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Lithiation, a process of inserting lithium ions into a host material, is revolutionizing nanomaterials synthesis and structural engineering as well as enhancing their performance across emerging applications, particularly valuable for large-scale synthesis of high-quality low-dimensional nanomaterials. Through a systematic investigation of the synthetic strategies and structural changes induced by lithiation, this review aims to offer a comprehensive understanding of the development, potential, and challenges associated with this promising approach. First, the basic principles of lithiation/delithiation processes will be introduced. Then, the recent advancements in the lithiation-induced structure changes of nanomaterials, such as morphology tuning, phase transition, defect generation, etc., will be stressed, emphasizing the importance of lithiation in structural modulation of nanomaterials. With the tunable structures induced by the lithiation, the properties and performance in electrochemical, photochemical, electronic devices, bioapplications, etc. will be discussed, followed by outlining the current challenges and perspectives in this research area.

Superpixel analysis is showing great potential for high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image change detection (CD), as it uses a larger detection granularity and enhances computational efficiency. However, some deficiencies still exist. It is difficult for previous methods to extract the complete change regions from cluttered backgrounds. Meanwhile, the local spatial correlation and structure consistency are not well represented. To address the above problems and achieve better separation of changed and unchanged superpixels in complicated scenarios, we design a novel unsupervised CD framework from the perspective of low-rank matrix decomposition (LRMD) theory. The entire framework is carried out in two stages. First, the $\ell _{1}$ -norm sparsity constraint LRMD model is constructed to decompose change features into a low-rank component associated with background and a sparse component representing changed regions. Then, the local spatial correlation and structure consistency constraint are explicitly modeled by introducing a Laplacian regularization term. The unified model smooths the local similarity superpixels and enlarges the distance between changed regions and the background in the feature subspace. In this stage, the saliency difference image (DI) is generated to indicate the change probabilities of each superpixel. Furthermore, a classification refining (CR) module is designed to learn the projection from the change feature matrix to the saliency DI, which can further fine-tune such obscure regions and boost the binary classification. Extensive experiments on five challenging datasets from the TerraSAR-X sensor demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.

Ceratitisis an economically important genus of fruit flies that originated in Africa, has a wide host range, and causes serious economic losses due to its invasive damage. As a result, it is critical to identify them accurately and quickly in the world. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), as one of the representatives of isothermal amplification technology, has been widely used in the rapid nucleic acid detection of human pathogens and has shown its advantages in the identification of insect agricultural pests. In this study, using the mitochondrial cox1and cobgenes as target genes, the rapid molecular identification of the CeratitisFARQ complex, C. cosyra,and C. capitatawas realized based on LAMP. The experimental conditions optimization results showed that F3/B3:FIP/BIP = 1:8 was the optimal primer concentration ratio and 63 °C was the optimal reaction temperature. The sensitivity of the primers obtained in this study can reach up to 0.01 ng/μl DNA. A loop-mediated isothermal amplification identification technology system was established based on rapid, rough DNA extraction and visual detection of Ceratitiseconomically important fruit flies. The positive reaction system changed from pink to khaki by visual detection. The identification flow can be completed within 1 hour, including sample processing, DNA extraction, and LAMP visual detection.

The SAPO-34 zeolite as an important catalyst is widely used in the methanol-to-olefin reaction, but understanding the internal diffusion behavior of its reactant methanol is still a challenge. In this work, a series of SAPO-34 catalysts with different particle sizes were prepared, among which the thin-layer SAPO-34 zeolite could be synthesized when the ratio of TEAOH/Mor is 8:1, which exhibits a high selectivity of 95% for light olefins and a long lifetime of 410 min. Through 29Si NMR and N2physical adsorption–desorption, it indicates that more Si(4Al) coordination structures and a larger external volume jointly determine the stability of SAPO-34. Combining the TG and BET results of deactivated catalysts, it was found that the main reason for deactivation is the micropore blocked by coke deposition. The kinetic results demonstrated that the particle size of the zeolite is inversely proportional to its apparent reaction rate. The calculation of the Thiele modulus shows that the intramolecular diffusion rate of the small particle zeolite is faster. The catalytic efficiency can be enhanced by reducing the particle size due to the partly removed internal diffusion and the improved utilization of acid sites.

