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Molecular weight (MW) of organics was one of the important factors influencing membrane fouling propensity. This study identified critical foulants of reverse osmosis (RO) membranes in reclaimed water by MW fractionation. MW > 10 kDa component was identified as the critical fouling contributor (CFC) in secondary effluent (SE), which accounted for only 13 ± 5% of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) but contributed to 86 ± 11% of flux decline. Throughout 12-month monitoring, SE and MW > 10 kDa component showed a similar fouling variation tendency: apparently higher fouling potential in winter and lower in summer, while MW < 10 kDa component presented minor fouling changes. Morphology of membrane fouled by CFC characterized a smooth and thick foulant layer on membrane surface. CFC was mainly composed of proteins and polysaccharides, and a protein-polysaccharide-protein "sandwich" fouling layer structure was preferentially formed on membrane surface. extended Derjaguin–Landau-Verwey–Overbeek (xDLVO) analysis demonstrated that strong attractive interactions between CFC and membrane surface dominated the fouling process. Furthermore, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation revealed strong filtration resistance of CFC, confirming its significant fouling potential. Dual effects including attractive interactions and advantageous ridge-and-valley surface appearance accounted for the significant fouling propensity of MW > 10 kDa component and glean valuable insights into RO fouling mechanisms of reclaimed water in practical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study investigated the relationship between COVID-19 prevention burnout and emotional symptoms (depression and anxiety) among 1,837 Chinese college students and the underlying mechanisms. Results from moderated mediation analysis revealed that the association between COVID-19 prevention burnout and emotional symptoms was mediated by psychological inflexibility (β = 0.20, 95%CI = [0.10, 0.19]). Also, COVID-19 prevention burnout's direct and indirect effects on emotional symptoms were more substantial for students with high susceptibility to emotional contagion than those with low susceptibility. These findings contribute to understanding how COVID-19 prevention burnout relates to emotional symptoms and provide a new perspective for interventions promoting students' psychological flexibility, particularly those with higher susceptibility to emotional contagion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is a highly contagious and pathogenic infectious disease caused by the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV). It manifests as reproductive disorders in sows and respiratory disorders in piglets. PRRSV infects swine herds with symptoms such as abortions, stillbirths, and mummified fetuses in gestating sows. Piglets mainly experience abdominal respiration and respiratory symptoms. To date, the prevention of PRRS relies primarily on vaccination and the implementation of various preventive and control measures. Swine deaths caused by PRRS have resulted in significant economic losses to the pig industry worldwide. Non-structural protein 10 (NSP10) has helicase and adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase) activities that unwind DNA and RNA and play important roles in viral replication and transcription. Hence, it can be potentially used to develop novel reagents for the detection of PPRSV. This article reviews genetic variations, interaction with viral and host proteins, effects on PRRSV replication, immunomodulation, apoptosis, and viral virulence of NSP10, with the aim of providing a theoretical basis for the prevention and control of PRRS and drug development in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Degraded images often suffer from low contrast, color deviations, and blurring details, which significantly affect the performance of detectors. Many previous works have attempted to obtain high-quality images based on human perception using image enhancement algorithms. However, these enhancement algorithms usually suppress the performance of degraded object detection. In this paper, we propose a task-oriented image enhancement network (TIENet) to directly improve degraded object detection's performance by enhancing the degraded images. Unlike common human perception-based image-to-image methods, TIENet is a zero-reference enhancement network, which obtains a detection-favorable structure image that is added to the original degraded image. In addition, this paper presents a fast Fourier transform-based structure loss for the enhancement task. With the new loss, our TIENet enables the structure image obtained to enhance more useful detection-favorable structural information and suppress irrelevant information. Extensive experiments and comprehensive evaluations on underwater (URPC2020) and foggy (RTTS) datasets show that our proposed framework can achieve 0.5–1.6% AP absolute improvements on classic detectors, including Faster R-CNN, RetinaNet, FCOS, ATSS, PAA, and TOOD. Besides, our method also generalizes well to the PASCAL VOC dataset, which can achieve 0.2–0.7% gains. We expect this study can draw more attention to high-level task-oriented degraded image enhancement. The code and pre-trained models are available at https://github.com/BIGWangYuDong/lqit/tree/main/configs/detection/tienet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by the recently discovered superconductivity in Sr-doped nickelate oxides NdNiO2 reduced from NdNiO3 in experiments, we predict a Mott multiferroic BiNiO2 that may be obtained from BiNiO3. There is a ferroelectric structural transition for BiNiO2 from the nonpolar phase to the polar phase with the P4mm space group, which is driven by the lone pair on Bi. The lowest energy ground-state for polar BiNiO2 is a Hubbard Mott insulator with the G-type antiferromagnetic spin configurations. The replacement of Nd by Bi serves as a connecting link between a parent compound of high-temperature superconductor and a Mott multiferroic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monolayer 2D lateral heterostructures with high interface qualities and well‐defined structures are particularly promising in novel electronic and optoelectronic applications. However, the photoelectric responses are still very low, and the working and modulating mechanisms urgently need exploration. Here, a lateral monolayer heterojunction of WS2‐WSe2 is successfully prepared with an atomically sharp interface and a band alignment of type‐II structure. Intriguingly, this heterojunction photodetector (PD) achieves outstanding characteristics of photocurrent generation in both photovoltaic and photoconductive modes with responsivities (Rs) of 60.2/3.0 A W−1, detectivities (D*s) of 1.81/0.98 × 1012 Jones, and response times of 32.2/28.5 and 39.5/32.1 ms, respectively. Moreover, all‐inorganic CsPbBr3 quantum dots are introduced to substantially promote the photoelectric responses. Because of the favorable band alignment and large absorption of the CsPbBr3, and efficient carrier transfer, the Rs and D*s are substantially improved to 1307/141.3 A W−1 and 1.16/2.94 × 1013 Jones, respectively, with fantastic external quantum efficiencies of 3.59/0.388 × 105% and also shortened response times of 12.5/13.2 and 17.4/15.8 ms. In addition, the ambient stability is remarkably enhanced. This study demonstrates that the combination of 2D lateral heterojunction with all‐inorganic perovskite may bring up promising opportunities for developing high‐performance PDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular ferroelectrics are a promising class of ferro-electrics, with environmental friendliness, flexibility and low cost. In this work, a set of characteristic molecular ferroelectrics are simulated by molecular dynamics (MD) with polarized crystal charge (PCC). From the simulated results, their ferroelectric switching mechanisms are elucidated, with their ferroelectric hysteresis loops. The PCC charge model, recently developed by our group, containing the quantum electric polarization effect, is suitable in nature for studying molecular ferroelectrics. The simulated systems include the typical molecular ionic ferroelectrics, di-isopropyl-ammonium halide (DIPAX, X=C (Cl), B (Br), and I), as well as a pair of newly validated organic molecular ferroelectrics, salicylideneaniline and (-)-camphanic acid. In total, there are five systems under investigation. Results demonstrate that the PCC MD method is efficient and reliable. It not only elucidates the ferroelectric switching mechanism of the studied molecular ferroelectrics, but also extends the application range of the PCC MD. In conclusion, PCC MD provides an efficient protocol for extensive computer simulations of molecular ferroelectrics, with reliable ferroelectric properties and associated mechanisms, and would promote further exploration of novel molecular ferroelectrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]