Search

Oxygen incorporation is investigated as a strategy to improve heterojunction of CZTSSe solar cell. 12.04% PCE has been achieved due to the suppressed defects and optimized carrier collection.

ABSTRACTThe cultural landscape is valuable for global ecological conservation, as it embodies human history and cultural heritage. Cultural landscapes, as treasures of human history and culture, have a place in the globalization process of ecological conservation. This paper uses Citespace based on the W.O.S. database for a bibliometric analysis to explore cultural landscape research. The history of the development of cultural landscapes is summarized and supported by theory and data. The study analyzes 2506 publicly available publications from various disciplines, including ecology, environmental sciences, multidisciplinary studies, social sciences, anthropology, and more. The research reveals that the discipline has a multi-layered nature, an uneven distribution of research institutions, and a single depth of analysis. The number of keywords in the literature has been increasing year-by-year, covering many hotspots and spanning a wide range of topics. To bridge the gap in the comprehensive study of cultural landscapes caused by psychological factors, we recommend starting with the historical context, cultural history, and human behavioral adaptations. Additionally, we suggest that the cultural ecosystem services provided by cultural landscapes should be explored in the context of human-driven ecotourism. The current phase of cultural ecosystem services aims to translate theory into practice by creating spiritual services and cultural psychology for humans in the post-popular era. Inter-institutional cooperation among scholars should be strengthened in research to respond to the trend of the globalization of ecological civilization-building. These efforts will provide suitable and feasible solutions for the globalization of ecological civilization and contribute to the development of the cultural landscape around cultural ecosystems.

Intelligent visual surveillance (IVS) is being gradually introduced into the field of airport surface surveillance. The first task of IVS is to detect and recognize objects moving on the airport surface. Specialty vehicles play a considerable role in airport ground handling processes and are considerably monitored targets. Because specialty vehicles have diverse appearances and irregular shapes, pixel-level detection would enable them to be targeted more accurately. Specialty vehicles on the surface undertake different jobs in airport ground handling processes, and therefore subcategory classification would more precisely determine the function of these specialty vehicles. Moreover, pixel-level detection and subcategory classification are very useful for detecting key milestone nodes of airport ground handling processes. Thus, in this article, a two-stage framework for specialty vehicle pixel-level detection and subcategory classification for IVS of the airport surface is exploited, which seamlessly integrates state-of-the-art algorithms and techniques, and consists of two segmentation stages (coarse mask generation and refined mask generation). Furthermore, to evaluate related methods, a dataset of airport surface specialty vehicles is established, which contains four types of representative specialty vehicles and corresponding accurate mask labels. All samples in the dataset were captured from surveillance videos of civil airports. Experimental results on the dataset clearly demonstrate that the proposed framework performed favorably compared with the classic instance segmentation methods and achieved pixel-level detection and subcategory classification of specialty vehicles for airport surface surveillance.

Elevating traditional 2-dimensional (2D) plane display to 4-dimensional (4D) light field display can significantly enhance users’ immersion and realism, because light field image (LFI) provides various visual cues in terms of multi-view disparity, motion disparity, and selective focus. Therefore, it is crucial to establish a light field image quality assessment (LF-IQA) model that aligns with human visual perception characteristics. However, it has always been a challenge to evaluate the perceptual quality of multiple light field visual cues simultaneously and consistently. To this end, this paper proposes a Transformer-based explicit learning of light field geometry for the no-reference light field image quality assessment. Specifically, to explicitly learn the light field epipolar geometry, we stack up light field sub-aperture images (SAIs) to form four SAI stacks according to four specific light field angular directions, and use a sub-grouping strategy to hierarchically learn the local and global light field geometric features. Then, a Transformer encoder with a spatial-shift tokenization strategy is applied to learn structure-aware light field geometric distortion representation, which is used to regress the final quality score. Evaluation experiments are carried out on three commonly used light field image quality assessment datasets: Win5-LID, NBU-LF1.0, and MPI-LFA. Experimental results demonstrate that our model outperforms state-of-the-art methods and exhibits a high correlation with human perception. The source code is publicly available at https://github.com/windyz77/GeoNRLFIQA.

The ability of the model organism, Caenorhabditis elegans, to distinguish and escape from pathogenic bacteria has been extensively studied; however, studies on the repulsive response of Meloidogyne incognitaare still in their infancy. We have recently demonstrated that biocontrol bacteria induce a repulsive response in M. incognitavia two classical signaling pathways. The present study aimed to identify the novel genes and signaling molecules of M. incognitathat potentially contribute to its defense reaction. Analysis of the transcriptome data of M. incognitawith and without a repulsive response against Bacillus nematocidaB16 obtained 15 candidate genes, of which the novel genes Minc3s01748g26034and Minc3s02548g30585were found to regulate the aversive behavior of M. incognita, and their functions were further validated. To further confirm the neuronal localization of the two novel genes in M. incognita, in situ hybridization was conducted using the digoxin-labeled probes of ten tag genes, and preferentially profiled the localization of amphid sensory neurons of M. incognita. Analysis of the overviewed neuronal map suggested that Minc3s01748g26034and Minc3s02548g30585functioned in ASK/ASI and CEPD/V neurons, respectively. During their interactions, the volatile compounds 3-methyl-butyric acid and 2-methyl-butyric acid produced by the biocontrol bacteria were predicted as the primary signaling molecules that promoted the repulsive behavior of M. incognitaagainst biocontrol bacteria. The findings provided novel insights into the mechanisms underlying the repulsive response of M. incognitathat are different from the canonical molecular pathways previously found in C. elegansand can aid in developing novel strategies for controlling root-knot nematodes.

