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Purpose Deficiency of adenosine deaminase 2 (DADA2), an autosomal recessive autoinflammatory disorder caused by biallelic loss-of-function variants in adenosine deaminase 2 (ADA2), has not been systemically investigated in Chinese population yet. We aim to further characterize DADA2 cases in China. Methods A retrospective analysis of patients with DADA2 identified through whole exome sequencing (WES) at seventeen rheumatology centers across China was conducted. Clinical characteristics, laboratory findings, genotype, and treatment response were analyzed. Results Thirty patients with DADA2 were enrolled between January 2015 and December 2021. Adenosine deaminase 2 enzymatic activity was low in all tested cases to confirm pathogenicity. Median age of disease presentation was 4.3 years and the median age at diagnosis was 7.8 years. All but one patient presented during childhood and two subjects died from complications of their disease. The patients most commonly presented with systemic inflammation (92.9%), vasculitis (86.7%), and hypogammaglobinemia (73.3%) while one patient presented with bone marrow failure (BMF) with variable cytopenia. Twenty-three (76.7%) patients were treated with TNF inhibitors (TNFi), while two (6.7%) underwent hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). They all achieved clinical remission. A total of thirty-nine ADA2 causative variants were identified, six of which were novel. Conclusion To establish early diagnosis and improve clinical outcomes, genetic screening and/or testing of ADA2 enzymatic activity should be performed in patients with suspected clinical features. TNFi is considered as first line treatment for those with vascular phenotypes. HSCT may be beneficial for those with hematological disease or in those who are refractory to TNFi.

Ferroelectric HfO2-based materials hold great potential for widespread integration of ferroelectricity into modern electronics due to their robust ferroelectric properties at the nanoscale and compatibility with the existing Si technology. Earlier work indicated that the nanometer crystal grain size was crucial for stabilization of the ferroelectric phase of hafnia. This constraint caused high density of unavoidable structural defects of the HfO2-based ferroelectrics, obscuring the intrinsic ferroelectricity inherited from the crystal space group of bulk HfO2. Here, we demonstrate the intrinsic ferroelectricity in Y-doped HfO2 films of high crystallinity. Contrary to the common expectation, we show that in the 5% Y-doped HfO2 epitaxial thin films, high crystallinity enhances the spontaneous polarization up to a record-high 50 µC/cm2 value at room temperature. The high spontaneous polarization persists at reduced temperature, with polarization values consistent with our theoretical predictions, indicating the dominant contribution from the intrinsic ferroelectricity. The crystal structure of these films reveals the Pca21 orthorhombic phase with a small rhombohedral distortion, underlining the role of the anisotropic stress and strain. These results open a pathway to controlling the intrinsic ferroelectricity in the HfO2-based materials and optimizing their performance in applications.

Background: To evaluate the value of texture analysis (TA) of conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in the differential diagnosis between sinonasal non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).Methods: Twenty-one patients with sinonasal SCC and 15 patients with NHL were retrospectively enrolled. TAs were performed on T2-weighted image (T2WI), apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and contrast-enhanced T1-weighted image (T1WI). Texture parameters, including mean value, skewness, kurtosis, entropy and uniformity were obtained and compared between sinonasal SCC and NHL groups. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate the diagnostic value and identify the independent TA parameters.Results: The mean value and entropy of ADC, and mean value of contrast-enhanced T1WI were significantly lower in the sinonasal NHL group than those in the SCC group (all P < 0.05). ROC analysis indicated that the entropy of ADC had the best diagnostic performance (AUC, 0.832; Sensitivity, 0.95; Specificity, 0.67; Cut-off value, 6.522). Logistic regression analysis showed that the entropy of ADC (P = 0.002, OR = 26.990) was the independent parameter for differentiating sinonasal NHL from SCC.Conclusion: TA parameters of conventional MRI and DWI, particularly the entropy value of ADC, might be useful in the differentiating diagnosis between sinonasal NHL and SCC.

