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In this work, rate coefficients of four prototypical insertion reactions, X + H2 → H + XH (X = C(1D), N(2D), O(1D), S(1D)), and associated isotope reactions are calculated based on ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) with Cayley propagator (Cayley-RPMD). The associated kinetic isotope effects are systematically studied too. The Cayley propagator used in this work increases the stability of numerical integration in RPMD calculations and also supports a larger evolution time interval, allowing us to reach both high accuracy and efficiency. So, our results do not only provide chemical kinetic data for the title reactions in an extended temperature range but also consist of experimental results, standard RPMD, and other theoretical methods. The results in this work also reflect that Cayley-RPMD has strong consistency and high reliability in its investigations of chemical dynamics for insertion reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rational modulation of surface reconstruction in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) utilizing defect engineering to form efficient catalytic activity centers is a topical interest in the field of catalysis. The introduction of point defects has been demonstrated to be an effective strategy to regulate the electronic configuration of electrocatalysts, but the influence of more complex planar defects (e.g., twins and stacking faults), on their intrinsic activity is still not fully understood. This study harnesses ultrasonic cavitation for rapid and controlled introduction of different types of defects in the FeCoNi/FeAl2O4 hybrid coating, optimizing OER catalytic activity. Theoretical calculations and experiments demonstrate that the different defects optimize the coordination environment and facilitate the activation of surface reconstruction into true catalytic activity centers at lower potentials. Moreover, it demonstrates exceptional durability, maintaining stable oxygen production at a high current density of 300 mA cm−2 for over 120 hours. This work not only presents a novel pathway for designing advanced electrocatalysts but also deepens our understanding of defect‐engineered catalytic mechanisms, showcasing the potential for rapid and efficient enhancement of electrocatalytic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rational modulation of surface reconstruction in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) utilizing defect engineering to form efficient catalytic activity centers is a topical interest in the field of catalysis. The introduction of point defects has been demonstrated to be an effective strategy to regulate the electronic configuration of electrocatalysts, but the influence of more complex planar defects (e.g., twins and stacking faults), on their intrinsic activity is still not fully understood. This study harnesses ultrasonic cavitation for rapid and controlled introduction of different types of defects in the FeCoNi/FeAl2O4 hybrid coating, optimizing OER catalytic activity. Theoretical calculations and experiments demonstrate that the different defects optimize the coordination environment and facilitate the activation of surface reconstruction into true catalytic activity centers at lower potentials. Moreover, it demonstrates exceptional durability, maintaining stable oxygen production at a high current density of 300 mA cm−2 for over 120 hours. This work not only presents a novel pathway for designing advanced electrocatalysts but also deepens our understanding of defect‐engineered catalytic mechanisms, showcasing the potential for rapid and efficient enhancement of electrocatalytic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Vitiligo is an acquired autoimmune depigmented disorder characterized by the presence of white and well‐defined patches on the skin, mucous membrane, or both. It is associated with a significant disease burden and has a profoundly impacts patients' quality of life. Autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITDs) result from an autoimmune system dysregulation, leading to an erroneous immune attack on the thyroid gland. Previous observational and epidemiological studies have suggested the association between vitiligo and AITDs. However, the bidirectional cause‐effect relationship between vitiligo and AITDs has not been formally assessed. Method: Two‐sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was conducted to explore potential causal relationships between genetically increased risk of vitiligo and AITDs, using summary statistics from genome‐wide association studies in European populations. Causal effects were primarily estimated using the inverse variance weighted method, and additional quality control was performed using the MR‐Egger, weighted median, simple mode, and weight mode methods. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to assess the robustness of the results. Results: The forward MR analysis showed a positive causal relationship between vitiligo and autoimmune thyroiditis (AIT), autoimmune hyperthyroidism (AIH), and Graves' disease (GD). The odds ratio (OR) were 1.17 (95% CI, 1.01–1.35; p = 0.04), 1.12 (95% CI, 1.03–1.22; p = 0.01), and 1.13 (95% CI, 1.06–1.20; p < 0.01), respectively. In the reverse MR analysis, a positive causal relationship was found between AIT and vitiligo, with an OR of 1.10 (95% CI, 1.01–1.35; p = 0.04). However, no causal relationship was observed between AIH (p = 0.10) or GD (p = 0.61) and vitiligo. Sensitivity analysis revealed no evidence of horizontal pleiotropy or heterogeneity. Conclusions: The genetic‐level investigation provides evidence of a genetic causal association between susceptibility to vitiligo and an increased risk of AITDs. Additionally, the results demonstrate a genetic causal association between susceptibility to AIT and an increased risk of vitiligo, while not indicating a similar association with susceptibility to AIH or GD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has the advantage of continuous observation throughout the day and in all weather conditions, and is used in a wide range of military and civil applications. Among these, the detection of ships at sea is an important research topic. Ships in SAR images are characterized by dense alignment, an arbitrary orientation and multiple scales. The existing detection algorithms are unable to solve these problems effectively. To address these issues, A YOLOV8-based oriented ship detection and classification method using SAR imaging with lightweight receptor field feature convolution, bottleneck transformers and a probabilistic intersection-over-union network (R-LRBPNet) is proposed in this paper. First, a CSP bottleneck with two bottleneck transformer (C2fBT) modules based on bottleneck transformers is proposed; this is an improved feature fusion module that integrates the global spatial features of bottleneck transformers and the rich channel features of C2f. This effectively reduces the negative impact of densely arranged scenarios. Second, we propose an angle decoupling module. This module uses probabilistic intersection-over-union (ProbIoU) and distribution focal loss (DFL) methods to compute the rotated intersection-over-union (RIoU), which effectively alleviates the problem of angle regression and the imbalance between angle regression and other regression tasks. Third, the lightweight receptive field feature convolution (LRFConv) is designed to replace the conventional convolution in the neck. This module can dynamically adjust the receptive field according to the target scale and calculate the feature pixel weights based on the input feature map. Through this module, the network can efficiently extract details and important information about ships to improve the classification performance of the ship. We conducted extensive experiments on the complex scene SAR dataset SRSDD and SSDD+. The experimental results show that R-LRBPNet has only 6.8 MB of model memory, which can achieve 78.2% detection accuracy, 64.2% recall, a 70.51 F1-Score and 71.85% mAP on the SRSDD dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a mosquito-borne flavivirus, Zika virus (ZIKV) has been identified as a global health threat. The virus has been linked to severe congenital disabilities, including microcephaly and other congenital malformations, resulting in fatal intrauterine death. Therefore, developing sensitive and specific methods for the early detection and accurate diagnosis of the ZIKV is essential for controlling its spread and mitigating its impact on public health. Herein, we set up a novel nucleic acid detection system based on Pyrococcus furiosus Argonaute (PfAgo)-mediated nucleic acid detection, targeting the non-structural protein 5 (NS5) region of the ZIKV genome (abbreviated ZIKV-PAND). Without preamplification