Small Seal script (Chinese called XiaoZhuan), as the earliest archaic form of standardized Chinese script, is the predecessor of modern Chinese characters. However, the Small Seal character recognition remains a challenging task, due to various un-/semi-structured pictographic glyphs and writing styles. This paper proposes a style-independent pictographic radical decomposition for the zero-shot recognition of Small Seal script, by taking advantage of the inherent consistency of pictographic representations between the Small Seal script and the Traditional Chinese script (Chinese called Fanti). Specifically, we design a feature-level collaboration framework of two tasks. One is the XiaoZhuan-to-Fanti translation task, which employs a generative adversarial network (GAN) based dual-learning mechanism to learn style-independent and consistent pictographic feature representations from different styles of Small Seal and their corresponding Traditional Chinese characters. The other is a transformer-based pictographic radical sequence learning from the pictographic feature representations. Experiments demonstrate that our model has satisfactory recognition ability to various styles of Small Seal scripts, especially for the zero-shot recognition of those with unknown glyphs and unseen styles. The code is available at https://github.com/windyz77/SmallSealRecon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most widely used federated chains, hyperledger fabric uses many cryptographic algorithms to ensure the security of information on the chain, but the ECDSA cryptographic algorithm used in the fabric system has backdoor security risks. In this paper, the authors adopt SM2 algorithm to replace the corresponding ECDSA algorithm for blockchain design based on fabric platform. Firstly, they optimize the part of SM2 signature algorithm process with inverse operation and effectively reduce the time complexity by reducing the inverse operation in the whole process, and the experimental results show that the improved SM2 algorithm improves the signature and verification efficiency by about 5.7%. Secondly, by adding SM2 algorithm template and interface to the BCCSP module of fabric platform to realize the shift value of SM2 algorithm and compare the performance with the native fabric system, the network startup time is reduced by about 29%. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the improved SM2 algorithm, and also the performance of the optimized fabric system is improved.

Nickel iron layered double hydroxide (NiFe LDH) is one of the best oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts in alkaline electrolytes. However, it performs poorly in neutral electrolytes, and the detailed mechanism is still unclear. Herein, we introduce electrochemical measurements, operando surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy and operando 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy to elucidate the mechanism of NiFe LDH for OER process in different pH electrolytes. Our results show that even though there exist Ni3+and Fe4+species, the NiFe LDH based electrocatalysts still show worse OER performance in neutral electrolytes than in alkaline conditions. Combining the electrochemical measurements with spectroscopic investigations, we demonstrated that the rate-determining step (RDS) of OER on NiFe LDH based electrocatalysts is from *O to *OOH in alkaline medium while *OH formation is the RDS in neutral conditions. Our work provides new insights into elucidating the OER mechanism in different pH electrolytes.

The advent of smart healthcare has significantly heightened the importance of computer technologies in supporting medical diagnosis and treatment. Nevertheless, the challenges of mining latent knowledge within diagnostic data and explaining results to healthcare professionals have limited the application of many algorithms like neural network in clinical practice. To address these issues, our study introduces an Interpretable Predictor with Deep Convolutional Fuzzy Neural Network (IP-DCFNN). The proposed model is capable of assessing disease risks based on individual data and providing interpretable justifications aiding medical diagnosis and treatment decisions. By deconstructing the fuzzy inference process and incorporating convolutional neural network, our approach enhances the ability to discover underlying information while maintaining transparency and interpretability. Furthermore, we introduce a grid partition-based method for initializing the antecedent parameters and a hybrid approach that combines gradient descent with least squares estimation for training. Compared with Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) and Deep Neural Networks (DNN), Our model has an average improvement of 7.4% on prediction accuracy. More importantly, it can extract interpretable insights from membership functions, rule bases, and fuzzy contributions, offering valuable knowledge for medical research on type 2 diabetes, supporting intelligent diagnostic processes and providing personalized healthcare recommendations. The model can also be applied on the diagnosis and treatment of various other diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fluorine 18 fluoroestradiol is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved radiopharmaceutical that targets estrogen receptor in patients with recurrent or metastatic breast cancer, with growing utilization and experience in clinical practice.

The kesterite Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4(CZTSSe) solar cells have shown a continuous rise in power conversion efficiencies in the past years. However, the encountered interfacial problems with respect to charge recombination and extraction losses at the CdS/CZTSSe heterojunction still hinder their further development. In this work, an additional plasmonic local electric field is imposed into the CdS/CZTSSe interface through the electrostatic assembly of a two-dimensional (2D) ordered Au@SiO2NP array onto an aminosilane-modified surface absorber. The interfacial electric properties are tuned by controlling the coverage particle distance, and the finite-difference time domain (FDTD) simulation demonstrates that the strong near-field enhancement mainly occurs near the p-n junction interface. It is shown that the imposed local electric field leads to interfacial electrostatic potential (Velec) augmentation and improves the charge extraction and recombination processes. These electric benefits enable remarkable improvements in open-circuit voltage (Voc) and short-circuit current (Jsc), leading to the cell efficiency being increased from 10.19 to 11.50%. This work highlights the dramatic role of the plasmonic local electric field and the use of the 2D Au@SiO2NP array to modify a surface absorber instead of the extensively used ion passivation, providing a new strategy for p-n junction engineering in kesterite photovoltaics.

