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The content of the long-period stacking ordered (LPSO) structure strengthening phase has an important influence on the tensile strength, compressive strength, ductility and other mechanical properties of magnesium (Mg) alloys. Therefore, effective detection of the volume fraction of the LPSO phase plays an important role in understanding the properties of the alloy. Focused on the problem that the accuracy of the non-destructive testing method for the LPSO phase precipitates with micron or nanometer scale is not sufficient, this paper studies the non-linear ultrasonic testing of the Mg alloy LPSO phase volume fraction. Based on the non-linear ultrasonic testing theory, the non-linear ultrasonic simulation of the simulation models with different LPSO phase contents was carried out using finite element simulation. The relationship between the volume fraction of the LPSO phase and the non-linear coefficient of ultrasonic simulation was studied and a non-linear ultrasonic testing system was established to test the Mg alloy specimens with different LPSO phase volume fractions. The results show that the non-linear ultrasonic testing method is sensitive to changes in the LPSO phase volume fraction. Thus, this method is an effective way to detect the LPSO phase volume fraction.

The introduction of MXene improves hydrophobic properties and enhance the hydrophobic encapsulation effect of a hydrogel. It can effectively prevent the influence of external moisture on the hydrogel, enabling outstanding sensing stability performance in harsh environments.

Objective. In order to explore the correlation between the retinol binding protein 4 (RBP4) and prognosis of patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS), CT perfusion imaging can be used to scan the brain tissue of patients, which can identify abnormal perfusion areas and ischemic penumbra brain tissue, so as to provide a basis for doctors to formulate a reasonable clinical treatment plan. Methods. 200 patients with first-episode acute ischemic stroke were selected from the Department of Neurology of our hospital, including 128 males and 72 females, aged between 32 and 85 years, with an average age of 45 ± 4.3 years. After admission, the patients were tested for xanthol binding protein 4 in time, the patient’s demographic data and the basic clinical data were recorded, the degree of brain injury was evaluated, and the short-term outcome was evaluated after treatment. Results. A total of 200 AIS patients with different degrees of brain injury were included in this study, including 128 males and 78 females, aged between 32 and 85 years, with an average age of 45 ± 4.3 years. Among them, 100 patients used CT perfusion imaging for brain scanning as the observation group, 100 patients used traditional imaging methods as the reference group, and 100 healthy people were included as the blank group. At the same time, the contents of total cholesterol, triacylglycerol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol were measured by using an automatic biochemical analyzer. The patients were evaluated in the early stage of treatment and the effect of prognostic intervention was recorded. Conclusion. The application of CT perfusion imaging in the adjuvant treatment of AIS patients was helpful to identify the abnormal perfusion area and the brain tissue of ischemic penumbra, so as to provide a basis for doctors’ follow-up treatment. At the same time, AIS patients with high serum RBP4 level had mild stroke severity, good short-term prognosis, and improved treatment effect, which improved patients’ quality of life.

Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) were found to gradually accumulate in the orthotopic esophageal cancer mouse model during tumor progression. Although the roles of MDSCs in promoting tumor growth and inhibiting immune response have been extensively explored, currently, there are still no effective means for targeting MDSCs clinically. The deficiency of specific markers of MDSCs was responsible for the limited strategy to eliminating in clinic. This study identified that GPR84 was exclusively overexpressed on MDSCs. It was further found that GPR84 was prominently expressed on MDSCs in clinical samples and tumor mouse models, which drives the immunosuppression on CD8+T cells by inhibiting PD-L1 degradation in lysosomes. Furthermore, G-CSF and GM-CSF were found to induce GPR84 expression through the STAT3/C/EBPβ signaling pathway. In addition, GPR84+MDSCs and PD-L1+MDSCs were highly accumulated in anti-PD-1 therapy-resistant patients with esophageal cancer, and high GPR84 signature risk was verified as a negative factor for the overall survival of patients with anti-PD-1 treatment. Finally, GPR84 antagonism combined with an anti-PD-1 antibody enhanced the antitumor responses. Therefore, targeting GPR84 enhanced anti-PD-1 efficacy in esophageal cancer and other malignant tumors. This combination therapy has the potential for tumor therapy in clinics.

