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Due to the pathological production of liver disease in utility particularly complexity, the morbidity and mortality of liver disease including viral hepatitis, liver fibrosis/cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are rapidly increasing worldwide. Considering its insidious onset, rapid progression and drug resistance, finding an effective therapy is particularly worthwhile. Phyllanthus urinaria L. (P. urinaria), an ethnic medicine, can be applied at the stages of viral hepatitis, liver fibrosis/cirrhosis and HCC, which demonstrates great potential in the treatment of liver disease. Currently, there are numerous reports on the application of P. urinaria in treating liver diseases, but a detailed analysis of its metabolites and a complete summary of its pharmacological mechanism are still scarce. In this review, the phytochemical metabolites and ethnopharmacological applications of P. urinaria are summarized. Briefly, P. urinaria mainly contains flavonoids, lignans, tannins, phenolic acids, terpenoids and other metabolites. The mechanisms of P. urinaria are mainly reflected in reducing surface antigen secretion and interfering with DNA polymerase synthesis for anti-viral hepatitis activity, reducing hepatic stellate cells activity, inflammation and oxidative stress for anti-liver fibrosis/cirrhosis activity, as well as preventing tumor proliferation, invasion and angiogenesis for anti-HCC activity via relevant signaling pathways. Accordingly, this review provides insights into the future application of natural products in the trilogy of liver diseases and will provide a scientific basis for further research and rational utilization of P. urinaria.

Electrochromic materials are capable of reversibly switching their colors or optical properties through redox reactions under applied voltages, which have shown great potential applications including smart windows, non-emissive displays, optical filters, among others. Although the current rigid electrochromic devices have shown emerging interest and developed rapidly, many applications (e.g., wearable/deformable optoelectronics) are blocked due to their inflexible features. Herein, the adaption of rigid electrochromic devices to flexible ones is of particular interest for the new era of smart optoelectronics. In this review, the current state-of-the-art achievements of flexible electrochromic devices (FECDs) are highlighted, along with their design strategies and the choice of electrochromic materials. The recent research progress of FECDs is reviewed in detail, and the challenges and corresponding solutions for real-world applications of FECDs are discussed. Furthermore, we summarize the basic fabrication strategies of FECDs and their potential applications. In addition, the development trend, the perspectives, and the outlook of FECDs are discussed at the end of this Review, which may provide recommendations and potential directions to advance the practical applications of FECDs.

Highlights La3+/Na+ bimetallically doped vanadate, designed for the first time, is promising in many electrochemical applications (e.g., batteries, electrochromics). This is the first report of electrochromic displays employing bimetallically doped vanadate. It is demonstrated for the first time that zinc dendrites and vanadate dissolution are significantly inhibited by employing an aqueous hybrid Zn2+/Na+ electrolyte.

Vanadium oxides are highly valued as electrochromic materials because of their multicolor capabilities. However, their practical applications have been limited due to challenges such as the dissolution of vanadate into aqueous electrolytes, leading to poor long‐term stability. Herein, a solution is proposed to the vanadate dissolution issue by utilizing a hybrid electrolyte consisting of tetraethylene glycol dimethyl ether (TEGDME) and water. This electrolyte has the unique ability to form a robust cathode electrolyte interface layer on vanadium oxide electrodes. As a proof of concept, zinc‐anode‐based multicolor transparent electrochromic displays are prepared using layered potassium vanadate (K2V6O16·1.5H2O, KVO) with a TEGDME–water hybrid electrolyte. By soaking the KVO electrode in the hybrid electrolyte, it is demonstrated that KVO has remarkable stability against dissolution. Furthermore, it is shown that KVO has superior electrochromic performance compared to sodium vanadate (NaV3O8·1.5H2O, SVO), due to the wide KVO interlayer spacing. Given the enhanced performance of this hybrid electrolyte and KVO cathode material, a zinc‐anode‐based electrochromic display prototype is shown to exhibit compelling performance. As such, this work is expected to be a significant catalyst for accelerating the development of vanadate‐based electrochromic displays.