Single-atom catalysts have recently attracted considerable attention because of their highly efficient metal utilization and unique properties. Finding a green, facile method to synthesize them is key to their widespread commercialization. Here we show that single-atom catalysts (including iron, cobalt, nickel and copper) can be prepared via a top-down abrasion method, in which the bulk metal is directly atomized onto different supports, such as carbon frameworks, oxides and nitrides. The level of metal loading can be easily tuned by changing the abrasion rate. No synthetic chemicals, solvents or even water were used in the process and no by-products or waste were generated. The underlying reaction mechanism involves the mechanochemical force in situ generating defects on the supports, then trapping and stably sequestering atomized metals.

A surface defects ordering structure is established in CZTSSe system via local substitution of Cu by Ag to suppress disordered CuZndefects and generate benign n-type ZnAgdonors.

Indium doping of cadmium sulfide (CdS) by chemical bath deposition (CBD) can be an efficient strategy to boost the CIGSSe efficiency. However, limited by the extremely low solubility of In2S3, it is difficult to increase the In doping contents and inhibit the band energy-level regulation for CdS through the traditional CBD process. In this work, we perform a novel CBD method to prepare an indium-doped CdS (In:CdS) buffer, in which the indium source is sequentially slowly added in the growing aqueous solution. In this process, the In ion concentration involved in the real-time deposition is significantly reduced. Thus, compact and uniform In:CdS with higher indium doping content is obtained. Indium doping can elevate the CdS conduction band edge and construct a more favorable spike band alignment with a CIGSSe absorber. Moreover, it introduces efficient carrier transport and reduced interface defect density. As a result, improved CIGSSe heterojunction quality is realized by utilizing In:CdS. Also, the solution-processed CIGSSe device with In:CdS as a buffer yields a high efficiency of 16.4%, with a high VOCof 670 mV and an FF of 75.3%.

Herein, a smart nanohydrogel with endogenous microRNA-21 toehold is developed to encapsulate gemcitabine-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles for targeted pancreatic cancer therapy. This toehold mediated strand displacement method can simultaneously achieve specific drug release and miRNA-21 silencing, resulting in the up-regulation of the expression of tumor suppressor genes PTEN and PDCD4.

Exploring the relationship between high-valent iron content and current intensity of NiFe0.2-OxHyduring oxygen evolution reaction by operando57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy.

Wet NH4-N deposition plays a significant role in the ecosystem safety in China, and thus it is highly imperative to estimate the national wet NH4-N deposition flux accurately. In this study, a new methodology named space–time ensemble machine-learning model was first applied to constrain the high-resolution NH4-N deposition fluxes over China based on the satellite data, assimilated meteorology, and various geographical covariates. A small gap between site-based cross-validation (CV) R2value (0. 73) and 10-fold CV R2value (0.76), along with remarkable improvement in predictive accuracy (0.76) compared with previous studies (0.61), demonstrated the strong prediction capability of the space–time ensemble model in data mining. The higher wet NH4-N deposition fluxes mainly occurred in North China Plain (NCP), Sichuan Basin, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Guangdong provinces, whereas other regions retained the lower values. In addition, the wet NH4-N deposition fluxes, removing the precipitation effect in some major developed regions (e.g., Beijing and Shanghai) of China, displayed gradual increases from 2011 to 2014, while they suffered from dramatic decreases during 2014–2016, which was due to the strict implementation of the Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control (APPC-AP). The high-quality NH4-N deposition data sets are greatly useful to assess the potential ecological risks.

Although silver (Ag) substitution offers several benefits in eliminating bulk defects and facilitating interface type inversion for Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4(CZTSSe) photovoltaic (PV) technology, its further development is still hindered by the fairly low electrical conductivity due to the significant decrease of acceptors amount. In this work, a versatile Li–Ag co-doping strategy is demonstrated to mitigate the poor electrical conductivity arising from Ag through direct incorporating Li via postdeposition treatment (PDT) on top of the Ag-substituted CZTSSe absorber. Depth characterizations demonstrate that Li incorporation increases p-type carrier concentration, improves the carrier collection within the bulk, reduces the defects energy level as well as inverts the electric field polarity at grain boundaries (GBs) for Ag-substituted CZTSSe system. Benefiting from this lithium-assisted complex engineering of electrical performance both in grain interior (GI) and GBs, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) is finally increased from 9.21% to 10.29%. This systematic study represents an effective way to overcome the challenges encountered in Ag substitution, and these findings support a new aspect that the synergistic effects of double cation dopant will further pave the way for the development of high efficiency kesterite PV technology.

Material crystallinity is the overriding factor in the determination of the photoelectric properties of absorber materials and the overall performance of the photovoltaic device. Nevertheless, in the Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4(CZTSSe) photovoltaic device, the bilayer or trilayer structure for the absorber has been broadly observed, which is generally harmful to the cell performance because the probability of photogenerated carrier recombination at grain boundaries significantly increased. Herein, our experiment reveals that the application of anions to a new family of (Cu,Ag)2ZnSn(S,Se)4(CAZTSSe) materials leads to an increase in grain size and crystallinity. It is inspiring that using acetate starting materials in the precursor solution, a uniform, compact, and pinhole-free CAZTS precursor film was obtained, and the smoothness of the films surpassed that of films fabricated from the oxide route. More importantly, the crystallization of the CAZTSSe film has been considerably enhanced after selenization, and large grains going through the entire absorber layer was successfully obtained. Additionally, it is observed that the Vocaccompanied by excellent crystallinity improved significantly due to the pronouncedly reduced carrier recombination loss at grain boundaries. As a consequence, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the CAZTSSe photovoltaic device is successfully increased from 10.35% (oxide route) to 11.32% (acetate route). Importantly, our work attests to the feasibility of tuning the crystallization of the CZTSSe film by simple chemistry.

