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Contrast perception is a fundamental visual ability that allows us to distinguish objects from the background. However, whether it is perturbed by chronic exposure to environmental xenoestrogen, bisphenol A (BPA), is still elusive. Here, we used adult cats to explore BPA-induced changes in contrast sensitivity (CS) and its underlying neuronal coding mechanism. Behavioral results showed that 14 days of BPA exposure (0.4 mg/kg/day) was sufficient to induce CS declines at the tested spatial frequencies (0.05–2 cycles/deg) in all four cats. Furthermore, based on multi-channel electrophysiological recording and interneuronal correlation analysis, we found that the BPA-exposed cats exhibited an obvious up-regulation in noise correlation in the primary visual cortex (area 17, A17), thus providing a population neuronal coding basis for their perceptual dysfunction. Moreover, single neuron responses in A17 of BPA-exposed cats revealed a slight but marked decrease in CS compared to that of control cats. Additionally, these neuronal responses presented an overt decrease in signal-to-noise ratio, accompanied by increased trial-to-trial response variability (i.e., noise). To some extent, these neuron population and unit dysfunctions in A17 of BPA-exposed cats were attributable to decreased response activity of fast-spiking neurons. Together, our findings demonstrate that chronic BPA exposure restricts contrast perception, in response to impoverished neuronal coding ability in A17. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beta-phase gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3) has attracted increasing attention in the field of power electronic devices due to its ultra-wide bandgap and high Baliga figure-of-merit. However, the premature breakdown deteriorated with the increase in device area, hindering the scale-up of the current rating. In this work, we unveil the formation and characteristics of killer defects responsible for the premature breakdown in an Si-doped (001) β-Ga2O3 epitaxial layer grown by halide vapor phase epitaxy. The killer defects feature a line-shaped morphology along the [010] orientation. Specifically, the high-resolution transmission electron microscopy characterization links the line-shaped defects to underlying voids. These voids are surrounded by amorphous phase regions, and the transition from amorphous phase to crystalline phase results in twins extending along the [010] orientation, which eventually become line-shaped defects on the wafer. Additionally, the defect area exhibits smaller capacitance and lower surface potential compared to the defect-free region. This is attributed to the absence of local ionized donors in the defect area, leading to electric field concentration in this region. This study systematically investigates a killer defect in β-Ga2O3, which contributes to the scale-up process of β-Ga2O3 power devices and advances their application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we performed gated four-probe measurements on amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) to extract their intrinsic mobility and contact resistance as functions of gate voltage and temperature. The abnormal degradation of field-effect mobility was observed in a-IGZO TFTs both at high gate voltage and at high temperature. Results showed that contact resistance played a major role in mobility degradation at high gate bias, whereas band-like transport (phonon scattering) accounts for mobility degeneration at high temperature. We proposed a novel method, which exposed the contact regions to ultraviolet (UV) ozone. The mobility was boosted from 23 to 30 cm2/Vs, nearly 40% increment at high gate bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Searchable encryption allows data owners to outsource their encrypted data to cloud servers and provide a searchable encryption service without exposing their sensitive information. Existing searchable encryption schemes provide the service for users to query the encrypted data of a single data owner. However, these schemes ignore the problem of query matching efficiency when users query the encrypted data of multiple data owners simultaneously. Specifically, for the same content encrypted by different data owners, users need to generate different query trapdoors in the query phase and match the different query trapdoors and indexes in the matching phase. In this paper, we propose a searchable encryption algorithm based on the key aggregation of multiple data owners. The algorithm first generates keys for multiple data owners using the mutual inversion of elements in a finite field to ensure the consistency of ciphertext processing. Then, it generates index keys to build encrypted indexes and ensure the searchability of the ciphertext. Finally, it generates query trapdoors based on multi-key aggregation to match the encrypted indexes of multiple data owners. The theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed algorithm improves the query efficiency and protects the query indexes and trapdoors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) encode gene regulation in living organisms, and have become a critical tool to understand complex biological processes. However, due to the dynamic and complex nature of gene regulation, inferring GRNs from scRNA-seq data is still a challenging task. Existing computational methods usually focus on the close connections between genes, and ignore the global structure and distal regulatory relationships. Results In this study, we develop a supervised deep learning framework, IGEGRNS, to infer GRNs from scRNA-seq data based on graph embedding. In the framework, contextual information of genes is captured by GraphSAGE, which aggregates gene features and neighborhood structures to generate low-dimensional embedding for genes. Then, the k most influential nodes in the whole graph are filtered through Top-k pooling. Finally, potential regulatory relationships between genes are predicted by stacking CNNs. Compared with nine competing supervised and unsupervised methods, our method achieves better performance on six time-series scRNA-seq datasets. Availability and implementation Our method IGEGRNS is implemented in Python using the Pytorch machine learning library, and it is freely available at https://github.com/DHUDBlab/IGEGRNS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) activity links to immune escape of cancers. Inhibition of IDO1 provides a new approach for cancer treatment. Most clinical IDO1 drugs show marginal efficacy as single agents. On basis of molecular docking and pharmacophore modelling, a novel inhibitor Roxyl-WL was discovered with a half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) value of 1 nM against IDO1 and 10-100-fold increased potent activity compared with IDO1 drugs in clinical trials. Roxyl-WL displayed excellent kinase spectrum selectivity with no activity out of the 337 protein kinases. In vitro, Roxyl-WL effectively augmented the proliferation of T cells and reduced the number of regulatory T cell (Tregs).When administered to melanoma (B16F10) tumor-bearing mice orally, Roxyl-WL significantly suppressed tumor growth and induced immune response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sodium taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide (NTCP) is a functional receptor for human hepatitis B virus (HBV) and its satellite virus Hepatitis D virus (HDV). Physiologically, NTCP is responsible for the majority of sodium-dependent bile acids uptake by hepatocytes. The p.Ser267Phe (S267F) variant of NTCP is a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) previously found to cause substantial loss of ability to support HBV and HDV infection and its taurocholic acid uptake function in vitro . Intriguingly, ten individuals were identified as S267F homozygotes in population studies of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients. In this study, we identified new HBV isolates from one homozygous S267F mutation carrier and confirmed new isolates also use wildtype-NTCP as a cellular receptor. Furthermore, we demonstrated S267F variant of NTCP, though inefficient, is still a functional receptor for HBV entry. This study advances our understanding of NTCP-mediated HBV infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bisphenol A (BPA), a common environmental xenoestrogen, has been implicated in physiological and behavioral impairment, but the neuronal basis remains elusive. Although various synaptic