The accumulation of exogenous silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) will terminally bring about liver injury, including cell death, where DNA methylation tends to be a crucial epigenetic modulator. The change in the cell autophagy level verified to be closely associated with hepatocyte death has been followed with wide interest. But the molecular toxicological mechanisms of AgNPs in relation to DNA methylation, autophagy, and cell death remain inconclusive. To address the issue above, in LO2 cells treated with increasing concentrations of AgNPs (0, 5, 10, and 20 μg/mL), a cell cytotoxicity assay was performed to analyze the level of cell death, which also helped to choose an optimal concentration for next experiments. An immunofluorescence assay was used to determine the autophagic flux as well as TFEB translocation, with qRT-PCR and western blot being used to analyze the expression level of autophagy-related genes and proteins. According to our findings, in the determination of cell viability, 20 μg/mL (AgNPs) was adopted as the best working concentration. LO2 cell death, autophagy, and TFEB nuclear translocation were induced by AgNPs, which could be inhibited by lysosome inhibitor chloroquine (CQ) or siRNA specific for TFEB. Moreover, AgNP exposure led to DNA hypermethylation, with DNMT1 taking part mainly, which could be obviously prevented by 5-Aza-2′-deoxycytidine (5-AzaC) or trichostatin A (TSA) treatment or DNMT1 knockout in LO2 cells. Our studies suggest that through TFEB-dependent cell autophagy, increased DNMT1 may facilitate cell death induced by AgNPs.

Abstract Thermal interface materials (TIM) represented by submicron silver adhesive provide a promising solution for ultra‐high heat dissipation in chip integration. However, it is difficult to accurately characterize the thermal performance of submicron silver adhesive interfaces, and their high‐temperature degradation mechanism still remains unclear. Herein, the accelerated high‐temperature aging experiments of submicron silver adhesion interfaces are performed, and a non‐destructive testing method is provided to measure the degeneration of interfacial thermal resistance (ITR). After performing the two‐sided test, ITR can be extracted with an error of less than 4.6%. Based on scanning electron microscopy and X‐ray microstructural analysis, the microstructural evolution of silver adhesive interfaces is presented and its high‐temperature degradation mechanism is determined. It is observed for the first time that ITR would change with the aging time following a bathtub curve. Such a degenerative process can be evidently divided into three stages including secondary solidification, fluctuation, and failure. In addition, a physical model is developed to interpret the degradation mechanism of ITR at high temperatures. The change in the trend of submicron silver body and TIM–solid contact thermal resistance at different stages is presented. This work helps promote submicron silver's application as high‐performance TIM.

Abstract Background Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc), accompanied by accumulation of α-synuclein, chronic neuroinflammation and autophagy dysfunction. Previous studies suggested that misfolded α-synuclein induces the inflammatory response and autophagy dysfunction in microglial cells. The NLRP3 inflammasome signaling pathway plays a crucial role in the neuroinflammatory process in the central nervous system. However, the relationship between autophagy deficiency and NLRP3 activation induced by α-synuclein accumulation is not well understood. Methods Through immunoblotting, immunocytochemistry, immunofluorescence, flow cytometry, ELISA and behavioral tests, we investigated the role of p38-TFEB-NLRP3 signaling pathways on neuroinflammation in the α-synuclein A53T PD models. Results Our results showed that increased protein levels of NLRP3, ASC, and caspase-1 in the α-synuclein A53T PD models. P38 is activated by overexpression of α-synuclein A53T mutant, which inhibited the master transcriptional activator of autophagy TFEB. And we found that NLRP3 was degraded by chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) in microglial cells. Furthermore, p38-TFEB pathways inhibited CMA-mediated NLRP3 degradation in Parkinson's disease. Inhibition of p38 had a protective effect on Parkinson's disease model via suppressing the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome pathway. Moreover, both p38 inhibitor SB203580 and NLRP3 inhibitor MCC950 not only prevented neurodegeneration in vivo, but also alleviated movement impairment in α-synuclein A53T-tg mice model of Parkinson’s disease. Conclusion Our research reveals p38-TFEB pathways promote microglia activation through inhibiting CMA-mediated NLRP3 degradation in Parkinson's disease, which could be a potential therapeutic strategy for PD. Graphical abstract p38-TFEB pathways promote microglia activation through inhibiting CMA-mediated NLRP3 degradation in Parkinson's disease. In this model, p38 activates NLRP3 inflammasome via inhibiting TFEB in microglia. TFEB signaling negatively regulates NLRP3 inflammasome through increasing LAMP2A expression, which binds to NLRP3 and promotes its degradation via chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA). NLRP3-mediated microglial activation promotes the death of dopaminergic neurons.