An online inquiry service (OIS) is an innovative service designed to make medical resources more accessible, especially in remote areas. An OIS provides patients with an alternative method of consulting a physician. This study develops a game-theoretical queueing model to examine the impact of OISs on gatekeeping systems. In such systems, patients are heterogeneous in terms of their travel costs. Here, we compare the performance of gatekeeping systems with and without an OIS. As such, we show that, owing to physicians’ reduced diagnostic ability when working online, an OIS reduces patients’ travel costs, increases the flow of patients to specialists, increases the total waiting time in the system, and decreases the total health surplus of patients. Moreover, we demonstrate that when patients are not sensitive to delays, introducing an OIS always reduces their total cost. These findings are consistent with the intuition that patients are better off when more options are available. Interestingly, when patients are sensitive to delays, introducing an OIS may increase their total cost. This paradoxical result occurs when patients’ sensitivity to delays is high, because those who consult a physician online impose negative externalities on the system by increasing the waiting cost in both the online and offline channels (which is proportional to patients’ delay sensitivity). Finally, we numerically illustrate that the benefit of introducing an OIS is non-monotonic in the system parameters; thus, caution is required when designing policies to regulate OISs.

The earth-abundant Cu2ZnSnS4(CZTS) quantum dots (QDs) have emerged as one potential substitute to toxic cadmium or rare indium QDs, but their application in quantum dot-sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) is still limited by the improper particle size and the rigorous synthesis and ligand exchange conditions. Herein, we developed a one-pot hot injection method by using Tri-n-octylphosphine oxide (TOPO) as the solvent and oleylamine as the capping agent to synthesize Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4(CZTSSe) QDs with adjustable size and narrow size distribution. The key feature of this approach is that we can take advantage of the high-temperature nucleation, low-temperature growth, and strong reducibility of NaHB4to prepare small-sized CZTSSe QDs without using 1-dodecanethiol (DDT) and to extend the light harvesting range through Se incorporation. After Se incorporation, it turns out that the conduction band (CB) level of CZTSSe QDs decreases, implying that the injection driving force of the electron to the CB of TiO2films becomes weaker and a larger recombination would be induced at the TiO2/QDs/electrolyte interface. Benefiting from the broadened optoelectronic response range, the induced higher Jsc(16.80 vs 14.13 mA/cm2) finally leads to the increase of the conversion efficiency of CZTSSe QDSSC from 3.17% to 3.54% without further modification. Despite the fact that the efficiency is still far behind those of literature reported values through use of other chalcogenide sensitizers, this DDT-free approach solves the main hindrance for the application of CZTSSe QDs in QDSSCs and holds a more convenient way for ligand exchange, light absorption improvement, and particle size control.

Background: The relationship of metabolic issues to pregnancy outcomes during assisted reproductive technology (ART) is gaining much attention. Fasting Plasma Glucose (FPG) is one of the most common metabolic indicators. Abnormal FPG not only affects the quality of life of human body, but also has a bearing on reproductive health. However, most attentions are paid on women's physical health and reproductive assessment, the health status of the male partner on pregnancy outcomes during ART treatment is often neglected. This study investigated whether male fasting hyperglycemia (FH, FPG > 6.1 mmol/L) can affect live birth rates (LBR) in singleton intrauterine clinical pregnancy women with cryo-thawed embryo transfer (CET) cycles. Material and methods: A retrospective cohort study (370 CET cycles with first singleton clinical intrauterine pregnancy and grouped by male FPG) was conducted to analyze the relationship between male FH and clinical pregnancy outcomes using binary logistic regression; the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated as a measure of relevancy. Live birth rate was the main outcome measure. Results: The live birth rate (LBR) was significantly lower [58.6% vs. 81.8%, P= 0.007, adjusted OR 0.635, 95% CI 0.456–0.884] and miscarriage rate (MR) was significantly higher [41.4% vs. 18.2%, P= 0.007, adjusted OR 1.575, 95% CI 1.131–2.195] in the FH group when compared with the Con group. There was no difference in healthy baby rate [88.2% vs. 89.6%, P= 0.058, adjusted OR 2.143, 95% CI 0.974–4.716] or abnormal birth weight rate (23.5% vs. 11.8%, P= 0.238, adjusted OR 2.859, 95% CI 0.777–10.460] between the FH and control group. No birth defects were observed in the present study. Conclusion: Male FH is an independent risk factor for lower LBR and higher MR in singleton intrauterine pregnancy women with CET cycles.

Underwater pottery relics salvaged from shipwrecks are vulnerable to physical, chemical and biological corrosion. In this study, the microscopic morphology and structural composition of glazed pottery fragments excavated from the South China Sea as well as purple clay teapot samples from the Yangtze River Estuary II shipwreck were analyzed by means of optical microscopy, scanning electron microscope equipped with energy dispersive spectrometer, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier infrared transform spectroscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy. According to the research results, the corrosion products deposited on the surface of the glazed pottery fragment from the South China Sea mainly included FeOOH and MnO2, whereas those on the surface of the purple clay teapot fragment from the Yangtze River Estuary II shipwreck primarily incorporated FeS2and FeS. According to the corrosion phenomenon, it was speculated that the underwater pottery relics were mainly corroded by different microorganisms in the underwater environment, including manganese-oxidizing bacteria, dissimilatory metal-reducing bacteria and sulfate-reducing bacteria. As the corrosion process of these cultural artifacts was described and related models were established, this study provides valuable reference for the disease removal and protection of pottery relics.

