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The performance of the perturbed‐chain statistical associating fluid theory‐type equations of state (PC‐SAFT‐type EOSs) is compromised in predicting properties of pure compounds in the critical region. In our previous research, we introduced an improved volume‐translated rescaled PC‐SAFT EOS (VTR‐PC‐SAFT EOS) by incorporating a dimensionless distance‐function. Such VTR‐PC‐SAFT EOS is built based on a critical point‐based PC‐SAFT EOS that can reproduce the critical temperature, critical pressure, and critical molar volume of pure compounds. VTR‐PC‐SAFT EOS is found to significantly improve the accuracy of phase behavior predictions in both critical and noncritical regions for pure compounds. In this study, we assess the performance of VTR‐PC‐SAFT EOS in reproducing the critical and noncritical properties of 251 pure compounds, encompassing 20 distinct chemical species. The testing results indicate that, compared to the other three PC‐SAFT‐type EOSs, the VTR‐PC‐SAFT EOS can consistently provide more accurate representations of critical and noncritical properties of 251 pure compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In this study, we explored whether and how the indirect effects of father– and mother–adolescent conflict between PIU and academic engagement differ between female and male adolescents. Background: Problematic internet use (PIU) is an important health issue for adolescents. It has been found to be related to severe impairment in their interpersonal relationships (e.g., parent–child relationships) and academic outcomes (e.g., academic engagement), particularly during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Method: A national survey was conducted in diverse regions of the Chinese mainland, and a total of 2,688 adolescents between 10 and 19 years old (52.8% girls, Mage = 14.06 ± 2.47) participated in the study. Correlation and mediation analyses were conducted and were stratified by gender. Results: Multigroup analysis indicated that PIU was similarly and positively associated with father– and mother–adolescent conflict in adolescent boys and girls, whereas only father–adolescent conflict was negatively related to boys' academic engagement and only mother–adolescent conflict was negatively related to girls' academic engagement. Conclusion: These results support the same‐gender matching model in parent–adolescent conflict and expand the same‐gender effect to Chinese culture. Implications: These findings have important implications for understanding the mechanisms of how adolescent PIU impedes academic engagement through parent–adolescent conflict in father–son, father–daughter, mother–son, and mother–daughter dyads, indicating that family interventions focused on father–son and mother–daughter relationships may largely facilitate adolescents' academic engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The relationship and related mediating mechanism between parental coparenting and adolescent academic engagement have yet to be elucidated during the pandemic. The present study is set to investigate the relationship between parental coparenting and adolescent academic engagement within Chinese families. Then it examines the mediating effects of parent–child communications in relationships. As a part of the national online survey in China, fathers, mothers and adolescents from 700 families across the country participated in the online survey. Both parents reported their coparenting support and conflict, while adolescents rated the level of open and problematic parent–child communication and their own academic engagement. Paternal coparenting conflict was related to adolescent academic engagement through both open and problematic communications. Paternal and maternal coparenting support was related to adolescent academic engagement through the mediating effect of open communication. Maternal coparenting conflict was related to adolescent academic engagement through problematic communication. Moreover, paternal coparenting support was positively directly related to adolescent academic engagement in the overall model. The research findings supported the effects of parental coparenting on adolescent academic engagement through the mediating effects of open and problematic parent–child communication. Paternal coparenting support had a greater impact on adolescent academic engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prior studies have emphasized the importance of parents' educational involvement (a type of cognitive involvement) to academic engagement, although little is known about emotional involvement. Aims: This study investigated whether and how different facets of involvement (cognitive vs. emotional, paternal vs. maternal) are differentially related to academic engagement and whether and how the associations among parental involvement, time management and academic engagement vary by adolescents' developmental phases. Samples: The participants of this large national survey were students in elementary, middle and high