control group showed more N400 negatives for PCs. It is worth mentioning that dyslexic children did not show any difference on N400, which reflected the insufficient orthographic processing of dyslexic children in China. Conclusion: These results show that Chinese dyslexic children had orthographic processing defects.

Herein, a novel visible-light-responsive g-C3N4/diatomite/MnO2composite was successfully fabricated through a simple redox reaction method. The structure and morphology of the sample are mainly characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV–Vis). In this paper, the photo-catalytic activity of the sample was evaluated by degradation RhB under visible-light irradiation. The results shown that, compared with g-C3N4/diatomite composite, MnO2, g-C3N4, diatomite, the prepared g-C3N4/diatomite/2.5%MnO2composite exhibits better photo-catalytic activity and stability. At the same time, the effect of different MnO2additions on the photo-catalytic activity of the composite material was further analyzed. The results indicated that the g-C3N4/MnO2/diatomite composites exhibit highest photo-catalytic activity when the adding amount of MnO2reached 2.5%. The degradation rate of the g-C3N4/diatomite/2.5%MnO2is 93% after recycling for three times, showing good stability and reusability. Moreover, the mechanism of catalytic performance enhancement also has been discussed.

Hydrocarbon-fueled solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) that can operate in the intermediate temperature range of 500–700 °C represent an attractive SOFC device for combined heat and power applications in the industrial market. One of the ways to realize such a device relies upon exploiting an in situsteam reforming process in the anode catalyzed by an anti-carbon coking catalyst. Here, we report a new Ni and Ru bimetal-doped perovskite catalyst, Ba(Zr0.1Ce0.7Y0.1Yb0.1)0.9Ni0.05Ru0.05O3−δ(BZCYYbNRu), with enhanced catalytic hydrogen production activity on n-butane (C4H10), which can resist carbon coking over extended operation durations. Ru in the perovskite lattice inhibits Ni precipitation from perovskite, and the high water adsorption capacity of proton conducting perovskite improves the coking resistance of BZCYYbNRu. When BZCYYbNRu is used as a steam reforming catalyst layer on a Ni-YSZ-supported anode, the single fuel cell not only achieves a higher power density of 1113 mW cm–2at 700 °C under a 10 mL min–1C4H10continuous feed stream at a steam to carbon (H2O/C) ratio of 0.5 but also shows a much better operational stability for 100 h at 600 °C compared with those reported in the literature.

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common malignant neoplasms. Invasion and metastasis are the main causes of GC-related deaths. Recently, kinesins were discovered to be involved in tumor development. The aim of this study was to elucidate the roles of kinesin superfamily protein 26A (KIF26A) in GC and its underlying molecular mechanism in regulating tumor invasion and metastasis. Using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC), we showed that KIF26A expression was lower in GC tissues without lymph node metastasis (LNM) than in nontumorous gastric mucosa, and even lower in GC tissues with LNM than in GC tissues without LNM. Functional experiments showed that KIF26A inhibited migration and invasion of GC cells. We further identified focal-adhesion kinase (FAK), phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase regulatory subunit alpha (PI3KR1), VAV3, Rac1 and p21-activated kinase 2, and β-PAK (PAK3) as downstream effectors of KIF26A in the focal-adhesion pathway, and we found that KIF26A could regulate FAK mRNA expression through inhibiting c-MYC by MAPK pathway. c-MYC could bind to the promoter of FAK and activate FAK transcription. Moreover, we found that KIF26A-mediated inactivation of the focal-adhesion pathway could reduce the occurrence of the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) by increasing expression of E-cadherin and reducing that of Snail. Luciferase assays and Western blotting revealed that miR-19a and miR-96 negatively regulate KIF26A. Finally, we found that decreased expression of KIF26A has been positively correlated with histological differentiation, Lauren classification, LNM, distal metastasis, and clinical stage, as well as poor survival in patients with GC. These data indicate that KIF26A could inhibit GC migration and invasion by regulating the focal-adhesion pathway and repressing the occurrence of EMT.

Supported Cs-based catalysts are considered as potential candidates for methyl methacrylate (MMA) synthesis via one-step aldol condensation, but they suffer from low activity. In this paper, the acid–base properties of the Cs/SiO2catalyst were modulated by loading different amounts of the Al element. The changes in structural and physicochemical properties following Al introduction were revealed by a series of characterizations. In-depth investigation of the catalytic mechanism through in situDRIFT combined with DFT calculations unveiled the synergistic effects between the Al and Cs components on the promotion of catalytic performance. The results showed that the presence of Al species facilitated the formation of weak and medium acid and base sites, along with the dispersion of the active Cs component, leading to an improvement of MMA yield. Additionally, the kinetic studies indicated that the addition of Al efficiently reduced the activation energy in comparison to pristine Cs/SiO2.