Accumulating evidence has proved that aberrant methylation of enhancers plays regulatory roles in gene expression for various cancers including lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). In this study, the transcriptome and methylation data of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)-LUAD cohort were comprehensively analyzed with a five-step Enhancer Linking by Methylation/Expression Relationships (ELMER) process. Step 1: 131,371 distal (2 kb upstream from the transcription start site) probes were obtained. Step 2: 10,665 distal hypomethylated probes were identified in an unsupervised mode with the get.diff.meth function. Step 3: 699 probe-gene pairs with negative correlations were screened using the get.pair function in an unsupervised mode. Step 4: After mapping with probes, 768 motifs were obtained and 24 of them were enriched. Step 5: 127 transcription factors (TFs) with differential expressions and negative correlations with methylation levels were screened, which were corresponding to 21 motifs. After the ELMER process, a prognostic “TFs-motifs-genes” regulatory network was constructed. The Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and Stepwise regression analyses were further applied to identify variables in the TCGA-LUAD cohort and an eight-gene signature was constructed for calculating the risk score. The risk score was verified in two independent validation cohorts. The area under curve values of receiver operating characteristic curves predicting 1-, 3-, and 5-years survival ranged from 0.633 to 0.764. With the increase of the risk scores, both the survival statuses and clinical traits showed a worse tendency. There were significant differences in the degrees of immune cell infiltration, TMB values, and TIDE scores between the high-risk and low-risk groups. Finally, a better-performing prognostic nomogram was integrated with the risk score and other clinical traits. In short, this multi-omics analysis demonstrated the application of ELMER in analyzing enhancer-associated regulatory network in LUAD, which provided promising strategies for epigenetic therapy and prognostic biomarkers.

Phase-Change Materials (PCMs) are widely applied in dynamic optical modulation due to the dramatic changes in their complex refractive index caused by temperature variation. As the functionality varies, the application of a single PCM cannot meet the compact, efficient and broadband needs of optical modulators. In this work, we combine vanadium dioxide (VO2) and a chalcogenide (Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) or In3SbTe2 (IST)) to obtain a VO2–GST/IST multiple-stack film that is optimized by a genetic algorithm. This film has a wide spectrum and high modulation properties with three self-switchable modes varied by temperature, including transmission, absorption and reflection. The optimal results are an average normal transmittance, absorbance, and reflectance of 0.76, 0.91, 0.86 in 3–5 μm and 0.72, 0.90, 0.90 in 8–14 μm under different temperature ranges. The film enhances the transmission and absorption properties due to the formation of anti-reflective coating and Fabry–Perot resonance. Compared with GST, the film maintains high reflectance due to the metal-like interface reflection of crystalline IST, which exhibits metallic properties. For different polarization states, the film demonstrates great directional insensitivity when the incidence angles vary from 0° to 60°. The designed self-adaptive multistage infrared radiative thermo-optic modulator has promising implications for optical fuse, fiber-optic communication and energy storage fields.

In practical applications, the independent scattering approximation (ISA) is widely used to analyze light transfer in nanoparticle systems. However, the traditional independent scattering criterion is obtained under the assumption that the host medium surrounding particles is nonabsorbing, and thus may be invalid in certain circumstances. In this work, to explore the applicability of the ISA for small particles in absorbing host media, we calculate the extinction efficiency of particle clusters by direct solutions of macroscopic Maxwell equations. Using the far-field and distance-independent definitions of extinction, the computational efficiency multi-sphere method is applied for particle clusters in absorbing host, and its accuracy is verified with the discrete dipole approximation method. It is well known that for small particles, the dependent scattering in transparent host always enhances the extinction of the cluster and the criterion for the ISA is nearly independent of the particle refractive index and particle size. We show, however, that when the host medium is absorbing, the dependent scattering between particles can lead to a decreased or even negative extinction, and thus the ISA criterion depends on the particle refractive index, size, and host medium absorption index. In this result, the generalized criteria for absorbing host media may differ significantly from the conventional ones for transparent host media. The results can provide guidance in solving problems related to light transfer in nanoparticle systems, particularly in the presence of absorption in the host medium.

With the rapid advancements in aerospace technology and infrared detection technology, there are increasing needs for materials with simultaneous infrared camouflage and radiative cooling capabilities. In this study, a three-layered Ge/Ag/Si thin film structure on a titanium alloy TC4 substrate (a widely used skin material for spacecraft) is designed and optimized to achieve such spectral compatibility by combining the transfer matrix method and the genetic algorithm. The structure exhibits a low average emissivity of 0.11 in the atmospheric windows of 3–5 μm and 8–14 μm for infrared camouflage and a high average emissivity of 0.69 in 5–8 μm for radiative cooling. Furthermore, the designed metasurface shows a high degree of robustness regarding the polarization and incidence angle of the incoming electromagnetic wave. The underlying mechanisms allowing for the spectral compatibility of the metasurface can be elucidated as follows: the top Ge layer selectively transmits electromagnetic waves ranging from 5–8 μm while it reflects those in the ranges of 3–5 μm and 8–14 μm. The transmitted electromagnetic waves from the Ge layer are first absorbed by the Ag layer and then localized in the Fabry-Perot resonance cavity formed by Ag layer, Si layer and TC4 substrate. Ag and TC4 make further intrinsic absorptions during the multiple reflections of the localized electromagnetic waves.