Financial strain is one hardship faced by female survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) that is often overlooked. This paper examined the relationships between multiple forms of abuse-with a focus on economic abuse-and financial strain. Guided by stress process model, this study tested two hypotheses: (1) economic abuse is associated with financial strain more than other types of IPV; and (2) decreased economic abuse relates to financial strain over time. The study sample consists of 229 female IPV survivors who participated in a longitudinal, randomized controlled study evaluating an economic empowerment curriculum. Results from regression models suggest that physical abuse and economic abuse were significantly and positively associated with the magnitude of financial strain. Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition was used to partition the mean differences of financial strain over time that was mainly attributed to the decrease in economic and physical abuse (78%). Particularly, the decrease of economic abuse contributed to over half (58%) of the decrease in financial strain over time. Advocates should assess survivors' risk of economic abuse, evaluate financial strain, and utilize financial safety planning skills to help survivors build economic security and independence. In addition, policy makers should address issues concerning economic security among female IPV survivors.

FeS2-embedded in porous carbon (FeS2/C) was prepared by simultaneous sulfidation and carbonization of an iron-based metal-organic framework precursor, and subsequently immobilized in polyvinylidene fluoride membranes (FeS2/C@PVDF) for organics removal via peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation. The composition, structure, and morphology of the FeS2/C@PVDF membrane were extensively characterized. Scanning electron microscopy images manifest that the FeS2/C nanoparticles with an average diameter of 40 nm are assembled on the external and internal membrane surface. The as-prepared FeS2/C@PVDF membrane exhibits excellent performances over a wide pH range of 1.53-9.50, exceeding carbon-free syn-FeS2@PVDF. The effective degradation could be improved by inner pyrite FeS2 cores and thus enhanced the electron transfer between carbon shell and PMS. Electron paramagnetic resonance and quenching experiments elucidated that radical ( HO ∙ , SO 4 ∙ - ) and nonradical (1O2) species were the predominant reactive oxidants. In addition, FeS2/C@PVDF exhibited high stability with low Fe leaching (0.377 mg/L) owing to the effective protection of the outer carbon skeleton. Plentiful porosity of PVDF membranes not only affords a controlled size and confined uniform distribution of the immobilized FeS2/C nanoparticles, but also enables a persistent exposure of active sites and enhanced mass transfer efficiency. Our findings demonstrate a promise for utilizing the novel FeS2/C@PVDF membrane as an efficient catalyst for the environmental cleanup.

Background Examine the association of household financial indebtedness with depressive symptoms in old age, and investigate whether social network and support anticipation moderate the association. Methods Data were obtained from Sample Survey on Vulnerable Populations from Poor Families in Urban/Rural China (2018), with a sample of 5 934 older adults included. Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scales was applied to measure depressive symptoms. Household indebtedness was measured in several ways, including whether the household was indebted, the amount of debts, and types of debts. We used the 6-item Lubben Social Network Scale to measure individual's social network. Socio-demographic, socioeconomic status and physical health variables were included as covariates. Results Household indebtedness, in form of being indebted and increased amount of debts, was associated with greater depressive symptoms in the Chinese elderly. The association of indebtedness and depressive symptoms may be driven by consumption and emergency debts. The moderating roles of social network and anticipation of support in the association of household indebtedness and depressive symptoms were found. Among those with household debts, older adults with larger size of social network and/or higher anticipation of being supported in the future reported with less symptoms of depressed. Limitations Due to a lack of information on the duration and debtor of household debt, we were not able to present a precise estimate for the exact impact of household indebtedness on mental health of elderly. Conclusion Familial financial strain was associated with aging mental well-being, increased social networks and social protections benefit aging health.

As a novel biometric characteristic, the electroencephalogram (EEG) is used for biometric authentication. To solve the challenge of efficiently growing the number of classifications in traditional classification networks and to increase the practicality of engineering, this paper proposes an authentication approach for EEG data based on an attention mechanism and a triplet loss function. The method begins by feeding EEG signals into a deep convolutional network, maps them to 512-dimensional Euclidean space using a long short-term memory network combined with an attention mechanism, and obtains feature vectors for EEG signals with identity information; it then adjusts the network parameters using a triplet loss function, such that the Euclidean distance between feature vectors of similar signals decreases while the distance between signals of a different type increases. Finally, the recognition method is evaluated using publicly available EEG data sets. The experimental results suggest that the method maintains the recognition rate while effectively expanding the classifications of the model, hence thus boosting the practicability of EEG authentication.

Background To reveal the changes of intestinal microbial abundance and composition, as well as the microbiota metabolic levels of bile acids and short chain fatty acids of healthy preschool children during their growth. Methods Feces of 120 healthy newborns and 150 healthy children aged 6 months to 6 years were collected. Then the composition of intestinal flora was analyzed by 16S rRNA, and the contents of bile acids and short chain fatty acids in feces were detected by LC-MS and GS methods, respectively. Results The composition and function of intestinal microflora were not stable in neonatal period but significantly improved at 6 months after birth, and gradually stabilized and tended to adult-like formation after 2–3 years old. The levels of short chain fatty acids and secondary bile acids were consistent with the development of gut microbiota. Conclusion The age of 6 months may be a critical period for the development of intestinal microflora in children.