A minor amount of CO2in air usually causes a detrimental effect on oxygen activation over a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) cathode because insulating surface carbonate is easily formed, which inhibits charge transfer during the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). In this study, we report that the detrimental effect due to the CO2interaction with perovskite oxide can be turned into a beneficial effect for facilitating ORR through tailoring the material composition of the perovskite. More specifically, for cobalt-free SrSc0.025Nb0.075Fe0.9O3−δ(SSNF), the exposure to the CO2atmosphere results in the formation of a minor amount of surface strontium carbonate mainly in the form of a nanofilm over the perovskite surface, which protects the electrode from further corrosion by CO2, thus achieving a relatively stable performance even under a 10% CO2-containing air atmosphere. When CO2-free air is restored, the SrCO3is successfully decomposed at intermediate temperatures. As a result, the surface reaction kinetics is recovered to the initial degree while the charge transfer process is obviously improved. An area-specific resistance of only 0.07 Ω cm2is achieved at 650 °C after the CO2-induced surface activation, much smaller than the original value of 0.13 Ω cm2. In addition, the CO2-treated electrode shows a fairly stable performance for ORR under a subsequent CO2-free air atmosphere. To create such a beneficial effect, it is critical to tailor the degree of interaction of the perovskite surface with CO2, while the benchmark Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3−δ(BSCF) shows a too strong interaction with CO2with the formation of bulk-phase-like carbonate, which failed to decomposed even when restored with a CO2-free atmosphere at intermediate temperatures, and as a result, worsened the ORR activity after the CO2treatment.

One challenge for the commercial development of solid oxide fuel cells as efficient energy-conversion devices is thermo-mechanical instability. Large internal-strain gradients caused by the mismatch in thermal expansion behaviour between different fuel cell components are the main cause of this instability, which can lead to cell degradation, delamination or fracture1–4. Here we demonstrate an approach to realizing full thermo-mechanical compatibility between the cathode and other cell components by introducing a thermal-expansion offset. We use reactive sintering to combine a cobalt-based perovskite with high electrochemical activity and large thermal-expansion coefficient with a negative-thermal-expansion material, thus forming a composite electrode with a thermal-expansion behaviour that is well matched to that of the electrolyte. A new interphase is formed because of the limited reaction between the two materials in the composite during the calcination process, which also creates A-site deficiencies in the perovskite. As a result, the composite shows both high activity and excellent stability. The introduction of reactive negative-thermal-expansion components may provide a general strategy for the development of fully compatible and highly active electrodes for solid oxide fuel cells.

We report a novel, to the best of our knowledge, way to achieve phase-controlled dual-wavelength resonance based on whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microcavities experimentally. With the help of a feedback waveguide, not only two optical pathways but also a unidirectional coupling between counter-propagating waves are formed, which is the requirement of all-optical analogues of electromagnetically induced transparency and Autler–Townes splitting. By adjusting the accumulating phase introduced from the fiber waveguide, we observe the signal lineshape changes from symmetric to asymmetric, i.e., the resonant transmission and extinction ratio of two splitting modes can be controlled, which brings a new degree of freedom to the WGM resonator system. These results may boost the development of quantum state control and pave the way for reconfiguring devices such as narrow-band filters.

Electrochemical water splitting is an attractive technique to produce renewable hydrogen gas. However, considerable challenges remain before the catalytic anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) can occur at a satisfactory rate due to its sluggish kinetics, thus hampering the overall efficiency of this technology. Urea electrolysis provides opportunities for energy-conserving hydrogen production and the concurrent remediation of urea-enriched sewage water. Therefore, developing advanced electrocatalysts with a reduced cost and improved efficiency for the urea oxidation reaction (UOR) is key to the implementation of this technique. Herein, we present a three-dimensional (3D) self-supported nickel phosphide/Ni foam electrode (P-NF) that can be prepared by adopting a straightforward low-temperature phosphorization treatment of commercially available Ni foam. As a result, compared with the pristine Ni foam, the as-prepared 3D P-NF catalyst presents obviously enhanced activity for the electrocatalytic UOR, and a small potential of 1.32 V (versus the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE)) is required to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm–2. When the P-NF electrode is employed to catalyze the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), it shows equally satisfactory performance. Moreover, a two-electrode electrolyzer system made of the as-obtained P-NF as the bifunctional electrocatalyst can deliver 10 mA cm–2at a cell voltage of only 1.37 V with remarkable operational stability.