mechanisms have been shown to mediate BPA-induced brain deficits, there are almost no reports addressing its underlying physiological mechanisms at the individual neuron level, particularly in the primary visual system. In the present study, using multiple-channel recording technique, we recorded the responses of single neurons in the primary visual system of cats to various direction stimuli both before and after BPA exposure. The results showed that the orientation selectivity of neurons in the primary visual cortex (area 17, A17) was obviously decreased after 2 h of intravenous BPA administration (0.2 mg/kg). Moreover, there were worse performances of information transmission of A17 neurons, presenting markedly decreased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). To some extent, these functional decreases were attributable to the altered information inputs from lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), which showed an increased spontaneous activity. Additionally, local injection of BPA (3.3 μg/ml) in A17 resulted in an obvious increase in orientation selectivity and a decrease in neuronal activity, involving enhanced activity of fast-spiking inhibitory interneurons. In conclusion, our results first demonstrate that acute BPA exposure can restrict the visual perception of cats, mainly depending on the alteration of the LGN projection, not the intercortical interaction. Importantly, BPA-induced-brain deficits might not only be confined to the cortical level but also occur as early as at the subcortical level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cloud computing provides dynamically scalable and virtualized resource service for users to access the storage data. Although having been bringing enormous convenience, it also incurs the threat of users’ data loss or corruption, such as data intentionally deleted or corrupted, the service providers’ hardware error and careless operation. Most of the data verification schemes based POR or PDP are proposed to verify the integrity of a data block or even a batch of data blocks. However, once the batch verification fails, it results in that all the blocks in the batch of data cannot be judged to be intact or corrupted since the corrupted blocks are not accurately identified. To improve the efficiency of corrupted data identified, we propose a rapid detection algorithm of corrupted data based on three-dimensional data locating, which is called cube-based detection. Furthermore, the consistent hash is utilized to balance the computation cost, and the cube splitting is applied to locate the corrupted blocks by narrowing the range of suspicious blocks step by step. Finally, both data hierarchically concatenated and data blind technology are utilized to improve the verification efficiency and preserve users’ data privacy in the detection process. Theoretic analysis and simulation results demonstrate that our algorithm has strong detection capability and identification capability for all the corrupted blocks, and greatly decreases the cost of verification data transmission and computation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, it is a challenge to prepare elastomers with high mechanical properties and high self-healing efficiency. In the present work, by mixing a polyurethane (PU) prepolymer with a PU elastomer containing 2-ureido-4[1H]-pyrimidinone (UPy) groups, we obtained a new PU elastomer based on interpenetrating networks. In this condition, four different structures coexist in the interpenetrating polymer networks: covalent cross-linking network, metal-ion coordination network, multiple hydrogen bond network and flexible blocks. The experimental results demonstrated that the presence of metal-ion coordination network, multiple hydrogen bond network and flexible blocks is beneficial for the improvement in healing efficiency, while the coexistence of covalent cross-linking network, metal-ion coordination network and multiple hydrogen bond network benefits to improve the mechanical properties. [Display omitted] • PU Elastomers with high mechanical properties and high self-healing efficiency were prepared. • Multiple hydrogen bonds, flexible blocks, metal coordination and covalent cross-linking coexist. • Current work provides a new idea for preparation of high-performance self-healing elastomers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug combination therapy has gradually become a promising treatment strategy for complex or co-existing diseases. As drug–drug interactions (DDIs) may cause unexpected adverse drug reactions, DDI prediction is an important task in pharmacology and clinical applications. Recently, researchers have proposed several deep learning methods to predict DDIs. However, these methods mainly exploit the chemical or biological features of drugs, which is insufficient and limits the performances of DDI prediction. Here, we propose a new d eep m ultimodal f eature fusion framework for DDI prediction, DMFDDI, which fuses drug molecular graph, DDI network and the biochemical similarity features of drugs to predict DDIs. To fully extract drug molecular structure, we introduce an attention-gated graph neural network for capturing the global features of the molecular graph and the local features of each atom. A sparse graph convolution network is introduced to learn the topological structure information of the DDI network. In the multimodal feature fusion module, an attention mechanism is used to efficiently fuse different features. To validate the performance of DMFDDI, we compare it with 10 state-of-the-art methods. The comparison results demonstrate that DMFDDI achieves better performance in DDI prediction. Our method DMFDDI is implemented in Python using the Pytorch machine-learning library, and it is freely available at https://github.com/DHUDEBLab/DMFDDI.git. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a surface potential-based gate-leakage current (GLC) model for organic thin-film transistors is proposed. It is found that the Poole–Frenkel emission is the main mechanism of GLC, which can be well described by our model for both accumulation and depletion modes. In addition, the source and drain partitions of the channel leakage current can be well explained based on our model. Furthermore, the dependence of GLC on drain voltage, temperature, and material disorder has been discussed in detail, which yields perfect agreement with the experimental data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A physical model of exciton diffusion length in organic photovoltaic cell based on percolation theory and Forster resonant transfer rate is presented here. The calculated results show a good agreement with Monte Carlo simulation and experimental data, indicating that the proposed model can well describe the temperature and material disorder dependences of exciton diffusion length. More importantly, the effect of carrier density on the exciton diffusion length can also be discussed based on our model, specifically, more intensive light illumination will lead to larger exciton diffusion length. Furthermore, according to our analysis, the Gaussian distribution density of states (DOS) can be well replaced by an exponential DOS at certain exciton concentration, which would help us get an analytical model for the exciton diffusion length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The simplified 3-grade system for measuring fat infiltration in the paraspinal muscles is widely utilized. In comparing our proposed 4-grade system to the existing 3-grade system, we evaluated its impact on results and particularly its ability to predict disc herniation, ultimately highlighting deficiencies in the latter. The objective of this investigation was to validate the efficacy of our newly proposed semi-quantitative simplified 4-grade system for assessing fat infiltration, as compared to the existing literature-based simplified 3-grade system, in terms of their predictive value for lumbar disc herniation. Methods: Infiltration of the right and left lumbar multifidus and erector spinae muscles were assessed using a semi-quantitative 3- and 4-grade fat infiltration system on axial magnetic resonance imaging sections at the L3-S1 level in all subjects, with comparison of results between groups. The correlation between these grading systems and lumbar disc herniation was investigated. Results: The simplified 3-degree system for measuring fat infiltration was not effective in predicting lumbar disc herniation (p > 0.05), while the 4-degree system