Carbon nanotube (CNT) yarns generate electrical energy when they were stretched in an electrolyte, and they have been exploited for diverse applications such as self-powered sensors and human health monitoring systems. Here we improved the capacitance change and harvester performance of a coiled CNT yarn by using an incandescent tension annealing process (ITAP). When undergoing stretching cycles at 1 Hz, a coiled ITAP yarn can produce 2.5 times peak electrical power and 1.6 times output voltage than that of a neat CNT yarn. Electrochemical analysis shows that the capacitance of the ITAP yarn decreased by 20.4% when it was stretched to 30% strain. Microstructure results demonstrate that the large capacitance change may result from the densified electrochemical surface by the ITAP. Moreover, the potential of the zero charge (PZC) of ITAP yarns was shifted to a more negative value than that of the neat CNT yarn, which means that more charges were injected into the ITAP yarn once it was immersed in an electrolyte. Thus, the large capacitance change and initial injected charge are two main reasons for enhancing the harvester performance of the ITAP yarn. In addition, by annealing a twisted CNT yarn before it was coiled, we further increased the output peak power density to 170 W kg

The turnover rate of social workers is extremely high and the predictive roles of professional identity and job burnout on turnover intention have not been explored in China. The study examined the relationship between professional identity and turnover intention, mediated by job burnout and moderated by a social work degree, amongst social workers in China. Based on a sample of 829 participants and the structural equation model method, the findings confirmed that professional identity per se was not related to turnover intention, and a mediating role of job burnout and a moderating role of a social work degree were identified.

Background Tumor necrosis factor-associated apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) was initially considered an immunity guard; however, its function remains controversial. Besides immune cells, lung and colon cancer cells have also been reported to express TRAIL, which can promote tumor invasion and metastasis. However, the biological function and underlying mechanism of action of TRAIL in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remain poorly elucidated. Methods The ESCC cells stemness, migration, and proliferation ability was assessed by sphere formation, Transwell, and CCK8 assay. The stemness- and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)- related genes expression levels were analyzed by Western blot and RT-qPCR. The signal activation was conducted by Western blot. The xenograft mouse experiments and lung metastasis model were performed to confirm our findings in vitro. Results Herein, we found that TRAIL is a negative predictor in patients with ESCC. To further investigate the biological function of TRAIL, we established TRAIL knockdown and overexpression ESCC cell lines and found that TRAIL induced EMT and promoted tumor aggressiveness. Furthermore, we demonstrated that TRAIL- overexpressing cells upregulated PD-L1 expression, which was dependent on the p-ERK/STAT3 signaling pathway. We obtained similar results when using recombinant human TRAIL. Finally, we validated the biological role and mechanism of action of TRAIL in vivo. Conclusions These findings demonstrate that TRAIL promotes ESCC progression by enhancing PD-L1 expression, which induces EMT. This may explain the failure of TRAIL preclinical trials.

Time is not a static idea, but neither is the evolution of the media and design industries. Our creative tools and the media have seen a significant transformation in the last 20 years. Digital technology will shape the media and design industries in the future. Until the next major technological revolution, digitalization will have a lasting effect on the media and design industries. The development and liberation of many designers’ ideas and perspectives thanks to modern digital processing technology for virtual reality has sparked an unprecedented “boom” in design. People’s senses of sight, sound, and touch will be completely satisfied thanks to the incorporation of such technologies in the design process. A vast history and rich cultural heritage can be found in the field of font design. It has continuously played a crucial role in the advancement of science and technology. The creation of a new media short video typeface based on digital processing technology for virtual reality is suggested in this study. After mastering the font style, the new media short video font is extracted using virtual reality digital processing technology, and the identification system is built utilising virtual three-dimensional technology. The simulation test and analysis are done last. The proposed approach has an accuracy that is 9.34% greater than the conventional technique, according to simulation findings. This outcome demonstrates in detail how font design becomes more humanized when virtual reality digital processing technology is used. It demonstrates how people and information interact and genuinely stress the importance of human participation and dominance. Ethics and aesthetics are combined in font design. The fashion and aesthetic ideas of the new century are reflected in it like a mirror. As a result, font design is now being pursued in a new way, and its new application concept unquestionably has a significant impact on the design sector today.