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer in women worldwide, and the exploration of aberrantly expressed genes might clarify tumorigenesis and help uncover new therapeutic strategies for BC. Although RGMA was recently recognized as a tumor suppressor gene, its detailed biological function and regulation in BC remain unclear. Herein, we found that RGMA was downregulated in BC tissues compared with non-tumorous breast tissues, particularly in metastatic BC samples, and that patients with low RGMA expression manifested a poorer prognosis. Furthermore, DNMT1 and DNMT3A were found to be recruited to the RGMA promoter and induced aberrant hypermethylation, resulting in downregulation of RGMA expression in BC. In contrast, RGMA overexpression suppressed BC cell proliferation and colony-formation capabilities and increased BC cell apoptosis. Furthermore, RGMA knockdown accelerated BC cell proliferation and suppressed cellular apoptosis in vitro and in vivo. Reversal of RGMA promoter methylation with 5-Aza-CdR restored RGMA expression and blocked tumor growth. Overall, DNMT1- and DNMT3A-mediated RGMA promoter hypermethylation led to downregulation of RGMA expression, and low RGMA expression contributed to BC growth via activation of the FAK/Src/PI3K/AKT-signaling pathway. Our data thus suggested that RGMA might be a promising therapeutic target in BC.

Background: Modern upgrades of power grids and a rapidly expanding economy complexify the uncertainties of electricity demand. Objective: The objective of the study is to have a more precise prediction on the demand side, which is beneficial in affirming the stable operation of the power system. Methods: This paper presents a combined electricity forecasting method based on the users clustering and stacking ensemble learning to mine underlying properties of different individual consumers. The preprocessed electricity consumption profiles are inputted into the DBSCAN clustering algorithm to obtain the clusters. The alternative models are tailored for different clusters in the stacking fusion framework for training and testing. Results: Experimental results on the operating data of Shandong Power Grid show that the proposed method has higher prediction accuracy and better generalization ability. Conclusion: The framework is of great significance for improving the level of power supply service.

Primary cytoreductive surgery with platinum-taxane-based chemotherapy is the standard treatment for ovarian cancer (OC) patients; however, resistance to chemotherapy is a contributing factor to OC mortality. Paclitaxel (PTX), the most widely used taxane, has become the first-line drug against OC. The molecular mechanism of PTX resistance is different from that of platinum-based agents and is still not completely elucidated. Our previous study showed that glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78) is involved in the resistance of OC cells to PTX. However, little is known regarding endogenous inhibitors of this gene. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play critical roles in the regulation of gene expression; therefore, we sought to identify miRNA(s) with potential to target GRP78 under the hypothesis that miRNA(s) could serve as potential therapeutic targets. Here, we show that miR-181c, predicted to target GRP78, was downregulated in PTX-resistant OC cells and tissues. MiR-181c downregulated GRP78 expression and induced apoptosis by directly targeting its 3′-untranslated region (UTR). Overexpression of miR-181c sensitized resistant OC to PTX by inhibiting the PI3K/Akt pathway in vitro and in vivo. Taken together, our findings indicate that the delivery of miR-181c can efficiently suppress GRP78 expression and GRP78-mediated PTX resistance in OC and suggest that this strategy has therapeutic potential.

The structure, elastic, electronic and optical properties of two-dimensional (2D) MI2(M = Pb, Ge, Cd) under strain are systematically studied by the first-principles method. It is proved that the monolayer structure of 2D-MI2is stable by phonon spectra. Moreover, the large ideal strain strength (40%), the large range of strain and the elastic constants of far smaller than other 2D materials indicate that the single-layer PbI2and GeI2possess excellent ductility and flexibility. By applying appropriate strain to the structure of 2D-MI2, the band gaps of single-layer MI2can be effectively controlled (PbI2: 1.04 ∼ 3.03 eV, GeI2: 0.43 ∼ 2.99 eV and CdI2: 0.54 ∼ 3.36 eV). It is found that the wavelength range of light absorbed by these three metal iodides is 82–621 nm, so 2D-MI2has great absorption intensity for ultraviolet light in a large wavelength range, and the strain of structure can effectively regulate the optical parameters.