With the widespread adoption of ultrasound guidance, Seldinger puncture techniques, and intracardiac electrical positioning technology for the placement of peripherally inserted central catheters in recent years, an increasing number of medical staff and patients now accept peripheral placement of totally implantable venous access devices (TIVADs) in the upper arm. This approach has the advantage of completely avoiding the risks of hemothorax, pneumothorax, and neck and chest scarring. Medical specialties presently engaged in this study in China include internal medicine, surgery, anesthesiology, and interventional departments. However, command over implantation techniques, treatment of complications, and proper use and maintenance of TIVAD remain uneven among different medical units. Moreover, currently, there are no established quality control standards for implantation techniques or specifications for handling complications. Thus, this expert consensus is proposed to improve the success rate of TIVAD implantation via the upper-arm approach, reduce complication rates, and ensure patient safety. This consensus elaborates on the technical indications and contraindications, procedures and technical points, treatment of complications, and the use and maintenance of upper-arm TIVAD, thus providing a practical reference for medical staff.

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Change detection has played an increasingly important role in multitemporal remote sensing applications recently. Long time series analysis is providing new information of land cover changes and improving the quality and accuracy of the change information being derived from remote sensing. The purpose of this study is to dig for more change temporal information and change pattern information from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image time series (ITS), which is of great significance for monitoring urban area changes, conducting land use surveys, and renovating illegal constructions. In the study, a novel unified framework for long time series SAR image change detection and change pattern analysis (SAR-TSCC) was proposed for land cover change mapping. To obtain the most notable change time rapidly, a fast SAR ITS change point search method based on pruned exact linear time (SAR-PELT) algorithm was adopted. Meanwhile, the deep time series classification network, named SAR time series transformer (SAR-TST), was implemented to recognize the change patterns, which is based on time series transformer (TST) architecture. Considering the lack of real training data, a novel synthetic data generation method is developed. The combination of the synthetic and real data enhanced the generalization of the classifiers. The proposed framework was used for monitoring a large urbanization area in the northwest of Hong Kong, China. The Cosmo Skymed (CSK) time series data acquired from 2013 to 2020 were exploited for land cover change analysis. Experiment results showed that our approach achieved the state-of-the-art performance, as the time accuracy reached 86% and the classification accuracy on the four main change patterns (impulse, step, cycle, and complex) is over 99%. In particular, the proposed SAR-TST model showed remarkable advantages in the presence of insufficient real data.

Carbon materials have been widely used as microwave susceptors in many chemical processes because they are highly effective at transforming incoming electromagnetic energy for local (hot spot) heating. This property raises the intriguing possibility of using the all-pervasive carbonaceous deposits in operating heterogeneous catalytic processes to augment the catalytic performance of microwave-initiated reactions. Here, the catalytic activities of a range of carbon materials, together with carbon residues produced from a “test” reaction─the dehydrogenation of hexadecane under microwave-initiated heterogeneous catalytic processes, have been investigated. Despite the excellent microwave absorption properties observed among these various carbons, only activated carbons and graphene nanoplatelets were found to be highly effective for the microwave-initiated dehydrogenation of hexadecane. During the dehydrogenation of hexadecane on a Fe/SiC catalyst, active carbon species were formed at the early stage of the reactions but were subsequently transformed into filamentous but catalytically inert carbons that ultimately deactivated the operating catalyst.

Rational design of trifunctional electrocatalysts with robust efficiency used for oxygen reduction, oxygen evolution, and hydrogen evolution reactions (ORR, OER, and HER) is of significance to renewable energy conversion techniques, which remains a challenging issue. This study integrates dominant Co/Co3O4with a small fraction of RuO2and the CoRu alloy anchored on a hollow carbon matrix, originating from the novel Ru-doped hollow metal–organic framework (MOF) precursor, which is synthesized via tannic etching and ion exchange. Notably, the introduced ultralow Ru (1.28 wt %) not only generates new Ru-based species but also induces a Ru-enriched surface with abundant oxygen vacancies. Moreover, a suitable balance among different valencies of Co or Ru can be tuned by oxidation time, resulting in preferable Co2+and Ru4+species. Triggered by these unparalleled surface properties along with good conductivity, hollow structure, and the synergistic effect of multiple active sites, the resulting CoRu-O/A@hollow nitrogen-doped carbon (HNC) shows robust catalytic performance for ORR/OER/HER in an alkaline electrolyte. Typically, it exhibits a potential gap of 0.662 V for OER/ORR and enables an alkaline water electrolyzer with a cell voltage of 1.558 V at 10 mA cm–2. This work would serve as guidance for well construction of transition-metal-based trifunctional electrocatalysts by the MOF-assisted strategy or the modulation effects of low-content Ru.