school across different regions of mainland China. A total of 2687 adolescents (52.7% females, Mage = 14.07 ± 2.47) participated in this study. Methods: Structural equation models and multigroup analysis were conducted. Results: We found that the total effect of paternal and maternal emotional involvement on academic engagement was positive in elementary‐, middle‐ and high school students, and an indirect effect of time management underlying the above paths was found in all three groups. In contrast, the positive effect of maternal cognitive involvement on academic engagement as well as the indirect effects underlying the above pathways was established only in high school students. Conclusions: The findings highlight the necessity of parents' emotional involvement and the consideration of adolescent developmental characteristics in the design of interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been adopted in both industry and academia for high‐fidelity, full‐profile topographic characterization. Typically, the tiny tip of the cantilever and the limited traveling range of the scanner restrict AFM measurement to relatively flat samples (recommend 1 µm). The primary objective of this work is to address these limitations using a large‐range AFM (measuring height >10 µm) system consisting of a novel repairable high aspect ratio probe (HARP) with a nested‐proportional‐integral‐derivative (nested‐PID) AFM system. The HARP is fabricated using a reliable, cost‐efficient bench‐top process. The tip is then fused by pulling the end of the micropipette cantilever with a length up to hundreds of micrometers and a tip diameter of 30 nm. The design, simulation, fabrication, and performance of the HARP are described herein. This instrument is then tested using polymer trenches which reveals superior image fidelity compared to standard silicon tips. Finally, a nested‐PID system is developed and employed to facilitate 3D characterization of 50‐µm‐step samples. The results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed bench‐top technique for the fabrication of low‐cost, simple HAR AFM probes that facilitate the imaging of samples with deep trenches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrochemical CO2 conversion is a key technology to promote the production of carbon‐containing molecules, alongside reducing CO2 emissions leading to a closed carbon cycle economy. Over the past decade, the interest to develop selective and active electrochemical devices for electrochemical CO2 reduction emerged. However, most reports employ oxygen evolution reaction as an anodic half‐cell reaction causing the system to suffer from sluggish kinetics with no production of value‐added chemicals. Therefore, this study reports a conceptualized paired electrolyzer for simultaneous anodic and cathodic formate production at high currents. To achieve this, CO2 reduction was coupled with glycerol oxidation: a BiOBr‐modified gas‐diffusion cathode and a NixB on Ni foam anode keep their selectivity for formate in the paired electrolyzer compared to the half‐cell measurements. The paired reactor here reaches a combined Faradaic efficiency for formate of 141 % (45 % anode and 96 % cathode) at a current density of 200 mA cm−2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Application‐oriented growth of patterned organic semiconductor (OSC) thin films with a single domain is a nonnegotiable requirement for the manufacturing of high‐performance organic electronic devices. However, the prevalent selective‐wetting patterning method remains a challenge in controlling the density of nucleation events in microscale spaces, resulting in thin films with high grain boundary density and no preferential orientation spherulites. Herein, a simple double‐blade‐coating printing technique using a combination of wetting‐patterned substrates to produce an array of highly crystalline OSC thin films is developed. Specifically, the approach confines the OSC crystallization on a molecular‐flat water surface in specific areas, enabling a significant reduction in the number of nuclei. Consequently, patterned 2,7‐dioctyl[1]benzothieno[3,2‐b] benzothiophene (C8‐BTBT) thin films comprising single‐crystal domains are achieved with an exceptionally high yield of 62.5%. The organic field‐effect transistor array developed from such patterns of C8‐BTBT single‐crystalline films exhibits an excellent average mobility of 11.5 cm2 V−1 s−1 which is 12.5‐fold higher compared to that of the reference sample fabricated via conventional single‐blade coating. It is believed that this approach can be widely applied to other soluble organic materials, thereby opening up opportunities for fabricating multicomponent integrated electronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) in patients progresses rapidly and can cause multiple organ failures associated with high mortality. We aimed to train a machine learning (ML) model and establish a nomogram that could identify SAP, early in the course of acute pancreatitis (AP). Methods: In this retrospective study, 631 