Caregiving services are currently the weakest part of China’s social security system for the elderly. It is well needed to investigate the fac-tors affecting the unmet care needs of the elderly with disabilities. Based on the Behavioral Model of Health Services Use (BMHSU), this paper explores the needs and influencing factors of care services for the disabled elderly in urban and rural areas using data from the 2018 Project of Social Policy Support System for Disadvantaged Families in China. The demand for care services of the disabled elderly in central and western areas is significantly higher than that in eastern, along with that in rural areas significantly higher than that in urban areas. The demands for care services of the disabled elderly in urban and rural areas are significantly affected by tendency factors, resource factors, and need factors. Urban and rural attributes, worried pension and LCI are the common influencing factors for the care service demand of the disabled elderly from economically disadvantaged families and ordinary families. The demands for care services of the disabled elderly were associated with tendencies, resources, and needs, increased chronic disease prevention and mental health services benefit caregivers.

Objective: Caring for the disabled elderly is a source of stress for family caregivers, and the lack of social support and the pressure of social exclusion might aggravate family caregiver burden. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between caring load and family caregivers’ burden, as well as the mediating effects of social support and social exclusion.Methods: Data used in this study derived from the nationally representative database of aged population in China, and 3125 households with family caregivers for the home-bound disabled elderly were eventually selected into this analysis. Regression methods and mediation analysis methods were employed in this study.Results: The results indicated that there was a significant positive association between caring load and the caregiver burden, and specifically, social support intensity (rather than social support breadth) and passive social exclusion (rather than active social exclusion) played partial mediating effects. Furthermore, the contributions of mediating effects of social support intensity and passive social exclusion were 13-15% and 27%-29%, respectively, and the total contribution of mediating effects was about 35%-38%.Conclusion: Family caregivers’ burden should be paid more attention in the large population with rapidly aging speed like China, and more guidance services as well as support should be provided to family caregivers. In addition, it is crucial to focus on the social support and social exclusion in community in the public policy innovation.

The rise of literature on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) has indicated a strong relationship between ACEs and negative life outcomes, leading to important implications for services to the population. However, less is known about the effects of ACEs on happiness and the role of mindfulness in this relation. This study examined the relationships between ACEs and happiness and whether mindfulness mediated the effects of ACEs on happiness in a sample of Chinese college students. The data were collected from 1871 college students from 12 colleges across China in September 2020. The findings of this study show that ACEs had significant negative effects on students' happiness and that mindfulness helped to substantially reduce the negative effects of ACEs on happiness. Students who experienced emotional neglect and abuse in childhood were affected the most. By contrast, this group is not the primary focus of mindfulness‐based interventions in existing literature; thus, this study calls for specific mindfulness‐based interventions for this vulnerable population.

Formamidinium lead iodide (FAPbI3) is a category of perovskite material with an ideal band gap and high thermal stability, which can be efficiently prepared by two-step spin-coating. Spin-coating organic salts and transforming intermediate phase at the second step involves a components' reaction and state transition, thus playing a crucial role in the film quality formed afterward and optoelectronic properties of the fabricated perovskite solar cells (PSCs). In this paper, a cooling stage (CO) is used to post-treat the as-prepared precursor after the second spin-coating. The procedure of intermediate phase transferring to other state is found to be retarded; hence, the appearing velocity of perovskite nucleation is decreased. As a result, components react more adequately and larger perovskite grains with fewer defects are obtained; charge transport as well as carrier recommbination behaviors are therefore optimized. The PSCs based on the CO process achieved a champion power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 21.51% with enhanced stability. Moreover, CO treatment is observed to be beneficial for improving the film quality of perovskite in large-area preparation, which we anticipate can be further extended to the commercialized application of PSCs.

Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) is one of social protection programs providing unconditional financial assistance to poor women. The present study was conducted to explore the role of BISP in empowering women. This quantitative research was conducted in two districts of Punjab randomly selected out of 36 using face-to-face interviews with a sample size of 160 women beneficiaries of BISP. Research findings show that the majority of beneficiaries (78.8%) were married, with rural background (88%). A huge number (80%) of beneficiaries were illiterate. Similarly, overwhelming majority (81.9%) of respondents has labor as source of income. Most of the respondents were strongly agree (65%) and agree (95%) that the assistance should be more than Rs.5000/month or Rs.10000/month. Similarly, 69.4% and 71.3% of respondents agreed that female adults should take household decision and children should attend school regardless of gender. The government should provide appropriate assistance allowance for needy families especially for the empowerment of women. Moreover, the government should also launch massive programs to maximize girls' education with motive to empower women.