Dinotefuran is a chiral insecticide widely used to control Nilaparvata lugens in agriculture. However, little is known about the toxic effects of dinotefuran enantiomers on aquatic organisms. In this study, zebrafish were exposed to 1.00 and 10.00 mg/L dinotefuran enantiomers for 96 h, after which multivariate pattern recognition, metabolite identification, and pathway analysis were performed. Principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) were then conducted to reveal the metabolic perturbations caused by dinotefuran enantiomers. Metabolic pathway analysis revealed the perturbation of five main pathways, including phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan biosynthesis; phenylalanine metabolism; retinol metabolism; arginine and proline metabolism; and glycerophospholipid metabolism. These disturbed metabolic pathways were strongly correlated with energy, amino acid metabolism, and lipid metabolism. Pathway analysis also indicated that the metabolic pathway changes induced by the same level of R and S-dinotefuran were enantioselective. Our research may provide better insight into the risk of chiral dinotefuran in aquatic organisms in the environment.

Identification and validation of bioactive small-molecule targets is a significant challenge in drug discovery. In recent years, various in-silico approaches have been proposed to expedite time- and resource-consuming experiments for target detection. Herein, we developed several chemogenomic models for target prediction based on multi-scale information of chemical structures and protein sequences. By combining the information of a compound with multiple protein targets together and putting these compound-target pairs into a well-established model, the scores to indicate whether there are interactions between compounds and targets can be derived, and thus a target prediction task can be completed by sorting the outputted scores. To improve the prediction performance, we constructed several chemogenomic models using multi-scale information of chemical structures and protein sequences, and the ensemble model with the best performance was used as our final model. The model was validated by various strategies and external datasets and the promising target prediction capability of the model, i.e., the fraction of known targets identified in the top-k (1 to 10) list of the potential target candidates suggested by the model, was confirmed. Compared with multiple state-of-art target prediction methods, our model showed equivalent or better predictive ability in terms of the top-k predictions. It is expected that our method can be utilized as a powerful computational tool to narrow down the potential targets for experimental testing. Graphical Abstract

This study aims to examine the effects of teachers’ seniority, emotional intelligence (EI), and team-member exchange (TMX) quality on their job performance in primary schools. In particular, the mediating role of TMX on the relationship between EI and job performance, and the moderated mediating effect of teacher seniority on EI-TMX-job performance relationships were scrutinised. Data were collected from 387 teachers of primary schools in Taiwan. The SPSS PROCESS macro and structural equation modelling (SEM) were applied to test the hypotheses using SPSS 26.0. The research findings indicated that primary teachers’ EI positively affected their TMX and job performance. The findings also provide empirical evidence for the positive mediating effect of TMX on the relationship between EI and job performance, as well as the negative moderating effect of teachers’ seniority on the linkage between EI and TMX. Recommendations are made on the enhancement of teachers’ EI and the relationship of TMX in teachers’ professional development programs, educational policies, and practice.

Background With the rapid growth of healthcare services, health insurance fraud detection has become an important measure to ensure efficient use of public funds. Traditional fraud detection methods have tended to focus on the attributes of a single visit and have ignored the behavioural relationships of multiple visits by patients. Methods We propose a health insurance fraud detection model based on a multilevel attention mechanism that we call MHAMFD. Specifically, we use an attributed heterogeneous information network (AHIN) to model different types of objects and their rich attributes and interactions in a healthcare scenario. MHAMFD selects appropriate neighbour nodes based on the behavioural relationships at different levels of a patient’s visit. We also designed a hierarchical attention mechanism to aggregate complex semantic information from the interweaving of different levels of behavioural relationships of patients. This increases the feature representation of objects and makes the model interpretable by identifying the main factors of fraud. Results Experimental results using real datasets showed that MHAMFD detected health insurance fraud with better accuracy than existing methods. Conclusions Experiment suggests that the behavioral relationships between patients’ multiple visits can also be of great help to detect health care fraud. Subsequent research fraud detection methods can also take into account the different behavioral relationships between patients.