proved to be useful in predicting it (p < 0.05). In both grading systems, females were found to have a higher risk of lumbar disc herniation than males (p < 0.05), and the risk increased with age and body mass index (BMI) (p < 0.001). Conclusions: It was observed that using the 4-grade fat infiltration system to determine the level of fat infiltration in the paraspinal muscles is more effective in predicting lumbar disc herniation compared to the 3-grade system. The 4-grade fat infiltration grading system proves to be an efficient semi-quantitative method that can replace the simplified 3-grade system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an algorithm for iterative learning control on the basis of the quasi-Newton method for nonlinear systems. The new quasi-Newton iterative learning control scheme using the rank-one update to derive the recurrent formula has numerous benefits, which include the approximate treatment for the inverse of the system's Jacobian matrix. The rank-one update-based ILC also has the advantage of extension for convergence domain and hence guaranteeing the choice of initial value. The algorithm is expressed as a very general norm optimization problem in a Banach space and, in principle, can be used for both continuous and discrete time systems. Furthermore, a detailed convergence analysis is given, and it guarantees theoretically that the proposed algorithm converges at a superlinear rate. Initial conditions which the algorithm requires are also established. The simulations illustrate the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, bottom-Schottky-structure InGaZnOx (IGZO) Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) with sputtered PtOx anodes were fabricated and annealed in oxygen at different temperatures. Critical parameters and negative bias stress (NBS) stability of SBDs with different annealing temperatures are investigated. With the annealing temperature increases, the barrier height and rectification ratio of the SBDs exhibited a rising-then-declining trend, while the ideality factor slightly increased until 200 °C. The SBDs show up overall reliability except for a leakage current rising trend under light, which can be attributed to free electron generation from the ionized oxygen vacancy. Among all the SBDs, the 175 °C annealed ones exhibited the best overall performance, including a high barrier height of 0.89 eV, an ideality factor of 1.14, and a large rectification ratio of over 108. Compared to the initial SBDs, the annealed ones showed up great improvement in NBS stability except for the 200 °C annealed ones, which was permanently degraded and not able to recover to original states. According to experimental result analysis and IGZO material characteristics, a stability model based on the subgap trap transition from V O 2 + to VO and new V O 2 + creation was proposed, which applies to both the short-term and long-term NBS tests. The results above demonstrate that oxygen annealing at appropriate temperature is an effective method to improve both device performance and NBS stability for PtOx–IGZO SBDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Infection of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) in hepatocytes has been known to be controlled by multiple cellular factors, while the relationship of the infection and liver microRNAs remains obscure. In this study, a miRNA database, containing 168 unique mature miRNA members from primary hepatocytes of a primate-like animal, northern treeshrew (Tupaia belangeri) that is the only species susceptible for HBV infection other than human and chimpanzee, was established. The relative level of a liver predominant microRNA, miR-122, was markedly increased upon HBV infection of the primary tupaia hepatocyte (PTH). However, introducing neither miR-122 nor its antagonist anti-miR-122 into PTHs, or, HepG2–NTCP that is HepG2 cells with the newly identified receptor sodium taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide (NTCP) did not alter the viral infection on these cells. These data suggest that de novo HBV infection of cultured hepatocytes does not depend on the expression level of intracellular miR-122 of the target cells. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) measures transcriptome-wide gene expression at single-cell resolution. Clustering analysis of scRNA-seq data enables researchers to characterize cell types and states, shedding new light on cell-to-cell heterogeneity in complex tissues. Recently, self-supervised contrastive learning has become a prominent technique for underlying feature representation learning. However, for the noisy, high-dimensional and sparse scRNA-seq data, existing methods still encounter difficulties in capturing the intrinsic patterns and structures of cells, and seldom utilize prior knowledge, resulting in clusters that mismatch with the real situation. To this end, we propose scDECL, a novel deep enhanced constraint clustering algorithm for scRNA-seq data analysis based on contrastive learning and pairwise constraints. Specifically, based on interpolated contrastive learning, a pre-training model is trained to learn the feature embedding, and then perform clustering according to the constructed enhanced pairwise constraint. In the pre-training stage, a mixup data augmentation strategy and interpolation loss is introduced to improve the diversity of the dataset and the robustness of the model. In the clustering stage, the prior information is converted into enhanced pairwise constraints to guide the clustering. To validate the performance of scDECL, we compare it with six state-of-the-art algorithms on six real scRNA-seq datasets. The experimental results demonstrate the proposed algorithm outperforms the six competing methods. In addition, the ablation studies on each module of the algorithm indicate that these modules are complementary to each other and effective in improving the performance of the proposed algorithm. Our method scDECL is implemented in Python using the Pytorch machine-learning library, and it is freely available at https://github.com/DBLABDHU/scDECL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensor nodes in sensor networks often gather data and deliver them to the sink. However, the energy and radio range constraints force them to cooperate in transmitting the data to the destination with multihop communication. To achieve this, nodes have to be clustered and some of them are elected as the cluster head nodes to transmit the aggregated data. Unfortunately, the clustering brings extra traffic load to the cluster head nodes, particularly those closer to the sink. These nodes die faster than before as their energy is drained at a high rate. Therefore, some clustering and cluster head election algorithms were suggested to use the unequal clustering size to extend the lifetime of cluster head nodes. However, it is difficult to obtain the accurate cluster size in the process of unequal clustering. Moreover, some cluster head nodes with the overfull cluster members may die early. We propose an enhanced unequal clustering size algorithm to optimize the unequal cluster size in the different layers and balance the dissipation energy of all cluster head nodes. Simulation results show that our algorithm dissipates approximately the same energy of cluster head nodes in the different layers per round and obviously increases the number of rounds of data gathering and transmission. © 2012 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High breakdown voltage and exceptional robustness make β‐Ga2O3 power devices a key focus of current research. Despite growing attention to the reliability of β‐Ga2O3 devices, systematic studies are still limited, and comparative analyses between different structures remain unreported. This study presents a comparative analysis of β‐Ga2O3 Schottky barrier diodes (SBD) and p‐NiO/β‐Ga2O3 heterojunction diodes (HJD) with mesa termination through comprehensive reliability test, including high‐temperature storage, reverse recovery, surge current, and rectification characteristics. The results indicate that the SBDs outperform in high‐frequency rectification performance up to 1 MHz, whereas the HJDs demonstrate superior high‐temperature stability of 250 °C. The surge current densities of the SBD and HJD devices reach 0.88 and 0.78 kA cm−2, respectively, representing the highest values reported to date. In particular, the efficiency of both the SBD and HJD devices exceeds 95% in circuit application, with SBD excelling in high‐frequency