The existence of cracks in key components of engineering equipment is a huge threat to the safe operation of the equipment. The influence of four factors (length, location, orientation, and width of the crack) on the attenuation characteristic of signal propagation is studied through simulation and experiment. The orthogonal experimental design is applied to design the simulation scheme, and the signal affected by the four factors is simulated by the finite-difference time-domain method. The degree of influence of the different factors is evaluated by conducting an analysis of range and an analysis of variance. The results show that the influence of crack length and location on signal relative attenuation is more remarkable according to the significance level α = 0.05, followed by crack orientation and crack width. The attenuation trend in the experimental results is similar to the simulation. Therefore, the longer the crack length is, the easier it is to be detected by the acoustic wave technique, while the effect of crack orientation and crack width on identifying cracks is limited. The study successfully establishes the relationship between signal parameters and crack factors and offers a theoretical foundation for evaluating the status of cracks in key components.

Shape memory hydrogels offer new opportunities for the development of smart wearables due to their intelligent responsiveness. In this study, a self-healing hydrogel with multiple shape memory properties was prepared via one-step polymerization. The synergy of dynamic electrostatic interactions and imine bonds afforded a physically and chemically dual-crosslinked hydrogel with high stretchability (maximum strain of 556%), tensile fracture strength (63 kPa), and self-healing properties (99% healing efficiency at 60 °C within 4 h). Through the reversible construction of physical crosslinking points, the temporary shape of the hydrogel was fixed by two different types of stimuli, pH and metal ions (Ag+, Zn2+, etc.), with the shortest shape fixation time of 15 s. Furthermore, the hydrogel was used to fabricate resistive strain sensors and capacitive pressure sensors, and both types displayed high sensitivity, stability, and cyclability. The sensors could detect various types of human body movement, such as finger bending, swallowing, and pulse, indicating a promising future in smart wearables and healthcare monitoring.

Cutting chatter is violent self-excited vibration between tool and work piece, which will seriously degrade the machining surface quality and health of machine tool. Online monitoring of chatter phenomenon can feed back the control system to adjust processing parameters dynamically for chatter suppression. In this article, a short-time difference spectrum analysis (STDSA) is proposed for early chatter identification, which can recognize chatter frequency and track its amplitude from low SNR vibration signal at early stage. The method is verified by both simulated vibration signals and machining vibration signals collected from an axle lathe. A comparison between classic variational mode decomposition (VMD) and STDSA is given to illustrate its performance. The results indicate that the method is robust to noise and has a little warning time delay, which makes it suitable for the online monitoring of cutting chatter in an industrial production environment.

Background Hearing loss is highly prevalent and associated with reduced well-being in older adults. But little is known about the role of social factors in the association of hearing difficulty and its health consequences. This study aims to examine the association between self-reported hearing loss and health-related quality of life (HRQoL, consisted of physical and mental component summary, PCS and MCS), and to investigate whether social engagement mediates this association. Method Data on 4035 older adults aged 60 years or above from a cross-sectional nationally representative database in China were obtained to address this study. HRQoL was measured by the Short Form 12 Health Survey (SF-12). Hearing loss was defined by a dichotomized measure of self-reported hearing difficulty, which has been proved to be sensitive and displayed moderate associations with audiometric assessment in elderly population. Social engagement was measured by the Index of Social Engagement Scale. Bootstrap test was applied to test for the significance of the mediating role of social engagement. Results Self-reported hearing loss was found negatively associated with HRQoL in older adults, and hearing loss was much more related to reduced mental well-being. Social engagement played a partial mediating role in the association of hearing loss and HRQoL. Social engagement account for 4.14% of the variance in the change of PCS scores and 13.72% for MCS, respectively. Conclusion The study lends support to the hypothesis that hearing loss is associated with aging well beings, and the use of hearing aid or proper social engagement intervention may improve the quality of life among the elderly.

Side information has been shown useful for improving the performance of matrix completion applications. However, in most cases, only partial side information of either the column or row space is available. In this work, we propose a novel regularization based model to incorporate partial side information in matrix completion. We provide theoretical guarantees to ensure the success of the proposed model. It is proved that the proposed model achieves the state-of-the-art sample complexity when the given partial side information is exact, and an error bound for inexact partial side information is also provided. Moreover, we provide a deterministic rule for the selection of regularization parameter. We conduct extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world data-sets. Experimental results show that our model succeeds to incorporate partial side information, and outperforms the state-of-the-art models on most data-sets.

