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Mechanical metamaterials exhibit interesting properties such as high stiffness at low density1–3, enhanced energy absorption3,4, shape morphing5–7, sequential deformations8–11, auxeticity12–14and robust waveguiding15,16. Until now, metamaterial design has primarily relied on geometry, and materials nonlinearities such as viscoelasticity, fracture and plasticity have been largely left out of the design rationale. In fact, plastic deformations have been traditionally seen as a failure mode and thereby carefully avoided1,3,17,18. Here we embrace plasticity instead and discover a delicate balance between plasticity and buckling instability, which we term ‘yield buckling’. We exploit yield buckling to design metamaterials that buckle sequentially in an arbitrary large sequence of steps whilst keeping a load-bearing capacity. We make use of sequential yield buckling to create metamaterials that combine stiffness and dissipation—two properties that are usually incompatible—and that can be used several times. Hence, our metamaterials exhibit superior shock-absorption performance. Our findings add plasticity to the metamaterial toolbox and make mechanical metamaterials a burgeoning technology with serious potential for mass production.

Coal, a carbon-rich mineral with plentiful reserves, serves not only as a fuel but also as a raw material, presenting lower pollution emissions in the latter use. From a materials chemistry standpoint, coal is a viable raw material for graphene production. This study develops a promising and sustainable method to convert coal into graphene, leveraging its unique macromolecular aromatic structure and high carbon content. The investigation includes an analysis of the lateral size, morphology, and chemical composition of coal-derived graphene using techniques such as X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and optical microscopy. Results confirm that coal can effectively replace natural graphite flakes in graphene production, with the derived graphene featuring three to six exfoliated layers and an oxygen content below 5.5%. While the graphene from coal shares a similar morphology to that derived from graphite, it exhibits more structural defects. Interestingly, the macroscopic size of the coal does not influence the microscopic composition and structure of the graphene. However, the thermal reduction method for oxidized graphene proves more effective at repairing structural defects than chemical reduction. Employing coal-derived graphene as a supercapacitor electrode demonstrates excellent cycling stability and ultra-high capacitance storage capacity. The H-CG-325 shows the highest discharge area-specific capacitance across various current densities. At an increased current density of 10 A/g, the H-CG-325 maintains 80.6% of its initial capacitance of 79 F/g observed at 1 A/g. Electrochemical tests reveal that coal-based graphene holds significant potential as a supercapacitor material, indicating promising applications in energy storage and conversion.A promising and sustainable method to convert coal into graphene is developed, leveraging coal’s unique macromolecular aromatic structure and high carbon content. The investigation includes an analysis of the lateral size, morphology, and chemical composition of coal-derived graphene.Graphical Abstract

The metastability of the dendritic phase is crucial in determining the mechanical properties and mechanisms of the Ti-based in-situdendrite-reinforced bulk metallic glass composites (BMGCs). However, tailoring the metastability effectively remains challenging. In this study, we propose a straightforward and effective strategy to tailor the dendrites composition and metastability using conventional Titanium alloys. Initially, six common Titanium alloys with increasing content of β-stabilizing elements such as Ti, Ti–6Al–4V, Ti–13Nb–13Zr, Ti–15Mo, Ti–12Mo–6Zr–2Fe and Ti-4.5Fe-6.8Mo-1.5Al were selected. Subsequently, a series of in-situdendrite-reinforced BMGCs denoted as T1-T6 were designed by alloying these Titanium alloys with a specific amorphous alloy. It was found that the microstructure, stability and mechanical behaviors of these composites change significantly as the content of β-stabilizing elements in the dendritic phase increases monotonically. Based on their microstructure and mechanical behaviors, these composites can be classified into three categories: T1, T2 and T3, T4-T6. The T1 alloy exhibits brittle deformation characteristics due to the significantly higher elastic modulus of the dendritic phase. In contrast, the T2 and T3 alloys demonstrate good tensile plasticity and remarkable work-hardening ability, attributed to the metastable β phase undergoing stress-induced phase transformation during deformation. On the other hand, the T4-T6 alloys, consisting of stable β phase, deform via dislocation slip, resulting in a higher yielding stress and compression plasticity. The composition design strategy presented in this study, along with the correlation between mechanical behaviors and dendrite stability, may offer a novel perspective for the development of Ti-based in-situdendrite-reinforced BMGCs.