In the field of nonlinear frequency conversion, the cascaded frequency conversion scheme is an effective means to obtain new wavelengths. In this paper, we demonstrate efficient frequency conversion through three cascaded three-wave mixing processes based on Stark-chirped rapid adiabatic passage, which are different from previous cascaded wavelength conversion processes based on stimulated Raman adiabatic passage. Further, by analyzing the relevant parameters in the three-process cascaded frequency conversion models we have established, we find that the new scheme increases the conversion range and has lower restrictions on the conversion conditions while maintaining extremely low intermediate frequency intensity. These advantages allow our work to be applied to the acquisition of a mid-infrared or visible laser.

A multi-energy Demand response management (DRM) approach in Energy Internet is proposed by employing Stackelberg game theory. The multi-energy trading problem in DRM is formulated as a Stackelberg game, where an energy provider, as a leader, adjusts energy prices, and residential smart energy hubs, as followers, dynamically schedule multiple energy flows according to the prices. The existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium of the proposed game model are analyzed. A multi-energy DRM algorithm for reaching the game equilibrium is developed. Simulation results show that the proposed game-based approach can effectively reduce residential energy costs and improve revenues of the energy provider.

Abstract Three-dimensional-printed (3D-P) titanium implants display many advantages, such as design flexibility, higher efficiency, the capability to easily construct complex or customized structures, etc. , and is believed to potentially replace traditional implants. However, the biological performance of the 3D-P titanium surface has not been investigated systematically. Herein, we analyzed the surface characteristics of 3D-P Ti6Al4V implants and evaluated the biological responses of bone marrow derived mesenchymal stromal cells (BMSCs) to the 3D-P surface in vitro. Moreover, after implantation into the rat femoral condyle for 3 and 6 weeks, the osseointegration performance was evaluated. The results showed the 3D-P Ti6Al4V implant presented distinct fluctuant macroscale rough surface and relatively better hydrophilicity which enhanced the adhesion, proliferation, osteogenic differentiation and angiogenetic factor expression of BMSCs. Moreover, the in vivo osseointegration performance was also better than that of the control group at the early stage. The present study suggested the 3D-P titanium alloy is a promising candidate to be used as implant material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to the high theoretical specific capacity, long cycle life, abundant resources and environmental benignity, iron-based Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) as cathode materials for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have been investigated widely in recent years. Although major efforts have been concentrated on exploitation of high performance’s PBAs cathode materials, there is still deficiency of a deep understanding of the relevance between the reaction processes and capacity degradation mechanism with the active high-spin (HS)/ low-spin (LS) iron sites, which is of great significance. In this work, well-crystallized and shape-controlled monoclinic Prussian blue (M-PB) was successfully prepared, with remarkable electrochemical performance, especially in cycling performance (88% capacity retention after 500 cycles at 120 mAh g−1, and 81% after 980 cycles). More significantly, with state-of-the-art operandoMössbauer spectroscopy, ex-situ77 K Mössbauer spectroscopy, ex-situX-ray absorption spectroscopy and operandoX-ray diffraction, the reaction and capacity degradation mechanism were investigated thoroughly and the detailed reaction process was figured out for the first time. The result showed clearly that the HS Fe in M-PB reacts completely and contributes to most capacity, while only part of LS Fe reacts. Therefore, the capacity enhancement should be achieved by activating LS Fe. Furthermore, the LS Fe (Fe-CN) results in more severe crystal structure change than HS Fe (Fe-NC) of the same amount in the electrochemical reaction process, thus the partial reaction of LS Fe in M-PB could be the reason for its excellent cycling performance. This work not only investigated the reaction and capacity degradation mechanism, but also shed light on the design of high-performance PBAs-based cathodes for SIBs.

In proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), the performance of the cathode catalyst layer depends on the effective formation and uniform distribution of the three-phase boundary (catalyst, ionomer, and oxygen). However, traditional cathode catalyst layer structures based on heterogeneous catalysis have reduced the catalyst utilization rate and mass transfer efficiency for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which further restricts the development of PEMFCs. Here, we covalently grafted an ORR molecular catalyst, tetrakis(4-methoxyphenyl) porphyrin iron (II), onto the side chain of a Nafion ionomer. This strategy allows the catalytic center of the transition metal macrocycle to be anchored inside the ion flow channel. Mössbauer spectroscopy showed that the kinetics of the electrode reaction were improved owing to the increase in electron density around the Fe center. Additionally, the improvement in catalytic active site utilization and mass (protons, oxygen) transfer effectively promotes the performance output of the fuel cell. This novel catalyst layer structure may provide a new platform for the development of high-performance molecular catalysts for applications in fuel cells and other energy devices.

The partial substitution of Cu+with Ag+into the host lattice of Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4thin films can reduce the open-circuit voltage deficit (Voc,deficit) of Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4(CZTSSe) solar cells. In this paper, elemental Cu, Ag, Zn, Sn, S, and Se powders were dissolved in solvent mixture of 1,2-ethanedithiol (edtH2) and 1,2-ethylenediamine (en) and used for the formation of (Cu1–xAgx)2ZnSn(S,Se)4(CAZTSSe) thin films with different Ag/(Ag + Cu) ratios. The key feature of this approach is that the impurity atoms can be absolutely excluded. Further results indicate that the variations of grain size, band gap, and depletion width of the CAZTSSe layer are generally determined by Ag substitution content. Benefiting from the Vocenhancement (∼50 mV), the power conversion efficiency is successfully increased from 7.39% (x= 0) to 10.36% (x= 3%), which is the highest efficiency of Ag substituted devices so far.