with the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the minimum detection concentration (MDC) of ZIKV-PAND was about 10 nM. When introducing an amplification step, the MDC can be dramatically decreased to the aM level (8.3 aM), which is comparable to qRT-PCR assay (1.6 aM). In addition, the diagnostic findings from the analysis of simulated clinical samples or Zika virus samples using ZIKV-PAND show a complete agreement of 100% with qRT-PCR assays. This correlation can aid in the implementation of molecular testing for clinical diagnoses and the investigation of ZIKV infection on an epidemiological scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) faces challenges due to its sluggish kinetics, development of efficient and robust OER catalytic electrodes is critical for reducing the cost of hydrogen production through electrochemical water splitting. In this study, a biphasic CoNi/Zn(Fe,Al,Cr)2O4 coating, characterized by a densely organized stalagmite‐like microarray structure, is deposited on a commercial pure titanium plate, creating an exceptionally effective OER catalytic electrode. The formation of numerous metal/spinel oxide heterogeneous interfaces is demonstrated to enhance its electron transfer ability and conductivity. At high potentials, aluminum leaching and lattice oxygen consumption can facilitate deep surface reconstruction of highly active Fe‐doped CoNiOOH phase inducing electrochemical activation, further optimizing thermodynamic barrier of the fundamental reaction step. Ultimately, this electrode showcases exceptional OER catalytic performance (low overpotential of 248 and 335 mV to deliver the current density of 10 and 100 mA cm−2) compared to commercial IrO2 catalyst (overpotential of ≈310 mV at 10 mA cm−2). Moreover, it demonstrates high current stability sustaining a current density of 500 mA cm−2 for 100 h. This work deepens the comprehension of the surface reconstruction process in OER and, more broadly, introduces a new avenue for designing and enhancing the performance of catalytic materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carboxylesterase (CES), a main hydrolysis enzyme family in the human body, plays a crucial role in drug metabolism. Among them, CES1 and CES2 are the primary subtypes, and each exhibits distinct distribution and functions. However, convenient and non-invasive methods for distinguishing them and the real-time monitoring of CES2 are relatively rare, hindering the further understanding of physiological functions and underlying mechanisms. In this study, we have designed, synthesized, and evaluated the first selective bioluminescent probe (CBP 1) for CES2 with high sensitivity, high specificity and rapid reactivity. This probe offers a promising approach for the real-time detection of CES2 and its dynamic fluctuations both in vitro and in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The small data global well-posedness in Sobolev setting for the incompressible Oldroyd-B equations with only velocity dissipation (namely there is no damping or dissipation of stress tensor) on R 2 remains open by now. The approach for the similar problem on R 3 becomes invalid due to the fewer decay rates. In this paper, we will give a positive answer to this problem. Namely, we shall focus on the Cauchy problem for the incompressible Oldroyd-B equations with only velocity dissipation on R 2 and derive the small data global well-posedness under Sobolev setting. We also give the time decay estimate for the solutions. To achieve this goal, we explore the dissipative structure of system and develop the fractional time-weighted energy framework. Moreover, some delicate commutator and bilinear estimates are proposed to deal with the wildest nonlinear terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: cycloaddition; drimanes; marine natural products; sesquiterpenes; total synthesis EN cycloaddition drimanes marine natural products sesquiterpenes total synthesis 1529 1533 5 07/11/23 20230725 NES 230725 Graph Drimane-type sesquiterpenes are encountered in numerous plants, fungi, and marine organisms, including mollusks and sponges. Reports on the synthesis of drimane-type sesquiterpenes abound, permitting us to draw upon a large body of literature [1][16] in establishing a reliable route to the target compounds B 4 b , B 5 b , and B 7 b . Heating this compound in refluxing trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) resulted in efficient formation of the cyclic acid anhydride (±)- B 8 b , the structure of which was confirmed by single-crystal X-ray analysis [34] [see also the Supporting Information (SI)]. [47] The establishment of methods for the enantioselective synthesis of the Diels-Alder adduct B 12 b and thereby providing access to both the (+)- and (-)-forms of anhydride B 8 b , would serve to enhance the capacity to explore drimane-type chemical space. [Extracted from the article]

A critical issue in intelligent building control is detecting energy consumption anomalies based on intelligent device status data. The building field is plagued by energy consumption anomalies caused by a number of factors, many of which are associated with one another in apparent temporal relationships. For the detection of abnormalities, most traditional detection methods rely solely on a single variable of energy consumption data and its time series changes. Therefore, they are unable to examine the correlation between the multiple characteristic factors that affect energy consumption anomalies and their relationship in time. The outcomes of anomaly detection are one-sided. To address the above problems, this paper proposes an anomaly detection method based on multivariate time series. Firstly, in order to extract the correlation between different feature variables affecting energy consumption, this paper introduces a graph convolutional network to build an anomaly detection framework. Secondly, as different feature variables have different influences on each other, the framework is enhanced by a graph attention mechanism so that time series features with higher influence on energy consumption are given more attention weights, resulting in better anomaly detection of building energy consumption. Finally, the effectiveness of this paper's method and existing methods for detecting energy consumption anomalies in smart buildings are compared using standard data sets. The experimental results show that the model has better detection accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, novel Zn catalysts were prepared by the wet impregnation method using printing and dyeing wastewater (PDW)-modified petroleum coke (petcoke) as a carrier, and they were applied to the acetylene acetoxylation. The pretreated petroleum coke has a high specific surface area which provides sufficient space for the loading of Zn. Calcination further increases catalyst activity, but when calcination temperatures exceed 1000 °C, a significant loss of Zn occurs, resulting in a dramatic decrease in catalyst activity. This enables the conversion of acetic acid up to 85%. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed that a large amount of N is introduced into PC from PDW, which changes the electron transfer around Zn. Temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) analysis revealed that the nitrogen-doped Zn(OAc)2 catalyst enhanced the catalytic activity by modulating the intensity of the catalyzed adsorption of acetic acid and acetylene. This study provides a new way to reuse petroleum coke and printing and dyeing wastewater to support the sustainable development of the vinyl acetate industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste plastics represent major environmental and economic burdens due to their ubiquity, slow breakdown rates, and inadequacy of current recycling routes. Polyethylenes are particularly problematic, because they lack robust recycling approaches despite being the most abundant plastics in use today. We report a novel chemical and biological approach for the rapid conversion of polyethylenes into structurally complex and pharmacologically active compounds. We present conditions for aerobic, catalytic digestion of polyethylenes collected from post‐consumer and oceanic waste streams, creating carboxylic diacids that can then be used as a carbon source by the fungus Aspergillus nidulans. As a proof of principle, we have engineered strains of A. nidulans to synthesize the fungal secondary metabolites asperbenzaldehyde, citreoviridin, and mutilin when grown on these digestion products. This hybrid approach considerably expands the range of products to which polyethylenes can be upcycled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste plastics represent major environmental and economic burdens due to their ubiquity, slow breakdown rates, and inadequacy of current recycling routes. Polyethylenes