Climate change can significantly impact agriculture, leading to food security challenges. Most previous studies have investigated the direct climate impact on crops while neglecting the impact of heat stress on agricultural labor. Here, we assess the economic consequences of climate impacts on four major crops—maize, soybean, wheat, and rice—for scenarios involving low and high greenhouse gas emissions. Our analysis is based on the output from a new generation of global climate and crop models to drive a multiregional economic model. We find that, even under a high-emission scenario, the effect of CO2fertilization could lead to higher yields, resulting in lower prices for major crops, except for maize. However, heat-induced losses in agricultural labor could offset the potential economic benefits of CO2fertilization in crop production in Asia and Africa. Our findings emphasize the importance of addressing heat-stress impacts on agricultural labor through proactive adaptation measures.

Layered transition metal oxides are commonly used as the cathode materials in sodium-ion batteries due to their low cost and easy manufacturing. However, the application is hindered by poor rate performance and complex phase transitions. To address these challenges, a new seven-component high-entropy layered oxide cathode material, O3-NaNi0.25Fe0.15Mn0.3Ti0.1Sn0.05Co0.05Li0.1O2(HEO) has been developed. The entropy stabilization effect plays a crucial role in improving the performance of electrochemical systems and the stability of structures. The HEO exhibits a specific discharge capacity of 154.1 mA h g–1at 0.1 C and 94.5 mA h g–1at 7 C. In-situ and ex-situ XRD results demonstrate that the HEO effectively retards complex phase transitions. This work provides a high-entropy design for the storage materials with a high energy density. Meanwhile, it eliminates industry doubts about the performance of sodium ion layered oxide cathode materials.

Direct regeneration has gained much attention in LiFePO4battery recycling due to its simplicity, ecofriendliness, and cost savings. However, the excess carbon residues from binder decomposition, conductive carbon, and coated carbon in spent LiFePO4impair electrochemical performance of direct regenerated LiFePO4. Herein, we report a preoxidation and prilling collaborative doping strategy to restore spent LiFePO4by direct regeneration. The excess carbon is effectively removed by preoxidation. At the same time, prilling not only reduces the size of the primary particles and shortens the diffusion distance of Li+but also improves the tap density of the regenerated materials. Besides, the Li+transmission of the regenerated LiFePO4is further improved by Ti4+doping. Compared with commercial LiFePO4, it has excellent low-temperature performance. The collaborative strategy provides a new insight into regenerating high-performance spent LiFePO4.

The detection of physiological phosphates (PPs) is of great importance due to their essential roles in numerous biological processes, but the efficient detection of different PPs simultaneously remains challenging. In this work, we propose a fluorescence sensor array for detecting PPs based on metal-ion-regulated gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) via an indicator-displacement assay. Zn2+and Eu3+are selected to assemble with two different AuNCs, resulting in quenching or enhancing their fluorescence. Based on the competitive interaction of metal ions with AuNCs and PPs, the fluorescence of AuNCs will be recovered owing to the disassembly of AuNC-metal ion ensembles. Depending on different PPs’ distinct fluorescence responses, a four-channel sensor array was established. The array not only exhibits good discrimination capability for eight kinds of PPs (i.e., ATP, ADP, AMP, GTP, CTP, UTP, PPi, and Pi) via linear discriminant analysis but also enables quantitative detection of single phosphate (e.g., ATP) in the presence of interfering PPs mixtures. Moreover, potential application of the present sensor array for the discrimination of different PPs in real samples (e.g., cell lysates and serum) was successfully demonstrated with a good performance. This work illustrates the great potential of a metal ion-regulated sensor array as a new and efficient sensing platform for differential sensing of phosphates as well as other disease-related biomolecules.