Background Membranous nephropathy is an autoimmune nephropathy that is one of the most common pathological types of nephrotic syndrome. It is important to find and apply specific biomarkers for the noninvasive diagnosis of idiopathic membranous nephropathy (IMN). However, there are limited data about their diagnostic value. Therefore, an overall meta-analysis helps to identify effective biomarkers for the clinical diagnosis of IMN. Methods A systematic literature search was carried out in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane and Web of Science from inception until December 31, 2020. Two researchers searched for studies that met the inclusion criteria. The results of the joint study were expressed in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Results The meta-analysis included 24 studies with biomarkers for the clinical diagnosis of IMN, including phospholipase A2 receptor (PLA2R), thrombospondin type I domain-containing 7A (THSD7A), lysosome membrane protein-2 (LIMP-2) and circular RNAs. The diagnostic efficiency of PLA2R for IMN had a combined sensitivity of 60% and a combined specificity of 100%. The diagnostic efficiency of THSD7A for IMN had a combined sensitivity of 3% and a combined specificity of 99%. The diagnostic efficiency of urinary LIMP-2 for IMN was 100%, and the specificity was 100%. The diagnostic efficiency of exosomal circRNAs for IMN was 100%, and the specificity was 100%. Conclusions This meta-analysis shows that PLA2R and THSD7A are of important diagnostic value for IMN. More studies are needed in the future to reveal the diagnostic value of LIMP-2 and circRNAs for IMN. At the same time, other new diagnostic biomarkers in IMN need to be found in the future.

Wheat powdery mildew, caused by Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici ( Bgt ), is a globally devastating disease. Wild emmer wheat ( Triticum turgidum var. dicoccoides ) is a valuable genetic resource for improving disease resistance in common wheat. A powdery mildew resistance gene was transferred to hexaploid wheat line WE74 from wild emmer accession G-748-M. Genetic analysis revealed that the powdery mildew resistance in WE74 is controlled by a single dominant gene, herein temporarily designated MlWE74 . Bulked segregant analysis (BSA) and molecular mapping delimited MlWE74 to the terminal region of chromosome 2BS flanking by markers WGGBD412 and WGGBH346 within a genetic interval of 0.25 cM and corresponding to 799.9 kb genomic region in the Zavitan reference sequence. Sequence annotation revealed two phosphoglycerate mutase-like genes, an alpha/beta-hydrolases gene, and five NBS-LRR disease resistance genes that could serve as candidates for map-based cloning of MlWE74 . The geographical location analysis indicated that MlWE74 is mainly distributed in Rosh Pinna and Amirim regions, in the northern part of Israel, where environmental conditions are favorable to the occurrence of powdery mildew. Moreover, the co-segregated marker WGGBD425 is helpful in marker-assisted transfer of MlWE74 into elite cultivars.

Existing color editing algorithms enable users to edit the colors in an image according to their own aesthetics. Unlike artists who have an accurate grasp of color, ordinary users are inexperienced in color selection and matching, and allowing non-professional users to edit colors arbitrarily may lead to unrealistic editing results. To address this issue, we introduce a palette-based approach for realistic object-level image recoloring. Our data-driven approach consists of an offline learning part that learns the color distributions for different objects in the real world, and an online recoloring part that first recognizes the object category, and then recommends appropriate realistic candidate colors learned in the offline step for that category. We also provide an intuitive user interface for efficient color manipulation. After color selection, image matting is performed to ensure smoothness of the object boundary. Comprehensive evaluation on various color editing examples demonstrates that our approach outperforms existing state-of-the-art color editing algorithms.

Background Lamb-Shaffer syndrome (LAMSHF, MIM 616,803) is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder due to haploinsufficiency of SOX5. Furthermore, studies about the clinical features of LAMSHF patients with same allele of c.1477C > T (p. R493*) are very limited. Case presentation We analyzed the phenotypes of one of our cases and two previously reported cases with c.1477C > T (p. R493*), and reviewed the correlating literature. A de novo heterozygous variation c.1477C > T (p. R493*) in SOX5 was identified in a 4 years and 2 months old boy with global development delay by trio-based whole exome sequencing. We compared our case and previously 2 cases reported with recurrent variation, the overlapping clinical features are global developmental delay or intellectual disability, language delay and scoliosis, but their other clinical characteristics are different. Conclusions This study suggests that the clinical features of LAMSHF patients with recurrent variations in the SOX5 gene are different. It is suggested that the LAMSHF-related SOX5 gene should be screened and included as one of the candidate genes for neurodevelopmental disorders of unknown etiology.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been widely used in the treatment of various diseases for millennia. In the modernization process of TCM, TCM ingredient databases are playing more and more important roles. However, most of the existing TCM ingredient databases do not provide simplification function for extracting key ingredients in each herb or formula, which hinders the research on the mechanism of actions of the ingredients in TCM databases. The lack of quality control and standardization of the data in most of these existing databases is also a prominent disadvantage. Therefore, we developed a Traditional Chinese Medicine Simplified Integrated Database (TCMSID) with high storage, high quality and standardization. The database includes 499 herbs registered in the Chinese pharmacopeia with 20,015 ingredients, 3270 targets as well as corresponding detailed information. TCMSID is not only a database of herbal ingredients, but also a TCM simplification platform. Key ingredients from TCM herbs are available to be screened out and regarded as representatives to explore the mechanism of TCM herbs by implementing multi-tool target prediction and multilevel network construction. TCMSID provides abundant data sources and analysis platforms for TCM simplification and drug discovery, which is expected to promote modernization and internationalization of TCM and enhance its international status in the future. TCMSID is freely available at https://tcm.scbdd.com.