Novel engineered NanoLuc (Nluc) luciferase being smaller, brighter, and superior to traditional firefly (Fluc) or Renilla(Rluc) provides a great opportunity for the development of numerous biological, biomedical, clinical, and food and environmental safety applications. This new platform created an urgent need for Nluc inhibitors that could allow selective bioluminescent suppression and multiplexing compatibility with existing luminescence or fluorescence assays. Starting from thienopyrrole carboxylate 1, a hit from a 42 000 PubChem compound library with a low micromolar IC50against Nluc, we derivatized four different structural fragments to discover a family of potent, single digit nanomolar, cell permeable inhibitors. Further elaboration revealed a channel that allowed access to the external Nluc surface, resulting in a series of highly potent cell impermeable Nluc inhibitors with negatively charged groups likely extending to the protein surface. The permeability was evaluated by comparing EC50shifts calculated from both live and lysed cells expressing Nluc cytosolically. Luminescence imaging further confirmed that cell permeable compounds inhibit both intracellular and extracellular Nluc, whereas less permeable compounds differentially inhibit extracellular Nluc and Nluc on the cell surface. The compounds displayed little to no toxicity to cells and high luciferase specificity, showing no activity against firefly luciferase or even the closely related NanoBit system. Looking forward, the structural motifs used to gain access to the Nluc surface can also be appended with other functional groups, and therefore interesting opportunities for developing assays based on relief-of-inhibition can be envisioned.

A game theory based scheduling method for household electricity consumption in smart grid is proposed in this paper. A non-cooperative game model is employed during the scheduling. All household consumers compete with each other and control their loads to maximize their payoffs. For solving the scheduling problem, we formulate the Utility optimization (UO) model, in which the electricity cost reduction and the improvement of consumers' comfort and preference are considered simultaneously. The System optimization (SO) model only minimizes the electricity cost when scheduling the consumers' electricity consumption. Then we compare and analyze the two models in numerical simulation. The existence and the uniqueness of Nash equilibrium for proposed game model are proved. Simulation results show that the UO model provides an effective scheduling approach to achieve higher comfort and preference and at the same time decrease the energy cost.

Overabundance of Slug protein is common in human cancer and represents an important determinant underlying the aggressiveness of basal-like breast cancer (BLBC). Despite its importance, this transcription factor is rarely mutated in BLBC, and the mechanism of its deregulation in cancer remains unknown. Here, we report that Slug undergoes acetylation-dependent protein degradation and identify the deacetylase SIRT2 as a key mediator of this post-translational mechanism. SIRT2 inhibition rapidly destabilizes Slug, whereas SIRT2 overexpression extends Slug stability. We show that SIRT2 deacetylates Slug protein at lysine residue K116 to prevent Slug degradation. Interestingly, SIRT2is frequently amplified and highly expressed in BLBC. Genetic depletion and pharmacological inactivation of SIRT2 in BLBC cells reverse Slug stabilization, cause the loss of clinically relevant pathological features of BLBC, and inhibit tumor growth. Our results suggest that targeting SIRT2 may be a rational strategy for diminishing Slug abundance and its associated malignant traits in BLBC.

Only a few published literatures are available on the materials and techniques used for ancient Chinese construction paintings. In this paper, integrated analytical techniques were used to characterize the materials and techniques used in the coloured paintings of the Summer Palace, one of the World Cultural Heritage sites. The analytical techniques include X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and element analysis (EA). This is the first time the content of crude protein in cultural relics has been measured by EA. By means of TGA it was possible to quantitatively determine organics and inorganics in the plaster layer. The study could be a guide for selecting materials and technologies for the restoration of construction paintings.

Cu2ZnSnSxSe4–x(CZTSSe) counter electrodes (CEs) in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are commonly developed with porous structures, but their high surface area could also retard electron transport processes owing to the abundant grain boundaries. Herein, we employed a convenient solution method and a rapid heating process to prepare well crystalline CZTSSe CEs in DSSCs. The influence of crystallization of CZTSSe film on DSSCs performances was discussed in depth. The thermogravimetric analysis, phase morphology, conductivity, and electrochemical characteristics of CZTSSe films were performed. It is found that the rapid heating process is beneficial to the formation of well crystalline film with large grains. As the porosity and grain boundaries in the bulk film are dramatically reduced with the enhanced crystallization, the charge transport process is gradually improved. Using cyclic voltammogram and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements, we propose that the accelerating charge transport is of great importance to the photovoltaic performances of DSSCs due to their superior electrocatalytic activities. As the highest cell efficiency was achieved, well crystalline CZTSSe is an efficient CE catalytic material.

To achieve more complete and more uniformly highlighted salient object regions, this study presents a computational saliency enhancement model that incorporates the properties of multi-scale and logarithmic response into the local and global contrasts. A distinct feature of the authors model is a novel saliency enhancement operator. This operator can effectively enhance the saliency of object interior regions while simultaneously reducing blur on object boundaries caused by multiple scales. Their model is a general one that can make flexible tradeoffs between precision and recall. Detailed comparisons with 12 state-of-the-art methods show that their method can obtain satisfactory salient object regions that are closer to the human-labelled results. In addition, their method provides superior results in precision–recall, F-measure and mean absolute error.

