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Renal fibrosis is a hallmark of chronic kidney disease, while efficient therapy against renal fibrosis is still lacking. In this study, we investigated the role of a novel small-molecule compound VCP979 on renal fibrosis and inflammation in a rat model of unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO). One week after the UUO surgery, rats were administered VCP979 by gavage for one week, and after treatment, magnetic resonance imaging of T1rho mapping and histopathological analysis were performed to evaluate renal fibrosis in vivo and ex vivo. This study showed that treatment with VCP979 effectively reduced renal fibrosis, extracellular matrix accumulation, and alleviated epithelial–mesenchymal transition in UUO rats, as well as improved renal function. In vivo T1rho mapping displayed increased T1rho values in the UUO rats, which was decreased after VCP979 treatment, and a positive correlation was detected between the T1rho values and the percentage of fibrotic area. Moreover, the administration of VCP979 also ameliorated the inflammatory cytokines expression and the infiltration of macrophages in renal tissues. Mechanistically, VCP979 treatment inhibited the activation of p38 mitogen–activated protein kinase, nuclear factor-kappa B, and transforming growth factor-β1/Smads signaling pathways. These results indicated that VCP979 could be an effective therapeutic agent for alleviating renal fibrosis and inflammation in the rat model of UUO via its antifibrotic and anti-inflammatory effects.

Photodetectors based on two-dimensional materials have attracted much attention because of their unique structure and outstanding performance. The response speed of single ReS2 photodetector is slow exceptionally, the heterostructure could improves the response speed of ReS2-based photodetector, but the photodetectors responsivity is reduced greatly, which restricts the development of ReS2. In this paper, a vertically structured ReS2/SnS2 van der Waals heterostructure photodetectors is prepared, using ReS2 as the transport layer and SnS2 as the light absorbing layer to regulate the channel current. The device has an ultrahigh photoconductive gain of 1010， which exhibits an ultra-high responsivity of 4706 A/W under 365 nm illumination and response speed in seconds, and has an ultra-high external quantum efficiency of 1.602 ×106% and a high detectivity of 5.29×1012 jones. The study for ReS2-based photodetector display great potential for developing future optoelectronic devices.

The aim of research on neuromorphic computing is exploring artificial neuron and synaptic devices with high performance. In this context, two-dimensional (2D) materials have received broad attention due to their advantages of low power consumption and high electrostatic controllability. Here, we demonstrated an artificial synaptic transistor based on the 2D SnS2/T-layer van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure, where the T-layer refers to the 2D h-BN treated by O2 plasma. Relying on the charge trapping mechanism of the T-layer, synaptic characteristics such as the excitatory postsynaptic current, short-term plasticity, and long-term potentiation (LTP) are emulated. Moreover, these synaptic characteristics can be further modulated by light stimulation. Under the illumination of 820 nm wavelength, the nonlinearity of LTP is as low as −0.19, and the symmetricity is 39.4, which is superior to most of the 2D artificial synaptic devices reported to date. Our results demonstrate the great prospects of plasma-treated 2D vdW heterostructures for neuromorphic applications.

This letter presents a 1-3GHz low-power, fast-locking self-biased phase-locked loop (SPLL) for multiprotocol SerDes applications. The PLL realizes adaptive bandwidth tracking based on fast-locking current injection, which accelerates loop acquisition and maintains reduced settling time across a wide frequency range. Additionally, a start-up module is adopted to reset the system quickly to an optimal initial operating frequency. The proposed PLL, fabricated in TSMC 28-nm CMOS process and occupies a compact 0.028mm2 area. It achieves a roughly constant settling time of 5 μs over all frequencies and division ratios range. Compared with the typical SPLL, the measured settling time can be shortened about 85% large division ratios.