High temperature elicits a well-conserved response called the unfolded protein response (UPR) to bring protein homeostasis in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Two key UPR regulators bZIP28 and bZIP60 have been shown to be essential for maintaining fertility under heat stress conditions in Arabidopsis, however, the function of transcriptional activator bZIP17, a paralog of bZIP28, in heat stress response at reproductive stage is not reported. Here we found that bzip17 mutant plants were sensitive to heat stress in terms of silique length and fertility comparing to that of wildtype (WT) Arabidopsis plants, and transcriptomic analysis showed that 1380 genes were specifically up-regulated and 493 genes were specifically down-regulated by heat stress in the flowers of WT plants comparing to that in bzip17 mutant plants. These bZIP17-dependent up-regulated genes were enriched in responses to abiotic stresses such as water deprivation and salt stress. Further chromatin immuno-precipitation coupled with high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-Seq) uncovered 1645 genes that were direct targets of bZIP17 in MYC-bZIP17 expressing seedlings subjected to heat stress. Among these 1645 genes, ERSE-II cis-element was enriched in the binding peaks of their promoters, and the up-regulation of 113 genes by heat stress in flowers was dependent on bZIP17. Our results revealed direct targets of bZIP17 in flowers during heat stress responses and demonstrated the important role of bZIP17 in maintaining fertility upon heat stress in plants.

Visual scenes containing text in the TextVQA task require a simultaneous understanding of images, questions, and text in images to reason answers. However, most existing cross-modal tasks merely involve two modalities. There are thus few methods for modeling interactions across three modalities. To bridge this gap, we propose in this work cross- and intra-modal interaction modules for multiple (more than two) modalities, where scaled dot-product attention method is applied to model inter- and intra-modal relationship. In addition, we introduce guidance information to assist the attention method to learn a more accurate relationship distribution. We construct a Multi-level Complete Interaction (MLCI) model for the TextVQA task via stacking multiple blocks composed of our proposed interaction modules. We design a multi-level feature joint prediction approach to exploit output representations from each block in a complementary way to predict answers. The experimental results on the TextVQA dataset show that our model obtains a 5.42% improvement in accuracy more than the baseline. Extensive ablation studies are carried out for the comprehensive analysis of the proposed method. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/zhangshengHust/mlci .