Sensitive and selective detection assays are essential for the accurate measurement of analytes in both clinical and research laboratories. Immunoassays that rely on nonoverlapping antibodies directed against the same target analyte (e.g., sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs)) are commonly used molecular detection technologies. Use of split enzyme reporters has simplified the workflow for these traditionally complex assays. However, identifying functional antibody pairs for a given target analyte can be cumbersome, as it generally involves generating and screening panels of antibodies conjugated to reporters. Accordingly, we sought a faster and easier reporter conjugation strategy to streamline antibody screening. We describe here the development of such a method that is based on an optimized ternary NanoLuc luciferase. This bioluminescence complementation system is comprised of a reagent-based thermally stable polypeptide (LgTrip) and two small peptide tags (β9 and β10) with lysine-reactive handles for direct conjugation onto antibodies. These reagents enable fast, single-step, wash-free antibody labeling and sensitive functional screening. Simplicity, speed, and utility of the one-pot labeling technology are demonstrated in screening antibody pairs for the analyte interleukin-4. The screen resulted in the rapid development of a sensitive homogeneous immunoassay for this clinically relevant cytokine.

A new method has been developed based on ultrasound‐assisted extraction (UAE) followed by hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC) and electrospray ionization time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry (ESI‐TOF/MS) for the simultaneous determination of 16 nucleosides and nucleobases in medicinal extracts of various marine organisms. The separation was achieved on a Venusil HILIC column (250×4.6 mm id, 5 μm) and gradient elution using a solution of acetonitrile and buffer (0.20% formic acid and 20 mmol/L ammonium acetate) as the mobile phase. Identification of the 16 target nucleosides and nucleobases was based on the retention time, UV spectra, and mass measurements of the protonated molecules ([M+H]+) and main fragment ions (ESI‐TOF/MS). In addition, non‐target compounds of 2′‐deoxyinosine and four other amino acids were also tentatively identified by ESI‐TOF/MS. The 16 target compounds were quantified by HILIC‐ESI‐TOF/MS under optimized mass conditions. All calibration curves showed good linearity (r2>0.9951). The recoveries were 84.72–124.10%, and the limits of detection of the 16 target compounds were 0.6–130.0 ng/mL. The developed method was applied to quantify the target compounds in 15 batches of various marine organisms. The method has potential applicability for the identification and determination of highly polar and low‐concentration active compounds in marine organisms.

Psychosocial Work Environment and Well‐Being: A Cross‐Sectional Study at a Thermal Power Plant in China: Shanfa Yu, et al. Department of Occupational and Environment Medicine, Peking University Health Center, China—To investigate the effects of the job demand‐control (DC) model and the effort‐reward imbalance (ERI) model on worker's well‐being, self‐reports for psychosocial work conditions and well‐being were made by a sample of 878 workers at a thermal power plant in China using the main dimensions of DC and ERI questionnaires. Logistic regression analyses were employed controlling for age, gender, and educational level, and negative and positive affection among others. Workers reporting high job demands and low job control or high efforts and low rewards had elevated risks of job dissatisfaction, psychosomatic complaints and depressive symptoms. Odds ratios were generally higher in workers reporting both high efforts and low rewards. Furthermore, low reward proved to be a stronger predictor of poor wellbeing when both job stress models were simultaneously adjusted. To some extent, interaction effects were found for social support, but no interaction effects were found for overcommitment. The findings indicate independent effects of both the DC model and the ERI model on well‐being. Future work should explore the combined effects of these two models of psychosocial stress at work on health more thoroughly.

A photoinduced colour formation system consisting of flourane dye (FR) and iodonium salt was investigated. The thermodynamic data indicate that the photoreaction of colour formation mainly accurs via an electron transfer pathway. The processes of electron transfer colour formation were proposed by separating and analysing the photoproducts. On irradiation, the excited flourane dye and iodonium salt may undergo electron transfer to give a flourane radical (FR·+) and diphenyliodonium radical (·IPH2). The latter rapidly decomposes to a phenyl radical (Ph·) and iodobenzene, and the ring-opened coloured forms may be subsequently created via two pathways: abstraction of hydrogen by the FR·+ radical intermediate or coupling between FR·+ and Ph·. The acidic ring-opened coloured form from the abstraction of hydrogen is predominant, and easily undergoes a colour disappearance reaction in non-polar solvents or basic medium, but the structure of FR-Ph from radical coupling possesses good stability. In order to improve the solubility of the iodonium salt, several diaryliodonium salts containing different flexible phenolic chains or counterions were used as activators. The influences of these two factors on colour formation were studied; the results demonstrate that the former has no distinct effect on the rate of colour formation or maximal optical density at 580 nm, whereas the latter has a significant effect. The influence of concentration was also studied.