This paper establishes a mathematic model of a CO2 two-phase ejector to investigate flow distribution in the components of a mixing chamber and diffuser. The suction chamber was modeled using the characteristic line method to describe the development process of the supersonic expansion wave, and the mixing chamber, as well as diffuser models, were built based on the double-flow model. The reliability of the model was verified by experimental data. The distributions of flow parameters along the axis of the mixing chamber and diffuser were analyzed under different expansion ratios of the ejector. Structure optimizations of the mixing chamber and diffuser were conducted. The results showed that the primary flow temperature gradually increased along the axis of the mixing chamber and diffuser, but the Mach number distribution decreased for a certain ejector expansion ratio. The temperature and Mach number of the secondary flow showed the opposite trend. Moreover, at the initial stage of mixing, the fluid pressure increased rapidly, and the Mach number of the primary flow decreased rapidly. The gas-phase fraction of primary flow increased gradually in the mixing chamber and was stable in the diffuser. When the length–diameter ratio of the mixing chamber was about 10.8–12, it was beneficial to mix uniformity, and when the expansion angle of the diffuser was 4–6°, the ejector had a better ejector efficiency.

Mixed-cation lead mixed-halide perovskites simultaneously possess structural stability and high power conversion efficiency. A thorough study of both carrier and exciton dynamics is needed to understand the photophysical properties that underpin its superior photovoltaic performance. By utilizing a broadband transient absorption spectroscopy, we observe the carrier and exciton dynamics in a FA0.85Cs0.15Pb(I0.97Br0.03)3 (FCPIB) perovskite by simultaneously resolving the carrier and exciton contribution to the transient change of the absorption spectra, from which the carrier density and exciton oscillator strength can be determined. Our data reveal a quick and significant conversion of the photogenerated carriers to excitons, on top of the usual carrier recombination process. Moreover, the decay of carrier density shows a change of kinetics from a second-order recombination at high pump fluence to a third-order recombination at low pump fluence. Our analysis utilizes band anharmonicity, presents an independent determination of electronic temperature and quasi-Fermi energy, and reveals an interesting interplay among the processes of carrier cooling, exciton formation/decay and carrier recombination, all as a function of time after photoexcitation. Our work demonstrates the use of pump fluence as a knob to tune the relative populations of carriers and excitons in halide perovskite materials. Ministry of Education (MOE) Published version E.E.M.C. acknowledges support from Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) AcRF Tier 2 grant (No. MOE2019-T2-1-097). H.S. acknowledges support from funding AME-IRG-A20E5c0083. Y.M.L. acknowledges financial support from Ministry of Education (MOE-T2-1-085). Work at Los Alamos was carried out under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration under Contract No. 89233218CNA000001, and was supported by LANL LDRD Program. This work was supported in part by the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a U.S. DOE BES user facility.

The coexistence of minerals, heavy metals and microplastics in sediment has been widely reported, while the interactions between minerals and heavy metals may be affected by the presence of microplastics. Therefore, to elucidate the effect of microplastics on the interactions between heavy metals and sediment minerals, this study conducted a series of experiments using polystyrene (PS) microplastics, Pb/Cr/Cd and ferrihydrite (Fh). The presence of PS microplastics with ferrihydrite (Fh-MPs200, mass ratio of ferrihydrite to PS of 200:1) improved the adsorption capacity of ferrihydrite, especially with an increase of 36 % for Pb. Morphological characterization demonstrated that the nano-ferrihydrite particles were dispersed on the surface of the PS microplastics, increasing the available reaction sites of the ferrihydrite particles. Furthermore, the results of zeta potential and pH effect showed that the reduction in electrostatic repulsion after adding PS was another critical reason for the increase in Pb adsorption by Fh-MP200. As a result, the presence of PS microplastics enhanced the complexation of Pb ions and the hydroxyl groups on the ferrihydrite surface. This study demonstrated that the presence of microplastics in the sedimentary environment can alter the dispersion and surface properties of minerals, thereby affecting the accumulation and transportation of heavy metals at the water-sediment interface.

A robust five-degree-of-freedom (5-DOF) measurement system is proposed in this paper. The compact optical configuration with high resolution is designed based on lens combination and multiple reflections. Beam drift and dual-beam parallelism are monitored and compensated by autocollimator units and a polarizer unit respectively. In addition, a protection method is proposed to reduce the intensity of air turbulence by reducing the Reynolds number of the beam path. The performance of the system is verified by experiments. The experimental results show that the self-compensation methods and air turbulence protection can effectively improve the accuracy and stability of the system under the long-term interference of external environments. The proposed system has high precision, desirable robustness, and convenient pre-calibration, which can be used for error measurement of precision machines.