The Nu-Salween River (NSR), the longest free-flow river in Southeast Asia, plays an irreplaceable role in social development and ecological protection. The lower NSR region is particularly valuable as it is inhabited by approximately 6.7 million people. The basin has limited hydraulic conservancy infrastructure and insufficient ability to cope with climate change risks. Studying the hydrological characteristics and changes in the basin provides the scientific basis for rational protection and development of the basin. However, owing to the limitation of observation data, previous studies have focused on the local area and neglected the study of the lower reaches, which is not enough to reflect the spatial characteristics of the entire basin. In this study, the ECMWF 5th generation reanalysis data (ERA5) and Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) were applied to develop a geomorphology-based hydrological model (GBHM) for reconstructing hydrological datasets (i.e. GBHM-ERA5 and GBHM-MSWEP). The reconstructed datasets covering the complete basin were verified against the gauge observation and compared with other commonly used streamflow products, including Global Flood Awareness System v2.1, GloFAS-Reanalysis dataset v3.0, and linear optimal runoff aggregate (LORA). The comparison results revealed that GBHM-ERA5 is significantly better than the other four datasets and provides a good reproduction of the hydrological characteristics and trends of the NSR. Detailed analysis of GBHM-ERA5 revealed that: (1) A multi-year mean surface runoff represented 39% of precipitation over the basin during 1980–2018, which had low surface runoff in the upstream, while areas around the Three Parallel Rivers Area and the estuary had abundant surface runoff. (2) The surface runoff and discharge coefficient of variations in spring were larger than those in other seasons, and the inter-annual variation in the downstream was smaller than that in the upstream and midstream regions. (3) More than 70% of the basin areas showed a decreasing trend in the surface runoff, except for parts of Nagqu, south of Shan State in Myanmar, and Thailand, where surface runoff has an increasing trend. (4) The downstream discharge has dropped significantly at a rate of approximately 680 million cubic metres per year, and the decline rate is greater than that of upstream and midstream, especially in summer. This study provides a data basis for subsequent studies in the NSR basin and further elucidates the impact of climate change on the basin, which is beneficial to river planning and promotes international cooperation on the water- and eco-security of the basin.

Biochar is used for the stabilization of Pb in soil because of its abundant surface functional groups and excellent pore structure. However, little is known about the long-term performance of biochars. This study aims to evaluate the effect of biochar aging on the adsorption and stabilization of Pb in soil and to provide theoretical guidance for long-term utilization of biochar. A modified BCR continuous extraction procedure was performed to analyze the effects of three aging methods (natural, freeze–thaw, and high-temperature aging), four biochar species (wheat straw, corn straw, peanut shell, and pine chips chars), and aging time (7, 60, and 150 days) on the chemical fractions of Pb in soil. FTIR, XRD, and BET were used to analyze surface functional groups, composition, and pore structure of biochars, respectively. The effects of three aging methods on the stabilization of Pb in soil were ordered as high-temperature aging (HT) ≈ freeze–thaw aging (FT) > natural aging (NA). The effects of biochar species were ordered as CSC > WSC ≈ PSC > PCC. The stabilization performance of Pb in soil was enhanced with increasing aging time. The mechanism of Pb stabilization in soil by biochar involves surface complexation, co-precipitation, ion exchange, physical adsorption, and electrostatic attraction. The adsorption and stabilization of Pb in soil were enhanced by biochar aging through decreasing acid extractable Pb and increasing residual Pb. Surface complexation, co-precipitation, and physical adsorption were the main reasons for the enhancement.

A green and scalable strategy has been developed for the synthesis of lignin-derived Zn single atom/N-codoped porous carbon (LCN@Zn-SAC) containing similar ZnNx sites with carbonic anhydrases. This catalyst exhibits superior activity on the α-alkylation of ketones with alcohols via borrowing hydrogen strategy (TON up to 15 h−1) than most of previously reported works. The dehydrogenation of benzyl alcohol is the rate-determining step based on kinetic experiment results. According to experimental and theoretical calculation results, Zn electron density is inversely proportional to reaction energy barriers, because Zn sites with less positive charge (ZnN4 and ZnN3C) in Zn-SACs display better borrowing hydrogen ability than other Zn sites. Furthermore, this catalyst can be recycled by simple centrifugation, which can be reused at least 8 runs with no obvious lose in activity. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of non-noble metal-SAC-catalyzed α-alkylation via borrowing hydrogen strategy.