mode and HJD performing optimally in high‐temperature conditions. This study highlights the high reliability of β‐Ga2O3 devices and provides valuable insights for the application under varied operating conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ga2O3 has been considered as one of the most suitable materials for x-ray detection, but its x-ray detection performance is still at a low level due to the limitation of its quality and absorbance, especially for hard x-ray. In this work, the effects of growth temperature and miscut angle of the sapphire substrate on the crystal quality of Ga2O3 thin films were investigated based on the MOCVD technique. It was found that the crystal growth mode was transformed from island growth to step-flow growth using miscut sapphire substrates and increasing growth temperature, which was accompanied by the improvement of the crystal quality and the reduction of the density of trapped states. Ga2O3 films with optimal crystal quality were finally prepared on a 4° miscut substrate at 900 °C. The x-ray detector based on this film shows good hard x-ray response with a sensitivity of 3.72 × 105μC·Gyair−1·cm−2. Furthermore, the impacts of Ga2O3 film crystal quality and trap density on the x-ray detector were investigated in depth, and the mechanism of the photoconductive gain of the Ga2O3 thin-film x-ray detector was analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vertical metal–oxide–semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) is essential to the future application of ultrawide bandgap β-Ga2O3. In this work, we demonstrated an enhancement-mode β-Ga2O3 U-shaped gate trench vertical metal–oxide–semiconductor field effect transistor (UMOSFET) featuring a current blocking layer (CBL). The CBL was realized by high-temperature annealing under oxygen ambient, which provided electrical isolation between the source and drain electrodes. The CBL thicknesses of different annealing temperatures were derived from C–V measurements and the Fermi level position of the sample surfaces of different annealing temperature was characterized by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements, indicating good process controllability. Furthermore, photoluminescence spectra were measured to study the effect of oxygen annealing. The fabricated UMOSFET showed normally off with a Vth of 11.5 V, an on-state resistance of 1.48 Ω cm2, a maximum on-state current of 11 A/cm2, an on–off ratio of 6 × 104, and a three-terminal breakdown voltage over 100 V. This work paves a way to form a CBL and broadens the design space for high-power β-Ga2O3 vertical transistors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carvacrol is an effective natural antimicrobial and antioxidant agent; however, its poor aqueous solubility and high volatility limit its application in food systems. Ovalbumin can encapsulate hydrophobic molecules, thereby improving aqueous solubility and reducing volatility. The aim of this study was to explore the potential of an ovalbumin nanocarrier to improve the application range of carvacrol. Protein structure and scanning electron microscopy showed that carvacrol increased gel hardness and tackiness at pH 5, and OVA gel formed a uniform granular shape that was beneficial for reconstitution. The dominant force in OVA gel changed from electrostatic to hydrophobic interaction, indicating that carvacrol could hydrophobically bind to the gel. The ovalbumin-carvacrol (OVA-Car) complex was prepared using an oil-in-water method. The particle size was 132 ± 10 nm, and the encapsulation efficiency was 51.41%. The polydispersity index was 0.355, indicating the general stability of the composite. Fluorescence spectroscopy and differential thermogram studies indicated complex formation. Antibacterial property testing against Bacillus cereus and Salmonella indicated that the OVA-Car complex inhibited bacterial growth at lower concentrations than free carvacrol. Minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration for Bacillus cereus (0.0968 and 0.3875 mg/mL) and Salmonella (0.1937 and 0.3875 mg/mL), respectively, were 2–4 times higher than those of free carvacrol. The time sterilization curve indicated that pathogenic bacterial growth did not reach the control level. The OVA-Car complex has potential application in food systems owing to its storage stability and improved antimicrobial activity. Image 1 • As a nanoparticle carrier, ovalbumin improved the application range of carvacrol. • The ovalbumin-carvacrol (OVA-Car) complex was stable. • OVA-Car complex inhibited bacterial growth more effectively than free carvacrol. • The OVA-Car complex has potential application in food systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The permeability rebound and recovery of coal reservoirs is one of the key factors affecting the efficient recovery of coalbed methane (CBM). Most studies focus on the permeability rebound and recovery of intact coal reservoirs. Conversely, the permeability rebound characteristics of tectonic coal have only been rarely investigated. In this paper, an improved fully coupled mathematical model for methane transport of tectonic coal and intact coal seam was established. Then, the phenomenon of permeability rebound and recovery was analyzed theoretically, and the permeability rebound time, rebound value and recovery time were proposed to compare the difference in permeability evolution. In addition, the permeability rebound characteristics of tectonic and intact coal were evaluated for different geological parameters of coal reservoirs. The results indicate that the rebound time and recovery time of both intact and tectonic coal increase with the increase of initial gas pressure. As the initial permeability increases, the permeability rebound time of intact and tectonic coal show a decreasing trend. The permeability rebound time of intact coal decreases with increasing initial diffusion coefficient, while that of tectonic coal shows the opposite trend. Furthermore, the change in permeability recovery time for tectonic coal is 6.59 times larger than for intact coal, indicating that the effect of permeability rebound phenomenon is more significant during gas extraction in tectonic coal reservoirs. Finally, a conceptual model was proposed to explain the differential mechanism of permeability rebound between tectonic and intact coal, and its implications for CBM recovery in tectonic coal reservoirs was discussed. Therefore, the results presented in this paper can provide a theoretical basis for the efficient development of CBM in tectonic coal reservoirs. • Methane transport mathematical models of tectonic and intact coal are developed. • The permeability rebound in tectonic and intact coal is quantitatively analyzed. • The evolutionary mechanism of permeability rebound of tectonic coal is revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensitive high‐energy photon detection from UV to X‐ray and high‐resolution array imaging are critical for medical diagnosis, space exploration, and scientific research. The key challenges for high‐performance photodetector and imaging arrays are the effective material and device design strategies for the miniaturization and integration of the device. Here, photon‐controlled diodes (i.e., the detector has rectifying characteristics only under light irradiation) are proposed for high‐resolution and anti‐crosstalk array imaging applications without integrating the switching element. Based on ultra‐wide bandgap semiconductor Ga2O3, the sensitive DUV/X‐ray photon‐controlled diodes are realized by the design of high‐resistance Ga2O3 film and high‐barrier contact. The device exhibits remarkable detection performance, including high photo‐responsivity (168 A W−1) and specific detectivity (1.45 × 1015 Jones) under DUV illumination, as well as a high sensitivity (1.23 × 105 µC Gyair−1 cm−2) under X‐ray light. Moreover, the low dark current and excellent rectification characteristics are obtained. Furthermore, its potential for high‐density and anti‐crosstalk array imaging applications is verified. These results not only bring forth new insights in the implementation of high‐performance DUV/X‐ray photodetector, but also pave a feasible way to realize high pixel density detector array through the simplified fabrication process for high‐resolution imaging applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work investigated the single-event effects (SEE) of NiO/β-Ga2O3 heterojunction diodes (HJDs) irradiated by 1.86 GeV tantalum ions with linear energy