patients with AP were enrolled in the training cohort. For predicting SAP early, five supervised ML models were employed, such as random forest (RF), K‐nearest neighbors (KNN), and naive Bayes (NB), which were evaluated by accuracy (ACC) and the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). The nomogram was established, and the predictive ability was assessed by the calibration curve and AUC. They were externally validated by an independent cohort of 109 patients with AP. Results: In the training cohort, the AUC of RF, KNN, and NB models were 0.969, 0.954, and 0.951, respectively, while the AUC of the Bedside Index for Severity in Acute Pancreatitis (BISAP), Ranson and Glasgow scores were only 0.796, 0.847, and 0.837, respectively. In the validation cohort, the RF model also showed the highest AUC, which was 0.961. The AUC for the nomogram was 0.888 and 0.955 in the training and validation cohort, respectively. Conclusions: Our findings suggested that the RF model exhibited the best predictive performance, and the nomogram provided a visual scoring model for clinical practice. Our models may serve as practical tools for facilitating personalized treatment options and improving clinical outcomes through pre‐treatment stratification of patients with AP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bi‐based electrocatalysts have been widely investigated in the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) for the formation of formate. However, it remains a challenge to achieve high Faradaic efficiency (FE) and industrial current densities at low overpotentials for obtaining both high formate productivity and energy efficiency (EE). Herein, we report an Ag−Bi2O3 hybrid nanofiber (Ag−Bi2O3) for highly efficient electrochemical reduction of CO2 to formate. Ag−Bi2O3 exhibits a formate FE of >90% for current densities from −10 to −250 mA ⋅ cm−2 and attains a yield rate of 11.7 mmol ⋅ s−1 ⋅ m−2 at −250 mA ⋅ cm−2. Moreover, Ag−Bi2O3 increased the EE (52.7%) by nearly 10% compared to a Bi2O3 only counterpart. Structural characterization and in‐situ Raman results suggest that the presence of Ag induced the conversion of Bi2O3 from a monoclinic phase (α‐Bi2O3) to a metastable tetragonal phase (β‐Bi2O3) and accelerated the formation of active metallic Bi at low overpotentials (at > −0.3 V), which together contributes to the highly efficient formate formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minority carrier traps in the bandgap of organic semiconductors (OSCs) are pervasive and of vital importance in determining the performance and stability of the optoelectronic device. Understanding their origins is one critical issue at both the fundamental and applied levels. However, relevant research has rarely been performed due to the lack of an effective strategy for quantitatively assessing the minority carrier traps buried in OSCs. Here, organic field‐effect transistors (OFETs) operated under strong and long‐term light illumination can be used as a model device to assess the amount of minority carrier traps in solution‐processed OSCs, are proposed. Based on the experimental results and theoretical calculations, first identified hydrated impurities (water and oxygen) in the residual organic solvents primarily contribute to formation of minority carrier traps within the OSC bandgap, giving rise to photo‐induced electrical instability of OFETs. To address this problem, a molecular additive strategy is developed to improve the OFET photostability by releasing trapped electrons from the levels of minority carrier traps. This work not only elucidates the significant role of water and oxygen in the residual organic solvents in forming minority carrier traps but also provides guidelines for improving OFET photostability for practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid evolution of microelectronics and nanofabrication technologies, the feature sizes of large‐scale integrated circuits continue to move toward the nanoscale. There is a strong need to improve the quality and efficiency of integrated circuit inspection, but it remains a great challenge to provide both rapid imaging and circuit node‐level high‐resolution images simultaneously using a conventional microscope. This paper proposes a nondestructive, high‐throughput, multiscale correlation imaging method that combines atomic force microscopy (AFM) with microlens‐based scanning optical microscopy. In this method, a microlens is coupled to the end of the AFM cantilever and the sample‐facing side of the microlens contains a focused ion beam deposited tip which serves as the AFM scanning probe. The introduction of a microlens improves the imaging resolution of the AFM optical system, providing a 3–4× increase in optical imaging magnification while the scanning imaging throughput is improved ≈8×. The proposed method bridges the resolution gap between traditional optical imaging and AFM, achieves cross‐scale rapid imaging with micrometer to nanometer resolution, and improves the efficiency of AFM‐based large‐scale imaging and detection. Simultaneously, nanoscale‐level correlation between the acquired optical image and structure information is enabled by the method, providing a powerful tool for semiconductor device inspection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Nicola Delvino, a Researcher/Advisor on Migrants and Refugees Rights at Amnesty International, migration is a markedly urban phenomenon. Globally, nearly half of the total population of international migrants resides in 10 highly urbanized countries, of which five are in Europe (Delvino, [1], p. 1). European cities and migrants with irregular status: Municipal initiatives for the inclusion of irregular migrants in the provision of services. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: Accurately delineating clinical target volumes (CTV) is essential for completing radiotherapy plans but is time‐consuming, labor‐intensive, and prone to inter‐observer variation. Automating CTV delineation has the benefits of both speeding up contouring process and improving the quality of contours. Recently, auto‐segmentation approaches based on deep learning have achieved some improvements. However, unlike organ segmentation, the CTV contains potential tumor spread tissues or subclinical disease tissues, resulting in poorly defined margin interface and irregular shape. It is not reasonable to directly apply the deep learning segmentation algorithms to CTV tasks without considering the unique characteristics of shape and margin. In this work, we propose a novel automatic CTV delineation algorithm based on deep learning addressing the unique shape and margin challenges. Methods: Our deep learning method, called RA‐CTVNet, segments the CTV from cervical cancer CT images. RA‐CTVNet denotes our automatic CTV delineation algorithm based on deep learning with Area‐aware reweight strategy and Recursive refinement strategy. (1) In order to process the whole‐volume CT images and delineate all CTVs in one shot, our method is built upon the popular 3D Unet architecture. We further extend it with robust residual learning and squeeze‐and‐excitation blocks for better feature representation. (2) We propose area‐aware reweight strategy which assigns different weights for different slices. The core is adjusting model's attention to each slice. (3) In terms of the trade‐off between providing performance improvements and meeting the limitations of GPU memory, we exploit a new recursive refinement strategy to address margin challenge. Results: This retrospective study included 462 patients diagnosed with cervical cancer who received radiotherapy from June 2017 to May 2019. Extensive experiments were conducted to evaluate performance of RA‐CTVNet. First, compared to different network architectures, RA‐CTVNet achieved improvements in Dice similarity coefficient (DSC). Second, we conducted ablation study. The results showed that compared to the backbone, area‐aware reweight strategy increased DSC by 3.3% on average and recursive refinement strategy further increased DSC by 1.6% on average. Then, we compared our method with three human experts. Our RA‐CTVNet performed better than two experts while comparably to the third expert. Finally, a multicenter evaluation was conducted to verify the accuracy and generalizability. Conclusions: Our findings show that deep learning is able to offer an efficient framework for automatic CTV delineation. The tailored RA‐CTVNet can improve the quality of CTV contours, which has great potential for reducing the burden of experts and increasing the accuracy of delineation. In the future, if with more training data, further improvements are possible, bringing this approach closer to real clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liquid crystalline (LC) organic semiconductors having long‐range‐ordered LC phases hold great application potential in organic field‐effect transistors (OFETs). However, to meet real device application requirements, it is a prerequisite to precisely pattern the LC film at desired positions. Here, a facile method that combines the technique of inkjet printing and melt processing to fabricate patterned LC film for achieving high‐performance organic integrated circuits is demonstrated. Inkjet printing controls the deposition locations of the LC materials, while the melt processing implements phase transition of the LC materials to form high‐quality LC films with large grain sizes. This approach enables to achieve patterned growth of high‐quality 2,7‐dioctyl[1]‐benzothieno[3,2‐b][1]benzothiophene (C8‐BTBT) LC films. The patterned C8‐BTBT LC film‐based 7 × 7 OFET array has 100% die yield and shows high average mobility of 6.31 cm2 V−1 s−1, along with maximum mobility up to 9.33 cm2 V−1 s−1. As a result, the inverters based on the patterned LC films reach a high gain up to 23.75 as well as an ultrahigh noise margin over 81.3%. Given the good generality of the patterning process and the high quality of the resulting films, the proposed method paves the way for high‐performance organic integrated devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]