Realistically, green manufacturing of transparent superhydrophobic surfaces (SHSs) and high liquid impalement resistance for outdoor engineering are very necessary but pretty challenging. To address this, an almost all-waterborne system composed of synthesized partially open-cage fluorinated polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane bearing a pair of −OH (poc-FPOSS–2OH), silica sol, and resin precursor is engineered. The transparent SHSs facilely formed by this system are featured with the exclusive presence of wrapped silica nanoparticle (SiNP) dendritic networks at solid–gas interfaces. The wrapped SiNP dendritic networks have a small aggregation size and low distribution depth, making SHSs highly transparent. The Si–O polymeric wrappers render mechanical flexibility to SiNP dendritic networks and thus enable transparent SHSs to resist high-speed water jet impinging with a Weber number of ≥19 800 in conjunction with the extremely low-surface-energy poc-FPOSS–2OH, which is the highest liquid impalement resistance so far among waterborne SHSs, and can rival the state-of-the-art solventborne SHSs.

This work innovatively employed the pillar splitting method to extract the fracture toughness of silicon microstructures with full coating of diamond like carbon (DLC) introduced by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The DLC coating with different hardness and elastic modulus by adjusting the deposition bias voltage at -200 and -600 V was grown on bare silicon pillars with diameters of 5, 8, and $10~\mu $ m. We established a $\gamma $ selection method specifically tailored for laminated composite structures. The discontinuity observed in the force-displacement curve in pillar splitting was reported, in which the interrelationship between fracture toughness, crack nucleation, and propagation in the pillar splitting was analyzed. Both types of coatings significantly improved the fracture toughness of the pillar microstructure compared to uncoated samples, with the fracture toughness monotonically increasing with the coating hardness, which was confirmed by finite element simulations, exhibiting similar trends as the pillar splitting experiments. This work validates the feasibility of using the pillar splitting method for fracture toughness characterization of coating/substrate microsystems and can be applied to fracture behavior testing of other composite structures.

Graph neural networks (GNNs) have demonstrated great success in many graph data-based applications. The impressive behavior of GNNs typically relies on the availability of a sufficient amount of labeled data for model training. However, in practice, obtaining a large number of annotations is prohibitively labor-intensive and even impossible. Co-training is a popular semi-supervised learning (SSL) paradigm, which trains multiple models based on a common training set while augmenting the limited amount of labeled data used for training each model via the pseudolabeled data generated from the prediction results of other models. Most of the existing co-training works do not control the quality of pseudolabeled data when using them. Therefore, the inaccurate pseudolabels generated by immature models in the early stage of the training process are likely to cause noticeable errors when they are used for augmenting the training data for other models. To address this issue, we propose a self-paced co-training for the GNN (SPC-GNN) framework for semi-supervised node classification. This framework trains multiple GNNs with the same or different structures on different representations of the same training data. Each GNN carries out SSL by using both the originally available labeled data and the augmented pseudolabeled data generated from other GNNs. To control the quality of pseudolabels, a self-paced label augmentation strategy is designed to make the pseudolabels generated at a higher confidence level to be utilized earlier during training such that the negative impact of inaccurate pseudolabels on training data augmentation, and accordingly, the subsequent training process can be mitigated. Finally, each of the trained GNN is evaluated on a validation set, and the best-performing one is chosen as the output. To improve the training effectiveness of the framework, we devise a pretraining followed by a two-step optimization scheme to train GNNs. Experimental results on the node classification task demonstrate that the proposed framework achieves significant improvement over the state-of-the-art SSL methods.

Scaffold diversity is a key feature of a compound library and plays a pivotal role in its success in biological screening. Therefore, it is highly desirable to develop efficient strategies to rapidly construct structurally distinct and diverse “privileged” molecular scaffolds, thereby giving rise to compound libraries with selective and differing biological activities. This review covers recent efforts in this emerging field of Ni-catalyzed divergent and selective synthesis, and will focus on reactions using the same substrate to generate structurally diverse molecular scaffolds by varying the ligand backbone under otherwise almost identical reaction conditions. We hope that the field will be encouraged by the progress achieved, drawing attention to the design and development of new selective catalytic systems, and revealing new modes of catalytic transformation for broader synthetic applications.