transfer over 80 MeV cm2/mg. The HJDs exhibited radiation responses with the early single-event leakage current (SELC) degradation until the fatal single-event burnout (SEB) failure, which was far below their breakdown voltages. Meanwhile, the surface morphology revealed the SELC damage expressed as burnout of topside NiO and metal stacks, while the SEB damage was observed as a burned hole in the β-Ga2O3 epitaxial layer. According to technology computer aided design simulations, the thicker p-type region in HJDs could further alleviate the electric field crowding effect exacerbated by the heavy-ion strike because of the extension of charge distribution in the p-type region. The SEB threshold was raised to 250 V by thickening the NiO layer to 300 nm. As for the SELC degradation process along with the burnout of topside stacks in HJDs, we supposed the probable reason was the intolerance of NiO to the high electric field under the SEE. This paper analyzed the SEE mechanism in β-Ga2O3 diodes and paved the way for heavy-ion irradiation hardening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thyroid cancer is the most common type of endocrine cancer, and most patients have a good prognosis. However, the thyroid cancer differentiation status strongly affects patient response to conventional treatment and prognosis. Therefore, exploring the molecular mechanisms that influence the differentiation of thyroid cancer is very important for understanding the progression of this disease and improving therapeutic options. In this study, SETMAR as a key gene that affects thyroid cancer differentiation is identified. SETMAR significantly regulates the proliferation, epithelial‐mesenchymal transformation (EMT), thyroid differentiation‐related gene expression, radioactive iodine uptake, and sensitivity to MAPK inhibitor‐based redifferentiation therapies of thyroid cancer cells. Mechanistically, SETMAR methylates dimethylated H3K36 in the SMARCA2 promoter region to promote SMARCA2 transcription. SMARCA2 can bind to enhancers of the thyroid differentiation transcription factors (TTFs) PAX8, and FOXE1 to promote their expression by enhancing chromatin accessibility. Moreover, METTL3‐mediated m6A methylation of SETAMR mRNA is observed and showed that this medication can affect SETMAR expression in an IGF2BP3‐dependent manner. Finally, the METTL3‐14‐WTAP activator effectively facilitates the redifferentiation of thyroid cancer cells via the SETMAR‐SMARCA2‐TTF axis utilized. The research provides novel insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying thyroid cancer dedifferentiation and provides a new approach for therapeutically promoting redifferentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gallium oxide (Ga2O3), with an ultrawide bandgap corresponding to the deep ultraviolet (DUV) range, has attracted significant attention in optical filter‐free photodetectors. In practical terms, DUV photodetectors employed in extreme conditions, for example, flame detection and space exploration, face the challenges of performance degradation caused by high/low‐temperature transformation. Here, DUV photodetectors are tailored with high durability and stability by one‐step‐grown β‐Ga2O3 films via pulsed laser deposition. A high‐oxygen‐pressure scheme effectively addresses the issue of film‐free deposition at specifically high temperatures, facilitating the formation of polycrystalline high‐resistivity β‐Ga2O3 films. As a result, the devices exhibit outstanding performance, including a low dark current (4.4 pA @30 V), high photoresponsivity (147.36 A W−1), and fast response time (3.1/22.6 ms). Additionally, the photoresponse performance shows minimal degradation at high temperatures up to 300 °C and even improves at low temperatures down to −100 °C, ranking it among the most robust DUV photodetectors. The mechanism of photoresponse, involving the exciton formation, bandgap evolution, carrier‐phonon scatter, etc., is also elucidated in a wide temperature range. This work provides an efficient solution for developing robust Ga2O3 DUV photodetectors with excellent performance for extreme‐condition applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ga2O3 photodetectors with demonstrated high sensitivity provide a potential subversive scheme for solar‐blind photodetection. However, the planar structure and the relatively slow response speed of the device have restricted the integration and application of Ga2O3 photodetectors. Herein, a narrow SiO2 barrier layer is introduced on the commercial SiC substrate, and a vertical photodetector is realized based on β‐Ga2O3/SiO2/SiC heterostructure with controllable tunneling effect by tailoring the band structure at the interface. The developed device exhibits unconventional rectification characteristics and photoresponse performance in different biasing modes owing to the controllable tunneling effect at the interface. In particular, the photodetector achieves a high responsivity (186.8 A W−1) under solar‐blind illumination at reverse bias, while exhibiting obvious advantages in dark current (3 pA), photo‐to‐dark current ratio (8.8 × 106), linear dynamic range (138.8 dB), and specific detectivity (1.4 × 1015 Jones) at forward bias. The photodetector also demonstrates excellent photoresponse stability after 6 months in air without encapsulation. In addition, an alternating biasing strategy, inspired by its bidirectional operability, is proposed to suppress the persistent photoconductivity effect and increase the decay speed by 1.23 × 105 times. This work provides a referable strategy for the further development of high‐performance Ga2O3‐based photoelectronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractMany offshore wind turbine (OWT) foundations are situated in earthquake-prone areas, where complex environmental loads intensified the seismic responses of the OWTs. In response to this situation, the composite bucket foundations is proposed and extensively applied due to its reliable installation and high seismic resistance. To analyze the seismic response of composite bucket foundations subjected to environmental loads, refined numerical models of the 6.45 MW OWT system are established, and parametric analyses are conducted, considering the influence of seismic frequency contents and intensities, the soil layer distributions and wind velocities. The results show that the composite bucket foundations undergo cumulative rotational deformation around a point biased toward the windward side of the foundation under the seismic and environmental loads. The increasing mean wind velocity significantly enlarges the displacement response envelope, while has limited influence of the acceleration response envelope of OWTs. Increasing the bucket diameter enhances the deformation resistance of the OWT, while the efficiency of this improvement diminishes as the diameter increases. Greater bucket skirt length also enhances its deformation resistance, but may lead to increased lateral acceleration response of the OWT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-performance radiation detectors are essential in many sectors spanning medical diagnostics, nuclear control, and particle physics. Ultrawide bandgap semiconductor materials have become one of the most promising candidates due to their excellent performance. Here, based on β-Ga2O3, a Schottky diode-type alpha particle detector was demonstrated. In order to reduce the reverse leakage current of the large-area device, the metal-oxide electrode PtOx was introduced to form high-barrier contacts (1.83 eV) with Ga2O3. The device exhibits a low leakage current density of 63 pA/cm2 at −100 V and apparent energy spectra of 241Am generated alpha particles with an energy of 5.486 MeV at various reverse voltages from −40 to −120 V. The charge collection efficiency (CCE) and energy resolution of the device (at −120 V) are 31.7% and 15.3%, respectively. Meanwhile, the mechanism of interaction between alpha particles and β-Ga2O3 was analyzed, and a 45° oblique incidence was adopted to increase the deposited energy of alpha particles in the depletion region. Furthermore, the differences between actual CCE and theoretical CCE are investigated as guidance for further improving detector performance. This work reveals the great potential and good prospects of Ga2O3 as an economical, efficient, and radiation-resistant ionizing radiation detector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, for the first time, a variation of lateral doping (VLD) technique was proposed to improve blocking