Therapeutic oligonucleotides (TOs) represent one of the most promising drug candidates in the targeted cancer treatment due to their high specificity and capability of modulating cellular pathways that are not readily druggable. However, efficiently delivering of TOs to cancer cellular targets is still the biggest challenge in promoting their clinical translations. Emerging as a significant drug delivery vector, nanoparticles (NPs) can not only protect TOs from nuclease degradation and enhance their tumor accumulation, but also can improve the cell uptake efficiency of TOs as well as the following endosomal escape to increase the therapeutic index. Furthermore, targeted and on-demand drug release of TOs can also be approached to minimize the risk of toxicity towards normal tissues using stimuli-responsive NPs. In the past decades, remarkable progresses have been made on the TOs delivery based on various NPs with specific purposes. In this review, we will first give a brief introduction on the basis of TOs as well as the action mechanisms of several typical TOs, and then describe the obstacles that prevent the clinical translation of TOs, followed by a comprehensive overview of the recent progresses on TOs delivery based on several various types of nanocarriers containing lipid-based nanoparticles, polymeric nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles, porous nanoparticles, DNA/RNA nanoassembly, extracellular vesicles, and imaging-guided drug delivery nanoparticles.

Although the traditional Cu-poor architecture addresses many limitations for Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4solar cells, its further development still encounters a bottleneck in terms of efficiency, primarily arising from the inferior charge transport within the quasineutral region and enlarged recombination at back contact. On the contrary, the electrical benign kesterite compound with higher Cu content may compensate for these shortages, but it will degrade device performance more pronouncedly at front contact because of the Fermi level pinning and more electric shunts. Based on the electric disparities on their independent side, in this work, we propose a new status of Cu component by exploring a large grain/fine grain/large grain trilayer architecture with higher Cu content near back contact and lower Cu content near front contact. The benefits of this bottom Cu-higher strategy are that it imposes a concentration gradient to drive carrier diffusion toward front contact and decreases the valence band edge offset in the rear of the device to aid in hole extraction. Also, it maintains the Cu-poor architecture at the near surface to facilitate hole quasi-Fermi level splitting. In return, the local Cu component engineering-mediated electric advances contribute to the highest efficiency of 12.54% for kesterite solar cells using amine–thiol solution systems so far.

Accurate segmentation of the prostate gland from Magnetic Resonance (MR) images is still a challenging problem due to large variability and heterogeneity in the prostate appearance. To overcome this problem, we present a coarse-to-fine prostate segmentation approach with iterative localization refinement. Specifically, we first propose a resolution-aware 3D U-shaped network to balance the difference between the in-plane resolution and the through-plane distance. Then a case-wise loss function is introduced to alleviate the data imbalance problem and individual differences of the prostate MR images. In the inference stage, we extract a shrunk prostate region and improve the segmentation results in an iterative manner. Evaluation experiments are carried out on the MICCAI 2012 Prostate Segmentation Challenge Dataset (PROMISE12) and the NCI-ISBI 2013 Prostate Segmentation Challenge Dataset. Comparison results demonstrate that our method achieves significant improvements over the state-of-the-art approaches, and outperforms more than 290 submissions on the website of PROMISE12. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New highly sensitive latent bioluminescent luciferin substrates were designed and synthesized for monitoring mammalian glutathione S-transferase (GST) and Schistosoma japonicum enzyme activities.

Learning based light field depth estimation methods have been proven to be successful, however, most of them focus on the depth cues extraction from a single representation of light field. In our opinion, existing methods are difficult to simultaneously learn various cues with different modalities, which are implied in different representations of light field. In this paper, we formulate the light field depth estimation as a pixel-wise classification task, and introduce a hybrid learning architecture to combine multimodal cues from multiple representations of light field. Three convolutional pathways are applied to predict the disparity label of each pixel from three modality representations of light field. Performing discrete disparity label classification instead of continuous disparity value regression allows us to easily fuse the prediction results of three pathways in the form of probability distribution. Evaluation experiments are carried out on the HCI 4D Light Field Benchmark. Our method, named as "FusionNet" on the benchmark website, ranks first among the published methods on high accuracy metrics of Bad Pixel Ratio 0.03 and 0.01. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) travels through the atmosphere there should be strong aero heating around it, so a Thermal Protection System (TPS) would be used to protect the vehicle structures from aero thermal ablation. However, the TPS structure may fail more frequently than normal vehicle structures because of the severe environment and load conditions, while a TPS failure can even lead to a catastrophic breakdown of vehicle structures. To keep the RLV safe, the TPS must be monitored real-time. To learn the heat transfer inside a ceramic TPS tile finite element models are built, and computation made with them indicates that temperature monitoring and frequency monitoring of the TPS structure should be effectual for fault detection. Health management for TPS is one of the key technologies for space vehicle. The paper puts forward a method that analyze and valuation the system states by monitoring the key function index sign of TPS. The concept of health management for Thermal Protection System of space shuttle and the principles of health monitoring are introduced. The principles of sensor selection and layout optimization method for TPS Health Management are discussed.

DNA damage activates checkpoints that limit the replicative potential of stem cells, including differentiation. These checkpoints protect against cancer development but also promote tissue aging. Because mice lacking Slug/Snai2exhibit limited stem cell activity, including luminobasal differentiation, and are protected from mammary cancer, we reasoned that Slug might regulate DNA damage checkpoints in mammary epithelial cells. Here, we show that Slug facilitates efficient execution of RPA32-mediated DNA damage response (DDR) signaling. Slug deficiency leads to delayed phosphorylation of ataxia telangiectasia mutated and Rad3-related protein (ATR) and its effectors RPA32 and CHK1. This leads to impaired RAD51 recruitment to DNA damage sites and persistence of unresolved DNA damage. In vivo, Slug/Snai2loss leads to increased DNA damage and premature aging of mammary epithelium. Collectively, our work demonstrates that the mammary stem cell regulator Slug controls DDR checkpoints by dually inhibiting differentiation and facilitating DDR repair, and its loss causes unresolved DNA damage and accelerated aging.