Background Foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.) is a millet species with high tolerance to stressful environments. Plant non-specific lipid transfer proteins (nsLTPs) are a kind of small, basic proteins involved in many biological processes. So far, the genome of S. italica has been fully sequenced, and a comprehensive understanding of the evolution and expression of the nsLTP family is still lacking in foxtail millet. Results Forty-five nsLTP genes were identified in S. italica and clustered into 5 subfamilies except three single genes (SinsLTP38, SinsLTP7, and SinsLTP44). The proportion of SinsLTPs was different in each subfamily, and members within the same subgroup shared conserved exon–intron structures. Besides, 5 SinsLTP duplication events were investigated. Both tandem and segmental duplication contributed to nsLTP expansion in S. italica, and the duplicated SinsLTPs had mainly undergone purifying selection pressure, which suggested that the function of the duplicated SinsLTPs might not diverge much. Moreover, we identified the nsLTP members in 5 other monocots, and 41, 13, 10, 4, and 1 orthologous gene pairs were identified between S. italica and S. viridis, S. bicolor, Z. mays, O. sativa, and B. distachyon, respectively. The functional divergence within the nsLTP orthologous genes might be limited. In addition, the tissue-specific expression patterns of the SinsLTPs were investigated, and the expression profiles of the SinsLTPs in response to abiotic stress were analyzed, all the 10 selected SinsLTPs were responsive to drought, salt, and cold stress. Among the selected SinsLTPs, 2 paired duplicated genes shared almost equivalent expression profiles, suggesting that these duplicated genes might retain some essential functions during subsequent evolution. Conclusions The present study provided the first systematic analysis for the phylogenetic classification, conserved domain and gene structure, expansion pattern, and expression profile of the nsLTP family in S. italica. These findings could pave a way for further comparative genomic and evolution analysis of nsLTP family in foxtail millet and related monocots, and lay the foundation for the functional analysis of the nsLTPs in S. italica.

Abstract Ni-based superalloys have been studied extensively due to their impressive mechanical properties, including strength and creep resistance at high temperatures. Growing interest surrounding additive manufacturing (AM) methods has led to recent investigations of alloys that are traditionally difficult to process, including Ni-based superalloys. Recent work has shown that AM methods enable high-throughput materials discovery and optimization of difficult- or impractical-to-process alloys, including those with high or even majority refractory element compositions. This work focuses on AM-enabled investigations of composition-dependent mechanical and microstructural properties for Ni–Nb binary alloys. Specifically, we report on the mechanical behavior of compositionally-graded NixNb1−x and uniform composition Ni59.5Nb40.5 specimens made with AM. The AM fabrication process resulted in extraordinarily high strength, attributed to the formation of a dual-phase microstructure consisting of δ-Ni3Nb and µ-Ni6Nb7 intermetallic compounds with nanostructured and multimodal grain size and eutectic lamellar spacing. Graphic Abstract

A facile, gram-scale and sustainable approach has been established for the synthesis of single-atomic-site iron on N-doped carbon (FeSA@NC-20A) via the pyrolysis of aniline modified FeZn-ZIFs, in which the synthesis of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) can be accomplished in water at room temperature, and no acid etching is required. The as-synthesized catalyst exhibits better performance on the chemoselective hydrogenation of nitroarenes with a broad substrate scope (turnover frequency (TOF) up to 1,727 h−1, 23 examples) than most of previously reported works. Based on high-angle annular dark field scanning transmission microscopy (HAADF-STEM) images in combination with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), electron spin resonance (ESR), and Mossbauer spectroscopy, Fe is dispersed as single atoms via forming FeNx (x = 4–6). This work not only determines the active sites of FeSA@NC-20A for hydrogenation (FeN4), but also proposes tentative pathways for both N-H activation of hydrazine and the reduction of nitroarene on FeN4 site, both of which are the key steps for the hydrogenation of nitroarenes. In addition, this catalyst shows excellent stability, and no significant activity degradation is observed when recycling for 10 times or restoring in air for 2 months.

FGPMs (functionally gradient porous materials) can satisfy multifold functional constraints with minimizing weights as they are advanced composite materials showing hierarchical mechanical properties. However, tailoring the graded relative elasticity distribution of the FGPMs according to demands is still a big trouble, especially for the FGPMs with complex interior structures. In this context, this paper proposes an improved FGPMs design method for tailoring the graded relative elasticity field with stochastic Voronoi structures, which are driven by the FEA (finite element analysis) results. Firstly, a kind of open-cell porous structure is built for FGPMs based on 3D Voronoi diagrams and implicit surfaces. An external frame is generated outside the Voronoi structure to enhance the modeling adaptability and keep geometric and mechanical continuity. Then, two mapping models are established for tailoring the elasticity fields of the FGPMs. One is from the relative elasticity field to the relative density field based on Ashby-Gibson model, wherein, the relative elasticity field is obtained from the FEA results. The other one is from the obtained relative density field to the Voronoi site density field that drives the generation of the open-cell Voronoi porous structure. Finally, the proposed method is experimentally and numerically validated. The results show that both the geometric modeling ability and the elasticity tailoring accuracy are superior, and the FGPMs produced by our method have better mechanical performance compared to other FGPMs.