voltage and ON-resistance properties in the lateral β-Ga2O3 metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). Enhancement-mode operation was achieved in the VLD transistor. The maximum transconductance of this new device is more than three times as large as the uniformly doped (UD) transistor. Moreover, the OFF-state electric field at the channel was suppressed compared to the UD transistor, resulting in higher blocking voltage. We also investigated the optimal device properties with changing channel concentration in the drift region of VLD transistor. A power figure of merit of 332.7 MW/cm2 was reached by VLD design. Thus, this proposed structure provides a new design strategy for high-power β-Ga2O3 MOSFETs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solution‐processed indium‐gallium‐zinc oxide (IGZO) thin film transistors (TFTs) have become well known in recent decades for their promising commercial potential. However, the unsatisfactory performance of small‐sized IGZO TFTs is limiting their applicability. To address this issue, this work introduces an interface engineering method of bi‐functional acid modification to regulate the interfaces between electrodes and the channels of IGZO TFTs. This method increases the interface oxygen vacancy concentration and reduces the surface roughness, resulting in higher mobility and enhanced contact at the interfaces. The TFT devices thus treated display contact resistance reduction from 9.1 to 2.3 kΩmm, as measured by the gated four‐probe method, as well as field‐effect mobility increase from 1.5 to 4.5 cm2 (V s)−1. Additionally, a 12 × 12 organic light emitting diode display constructed using the acid modified IGZO TFTs as switching and driving elements demonstrate the applicability of these devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• BPA decays the neuronal contrast sensitivity in the primary visual cortex of cats. • Such decline in contrast detection begins at the cortical, not subcortical level. • Decreased neuronal activity and increased noise are involved in this dysfunction. • The increased inhibitory innervations contributes the underlying synaptic basis. Contrast sensitivity (CS) is one of the primary fundamental factors determining how well we can see, and it directly influences object recognition. Whether bisphenol-A (BPA, an environmental xenoestrogen) can perturb contrast detection in the visual system has yet to be elucidated. In the present study, we analyzed CS of single neurons in the primary visual cortex (area 17, A17) of cats before and after BPA exposure using a multiple-channel recording technique. The results showed that CS of A17 neurons was markedly depressed with an increased contrast threshold after two hour of intravenous BPA administration, which had a positive correlation with decreased firing rates of A17 neurons. Additionally, responses of these neurons presented an overt increase in the trial-to-trail response variability (a kind of neuronal noise), which could disturb the information-filtering function of single neurons. We also found that neuronal CS in the visual relay station was not disturbed after BPA administration, which rules out the contribution of CS alteration in the optical pathway. Importantly, acute BPA treatment obviously increased the inhibitory innervation to the visual pyramidal neurons. This implies that alteration of intracortical inhibitory regulation contributes to the compromised contrast detection in the visual system after BPA treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soft x-ray detectors play crucial roles in biology, chemistry, and lithography. Current soft x-ray detectors suffer from insufficient responsivity (R), excessively large cell area, and limited stability. Here, the β-Ga2O3 soft x-ray detector is constructed, and the effects of varying the sensitive layer thickness and voltage on the soft x-ray detection characteristics of the device are explored. Meanwhile, the mechanism of the multiplication ionization process from soft x-ray and the photoconductivity gain on the photoresponse performance of the device are analyzed. The device obtains the R up to 3.05 × 103 A/W under 300 eV soft x-ray irradiation at the synchrotron beamline, which is about 1.19 × 104 times higher than that of the conventional device. The Ga2O3 device also maintains stable operation under long-term irradiation and multicycle switching. These results indicate that Ga2O3 is an ideal candidate material for soft x-ray detection, which has great potential for applications such as imaging of biological cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter, we measured the thickness of an accumulation layer (dacc) in amorphous Indium-Gallium-Zinc-Oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs) using Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM). By scanning the active layer surface from the interface to the back channel, we obtained potential from different thickness profiles, which show the variation of the carrier concentration. It was found that potential followed an exponential decay function from the interface to the back channel. Furthermore, there was a transition point after which the potential changed little. From this potential map, the thickness of the accumulation layer could be considered as the height difference between the transition point and the interface. Meanwhile, by controlling gate voltage (VG) during the KPFM scanning process, we obtained a relationship between dacc and VG. The results indicated that when VG was smaller than threshold voltage (Vth), dacc increased drastically with the increase in VG; after that, dacc was almost independent of VG, indicating that dacc reached a saturation value around 15 nm. This finding gave us a clear physical image about charge distribution in TFT and facilitated the understanding of device physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beta phase gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3) is emerging as a promising material for space applications due to its unique properties and potential high performance in extreme environments. In this work, we systematically study the impact of β-Ga2O3 Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) under a high fluence neutron irradiation to explore the degradation mechanism of the devices. After irradiated by neutrons with an average energy of 1–2 MeV and a dose rate of 1.3 × 1012 cm−2 s−1, SBDs with a homoepitaxial layer suffered serious performance degradation. The main manifestation of this degradation was a substantial increase in on-resistance, which rose from 3.9 to 3.5 × 108 mΩ·cm2 under the aforementioned irradiation conditions. The appearance of amorphous/polycrystalline striped lattice damage in the epitaxial layer as well as the presence of deep-level defects caused by oxygen vacancies are factors related to this phenomenon. The simulation revealed that the capture reaction of neutrons and Ga elements is the primary cause of neutron irradiation. This reaction generates high-energy beta- particles (β-particles) resulting in the formation of defects. This paper reveals the degradation mechanism of β-Ga2O3 SBDs under neutron irradiation and provides a possible design roadmap for radiation-resistant β-Ga2O3 power devices. Moreover, a high-temperature oxygen annealing process was implemented, which proved to be in restoring the device performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analytical Seebeck coefficient model for disordered organic semiconductors based on hopping transport and percolation theory is proposed here. This model demonstrates the relationships between Seebeck coefficient and temperature, carrier concentration as well as disorder degree of materials. As compared with experimental data, the simulated results show a convincing coincidence with experimental results. Moreover, the effect from doping is addressed. The calculation results show that the Seebeck coefficient will decrease with increasing doping ratio, after passing a minimum value then a sharp increase of Seebeck coefficient appears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By using charge transfer complex silver and 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-p-benzoquinone (AgDDQ) modified silver as the bottom contact source/drain electrodes, high performance organic transistors and complementary inverter circuits using dinaphtho[2,3-b:2′,3’-f]thieno[3,2- b ]thiophene (DNTT) as P-type organic semiconductors and N,N’-bis(n-octyl)-dicyanoperylene-3,4:9,10-bis(dicarboximide) (PDI-8CN2) as