Adhesive and self-healing elastomers are urgently needed for their convenience and intelligence in biological medicine, flexible electronics, intelligent residential systems, etc. However, their inevitable use in harsh environments results in further enhancement requirements of the structure and performance of adhesive and self-healing elastomers. Herein, a novel self-healing and high-adhesion silicone elastomer was designed by the synergistic effect of multiple dynamic bonds. It revealed excellent stretchability (368%) and self-healing properties at room temperature (98.1%, 5 h) and in a water environment (96.4% for 5 h). Meanwhile, the resultant silicone elastomer exhibited high adhesion to metal and nonmetal and showed stable adhesion in harsh environments, such as under acidic (pH 1) and alkaline (pH 12) environments, salt water, petroleum ether, water, etc. Furthermore, it was applied as a shatter-proof protective layer and a rust-proof coating, proving its significant potential in intelligent residential system applications.

Fe, N atoms deposited on porous biochar (Fe-N@BC) composites were synthesized and employed as an efficient catalyst for organic pollutant removal and CrVI reduction. Naturally abundant, renewable and N-rich pomelo peel as a carbon and nitrogen source and unsubstituted phthalocyanine/iron phthalocyanine complexes as a Fe and nitrogen resource were used to develop the Fe-N@BC via a carbonization process. It is found that Fe-N@BC hybrids have homogeneous dispersion of Fe and N atoms on 3D hierarchically porous biochar, which significantly improves the performance toward the detoxification of organic pollutants using peroxymonosulfate as an oxidant, as well as the reduction of hexavalent chromium by formic acid as a reductant. Furthermore, the effects of Fe loading and pyrolytic temperature on catalysis were comprehensively analyzed and optimized. The excellent activity of Fe-N@BC in acid media can be attributed to the high dispersion of Fe species, high content of doped nitrogen as well as hierarchical micro-mesopores, which induce to expose more active sites for catalysis. Owing to the structure-enabled acidic stability, Fe-N@BC efficiently retains its activity as well as its structural stability after several cycles of reactions. This work provides a new approach to construct Fe, N-doped biochar as an effective catalyst for the detoxification of organic and inorganic pollutants.

Background Compression and expansion of morbidity are two critical hypotheses to analyze the relationship among morbidity, disability, and mortality. This study aims to analyze the global distribution of the compression and expansion of morbidity and to investigate its relationship with income inequality. Methods Data was from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 and Standardized World Income Inequality Database, version 8.2. Seven types of health changes were defined. Income inequality was measured with Gini coefficient index. Binary logistic regression was used to analyze the association of income inequality with the compression and expansion of morbidity. Results All the seven types of the compression and expansion of morbidity exist in the world, despite their uneven distribution. The relative expansion of morbidity with increased or constant life expectancy (Type 6) was the most popular type occurring to more than half of populations in the last quarter of century, which was followed by the relative compression of morbidity with increased or constant LE (Type 3, 30.71%). The income inequality was significantly associated with the health changes, which still held after controlling a variety of confounders and in robustness tests. Those societies with lower income inequality were more likely to incur Type 3. Conclusions It is necessary to distinguish the positive and negative changes in life expectancy when examing the compression and expansion of morbidity. The increasing popularity of Type 6 implies higher needs for health and social care. Measures to reduce income inequality or mitigate its negative influence on health changes might promote the occurrence of Type 3.

Due to the influence of residual stress on material properties, residual stress measurement is particularly important for the optimization of structure designs and the condition monitoring of machines. In this paper, the influence of residual stress on materials nonlinearity was reported. Firstly, the propagation model of ultrasonic surface waves was established by the finite element method and the effect of frequency was studied to determine an appropriate frequency of acoustic nonlinearity parameters. Then, the different residual stresses were produced into specimen by adding internal stress in the material and the impact on acoustic nonlinearity parameter was studied. The results show that the nonlinearity of the material increases monotonously with the increase of residual stress. Experiments were done by using the nonlinear ultrasonic surface wave on three 7075Al alloy specimens under different residual stresses. Experimental data matched well with the simulation results. It has been shown that the nonlinear ultrasonic surface wave method has great potential in the residual stress detection and evaluation.

This study examined gender differences in mental health of bereaved parents related to the gender of deceased only child in China, an only-child society with traditional culture of son preference, using data drawn from the China Family Planning Survey on Vulnerable Households in 2017. The findings indicated that parents with deceased only child suffered from more negative mental health symptoms than nonbereaved parents. For only-child-death families, there were no statistically significant gender differences in mental health of parents, and the gender of the deceased only child was basically unrelated to maternal/paternal mental health. Due to the implementation of one-child policy in China, both sons and daughters are highly prized and equally relied on by aging parents owing to the irreplaceability of the only child, which might moderate the effects of traditional culture of son preference on bereaved parental mental health.