The long-stroke shaker is essentially required for the calibration of low-frequency vibration transducers, whose performance parameters have significant impact on the calibration accuracy. The accurate measurement of these parameters is the prerequisite to establish a reliable vibration metrology and traceability system. Currently, an optical collimator or a reference accelerometer is applied to get the static parameter, the laser interferometry or triaxial sensor-based method is used to obtain the dynamic parameters. However, the former relies on an extra device which increases the complexity and cost of calibration system, and the latter is always difficult to accomplish the accurate and efficient measurement of these parameters. In this study, a binocular vision-based long-stroke shaker performance measurement method is investigated, which has ability to determine the static and dynamic parameters simultaneously during the calibration. This vision method obtains the shaker's bending by measuring the inclinations at the different positions of its guideway, and achieves the amplitude characteristic, distortion, repeatability as well as transverse ratio measurements by accurately acquiring the spatial displacements at different frequencies. Comparison experiments with the two commonly used inclination estimation methods, and the laser interferometry and sensor-based method demonstrate that the investigated method is able to get the satisfactory accuracies both for the static and dynamic parameters of long-stroke shaker in vibration calibration.

Microwave dielectric ceramics with permittivity (εr) ∼ 20 play an important role in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology in 5G. Although fergusonite-structured materials with low dielectric loss are good candidates for 5G application, tuning the temperature coefficient of resonant frequency (TCF) remains a problem. In the present work, smaller V5+ions (rV= 0.355 Å, with coordination number (CN) = 4) were substituted for Nb5+(rNb= 0.48 Å with CN = 4) in the Nd(Nb1–xVx)O4ceramics, which, according to in situX-ray diffraction data, lowered the fergusonite-to-scheelite phase transition (TF-S) to 400 °C for x= 0.2. The thermal expansion coefficient (αL) of the high-temperature scheelite phase was +11 ppm/°C, whereas for the low-temperature fergusonite phase, it was + 14 < αL< + 15 ppm/°C. The abrupt change in αL, the associated negative temperature coefficient of permittivity (τε), and the minimum value of εrat TF-Sresulted in a near-zero TCF ∼ (+7.8 ppm/°C) for Nd(Nb0.8V0.2)O4(εr∼ 18.6 and Qf ∼ 70,100 GHz). A method to design near-zero TCF compositions based on modulation of τεand αLat TF-Sis thus demonstrated that may also be extended to other fergusonite systems.

Food allergen labelling is an important tool to reduce the risk of exposure to food allergens, especially for highly processed pre-packed snack foods. In order to understand the current status of allergen labelling on pre-packed snack foods in China, this study conducted a stratified random sampling on 9 major categories of pre-packed snack foods in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China. 1497 pre-packed snack foods from 15 pre-packed food sale points were collected for information analysis of allergen labelling. It was found that the prevalence of the allergen labelling and precautionary allergen labelling for pre-packed snack foods was 66.93% and 18.77%, respectively, while the overall unqualified rate of the allergen labelling was 29.14%, with the unqualified rate of micro enterprises being as high as 36.88%. This inspires us to strengthen the food safety management concept of food enterprises, accelerate the establishment of mandatory food allergen labelling and standardized management systems in China, and ultimately better protect the health and rights of consumers.

Oncolytic viruses (OVs) have become a category of promising anticancer immunotherapeutic agents over the last decade. However, the fact that many individuals fail to respond to OVs highlights the importance of defining the barely known immunosuppressive mechanisms that lead to treatment resistance. Here we found that the immunosuppression mediated by tumor-associated myeloid cells (TAMCs) directly quenches the antitumor effect of oncolytic virus M1 (OVM). OVM induces myeloid cells to migrate into tumors and strengthens their immunosuppressive phenotypes. Mechanically, tumor cells treated with OVM secrete interleukin-6 (IL-6) to activate the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)-γ/Akt axis in TAMCs, promoting infiltration of TAMCs and aggravating their inhibition on cytotoxic CD8+T lymphocytes. Pharmacologically targeting PI3K-γ relieves TAMC-mediated immunosuppression and enhances the efficacy of OVM. Additional treatment with immune checkpoint antibodies eradicates multiple refractory solid tumors and induces potent long-term antitumor immune memory. Our findings indicate that OVM functions as a double-edged sword in antitumor immunity and provide insights into the rationale for liberating T cell-mediated antitumor activity by abolishing TAMC-mediated immunosuppression.