are particularly problematic, because they lack robust recycling approaches despite being the most abundant plastics in use today. We report a novel chemical and biological approach for the rapid conversion of polyethylenes into structurally complex and pharmacologically active compounds. We present conditions for aerobic, catalytic digestion of polyethylenes collected from post‐consumer and oceanic waste streams, creating carboxylic diacids that can then be used as a carbon source by the fungus Aspergillus nidulans. As a proof of principle, we have engineered strains of A. nidulans to synthesize the fungal secondary metabolites asperbenzaldehyde, citreoviridin, and mutilin when grown on these digestion products. This hybrid approach considerably expands the range of products to which polyethylenes can be upcycled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the separation of scrap metal based on dual-energy X-ray transmission technology, the recognition effect is largely affected by the features of the selected materials. The features used in the existing scrap metal material recognition algorithms are not comprehensive enough, and the redundancy among feature data is large, so the recognition accuracy is not high. To solve this problem, this paper gives full consideration to the redundancy between features and the correlation between features and categories, and puts forward a correlation-based feature selection method(CFS) to determine the optimal feature subset consisting of features IH, IL, x TML and TMH among many material features. Comparative experiments were carried out by using different material feature combination methods, and K nearest neighbor (KNN) under the optimal feature subset was selected as the optimal classification model. The experimental results show that; compared with the existing classification methods, the identification and classification method of waste nonferrous metals materials based on the correlation-based feature selection and K nearest neighbor (CFS-KNN) has higher identification accuracy (96.13%) with relatively few features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation The CRISPR/Cas9 system is widely used for genome editing. The editing efficiency of CRISPR/Cas9 is mainly determined by the guide RNA (gRNA). Although many computational algorithms have been developed in recent years, it is still a challenge to select optimal bioinformatics tools for gRNA design in different experimental settings. Results We performed a comprehensive comparison analysis of 15 public algorithms for gRNA design, using 16 experimental gRNA datasets. Based on this analysis, we identified the top-performing algorithms, with which we further implemented various computational strategies to build ensemble models for performance improvement. Validation analysis indicates that the new ensemble model had improved performance over any individual algorithm alone at predicting gRNA efficacy under various experimental conditions. Availability and implementation The new sgRNA design tool is freely accessible as a web application via https://crisprdb.org. The source code and stand-alone version is available at Figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21295863) and Github (https://github.com/wang-lab/CRISPRDB). Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, we report a multiple regulation strategy towards an all-in-one NiCuMo/MoOx heterostructure for the HOR, which exhibits ultrahigh HOR activity (j@0.05V = 4.63 mA cm−2) and excellent durability for almost 24 h for the synergistic regulation of Mo and Cu on the Ni electrode. This study provides a new strategy for designing efficient non-noble metal-based HOR catalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation Quantifying the similarity of human diseases provides guiding insights to the discovery of micro-scope mechanisms from a macro scale. Previous work demonstrated that better performance can be gained by integrating multiview data sources or applying machine learning techniques. However, designing an efficient framework to extract and incorporate information from different biological data using deep learning models remains unexplored. Results We present CoGO, a Contrastive learning framework to predict disease similarity based on Gene network and Ontology structure, which incorporates the gene interaction network and gene ontology (GO) domain knowledge using graph deep learning models. First, graph deep learning models are applied to encode the features of genes and GO terms from separate graph structure data. Next, gene and GO features are projected to a common embedding space via a nonlinear projection. Then cross-view contrastive loss is applied to maximize the agreement of corresponding gene-GO associations and lead to meaningful gene representation. Finally, CoGO infers the similarity between diseases by the cosine similarity of disease representation vectors derived from related gene embedding. In our experiments, CoGO outperforms the most competitive baseline method on both AUROC and AUPRC, especially improves 19.57% in AUPRC (0.7733). The prediction results are significantly comparable with other disease similarity studies and thus highly credible. Furthermore, we conduct a detailed case study of top similar disease pairs which is demonstrated by other studies. Empirical results show that CoGO achieves powerful performance in disease similarity problem. Availability and implementation https://github.com/yhchen1123/CoGO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Conductive polypyrrole modified porous carbonyl iron powder was synthesized by one step method. • Polypyrrole modified porous carbonyl iron powder composites have excellent microwave absorption properties. • The mechanism of polypyrrole modified porous carbonyl iron powder composite was discussed in detail. Carbonyl iron powder (CIP) is a common microwave absorber frequently utilized to prepare microwave-absorbing materials. However, it exhibits only magnetic loss and no dielectric loss, which inevitably affects its wave-absorbing performance. Here, porous carbonyl iron powder (p-CIP) modified with conductive polypyrrole (PPy) was successfully prepared by one-step chemical etching and in-situ polymerization and then utilized to fabricate epoxy composites with high microwave absorption intensity. The scanning electron microscopy images revealed that conductive PPy was encapsulated on the surface of p-CIP. The reflection loss of the P-200 sample is −41.2 dB at 2.2 mm thickness. Reduction of the sample thickness to 1.8 mm resulted in a still acceptable reflection loss of −35.5 dB. Moreover, the effective absorption bandwidth widened to approximately 6.75 GHz (10.55–17.3 GHz). This provides a valuable approach for the development of microwave-absorbing materials with high absorption capacity. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • The interfacial polymerization is regulated by the inverse diffusible organic phase additive polypyrrole nanoparticles (PPYN). • The modified reverse osmosis (RO) separation layer features abundant free volume. • The flux of the modified RO membrane increases nearly 3 times compared with the pristine RO membrane without sacrificing separation selectivity. • The modified RO membrane exhibits excellent anti-biofouling property. Highly permeable thin film composite (TFC) reverse osmosis (RO) membranes with abundant free volume are desirable for water treatment. However, the strategy of controlling the microstructure of the separation layer with high free volume rate is still a challenge. In this work, a modified strategy for the preparation of high-performance TFC RO membrane with inverse diffusible polypyrrole nanoparticles (PPYN) as organic phase additive was developed. The combination of PPYN and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) would diffuse backwards from the organic phase into the aqueous phase during the reaction process to disrupt the normal interfacial polymerization (IP) and thus introduce more free volume in the RO membrane due to the nanobubbles from violent reactions. Moreover, the thickness of the modified membrane decreased and the hydrophilicity increased based on the modulation of IP by PPYN, which facilitated the water molecules to transport. The prepared RO-PPYN membranes showed nearly three times the flux compared with the pristine RO membrane without sacrificing separation selectivity. Furthermore, the anti-biofouling property of the modified membrane was also improved. This work successfully demonstrated the potential use of PPYN as an organic filler to enhance the performance of seawater desalination in RO membranes. Our modification strategy provides an efficient and convenient way to prepare novel RO membranes with high permeability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text-based person