A new vertically aligned nanocomposite (VAN) structure based on two-dimensional (2D) layered oxides has been designed and self-assembled on both LaAlO3 (001) and SrTiO3 (001) substrates. The new VAN structure consists of epitaxially grown Co3O4 nanopillars embedded in the Bi2WO6 matrix with a unique 2D layered structure, as evidenced by the microstructural analysis. Physical property measurements show that the new Bi2WO6-Co3O4 VAN structure exhibits strong ferromagnetic and piezoelectric response at room temperature as well as anisotropic permittivity response. This work demonstrates a new approach in processing multifunctional VANs structure based on the layered oxide systems towards future nonlinear optics, ferromagnets, and multiferroics.

Magnetoelectric systems could be used to develop magnetoelectric random access memory and microsensor devices. One promising system is the two-phase 3-1-type multiferroic nanocomposite in which a one-dimensional magnetic column is embedded in a three-dimensional ferroelectric matrix. However, it suffers from a number of limitations including unwanted leakage currents and the need for biasing with a magnetic field. Here we show that the addition of an antiferromagnet to a 3-1-type multiferroic nanocomposite can lead to a large, self-biased magnetoelectric effect at room temperature. Our three-phase system is composed of a ferroelectric Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 matrix in which ferrimagnetic NiFe2O4 nanocolumns coated with antiferromagnetic p-type NiO are embedded. This system, which is self-assembled, exhibits a magnetoelectric coefficient of up to 1.38 × 10–9 s m–1, which is large enough to switch the magnetic anisotropy from the easy axis (Keff = 0.91 × 104 J m–3) to the easy plane (Keff = –1.65 × 104 J m–3). A three-phase system that is composed of a ferroelectric Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 matrix in which ferrimagnetic NiFe2O4 nanocolumns coated with antiferromagnetic p-type NiO are embedded exhibits self-biased magnetoelectric switching at room temperature.

Preparation of hydrophobic precipitated silica nanoparticles by carbonation reaction using CO2 greenhouse gas instead of inorganic acid with the Na2SiO3 solutions has attracted widespread concern. Polymer surface modifiers may become inactive owing to the pH value of the reaction system changes constantly during the carbonation and In-situ surface modification process. Therefore, the effects of the position of adding 3-methacryloxypropyltrmethoxysilane (KH570) modifier on physicochemical performance and surface chemistry structure of precipitated silica nanoparticles were investigated during carbonation, and the in-situ modification process parameters were researched in the optimal modification position. The result demonstrates that the optimum in-situ modification position is the rear stage of carbonation process, and KH570 is mainly grafted to the surface of silica by chemical bond rather than physical adsorption. The optimum in-situ modification condition was obtained from the single factor tests: modification temperature of 80° C, modifier dosage of 2%, modification time of 40 min and pH value of 7 – 8. The average activation index of precipitated silica nanoparticles is nearly 100% under optimum in-situ modification condition. These hydrophobic precipitated silica nanoparticles are promising in hydrophobic filler materials.

Pure molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) solid lubricant coatings could attain densities comparable to doped films (and the associated benefits to wear rate and environmental stability) through manipulation of the microstructure via deposition parameters. Unfortunately, pure films can exhibit highly variable microstructures and mechanical properties due to processes that are not controlled during deposition (i.e., batch-to-batch variation). This work focuses on developing a relationship between density, hardness, friction, and wear for pure sputtered MoS2 coatings. Results show that dense films (ρ = 4.5 g/cm3) exhibit a 100 × lower wear rate compared to porous coatings (ρ = 3.04–3.55 g/cm3). The tribological performance of high density pure MoS2 coatings is shown to surpass that of established composite coatings, achieving a wear rate 2 × (k = 5.74 × 10–8 mm3/Nm) lower than composite MoS2/Sb2O3/Au in inert environments.