Se(IV) in wastewater is a problem due to its high solubility, mobility, and potential toxicity. The purpose of this study was to develop biochar-supported nanoscale zero-valent iron (BC-nZVI), investigate the preparation conditions and adsorption properties, and explore the removal mechanism of Se(IV). The results illustrated that the adsorption capacity of Se(IV) increased with an increase of pyrolysis temperature. As pyrolysis time rose, the adsorption capacity was increased at low temperature (300°C). Nevertheless, it first increased and then decreased at higher temperatures (400°C and 600°C). The ratio of raw materials also affected the removal of Se(IV). NaOH modification enhanced the adsorption capacity. The –OH had a great influence on the adsorption of Se(IV). With the increase of initial pH, the adsorption capacity increased first and then decreased. The adsorption of Se(IV) fits the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models, indicating that the adsorption behavior of Se(IV) by BC-nZVI was determined by both physical and chemical mechanisms, of which physical adsorption dominated. The consequence made clear that BC-nZVI synthesized in this experiment had advantages of a simple process and excellent performance. It is a promising material for removing Se(IV) from water.

Background: Fine particular matter (PM2.5) has been associated with dementia, but limited information is available regarding the association between PM2.5components and dementia. Aims: We aimed to identify the major components of PM2.5that affect cognitive function to further investigate its mechanism of action, and develop a prevention strategy for dementia. Methods: In this study, we included 7804 participants aged ≥ 60 years recruited from seven counties in Zhejiang province, eastern China. The participants completed the baseline survey between 2014 and 2015, and were followed up until the end of 2020. We adopted single-component robust Poisson regression models for analyses, and estimated relative risks and 95% confidence intervals describing associations between the chemical constituents of PM2.5exposure and incident cognitive impairment in those who were free from cognitive impairment at baseline. Results: Significantly positive associations were observed between sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, and organic matter in PM2.5and incident cognitive impairment across different exposure periods; the relative risks of 10-year exposure before enrollment ranged from 1.01 to 1.02. However, we did not find a significant association between black carbon and cognitive impairment. The point estimates of the relative risk values did not change substantially after performing the sensitivity analyses. Conclusions: Our findings strengthen the idea that long-term exposure to PM2.5mass and its chemical components is associated with an elevated risk of incident cognitive impairment among older adults.

Flexibility and power density are key factors restricting the development of flexible lithium-ion batteries (FLIBs). Interface and defect engineering can modify the intrinsic ion/electron kinetics by regulating the electronic structure. Herein, a polyacrylonitrile/MgFe2O4(PAN-MFO) electrode with heterojunction and oxygen vacancies was first designed and synthesized as a flexible free-standing anode of FLIBs by electrostatic spinning technology. The PAN carbon nanofiber (PAN-CNF) as the skeleton structure provides fast conductive channels, buffers the volume expansion, and enhances the cycle stability. The heterostructure constructs the internal electric field, facilitates the Li+/charge transfer, intensifies the Li+adsorption energy, and enhances the interfacial lithium storage. Oxygen vacancies improve the intrinsic conductivity, lower the Li+diffusion barrier, weaken the Fe–O bonding, and facilitate the conversion reaction. Because of the synergistic effect of the multifunctional structure, the PAN-MFO shows superior cycle and rate performance with ultrafast kinetics. Flexible LiCoO2/PAN-MFO full pouch cells were also assembled that demonstrated a stable cycle performance and power supply in both the plain and bent states.

Background Recently, microRNA-221 has been found to be abnormally expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma; however, its clinical value has not been summarised. This meta-analysis aimed to assess the prognostic significance of miR-221 in hepatocellular carcinoma.Material and Methods PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science, Scopus, Ovid MEDLINE, EMbase, Google Scholar, the Cochrane Library, CNKI, CBM, VIP and Wanfang databases were searched for eligible articles. The endpoints included overall survival, progression-free survival, recurrence-free survival, metastasis-free survival, disease-free survival. Hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals were used to explore the relationship between miR-221 expression and clinical survival results of liver cancer patients. Subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis were performed. Begg’s test and Egger’s test were conducted to evaluate publication bias.Results A total of nine studies including 607 patients were recruited for this meta-analysis. The pooled hazard ratios displayed that high miR-221 expression was remarkably associated with poorer overall survival (hazard ratio = 1.91, 95% confidence interval: 1.53–2.38, p＜ 0.01) and unfavourable progression-free survival/recurrence-free survival/metastasis-free survival/disease-free survival (hazard ratio = 2.02, 95% confidence interval: 1.58–2.57, p＜ 0.01). The results of Begg’s test and Egger’s test did not exhibit obvious publication bias.Conclusions High expression of miR-221 can predict poor outcome of hepatocellular carcinoma. miR-221 can be used as a promising prognostic biomarker of hepatocellular carcinoma.