Background The inequity of healthcare utilization in rural China is serious, and the urban-rural segmentation of the medical insurance system intensifies this problem. To guarantee that the rural population enjoys the same medical insurance benefits, China began to establish Urban and Rural Resident Basic Medical Insurance (URRBMI) nationwide in 2016. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to compare the healthcare utilization inequity between URRBMI and New Cooperative Medical Schemes (NCMS) and to analyze whether the inequity is reduced under URRBMI in rural China. Methods Using the data from a national representative survey, the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), which was conducted in 2015, a binary logistic regression model was applied to analyze the influence of income on healthcare utilization, and the decomposition of the concentration index was adopted to compare the Horizontal inequity index (HI index) of healthcare utilization among the individuals insured by URRBMI and NCMS. Results There is no statistically significant difference in healthcare utilization between URRBMI and NCMS, but in outpatient utilization, there are significant differences among different income groups in NCMS; high-income groups utilize more outpatient care. The Horizontal inequity indexes (HI indexes) in outpatient utilization for individuals insured by URRBMI and NCMS are 0.024 and 0.012, respectively, indicating a pro-rich inequity. Meanwhile, the HI indexes in inpatient utilization under the two groups are − 0.043 and − 0.028, respectively, meaning a pro-poor inequity. For both the outpatient and inpatient care, the inequity degree of URRBMI is larger than that of NCMS. Conclusions This paper shows that inequity still exists in rural areas after the integration of urban-rural medical insurance schemes, and there is still a certain gap between the actual and the expected goal of URRBMI. Specifically, compared to NCMS, the pro-rich inequity in outpatient care and the pro-poor inequity in inpatient care are more serious in URRBMI. More chronic diseases should be covered and moral hazard should be avoided in URRBMI. For the vulnerable groups, special policies such as reducing the deductible and covering these groups with catastrophic medical insurance could be considered.

A rapid growing number of cases on victimization among left-behind children were reported and child victimization has become an important social issue in China. The frequent victimization events, together with its negative impact, lead the Chinese government to actively embark on innovation in protection service against victimization for left-behind children, especially at school and community levels. Drawing on representative data from Survey on Children and Old Adults Left-behind in Rural China, this study aims to test whether school-based and community-based protection service innovations have significant association with left-behind children's victimization incidence in China. According to the regression results, this study found that there was significantly negative association between protection service and victimization incidence among left-behind children in China. To be specific, school-based protection service was significantly associated with left-behind children's lower victimization incidence, and furthermore, combined protection service (both school-based and community-based protection services), which has significantly negative association with victimization incidence as well, achieved a more pronounced effect than school-based protection service only. Protection service innovations launched by Chinese government were proved to be effective in protecting left-behind children from victimization. The government shall lay more emphasis on innovation in protection service, as well as speed up the implementation of protection service policy nationwide.

Despite extensive research on carbon dots (CDs), rare studies have been performed on the photostability of CDs. Here, the photostability of CDs synthesized with 3-aminobenzoic acid were systematically investigated under different pH conditions (5.0, 7.4 and 9.0). The results showed that under Xenon lamp irradiation, the fluorescence (FL) intensity of the CDs exhibited an increase first and then a decrease, with a gradual shift of the maximum emission wavelength to longer wavelength. Further investigation indicated that the irradiation induced the change of the CD surface functional groups and gave rise to aggregation, resulting in the formation of larger particles. This study provided important reference value towards research on CDs properties.

Room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) has a much longer lifetime than fluorescence as it involves triplet excitons. This extended lifetime enables the design of advanced optoelectronics and biological sensing technologies. Despite the omnipresence of triplet states, harnessing these triplet excitons remains challenging for most organic materials because of forbidden transitions between singlet and triplet states. Here, we report novel organic–inorganic hybrid perovskites based on conjugated organic cations with low-lying triplet energy levels to extract triplet excitons from the inorganic component, thereby generating RTP with a long lifetime in the millisecond range. Dexter-type energy transfer was confirmed to occur in this type of hybrid perovskites with transfer efficiency of up to 80%. More impressively, multiple-colored phosphorescence was achieved by a facile design of the system using organic cations with different triplet exciton energies. These results are expected to greatly expand the prospects of hybrid perovskites with functional organic cations for versatile display applications. Ministry of Education (MOE) Nanyang Technological University H.H., and Y.M.L. acknowledge financial support from Institute for Sports Research, Nanyang Technological University. E.E.M.C. acknowledges support from the Singapore Ministry of Education AcRF Tier 2 (MOE2015-T2-2-065 and MOE2016-T2-1-054). We would like to acknowledge the Facility for Analysis, Characterization, Testing and Simulation (FACTS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, for use of their electron microscopy and XRD facilities.