search is a sub-task in the field of image retrieval, which aims to retrieve target person images according to a given textual description. The significant feature gap between two modalities makes this task very challenging. Many existing methods attempt to utilize local alignment to address this problem in the fine-grained level. However, most relevant methods introduce additional models or complicated training and evaluation strategies, which are hard to use in realistic scenarios. In order to facilitate the practical application, we propose a simple but effective baseline for text-based person search named TIPCB (i.e., T ext- I mage P art-based C onvolutional B aseline). Firstly, a novel dual-path local alignment network structure is proposed to extract visual and textual local representations, in which images are segmented horizontally and texts are aligned adaptively. Then, we propose a multi-stage cross-modal matching strategy, which eliminates the modality gap from three feature levels, including low level, local level and global level. Extensive experiments are conducted on the widely-used benchmark datasets (CUHK-PEDES and ICFG-PEDES) and verify that our method outperforms all the existing methods. Our code has been released in https://github.com/OrangeYHChen/TIPCB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To promote the corrosion resistance and surface conductivity of metal bipolar plates (BP) in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), a TaCN nanoceramic coating with TaN and TaC dual phase structures was engineered onto a commercially pure titanium substrate employing the double cathode glow discharge plasma (DCGDP) technique. The as-prepared TaCN coating was well-adhered to the substrate with a thickness of ∼16.5 μm. The coating exhibited a microstructure comprising equiaxed grains with an average size of ∼10.3 nm. The electrochemical behavior of the TaCN coating was evaluated in a simulated PEMFC environment containing various HF concentrations. Open circuit potential (OCP), potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), potentiostatic polarization, and Mott-Schottky tests showed that the addition of HF enhanced the corrosion rate of both the Ti substrate and the TaCN coating. Nevertheless, the TaCN coating exhibited improved corrosion potential, lower corrosion current density and larger resistance than that of Ti for all HF concentrations. The Hilbert-Huang and corrosion morphology analysis indicated that the TaCN coating maintained a passive state with increasing HF concentration. First-principle calculations investigated the adsorption capacity of the F− ions on the passive film on the TaCN coating. Furthermore, the TaCN coating possesses desirable interfacial contact resistance (ICR) (about 10 mΩ cm2 under a compressive force of 140 N cm−2) and outstanding hydrophobicity (92.9° ± 2°). Overall, the TaCN coating, which can deliver appreciable enhancement relative to the performance of titanium, represents an extremely competitive candidate as a protective coating for bipolar plates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Mannich bases, 3-morpholino-1-phenylpropan-1-one (MPO) and 3-morpholino-1-phenyl-3-(pyridin-4-yl) propan-1-one (MPPO), were synthesized, characterized, and studied as corrosion inhibitors for N80 steel in 1 M hydrochloric acid (HCl) solution using weight loss, potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and FT-IR spectroscopy. The inhibition efficiency increases with increasing inhibitor concentrations, and the corrosion inhibition efficiency of the MPO and MPPO could reach 90.3% and 91.4%, respectively, at a concentration of 300 ppm at 305 K. The effect of the temperature on the corrosion inhibition behavior of inhibitors was discussed. Electrochemical tests showed that the synthesized inhibitors are mixed. The EIS test results showed that the presence of MPO and MPPO reduced the double-layer capacitance in the corrosion process, thereby reducing the charge transfer resistance. The SEM and EDX results showed that the MPO and MPPO formed a uniform adsorption film on the surface of the N80 steel. The adsorption mechanism of the inhibitors was simulated with different adsorption models and the results showed that the inhibitors were the chemisorbed type. The results of the FT-IR spectroscopy proved that the inhibitor interacted with metal atoms on the steel surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A Kriging model updating method combined of Kriging surrogate model and genetic algorithm is proposed to estimate parameters for horizontal multilayer earth model. • The efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method are analyzed. • The optimization accuracy influenced by initial data samples is discussed. • Verification cases have been illustrated for the feasibility of final estimated earth models. A Kriging model updating method combined with Kriging surrogate model and genetic algorithm is proposed in this paper, helping to improve the computational efficiency of parameters estimation for horizontal multilayer earth model around electrical substation. Based on the theory of widely used Wenner configuration method for apparent resistivity measurement, the optimization model for horizontal multilayer earth model parameters is built up. To avoid time-consuming calculation, Kriging surrogate model is introduced to replace the complicated optimization model using small amount of data samples. Then genetic algorithm is adopted to update this Kriging model and estimate the earth model parameters until the criterion achieved. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are analyzed. And several cases of multilayer earth model are studied furtherly and compared with traditional genetic algorithm to verify its feasibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastic litter and its associated environmental hazards have garnered global attention in recent years, highlighting the need for effective management. Improper handling of plastic litter can lead to environmental degradation, making it crucial to address this issue. In this paper, we propose an innovative approach to predict the spatial distribution and quantity of plastic litter at the city level by leveraging crowd-sensing data and designing a graph neural network-based model. Meteorological data is specifically used to enhance temporal correlation, while the spatial distribution of litter is clustered using the K-means method to capture spatial correlation. For each cluster, multiple graphs are constructed based on the points of interest (POIs) and litter distribution within the cluster. Graph attention neural networks and heterogeneous graph attention networks are then utilized to aggregate the adjacency information and overall structural information of these graphs, respectively. Finally, the litter prediction results are obtained through multiple fully connected layers. Real-world experiments convincingly demonstrate the high effectiveness of our proposed model in predicting city-wide litter, surpassing multiple comparative models. All the code and datasets can be accessed from the GitHub repository at https://github.com/ZJUDataIntelligence/Genii. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A fiber-optic Michelson interferometric trace DMMP sensor was proposed. • The fiber-optic sensor has the structure of a Michelson interferometer. • ZIF-8@Ag/PDDA as sensing materials is used to enhance the sensitivity. • The sensor has a sensitivity of 45.71 dB/ppm for DMMP. • The sensor has good selectivity and stability. A Michelson interference dimethyl methyl phosphate (DMMP) fiber sensor with a single-mode (SMF)-dislocated single-mode (DSMF)-hollow-core fiber (HCF) structure is proposed. To fabricate the Michelson interference structure of SMF-DSMF-HCF, one end of the DSMF was misaligned and fused to the SMF, the other end was fused to the HCF to generate a reflective surface. The structure, elemental composition, and surface morphology of ZIF-8@Ag were analyzed using X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy after the ZIF-8@Ag/PDDA composite was coated on the surface of DSMF. The result shows that the sensitivity and the detection limit of the sensor are 45.71 dB/ppm and 0.1431 ppb, respectively, and the response/recovery time is around 14/12 s. The sensor also has excellent selectivity and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Monomers developed in recent years for preparation of TFC membranes is summarized. • The relationship between monomer structure and membrane properties is established. • The application problems of the IP monomers are summarized. • The outlook for future development of the monomer is also discussed. The thin-film composite (TFC) membranes fabricated by interfacial polymerization (IP) can be applied in the fields of nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO), which has the unparalleled advantages, such as high selectivity and permeability, small capital investment and low energy consumption, thus attracting great research interest in industry and academia field. The performance of TFC membranes is determined by their microstructure and physicochemical properties while IP monomer plays a decisive role regarding both. Over the past few decades, the researchers have paid intensive and sustained efforts to develop new IP monomers. This paper reviews these monomers and the corresponding membranes developed in recent years with the aim of establishing an intrinsic relationship between monomer structure and membrane properties. The excellent performances based on new monomers in enhancing the permeability, selectivity, anti-fouling and chemical stability of NF and RO membranes for liquid treatment are highlighted. Finally, various problems in the monomer development are summarized and the outlook for future development is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The morphology of the active layer plays a crucial role in the device performance and stability of organic solar cells (OSCs). To obtain the optimized blend film morphology, numerous solvent additives have been developed and utilized. Nevertheless, the commonly used high boiling point solvent additives have strict volume control and residual problems, which are not conducive to the development of OSCs. To alter the situation, it is urgent to develop highly volatile additives to minimize the unfavorable effect. Here, a volatile aromatic small molecule, benzoylacetate (BA), is used as a solid additive to control the morphology of the active layer during the post-treatment procedure. More importantly, BA has an apparent positive interaction with Y6, leading to more favorable molecular arrangement in the blend film and enhanced charge transfer properties. Finally, the BA-treated PM6:Y6 device exhibits improved device performance and photostability. Moreover, BA could be used as a universal solid additive for different OSC systems. Specifically, a superior PCE of 18.5 % is achieved in BA-processed PM6:L8-BO binary system with good photostability. Our work demonstrates an approach of applying a volatile solid additive to improve the device performance and photostability. [Display omitted] • High-performance organic solar cells (OSCs) were fabricated by introducing benzoylacetone (BA), a volatile aromatic small molecule, into the non-fullerene acceptor (NFA) systems. • The addition of BA can be used to control the blend morphology and obtain improved crystallinity and appropriate phase separation. Meanwhile, good volatility of BA is beneficial to improve the photostability of OSCs. • For the binary PM6:L8-BO device, a notable PCE of 18.5 % was yielded after treatment with the BA additive, which is much higher than that of the device treated with DIO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are more susceptible to endothelial dysfunction and cardiovascular disease (CV). Remote ischemic preconditioning (rIPC) has been proven efficient in improving endothelial function and lowering the risk of CV. However, the safety and effect of rIPC on endothelial function in patients with CKD have not been effectively assessed. Methods: 45 patients with CKD (average estimated glomerular filtration rate: 48.4 mL/min/1.73 m2) were randomly allocated to either 7‐day daily upper‐arm rIPC (4 × 5 min 200 mmHg, interspaced by 5‐min reperfusion) or control (4 × 5 min 60 mmHg, interspaced by 5‐min reperfusion). Vascular endothelial function was assessed by natural log–transformed reactive hyperemia index (LnRHI) before and after a 7‐day intervention. Arterial elasticity was assessed by augmentation index (AI). Results: The results showed that LnRHI could be improved by rIPC treatment (Pre = 0.57 ± 0.04 vs. Post = 0.67 ± 0.04, p =.001) with no changes relative to control (Pre = 0.68 ± 0.06 vs. Post = 0.64 ± 0.05, p =.470). Compared with the control group, the improvement of LnRHI was greater after rIPC treatment (rIPC vs. Control: 0.10 ± 0.03 vs. −0.04 ± 0.06, between‐group mean difference, −0.15 [95% CI, −0.27 to −0.02], p =.027), while there was no significant difference in the change of AI@75 bpm (p =.312) between the two groups. Conclusion: RIPC is safe and well tolerated in patients with CKD. This pilot study suggests that rIPC seems to have the potential therapeutic effect to improve endothelial function. Of note, further larger trials are still warranted to confirm the efficacy of rIPC in improving endothelial function in CKD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Heat‐induced composite gels were prepared with 30 mg mL−1 pork myofibrillar protein (MP) and chickpea protein isolate (CPI) (0, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 g kg−1) in 0.6 mol L−1 NaCl, at pH 7.0. The gel strength, water‐holding capacity, rheological properties, and microstructure of MP‐CPI composite gels were investigated. RESULTS: Chickpea protein isolate improved (P < 0.05) gel strength and water‐holding capacity of the MP composite gels. The rheological properties of MP‐CPI composite gels were improved significantly by the addition of CPI. Meanwhile, the effects of CPI on the storage modulus of composite gels were positively correlated with the increased addition of CPI. Furthermore, according to low‐field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF‐NMR) results, the addition of CPI reduced the relaxation time of the composite gels and the relaxation peak area of free water, indicating that CPI could improve the water‐holding capacity of MP‐CPI composite gels. The microstructure of MP‐CPI composite gels presented smaller and more uniform pores, which means that more water could be retained. CONCLUSION: The addition of chickpea protein isolate improved the gel strength, water‐holding capacity, rheological properties, and microstructure of MP gels, indicating that CPI could be a potential protein additive to improve the microstructure, texture, and functional quality of meat products. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) reinforced Mg-4Zn-0.5Mn (wt%) matrix composites (GNPs/ZM40) with different concentrations (0.1, 0.3, 0.5 wt%) of GNPs were processed by liquid-state molding method combined with low temperature extrusion process. The microstructure of the prepared materials was analyzed by means of scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and optical microscope (OM). And the tensile test at room temperature was carried out to reveal the mechanical properties of the materials. The results showed that the 0.3 wt% GNPs/ZM40 composite exhibited the outstanding mechanical properties of yield strength (YS: ∼466 MPa) and ultimate tensile strength (UTS: ∼532 MPa). In as-cast materials, the addition of GNPs led to the refinement of equiaxed grains and eutectic phases in the composites, closely related with the promotion of heterogeneous nucleation by GNPs during the solidification. After low temperature extrusion, the prominent dynamic recrystallization (DRX) took place in as-extruded alloy and GNPs/ZM40 composites, producing plenty of fine grains. In contrast to the alloy, the average grain sizes of the composites with different GNPs content were reduced, whereas the degrees of recrystallization in the composites increased. These differences in microstructural evolutions originated primarily from the inhibiting effect of GNPs on the grain growth and the boost to DRX by the high-density dislocations in magnesium matrix caused by GNPs. Accordingly, the high YS of the composites could be largely ascribed to fine-grain strengthening, dislocation strengthening effect and load transfer mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • A novel polyamide loose NF membrane was prepared from aqueous monomer (piperazine-2-carboxylic acid). • The loose NF membrane formation mechanism was clarified. • The loose NF membrane exhibited high water permeance and outstanding separation selectivity of dye/salt. • The loose NF membrane demonstrated excellent antifouling performance. Dye effluent is regarded as one of the most hazardous industrial effluents. Although loose nanofiltration (NF) membranes have been considered as an effective alternative technique for treating dye effluent, their development is still constrained by subpar permeance, separation efficiency and anti-fouling performance. In this work, a novel loose polyamide (PA) NF membrane was designed employing a conventional interfacial polymerization process using piperazine-2-carboxylic acid (PIP-COOH) and trimesoyl chloride as aqueous and organic phase monomers, respectively. The presence of unique electron-absorbing carboxyl groups on the PIP-COOH monomer not only provided abundant negative charge on the membrane surface, but also greatly reduced the reactivity, diffusion