N-type organic semiconductors were demonstrated. Devices with Ag-DDQ bottom contact electrodes exhibit good compatibility for both P and N-type organic semiconductors, the transistors and inverters exhibit excellent stability after storing in air ambient for more than 40 days. The fabrication process is compatible with photolithography technology, which is applicable for large area integrated circuits. All these results indicate the potential application of Ag-DDQ modified electrodes in all-organic, flexible, and low-power electronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobility degradation at high gate bias is often observed in organic thin film transistors. We propose a mechanism for this confusing phenomenon, based on the percolation theory with the presence of disordered energy landscape with an exponential density of states. Within a simple model we show how the surface states at insulator/organic interface trap a portion of channel carriers, and result in decrease of mobility as well as source/drain current with gate voltage. Depending on the competition between the carrier accumulation and surface trapping effect, two different carrier density dependences of mobility are obtained, in excellent agreement with experiment data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection of hepatocytes begins by binding to its cellular receptor sodium taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide (NTCP), followed by the internalization of viral nucleocapsid into the cytoplasm. The viral relaxed circular (rc) DNA genome in nucleocapsid is transported into the nucleus and converted into covalently closed circular (ccc) DNA to serve as a viral persistence reservoir that is refractory to current antiviral therapies. Host DNA repair enzymes have been speculated to catalyze the conversion of rcDNA to cccDNA, however, the DNA polymerase(s) that fills the gap in the plus strand of rcDNA remains to be determined. Here we conducted targeted genetic screening in combination with chemical inhibition to identify the cellular DNA polymerase(s) responsible for cccDNA formation, and exploited recombinant HBV with capsid coding deficiency which infects HepG2-NTCP cells with similar efficiency of wild-type HBV to assure cccDNA synthesis is exclusively from de novo HBV infection. We found that DNA polymerase κ (POLK), a Y-family DNA polymerase with maximum activity in non-dividing cells, substantially contributes to cccDNA formation during de novo HBV infection. Depleting gene expression of POLK in HepG2-NTCP cells by either siRNA knockdown or CRISPR/Cas9 knockout inhibited the conversion of rcDNA into cccDNA, while the diminished cccDNA formation in, and hence the viral infection of, the knockout cells could be effectively rescued by ectopic expression of POLK. These studies revealed that POLK is a crucial host factor required for cccDNA formation during a de novo HBV infection and suggest that POLK may be a potential target for developing antivirals against HBV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environment constraints have become more restrictive over time, because the transformation of energy consumption structure (ECS) is the key path to achieve the commitment of net-zero emission. However, the adjustment of ECS involves the influence of many factors, including economic factors, energy factors and social factors. Not to mention how ECS -driving factors under tougher environmental regulation may behave throughout long time period remains explored. According to the background, the periodic driving factors of industrial ECS in China based on the periodic effect of environmental regulation on ECS are discussed. In this paper, industries of China are divided into four sectors from 1998 to 2017, and a multi-layer LMDI decomposition model is constructed to decompose ECS of the four sectors in stages. Since the industrial and commercial sector provides the largest contribution rate, the LMDI model based on PDA production theory method is applied to decompose industrial and commercial ECS , aiming to deeply explore the main driving factors of ECS in subindustries, and formulate scientific energy and environmental policies. The results show that from the perspective of the whole industry, the per capita pollution control investment has the most significant negative contribution, and the economic activity effect provides a great positive contribution to the ECS. In terms of subindustries, the main negative drivers are potential energy intensity and GDP technology change. The comprehensive decomposition framework. [Display omitted] • The drivers of ECS in four sectors are identified. • An integrated decomposition measurement combined LMDI with PDA is constructed. • EP is major inhibiting factor of ECS optimizing in four sectors. • PE and GT are major inhibiting factors of ECS optimizing in subsectors. • Some policy recommendations to optimize energy consumption structure are purposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time, a core drain current model based on surface potential without any implicit functions is developed for beta-phase gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3) power metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). The surface potential solution is analytically deduced by solving the Poisson equation with appropriate simplification assumptions in accumulation, partial-depletion, and full-depletion modes. Then, the drain current expression is analytically derived from the Pao–Sah integral as a function of the mobile charge density obtained from the surface potential at the source and drain terminals. In addition, nonlinear resistors in the source/drain access region are considered. It continuously predicts the characteristics of β-Ga2O3 power MOSFETs in all operation modes, including accumulation mode, partial-depletion mode, and full-depletion mode. Furthermore, the validity of the model is verified by comparing the results of the model with the numerical simulations carried out with the technology computer-aided design (TCAD) tool ATLAS Device Simulator from Silvaco. Good agreement between the proposed model and TCAD simulations is shown for β-Ga2O3 power MOSFETs with different intrinsic channel lengths, channel doping concentrations, and channel thicknesses. Ultimately, the Gummel symmetry test and the harmonic balance simulation test are performed to validate the model's robustness and convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A $\beta $ -Ga2O3 MOSFET is fabricated and its threshold voltage $({V}_{\mathrm{TH}})$ instability mechanisms are experimentally investigated under different gate-biased voltages and ambient temperatures. Under the condition of the positive bias stress (PBS) of ${V}_{\mathrm{GS}} = 4$ V for 1000 s at room temperature, the ${V}_{\mathrm{TH}}$ positive shift of 0.61 V is mainly caused by the electrons trapped by border traps in Al2O3. Combining the hysteresis with temperature-dependent performance analysis, the clockwise to anticlockwise hysteresis inversion at 125 °C is discovered in $\beta $ -Ga2O3 MOSFET for the first time, which is probably caused by the activation of deep-level acceptor-type interface states. The deep-level acceptor-type interface states with a fitting activation energy of 114 meV are found, and they also affect the ${V}_{\mathrm{TH}}$ instability at high temperature. With the stress of ${V}_{\mathrm{GS}} =4$ V at 125 °C for 1000 s, ${V}_{\mathrm{TH}}$ is increased by 0.9 V. Analyzing electrical parameters, such as ${V}_{\mathrm{TH}}$ , subthreshold slope (SS), and hysteresis width, can distinguish the quantitative contributions of interface states and border traps to ${V}_{\mathrm{TH}}$ instability under electrical stress and thermal stress (TS). This work reveals an important indication for investigating the ${V}_{\mathrm{TH}}$ instability of $\beta $ -Ga2O3 MOSFET in high-power applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High deep‐ultraviolet (DUV) sensitivity and excellent flexibility of ultrathin gallium oxide (Ga2O3) film with an ultrawide bandgap endow its extreme propensity in flexible DUV photodetector especially for space exploration and wearable electronics. However, an efficient strategy with high throughput and low cost is highly deficient to realize flexible and robust Ga2O3 DUV photodetectors to face potential harsh environments. In this work, flexible and heat‐resistant Ga2O3 DUV photodetectors based on optimized inkjet printing with environmental‐friendly aqueous solvent are demonstrated. The