An important strategy for the reduction of levels of CO2in the atmosphere is to utilize this greenhouse gas as a reagent molecule in catalytic reactions for the synthesis of widely used chemical products. CO2utilization is therefore the “chemical fixation” of this greenhouse gas and should therefore be considered as an integral part of atmospheric carbon dioxide management because such chemical conversion can not only add value to CO2capture and sequestration but also have economic societal and environmental benefits. Here, we investigate the use of high-performance catalysts for the dehydrogenation of propane by CO2to the industrially important molecule, propylene. Cr-based catalysts with a Ca oxide promoter on a ZrO2support have been prepared using a “one-pot” synthesis procedure. A range of structural and spectroscopic techniques revealed that this synthetic procedure produces different catalyst morphologies, structures, and catalytic properties as compared to the widely used “impregnation” synthesis protocol. The one-pot synthesis method provides a more uniform and highly dispersed catalytically active phase in which and the Cr species are more effectively involved in the dehydrogenation process. The introduction of Ca oxide as a promoter in the catalytic process increases both the overall propane dehydrogenation conversion and propylene selectivity and, importantly, also reduces the level of detrimental carbon deposition on the catalyst particles leading to enhanced stability and performance.

The most important factors in improving the stability of nickel-based catalysts for methane reforming with carbon dioxide (so-called methane dry reforming, MDR) lie both in suppressing carbon formation and in inhibiting metal sintering at the high operating temperatures of this process (typically above 700 °C). Many efforts have been made to overcome these challenges, for example, by enhancing metal catalyst–support interactions. In this work, we used microwaves as an energy source to drive the MDR reactions under mild conditions with an overall measured catalyst bed temperature of below 220 °C. A high CH4conversion of ca. 94% and a 97% conversion of CO2were achieved over manganese-oxide modified ZrO2-supported nickel catalysts, exhibiting excellent anticoking properties. Compared with Ni/ZrO2and Mn/ZrO2catalysts, the Ni–Mn bimetal catalytic system stabilizes the catalytic activity of MDR by suppressing carbon deposition with the mixed-valent Mn3+/Mn2+chemical states enhancing the absorption and conversion of CO2during the reactions.

Isobaric vapor–liquid equilibria of tert-butanol + chlorobenzene and tert-butyl acetate + chlorobenzene binary systems and the tert-butanol + tert-butyl acetate + chlorobenzene ternary system at 101.33 kPa were measured using a circulation VLE still. The data of binary systems passed the thermodynamic consistency test of the Herington method and the Van Ness point test, and the experimental data of the ternary system also passed the Wisniak consistency test. These binary systems’ VLE data were fitted by the Wilson, nonrandom two-liquid (NRTL), and universal quasichemical (UNIQUAC) activity coefficient models with minor deviations. Furthermore, the obtained binary interaction parameters from the binary systems were used to predict the VLE behavior of the tert-butanol + tert-butyl acetate + chlorobenzene ternary system. The rmsd of vapor and the temperature between the experimental and predicted values for the ternary system were smaller than 0.0304 and 0.81K, respectively. The results indicated that the relative volatility between tert-butanol and tert-butyl acetate obviously increased when adding chlorobenzene as a solvent. Thus, chlorobenzene is a promising solvent for the separation of the tert-butanol and tert-butyl acetate mixture system by extractive distillation.

Laboratory studies suggested that general anesthetics induce neuroapoptosis and inhibit neurogenesis in developing brains of animals. Minocycline exerts neuroprotection against a wide range of toxic insults in neurodegenerative diseases models. Here, we investigate whether minocycline can alleviate neurogenetic damage and improve cognition following midazolam exposure in neonatal rats. Postnatal 7 days rats were divided randomly into three groups: control group (C), midazolam group (M), and minocycline pretreatment group (MP). After exposure to midazolam, the cell proliferation in the subventricular zone (SVZ) and the subgranular zone (SGZ) of the hippocampus in pups was analyzed by bromodeoxyuridine immunochemistry at 7 days after the administration of anesthesia. Cognitive function was assessed using the Morris water-maze test at 35 days after midazolam exposure. Compared with the control, midazolam reduced cell proliferation both in the SVZ and in the SGZ of the hippocampus of neonatal rats, and decreased spatial learning and memory ability of rats in adulthood significantly. Pretreatment with minocycline increased cell proliferation both in the SVZ and in the SGZ of the hippocampus and improved spatial learning and memory ability compared with midazolam, but it did not mitigate the changes to the normal levels compared with the controls. Our results indicated that pretreatment with minocycline can alleviate midazolam-induced damage in neural stem cell proliferation of neonatal rats and improve spatial learning and memory ability of rats in adulthood.