AbstractBISON is a nuclear fuel performance application built using the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) finite element library. One of its major goals is to have a great amount of flexibility in how it is used, including in the types of fuel it can analyze, the geometry of the fuel being modeled, the modeling approach employed, and the dimensionality and size of the models. Fuel forms that can be modeled include standard light water reactor fuel, emerging light water reactor fuels, tri-structural isotropic fuel particles, and metallic fuels. BISON is a platform for research in nuclear fuel performance modeling while simultaneously serving as a tool for the analysis of nuclear fuel designs. Recent research in BISON includes techniques such as the extended finite element method for fuel cracking, exploration of high-burnup light water reactor fuel behavior, swelling behavior of metallic fuels, and central void formation in mixed-oxide fuel. BISON includes integrated documentation for each of its capabilities, follows rigorous software quality assurance procedures, and has a growing set of rigorous verification and validation tests.

This paper concerns the protective performance of maintenance strategies, i.e. silane impregnation (SI) and electrochemical chloride extraction (ECE), against chloride-induced corrosion for concrete elements in marine environment. The effectiveness of SI treatment is researched through long-term exposure tests, and the efficiency of ECE treatment is considered using a quantitative expression. The failure probability evolution is calculated through reliability theory and Monte-Carlo simulations. The maintenance planning is established, and relevant maintenance costs are determined. The obtained results show that (1) the effective protection life of initially applied silane is longer than 12 years, but the protective performance of reapplied silane is not as pronounced as the silane initially applied; (2) the chloride ions at steel surface are efficiently removed after ECE which is more conducive to sustain the steel rebars free from corrosion; (3) ECE treatment attains the optimal cost and is recommended for long life-span concrete elements in marine environment.

Spirocycles play an important role in drug discovery and development owing to their inherent three-dimensionality and structural novelty. Despite the recent significant progress, the straightforward catalytic asymmetric assembly of spirocyclic scaffolds with multiple stereocenters from readily available starting materials remains a formidable challenge. Herein, we develop an unprecedented nickel-catalyzed one-pot synthesis of enantioenriched spiroindanones from easily available 1,6-enynes and o-formylarylboronic acids. The reaction proceeds smoothly under redox-neutral conditions, without the need for an additional hydrogen donor, and features a broad substrate scope and excellent regio-, enantio-, and diastereoselectivity.

In this letter, we propose an improved pairs of pilots (POP) design method for channel estimation in offset quadrature amplitude modulation based filter bank multicarrier (OQAM/FBMC) systems. Based on an error analysis of the conventional POP channel estimation method, we first develop a heuristic pilot design in which each pilot pair is inserted at two consecutive subcarriers. Besides, we further propose to build a preamble by quartet of subcarriers and conduct a pilot optimization subject to a pilot power constraint, aiming to suppress the noise effect as much as possible. To obtain its optimal solution, we convert the original non-convex pilot optimization problem into a convex semidefinite programming problem, which is shown to be computationally efficient and readily solvable. Numerical simulations validate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed pilot design method compared to the conventional POP and interference approximation methods.

Phosphorus (P) losses from fertilized croplands to inland water bodies cause serious environmental problems. During wet years, high precipitation disproportionately contributes to P losses. We combine simulations of a gridded crop model and outputs from a number of hydrological and climate models to assess global impacts of changes in precipitation regimes on P losses during the 21st century. Under the baseline climate during 1991–2010, median P losses are 2.7 ± 0.5 kg P ha–1year–1over global croplands of four major crops, while during wet years, P losses are 3.6 ± 0.7 kg P ha–1year–1. By the end of this century, P losses in wet years would reach 4.2 ± 1.0 (RCP2.6) and 4.7 ± 1.3 (RCP8.5) kg P ha–1year–1due to increases in high annual precipitation alone. The increases in P losses are the highest (up to 200%) in the arid regions of Middle East, Central Asia, and northern Africa. Consequently, in three quarters of the world’s river basins, representing about 40% of total global runoff and home up to 7 billion people, P dilution capacity of freshwater could be exceeded due to P losses from croplands by the end of this century.