rate and solubility in n-hexane of the aqueous monomer, allowing for the formation of a more relaxed and smoother active layer. The balanced combination of pore size screening and Donnan effect achieved precise separations with high permeability. Moreover, the interaction of the carboxyl groups with the backbone structure increased the free volume of the PA layer and improved permeability significantly. The PIP-COOH/TMC membrane prepared under the optimal conditions exhibited high water permeance of 598.1 L·m−2·h−1·MPa−1, high reactive red rejection (99.3%) and low NaCl rejection (5.4%). Furthermore, the membrane possessed exceptional anti-fouling performance thanks to the ultra-smooth surface with crucial antifouling index flux recovery ratio as high as about 99%, which showed unexpected application possibilities. In conclusion, this study offers a potential novel membrane material for the development and application of loose NF membranes in the treatment of colored effluent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of electronic waste, also known as e-waste, has risen with the growing reliance on electronic products. To reduce negative environmental impact and achieve sustainable industrial processes, recovering and reusing products is crucial. Advances in AI and robotics can help in this effort by reducing workload for human workers and allowing them to stay away from hazardous materials. However, autonomous human motion/intention perception is a primary barrier in e-waste remanufacturing. To address the research gap, this study combined experimental data collection with deep learning models for accurate disassembly task recognition. Over 570,000 frames of motion data were collected from inertial measurement units (IMU) worn by 22 participants. A novel sequence-based correction (SBC) algorithm was also proposed to further improve the accuracy of the overall pipeline. Results showed that models (CNN, LSTM, and GoogLeNet) had an overall accuracy of 88–92%. The proposed SBC algorithm improved accuracy to 95%. • Conducted experiment on end-of-life desktop disassembly for task recognition. • Developed IMU-based deep learning models for human activity recognition. • Proposed a sequence-based correction approach for enhancing the overall recognition accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using both theoretical analysis and Langevin dynamics simulations in two dimensions, we investigate the dynamics of polymer translocation through a nanopore induced by different sizes of the mobile crowding agents, where the crowding agents have equal area fraction [lowercase_phi_synonym] and their diameters are σ and σb >= σ at cis and trans sides, respectively. The chain prefers moving to the side with bigger crowding agents as expected, however, we find the size difference between crowding agents plays a complicated role in the probability of polymer translocation from cis to trans side, the translocation time τ and its distribution, and the translocation exponent. In particular, with increasing σb, the translocation probability shows a maximum value and τ has a minimum value. These results can be interpreted by the effective driving force, which always increases with increasing [lowercase_phi_synonym] but has a maximum value with increasing σb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation The development of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) technology has provided a simple yet powerful system for targeted genome editing. In recent years, this system has been widely used for various gene editing applications. The CRISPR editing efficacy is mainly dependent on the single guide RNA (sgRNA), which guides Cas9 for genome cleavage. While there have been multiple attempts at improving sgRNA design, there is a pressing need for greater sgRNA potency and generalizability across various experimental conditions. Results We employed a unique plasmid library expressed in human cells to quantify the potency of thousands of CRISPR/Cas9 sgRNAs. Differential sequence and structural features among the most and least potent sgRNAs were then used to train a machine learning algorithm for assay design. Comparative analysis indicates that our new algorithm outperforms existing CRISPR/Cas9 sgRNA design tools. Availability and implementation The new sgRNA design tool is freely accessible as a web application, http://crispr.wustl.edu. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As economic fluctuations and market uncertainty intensify, supply chain members face enormous challenges. To explore the role of revenue-sharing contracts in supply chain members with different risk preferences, we study the risk-averse two-stage supply chain coordination in a revenue-sharing contract under three different scenarios: the supplier is risk-averse and the retailer is risk-neutral, or the retailer is risk-averse and the supplier is risk-neutral, or both are risk-averse. We find that the revenue-sharing contract mechanism allows the supplier to offer a lower wholesale price, effectively bearing part of the retailer's cost risk. In return, the retailer compensates the supplier with a larger portion of their revenue, and the lower wholesale price also stimulates the retailer's desire to order more products. In addition, risk aversion always reduces the optimal order quantity in the supply chain. Interestingly, when the retailer's risk aversion level is low, the supplier charges a higher wholesale price under the risk-averse supply chain than that under the risk-neutral supply chain. However, if the retailer's risk aversion level is high enough, the supplier should charge a lower price to stimulate the retailer under the risk-averse supply chain to retain the order size to maintain the channel profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The influences of electronic metal-support interactions (EMSI) on the catalytic hydrogenation of ethylene over Pd n /CeO2 (n = 4, 7, 10) have been studied. • The charge redistribution on the Pd cluster creates 2 typical sites: IF sites located at the interface between metal and support and T sites located at the topmost of the cluster. • IF sites show extremely higher activity for H 2 dissociation and T sites show better activity for ethylene hydrogenation. • At high H coverage, both the kinetics and thermodynamics of the hydrogenation reaction would be significantly promoted. • The two types of sites should collaborate synergically to promote the hydrogenation process. The catalytic activity of supported catalyst is closely related to the electronic metal-support interactions (EMSI). In this paper, first principles density functional theory study was conducted to understand the EMSI between Pd clusters (Pd 4 , Pd 7 , Pd 10) and CeO 2 substrate. When Pd was loaded on CeO 2 surface, the electrons of Pd would transfer to the CeO 2 substrate via Pd-O bonding interactions. Moreover, the charge redistribution on the Pd cluster leads to significant polarization of electron density. Consequently, the Pd atoms located at the metal-support interface (IF site) are positively charged, while the Pd atoms at the topmost (T site) are negatively charged. The H 2 dissociation and ethylene hydrogenation at these sites were calculated with both low and high hydrogen coverage. It was found that the two types of sites should collaborate synergically to promote the hydrogenation of ethylene. In particular, the IF sites exhibit relatively high activity for H 2 dissociation, while the T sites show superior catalytic efficiency for ethylene hydrogenation. Therefore, the EMSI induced charge polarization can tune the electronic structure and charge state of supported metal catalysts, which further determines the performance of different region on the catalyst. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the problem of full state constraints-based adaptive control for a class of switched nonlinear pure-feedback systems under arbitrary switchings. First, the switched pure-feedback system is transformed into a switched strict-feedback system with non-affine terms based on the mean value theorem. Then, by exploiting the common Lyapunov function (CLF) method, the Barrier Lyapunov function method and backstepping, state feedback controllers of individual subsystems and a common Barrier Lyapunov function (CBLF) are constructed, which guarantee that all signals in the closed-loop system are global uniformly bounded under arbitrary switchings, and full state constraints are not violated. Furthermore, the tracking error can converge to a bounded compact set. Two examples, which include a single-link robot as a practical example, are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metal–metal oxide-support interaction stabilized MoO 4 2- is realized in a mesoporous carbon supported heterogenous Ni 4 Mo/NiMoO 4 structure (NiMoO x @CMK-3) for boosting hydrogen evolution. [Display omitted] • A novel NiMoO x @CMK-3 electrocatalyst is synthesized for promoted HER process and outstanding AEMWE performance. • The ex/in-situ characterization evidence the strong heterointerface inhibits the MoO 4 2- loss. • DFT calculations reveal the optimized heterogeneous NiMoO x possesses a moderate Mo-H* binding energy for HER. Constructing low-cost, high-active and robust heterogeneous hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts with strong metal–metal oxide-support interaction (SMMOSI) is still an urgent challenge for the development of anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE), especially under high current density (e.g., 1 A cm−2). Herein, a hierarchical composite of heterogenous Ni 4 Mo/NiMoO 4 (NiMoO x) nanoparticles (NPs) anchored on a mesoporous carbon CMK-3 (NiMoO x @CMK-3) is designed as a superior electrocatalyst for HER. Significantly, the strong interaction between heterogeneous NiMoO x NPs and CMK-3 supporting matrix effectively stabilize the catalytic active Ni 4 Mo/NiMoO 4 heterostructure by altering the local geometric and electronic structures, leading to maximumly exposure of active sites and promoted electron transfer ability. The optimized electrocatalyst exhibits outstanding HER activity with an extremely low overpotential and Tafel slope of 7 mV@10 mA cm−2 and 27.7 mV dec-1, respectively, and can steadily operate at 100 mA cm−2 for 800 h. More significantly, owing to these HER merits, the AEMWE configuration with NiMoO x @CMK-3 (−) is also designed, resulting in low cell voltage of 1.965 V@1 A cm−2 and negligible degradation over 400 h@1 A cm−2. Further ex/in-situ electrochemical spectra evidence that both the partial combined MoO 4 2- from NiMoO 4 and the newly formed MoO 4 2- originating from dissolved Mo in NiMoO x @CMK-3 could boost the fast generation of polymerized Mo 2 O 7 2- that could effectively accelerate the HER process in alkaline conditions by facilitating the formation of active Mo-H* intermediates. Moreover, theoretical calculation results demonstrate the upshifting of d-band center of Mo toward Fermi level for the heterogeneous NiMoO x and the strong charge distribution between the heterointerface could optimize adsorption free energies of H* (ΔG H*) on the surface of Mo atoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mud crab (Scylla paramamosain) is an important mariculture species, which has been successfully cultivated in inland saline-alkaline water of China. However, the study on the flavor quality of mud crab cultivated in inland saline-alkaline water has not been reported. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare the non-volatile flavor substances in the hepatopancreas and muscles of mud crabs cultured in inland saline-alkaline water (IS, 1.5 psu), coastal low salinity seawater(CS, 5 psu) and normal salinity seawater(NS, 13 psu). The results showed that there were no significant differences in total free amino acids (TAA) and essential amino acids (EAA) in muscle and hepatopancreas among the three groups. The contents of glycine (Gly) and alanine (Ala) in muscle and hepatopancreas in IS group were significantly higher than those in NS and CS groups. Taurine (Tau) content in IS-♂ group was significantly higher than that in NS-♂ group. The results of the principal component analysis showed that the similarity of amino acid composition and content in muscle and hepatopancreas of each population was related to the culture environment. To sum up, the mud crabs cultured in inland low saline-alkaline water can maintain the balance of total amino acid and essential amino acid content, the sweet flavor of edible parts was slightly enhanced, while the equivalent umami concentration was decreased. ● Inland saline-alkaline culture is a new way for the development of mud crab industry. ● Inland low saline-alkaline culture has an influence on the flavor of mud crabs. ● The contents of Gly and Ala in the muscle of saline-alkaline mud crabs are higher. ● The changes of free amino acids are related to osmoregulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deformation of constituent phases determines the mechanical properties of titanium alloys. To address this relationship, the deformation of primary α (α p ), secondary α plates (α s ) and residual β phase (β r ) in Ti-6.5Al-3.5Mo-1.5Zr-0.3Si alloy was investigated based on the microstructure near fracture surface of uniaxial tensile samples. It is found that α p is elongated and α s mainly undergoes kinking deformation during tensile tests. The deformation of α p is dominated by planar slipping, the deformation of α s in colony is dominated by planar slipping and in basket weave is controlled by twin, planar slipping and dislocation tangling and the deformation of β r is controlled by dislocation tangling. In the microstructure with high volume fraction of α p (about 60%), the deformation amount of both α p and α s increases with the thickness of α s , which increases the elongation of the alloy and changes the failure modes of α p from fracture to boundary separation. In the microstructure with low volume fraction of α p (19%) and long α s , α p has large deformation amount, while α s with relative small deformation amount has large kinking region which increases the strength of the alloy. However, due to low volume fraction of α p , its contribution to the ductility of alloy is limited and thus the elongation of the alloy is relatively small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A computational framework relying on a non-iterative mesh generation algorithm is introduced for modeling moving boundary transient diffusion problems, with a special focus on its application for simulating corrosion phenomena. In this approach, the Conforming to Interface Structured Adaptive Mesh Refinement (CISAMR) technique is employed to adapt the finite element mesh to the evolving morphology of the problem. CISAMR combines customized h -adaptivity, r -adaptivity, and sub-triangulation algorithms to transform a simple structured mesh into a high quality hybrid conforming mesh composed of rectangular and triangular elements. A key advantage of this method for modeling moving boundary problems is that only the elements located along the moving boundary must be modified to regenerate a conforming mesh at each step. This feature not only facilitates the remeshing process but also reduces the error associated with projecting nodal values of the solution to the new mesh. After a convergence study, we verify the accuracy of CISAMR for modeling pitting corrosion problems by comparing results with analytical solutions and phase field simulations. Additional examples are also provided to show the application of CISAMR for simulating corrosion problems with intricate morphologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Nanofiltration (NF) membranes were prepared using hydroxypropyltrimethyl ammonium chloride chitosan (HACC) as aqueous phase co-monomer. • The surface electropositivity of NF membrane was significantly enhanced with almost constant pore size. • Modified NF membranes demonstrated superb magnesium-lithium separation performance and excellent antibacterial properties. In recent years, the global demand for lithium resources has been constantly rising thanks to the rapid development of the new energy industry. Nanofiltration (NF) membranes with positive charge could achieve high efficiency separation performance of magnesium ion (Mg2+)/ lithium ion (Li+), which provides a useful solution for the extraction and recovery of lithium resources from brine. In this work, hydroxypropyltrimethyl ammonium chloride chitosan (HACC) was introduced into the interfacial polymerization (IP) as co-monomer with piperazine (PIP) to react with trimesoyl chloride (TMC) for preparing positively charged NF membranes. Based on the modulation of IP process by HACC, the thickness of the modified NF membrane separation layer reduced and the hydrophilicity increased, while the pore size had no obvious variation. In addition, the introduction of the quaternary ammonium group in HACC also increased the antibacterial properties of the NF membrane. The optimized NF-HACC-0.3 not only improved the separation factor significantly, but also increased the flux by 2 times compared with the original membrane. This strategy provides a new valuable idea and insight for the preparation and development of Mg2+/Li+ separation NF membranes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A fiber-optic SPR hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S) gas sensor is proposed. • The Ag/APTES/Cu-MWCNT sensing film is coated on the surface of SMF. • H 2 S concentration and the resonance wavelength shift (117.421 nm) satisfy the linear relationship within 1–10 ppm. • The sensitivity and detection limit are 12.98 