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Clay minerals have great potentials in pinpointing sediment provenance for large depositional systems. However, source identification using clay minerals for small floodplain lakes is not well known. Situated in the North China Plain, the Dongping Lake receives sediments from both the Yellow River and the Dawen River, thereby representing an ideal site for testing the utility of this method. Here we use clay minerals in conjunction with the Bayesian end-member modeling analysis (BEMMA) to quantify the riverine contribution to modern sediments in the Dongping Lake. Results showed that modern sediments of the Dongping Lake are characterized by four primary clay minerals: illite, smectite, kaolinite, and chlorite, with average contents of 60.53%, 11.37%, 12.70%, and 15.40%, respectively. Clay minerals in modern sediments of the Dongping Lake are mainly delivered by the Yellow River, accounting for approximately 58.99–72.33%; whereas those originating from the Dawen River only account for 27.67–41.01%. It is also found that clay mineral from these rivers have a marked spatial variability. For example, source materials from the Yellow River are widely distributed across the lake, while those from the Dawen River only occur at the estuary of the river and slightly spread out in all directions under the action of water flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inorganic perovskite nanocrystals exhibit tremendous prospects in optoelectronics. Although the stability of perovskite nanocrystals is considerably improved after being embedded in a glass matrix, subtle difference in the glass composition is still an important factor affecting the glass matrix and perovskite precipitation behavior. In this study, a series of CsPbCl 2 Br 1 nanocrystal glasses with excellent optical properties were prepared by optimizing the composition. Further, we introduced Sm3+ into CsPbCl 2 Br 1 perovskite nanocrystal glass (PNG) to enhance photoluminescence (PL) emissions and improve the ultraviolet response and device stability of silicon photodetectors (Si PDs). After integrating the as-prepared Sm3+-doped CsPbCl 2 Br 1 PNG with Si PDs, the UV response of the Si PDs at 200–400 nm was significantly enhanced. In particular, the responsivity of Sm3+-doped CsPbCl 2 Br 1 PNG-coated Si PDs at 320 nm reaches 7.5 times that of bare Si PDs. Furthermore, Sm3+-doped CsPbCl 2 Br 1 PNG-coated Si PDs displayed good photocurrent stability, with a decrease of only 1.5% after 60 days of operation. Additionally, after integrating 10% Sm3+-doped CsPbCl 2 Br 1 PNG with InGaAs PDs, a broadband response in the ultraviolet to the infrared region is successfully achieved. This study attempts to fabricate perovskite nanocrystal glasses and provides a new perspective for next-generation high-performance UV PDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microvascular invasion (MVI) is a risk factor for early recurrence and poor prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Preoperative assessment of MVI status is beneficial for clinical therapy and prognosis evaluation. A total of 305 surgically resected patients were included retrospectively. All recruited patients underwent plain and contrast-enhanced abdominal CT. They were then randomly divided into training and validation sets in a ratio of 8:2. Self-attention-based ViT-B/16 and ResNet-50 analyzed CT images to predict MVI status preoperatively. Then, Grad-CAM was used to generate an attention map showing the high-risk MVI patches. Using five-fold cross validation, the performance of each model was evaluated. Among 305 HCC patients, 99 patients were pathologically MVI-positive and 206 were MVI-negative. ViT-B/16 with fusion phase predicted the MVI status with an AUC of 0.882 and an accuracy of 86.8% in the validation set, which is similar to ResNet-50 with an AUC of 0.875 and an accuracy of 87.2%. The fusion phase improved performance a bit as compared to the single phase used for MVI prediction. The influence of peritumoral tissue on predictive ability was limited. A color visualization of the suspicious patches where microvascular has invaded was presented by attention maps. ViT-B/16 model can predict preoperative MVI status in CT images of HCC patients. Assisted by attention maps, it can assist patients in making tailored treatment decisions. Lay Summary: Vision Transformer (ViT) based pure self-attention can predict preoperative microvascular invasion status inputting CT images of hepatocellular carcinoma patients with an AUC of 0.882 and an accuracy of 86.8%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycarboxylate superplasticizers (PCEs) are vital to develop concrete-based materials with low CO 2 footprint, good fluidity, and workability. Designing PCEs with high dispersion property is specially critical for high strength concrete due to their elevated viscosity. Systematically exploring the effect of side chain length on their conformation, adsorption capacity, and charge distribution on the suspended cement particles, as well as on the flow behavior, and workability of concrete is necessary. Here, PCEs holding a side chain of TPEG-2400 (nEO = 52) were modified with 3 different length of acrylic esters at molar ratios of acrylic acid (AA): macromonomer (MM): ester of 4: 1: 2.5. It was observed that PCE with the shortest ester side chain length (MA-PCE) showed the highest adsorption and electrostatic repulsion due to its lowest surface tension, largest hydrodynamic radius, and highest zeta potential, reducing the solid-liquid interface energy, and exposing the highest amount of negatively charged carboxyl groups to anchor upon the surface of cement particles thereby promoting its dispersion performance and rheological properties. The outstanding dispersing effect of MA-PCE was demonstrated by the T 500 and efflux time of concrete. The findings that the side chain length of ester group of PCEs can not only influence their adsorption but also their conformation pave the way to design other high dispersion PCE with high workability of concrete. • High dispersion PCE is vital to improve the workability of high strength concrete. • Ester side chain length influences the adsorption and the conformation of carboxyl groups. • PCE with the shortest side chain length (MA-PCE) shows the largest hydrodynamic radius, adsorption, and zeta potential. • MA-PCE shows comparable dispersing effect compared with PCE. • MA-PCE exhibits better T 500 time and efflux time of fresh concrete than PCE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deterioration of climate exacerbates the freshwater crisis. Solar-thermal interfacial evaporation, using sunlight as a driving energy source, is a promising approach to provide an effective solution to freshwater shortages. However, the low energy conversion efficiency and expensive evaporator manufacturing are still to be resolved. Herein, a strategy of clean water harvesting by solar-absorbing germanium@k-carrageenan (Ge@CA) evaporator demonstrating superior energy conversion is proposed. The Ge nanoparticles exhibit a significant solar absorption of 92.33% to achieve efficient solar-thermal conversion. The CA hydrogel provides three-dimensional water transmission channels to the evaporating surface. Meanwhile, the Ge nanoparticles can be fabricated by a facile ball-milling method. The CA as a cheap biomass can be easily interacted with KCl to obtain the porous hydrogel. Taking the advantages of Ge nanoparticles and CA hydrogel, the Janus-type Ge@CA hydrogel evaporator can achieve an evaporation rate of 2.88 kg m−2·h−1 and a solar-vapor conversion efficiency of 82.65% under 1 sun irradiation. Furthermore, the evaporator can produce thermoelectricity with the output voltage of 140.95 mV and the short-circuit current of 13.32 mA, yielding a power of 1.17 W m−2. This reported solar device has huge potential for cutting-edge solar harvesting and usage. Solar-absorbing Ge nanoparticles@K-carrageenan hydrogel demonstrating superior solar absorbance and high solar energy efficiency are applied in robust solar-thermal water harvesting and power generation. [Display omitted] • Ge nanoparticles with excellent solar absorption capacity are synthetized by ball milling. • A novel solar evaporator is constructed by coating Ge nanoparticles on a biomass hydrogel. • The Janus type solar evaporator can effectively produce clean water and reject the salts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]