Flexible pressure sensors that can robustly mimic the function of slow-adapting type I (SA-I) mechanoreceptors are essential for realizing human-like object manipulation in artificial intelligent (AI) robots or amputees. Here, we report a straightforward approach to highly sensitive and robust flexible pressure sensors with fast response time and low operating voltage based on conductive micropyramids made of polydimethylsiloxane/carbon nanotube composites. Both numerical simulations and experimental studies show that the pressure-sensing properties of the devices can be systematically tuned by the spatial arrangement of micropyramids. In particular, by tailoring the ratio between the spacing and the pyramidal base length, the optimal pressure sensors can be achieved with a combination of high sensitivity in both low-pressure (<10 kPa) and medium-pressure (10–100 kPa) regimes, rapid response, high mechanical robustness, low operating voltage, and low power consumption, along with linear response and low hysteresis in the medium-pressure regimes. The optimized pressure sensor is further used for constructing a wearable pressure-sensing system that can convert the amplitude of pressure to wirelessly transmittable frequency signals (spikes) with nearly linear response, closely mimicking SA-I mechanoreceptors. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the high uniformity and scalability of the pressure sensors enable large-area pressure-sensing arrays for spatially resolved pressure mapping.

ABSTRACT12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA), is a major active constituent of the seed oil of Croton tigliumL., has pharmacological activity for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia patients. Diethyldithiocarbamate (DTC) is a potent inhibitor of NF-κB show activity of anticancer. In this study, we determined the effect of DTC and TPA in combination on HL-60 cells cultured in vitroand in vivo. In this study, we have shown that DTC and TPA synergistically inhibited the growth of HL-60 cells and strongly induced apoptosis in the cells. Mechanistic studies showed that the combined effects of DTC and TPA were associated with a decrease in Bcl-2. The animal experiment showed that the combination of DTC and TPA more potently inhibited the growth of HL-60 tumors than either agent alone. Our results indicate that the administration of TPA and DTC in combination may be an effective strategy for inhibiting the growth of acute myeloid leukemia cells.

Avoiding immune destruction is essential for tumorigenesis. Current research into the interaction between tumor and immunological niches complement tumor pathology beyond cancer genetics. Intrinsic host defense immunity is a specialized innate immunity component to restrict viral infection. However, whether intrinsic immunity participates in tumor pathology is unclear. Previously, we identified a zinc-finger antiviral protein ZAP that is commonly downregulated in a panel of clinical cancer specimens. However, whether ZAP has an impact on tumor development was unknown. Here we report ZAP as a genuine tumor suppressor. Pan-caner analysis with TCGA data from 712 patients and large-scale immunohistochemistry in tissue microarrays from 1552 patients reveal that ZAP is prevalently downregulated, and associated with poor survival in liver, colon, and bladder cancer patients. Ectopic over-expression of ZAP inhibits the malignant phenotypes of colorectal tumor by cell cycle arrest. Using RNA immunoprecipitation and RNA decay assays, we demonstrate that ZAP directly and specifically binds to and degrades the transcript of TRAILR4, which in turn represses TRAILR4 expression and inhibits the aggressiveness of colorectal cancer cells. Furthermore, our CRISPR-engineered mice models show that loss-of-function of ZAP synergizes with APC-deficiency to drive malignant colorectal cancer in vivo. Overall, we identify a previously unknown function of the antiviral factor ZAP in colorectal tumorigenesis, linking intrinsic immunity to tumor pathogenetics.

A new catalyst system for the antiarylative cyclization of alkynones and aryl halides through a reductive cross-coupling strategy is developed. The transformation proceeds smoothly in the absence of organometallic reagents and features high functional group tolerance. This method provides an effective platform to access a wide variety of synthetically useful endocyclic tetrasubstituted allylic alcohols in a stereoselective manner.