nm/ppm and 0.146 ppm, respectively. • The response time is about 28 s, and can be used to monitor trace H 2 S gas. A fiber-optic surface plasmon resonance (SPR) hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S) gas sensor is proposed and fabricated by using silver/triaminopropyltriethoxysilane/copper-multiwalled carbon nanotubes (Ag/APTES/Cu-MWCNT) as sensing film. A single-mode fiber (SMF) is spliced between two multimode fibers (MMF) to form an MMF-SMF-MMF sensing structure. The Ag/APTES/Cu-MWCNT sensing film is coated on the surface of SMF. The performance and stability of the sensor were investigated in detail. With the increase of H 2 S concentration in the range of 10–100 ppm, the redshift of the resonance dip reaches 126.465 nm, and the logarithm of H 2 S concentration and the resonance dip wavelength shift satisfy the linear relationship. In the range of 1–10 ppm, the wavelength shifts 117.421 nm, and H 2 S concentration and the dip wavelength shift meet a linear relationship. The sensitivity (12.9849 nm/ppm) is obtained, the detection limit (0.146 ± 0.031 ppm) is determined, and the response time is about 28 s. The sensor has excellent selectivity, good time, humidity and temperature stability, which has potential application in the field of trace H 2 S gas monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cover Picture: Conversion of Polyethylenes into Fungal Secondary Metabolites (Angew. Polyethylenes are first cleaved into carboxylic diacids using catalytic oxidation. Polyethylenes are first cleaved into carboxylic diacids using catalytic oxidation. [Extracted from the article]

Keywords: Biosynthesis; Catalysis; Polyethylenes; Synthetic Biology; Upcycling EN Biosynthesis Catalysis Polyethylenes Synthetic Biology Upcycling 1 1 1 01/19/23 20230123 NES 230123 B A novel, two-step chemical-biological approach b converts post-consumer polyethylenes into structurally diverse and pharmacologically active fungal natural products, as reported by Travis J. Williams, Clay C. C. Wang et al. in their Research Article (e202214609). Polyethylenes are first cleaved into carboxylic diacids using catalytic oxidation. Polyethylenes are first cleaved into carboxylic diacids using catalytic oxidation. [Extracted from the article]

The regulation of interfacial polymerization (IP) is the critical procedure for the preparation and industrialization of thin film composite (TFC) nanofiltration (NF) membranes. However, the IP control is still a huge challenge based on the extremely rapid reaction rate during the fabrication of the membrane. Herein, a new strategy was developed to modulate the IP process to increase the NF membrane performance. The aldehyde oxidized dextran (ODex) interlayer was deposited on the polysulfone ultrafiltration substrate, and the enamine would form between the secondary amines of aqueous phase monomer piperazine (PIP) and aldehyde groups of the ODex. Based on the by-products of IP, the enamine gradually decomposed reversibly in a hydrogen ion environment and the immobilized PIP was released and continued to react with organic phase monomer trimesoyl chloride (TMC). Accordingly, a thinner and exhibiting nanowire structures separation layer with fewer defects was obtained. The permeance of the optimal NF membrane with 0.7 wt% ODex interlayer deposition concentration could reach up to 208 ± 10.4 Lm−2h−1MPa−1, which was more than 2.5 times permeance of the ordinary NF membrane, and the rejection rate for Na 2 SO 4 could reach 99.3 ± 0.3%. In addition, the mono- and divalent ion selectivity of the modified membrane was also greatly improved (α NaCl/Na2SO4 = 115). This study provides a new idea for the regulation of IP process, thereby suggesting a reasonable proposal for improving the performance of TFC NF membranes. [Display omitted] •The enamine was formed between the secondary amines of piperazine and the aldehyde group on the oxidized dextran interlayer. •The interfacial polymerization procedure was effectively regulated by a reversible enamine reaction. •The effect of enamine reversible reaction on the structure of nanofiltration membrane was discussed in detail. •The performance of modified NF membranes for monovalent/divalent salts selectivity was significantly improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Carboxylated starch nanoparticles (CSNPs) were synthesized and embedded in the separation layer of the nanofiltration membrane. • The aggregated or large CSNPs adsorb the aqueous phase to build an aqueous template during the interfacial polymerization transferring the reaction interface. • The compatibility problem of nanoparticles and separation layer was effectively solved. • The S NaCl/Na2SO4 of the modified nanofiltration membrane reached 180 with more than 2 times improvement in flux. The challenge of poor compatibility between nanoparticles and separation layers in thin film nanocomposite (TFN) nanofiltration (NF) membranes has always plagued the researchers. In this work, a carboxylated starch nanoparticles (CSNPs) were introduced into the polyamide (PA) separation layer of NF membrane by the IP reaction between trimesoyl chloride (TMC) and piperazine (PIP). The agglomerated or large size CSNPs could transfer the reaction interface above the particles through the formation of a water template by adsorption of aqueous phase monomers, which shaped the defect-free separation layer. Furthermore, the reduced thickness and increased density of the separation layer greatly enhanced the separation selectivity of the nanofiltration membrane thanks to the introduction of hydrophilic groups of nanoparticles. The modified membrane achieved a nearly 5-fold improvement in separation selectivity for NaCl and Na 2 SO 4 (S NaCl/Na2SO4 = 180) and a 2-fold increase in the water permeance. In addition, the modified NF membrane also possessed better chlorine-resistance property based on the formation of polyarylester between the reaction of hydroxyl groups in CSNPs and acyl chloride groups in TMC. Such novel aqueous-phase additives provide new insights to effectively solve the compatibility problem between the nanoparticles and separation layers, which is favorable for the commercial production of NF membrane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Few studies have examined the relationship between family functioning, social support and quality of life in patients with anxiety disorder. There is a paucity of research on anxiety disorders and their predictors in China. Aims: This study aimed to explore family functioning, social support and quality of life for patients with anxiety disorder and examine the relationship between these elements. Methods: A total of 107 patients who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV) criteria for anxiety disorder and 80 healthy controls completed the McMaster Family Assessment Device, the Perceived Social Support Scale and the short form of the Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionnaire. Results: The findings indicate that patients with anxiety disorder in China tend to have poor family functioning and quality of life, as well as a higher subjective perception of social support. There were strong correlations between family functioning, social support and quality of life. Affective involvement and not living with parents were identified as risk factors for anxiety disorders, while a high family income was a protective factor. Conclusion: Anxiety disorder is associated with reduced family functioning and poorer quality of life for Chinese patients. In addition, the Family Assessment Device is a suitable instrument for evaluating family functioning in Chinese patients with anxiety disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dysregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) is extensively associated with cancer development and progression. miRNAs have been shown to be biomarkers for predicting tumor formation and outcome. However, identification of the relationships between miRNA expression and tumor characteristics can be difficult and time-consuming without appropriate bioinformatics expertise. To address this issue, we present OncomiR, an online resource for exploring miRNA dysregulation in cancer. Using combined miRNA-seq, RNA-seq and clinical data from The Cancer Genome Atlas, we systematically performed statistical analyses to identify dysregulated miRNAs that are associated with tumor development and progression in most major cancer types. Additional analyses further identified potential miRNA-gene target interactions in tumors. These results are stored in a backend database and presented through a web server interface. Moreover, through a backend bioinformatics pipeline, OncomiR can also perform dynamic analysis with custom miRNA selections for in-depth characterization of miRNAs in cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]