dynamic evolution from Ga(NO3)3 precursor to crystalline Ga2O3 film has been explicitly uncovered. Photodetectors based on printed ultrathin Ga2O3 films on rigid substrate exhibit outstanding performance, including high photo‐to‐dark current ratio about 106, considerable responsivity of 1.3 A W−1, superior detectivity of 1.46 × 1014 Jones, and fast decay time of 0.026 s under 254 nm illumination. In addition, flexible devices on mica substrate not only retain outstanding photoelectrical performance, but also demonstrate excellent mechanical flexibility and thermal stability. Moreover, benefiting from the uniformity of the pixels by high‐throughput inkjet printing, the Ga2O3 DUV photodetector array presents excellent sharp‐imaging capability. This work provides a feasible strategy for printable, flexible, and harsh‐environment‐resistant Ga2O3 DUV photodetectors toward space exploration and wearable electronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The angle and position of the scapular glenoid are important in shoulder mechanics, the interpretation of diseases, and planning shoulder replacement surgery. In total shoulder replacement, understanding the bony parameters of the glenoid is also of considerable guiding significance for designing implant size and improving material adaptability. To compare glenoid parameters measured from skeletal scapula specimens with those measured by 3D modeling of CT scanning images, analyze correlations between these data, and draw conclusions to guide clinical treatment of shoulder joint injury and total shoulder joint replacement. The data of manual and CT measurements from the same Chinese dry glenoid was compared. Three-dimensional measurement data were collected from the Japanese population and compared with the Chinese population data generated in this study. There were no significant differences between manual measurement and CT measurement in the inclination angle, glenopolar angle, anteroposterior transverse diameter, upper to lower vertical diameter, and depth of the glenoid (P = 0.288, 0.524, 0.111, 0.194, and 0.055, respectively). Further, there were no significant differences between Japanese and Chinese glenoid bones in the upper and lower vertical diameters or anteroposterior transverse diameters (P > 0.05). There were no significant differences between CT and manual measurements, suggesting that the CT method may provide measurements very close to the actual specimen size. This result, however, indicated that the measurer should be careful when measuring the depth of the glenoid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetes can damage both the peripheral sensory organs, causing retinopathy, and the central visual system, leading to contrast sensitivity and impaired color vision in patients without retinopathy. Orientation discrimination is important for shape recognition by the visual system. Our psychophysical findings in this study show diminished orientation discrimination in patients with diabetes without retinopathy. To reveal the underlying mechanism, we established a diabetic mouse model and recorded in vivo electrophysiological data in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) and primary visual cortex (V1). Reduced orientation selectivity was observed in both individual and populations of neurons in V1 and dLGN, which increased in severity with disease duration. This diabetes-associated neuronal dysfunction appeared earlier in the V1 than dLGN. Additionally, neuronal activity and signal-to-noise ratio are reduced in V1 neurons of diabetic mice, leading to a decreased capacity for information processing by V1 neurons. Notably, the V1 in diabetic mice exhibits reduced excitatory neuronal activity and lower levels of phosphorylated mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR). Our findings show that altered responses of both populations of and single V1 neurons may impair fine vision, thus expanding our understanding of the underlying causes of diabetes-related impairment of the central nervous system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) technology allows researchers to characterize the cell types, states and transitions during dynamic biological processes at single-cell resolution. One of the critical tasks is to infer pseudo-time trajectory. However, the existence of transition cells in the intermediate state of complex biological processes poses a challenge for the trajectory inference. Here, we propose a new single-cell trajectory inference method based on transition entropy, named scTite, to identify transitional states and reconstruct cell trajectory from scRNA-seq data. Taking into account the continuity of cellular processes, we introduce a new metric called transition entropy to measure the uncertainty of a cell belonging to different cell clusters, and then identify cell states and transition cells. Specifically, we adopt different strategies to infer the trajectory for the identified cell states and transition cells, and combine them to obtain a detailed cell trajectory. For the identified cell clusters, we utilize the Wasserstein distance based on the probability distribution to calculate distance between clusters, and construct the minimum spanning tree. Meanwhile, we adopt the signaling entropy and partial correlation coefficient to determine transition paths, which contain a group of transition cells with the largest similarity. Then the transitional paths and the MST are combined to infer a refined cell trajectory. We apply scTite to four real scRNA-seq datasets and an integrated dataset, and conduct extensive performance comparison with nine existing trajectory inference methods. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can reconstruct the cell trajectory more accurately than the compared algorithms. The scTite software package is available at https://github.com/dblab2022/scTite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High tunability of photoresponse characteristics under work conditions is desired for a single solar-blind photodetector to be applied in multifarious fields. Three-terminal metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect phototransistors have shown excellent controllability of performance, but the hysteresis issue impedes their stable operation. In this work, the metal–semiconductor field-effect phototransistor based on the exfoliated Ga2O3 microflake and graphene thin film is demonstrated. The high-quality quasi-van der Waals interface between Ga2O3 and graphene eliminates the hysteresis issue and generates a subthreshold swing as low as 69.4 mV/dec. By regulating gate voltage (Vg), the dominated mechanism of photocurrent generation in the device can be tuned continuously from the fast photoconduction effect to photogating effect with high photogain. Accordingly, the responsivity, dark current, detectivity, rejection ratio, and decay time of the device can be well adjusted by the Vg. At Vg = −1 V and a source to drain voltage of 2 V, the device shows excellent performance with a responsivity of 2.82 × 103 A/W, a rejection ratio of 5.88 × 105, and a detectivity of 2.67 × 1015 Jones under 254 nm illumination. This work shows the possibility of realizing highly tunable solar-blind photodetectors to meet the requirements for different application fields by introducing gate voltage modulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the electrical characteristics of AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) on vicinal c-plane sapphire substrates with different misoriented angles are investigated. As the angle increases from 0.2°, 1.0° to 4.0°, an enlarged width and height of surface step bunching as well as significantly enhanced electron mobility from 957, 1123 to 1246 cm2/V s were measured. As a result, a large boost in the maximum output current (IDmax) from ∼300 mA/mm (on a 0.2° substrate) to ∼650 mA/mm (on a 4.0° substrate) can be observed. Importantly, HEMTs on 1.0° and 4.0° substrates exhibit an obvious anisotropic electrical behavior: the IDmax along the [11-20] orientation is larger than that along the [10-10] orientation. Such a difference becomes more distinct as the misoriented angle increases, attributing to the lifted step height that would introduce a potential barrier for the electron transport along the [10-10] orientation. In short, this work demonstrates an effective approach toward the realization of high-performance HEMTs with anisotropic electrical behavior on a single device platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]