Particle-dispersed coatings emerged as a promising approach to regulate the apparent radiative properties of underlying substrates in various applications, including but not limited to radiative cooling, thermal management, and infrared stealth. However, most research efforts in this field overlooked the dependent scattering mechanisms between the particles and the substrate, which can impact the optical properties of the particles. In this study, we explored the particle-substrate interactions within the atmospheric radiative window of 8–14 µm. Using the T-matrix method, we calculated the scattering and absorption efficiencies of a dielectric/metallic particle situated above a metallic/dielectric substrate, considering the different gap sizes. Near the small gaps (a with a the sphere radius), we found that the strong local fields induced by the interaction between the induced and image charges largely enhanced the absorption and scattering efficiencies of the particles. With the increasing gap sizes, the absorption and scattering efficiencies presented a significant oscillation with a period of about 4.5a, which was attributed to the interference (standing wave) between the scattered fields from the sphere and the reflected fields from the substrate. Our findings identify a crucial role of the particle–substrate interactions in the infrared properties of particles, which may guide a comprehensive insight on the apparent radiative properties of the particle composite coatings.

Infrared (IR) stealth plays a vital role in the modern military field. With the continuous development of detection technology, multi-band (such as near-IR laser and middle-IR) compatible IR stealth is required. Combining rigorous coupled wave analysis (RCWA) with Deep Learning (DL), we design a Ge/Ag/Ge multilayer circular-hole metasurface capable of multi-band IR stealth. It achieves low average emissivity of 0.12 and 0.17 in the two atmospheric windows (3~5 μm and 8~14 μm), while it achieves a relatively high average emissivity of 0.61 between the two atmospheric windows (5~8 μm) for the purpose of radiative thermal management. Additionally, the metasurface has a narrow-band high absorptivity of 0.88 at the near-infrared wavelength (1.54 μm) for laser guidance. For the optimized structure, we also analyze the potential physical mechanisms. The structure we optimized is geometrically simple, which may find practical applications aided with advanced nano-fabrication techniques. Also, our work is instructive for the implementation of DL in the design and optimization of multifunctional IR stealth materials.

The photodissociation of O _2 is thought to play a vital role in blocking UV radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere and likely has great importance in characterizing exoplanetary atmospheres. This work considers four photodissociation processes of O _2 associated with its four electronic states, whose potential energy curves and transition dipole moments are calculated at the icMRCI+Q/aug-cc-pwCV5Z-DK level of theory. The quantum-mechanical approach is used to compute the state-resolved cross sections for two triplet transitions from the ground X ${}^{3}{{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{{\rm{g}}}^{-}$ state to the excited B ${}^{3}{{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{{\rm{u}}}^{-}$ and E ${}^{3}{{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{{\rm{u}}}^{-}$ states, and for two singlet transitions from the a ^1 Δ _g and b ${}^{1}{{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{{\rm{g}}}^{+}$ states to the 1 ^1 Π _u state, with a consideration of photon wavelengths from 500 Å to the relevant threshold. Assuming the populations of the initial states satisfy a Boltzmann distribution, the temperature-dependent photodissociation cross sections are estimated at gas dynamic temperatures of 0–10,000 K, in which the discrete progressions of the B ${}^{3}{{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{{\rm{u}}}^{-}\leftarrow {\rm{X}}$ ${}^{3}{{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{{\rm{g}}}^{-}$ and E ${}^{3}{{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{{\rm{u}}}^{-}\leftarrow {\rm{X}}$ ${}^{3}{{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{{\rm{g}}}^{-}$ transitions are also considered. The photodissociation rates of O _2 in the interstellar, solar, and blackbody radiation fields are also calculated using the temperature-dependent cross sections. The resulting photodissociation cross sections and rates are important for the atmospheric chemistry of Earth and may be also useful for the atmospheric exploration of exoplanets.

Energy consumption of buildings during heating and cooling accounts for about 15% of global total energy consumption. Advanced dynamic switchable windows that enable independent control of solar heat will contribute to optimal energy efficiency in heating, cooling, and artificial lighting systems throughout buildings. Recently, energy‐efficient plasmonic electrochromic smart windows (PESWs) based on metal oxide nanocrystals (NCs) have been gaining increasing attention due to their effective and controllable regulation over the near‐infrared region of the solar spectrum without affecting the dynamic visible transmittance of the smart windows. Herein, the current state‐of‐the‐art results of colloidal metal oxide NCs for PESWs are highlighted, along with their design strategies and working principles. The recent research status of PESWs in typical colloidal metal oxide NCs is reviewed in detail, and the challenges and corresponding countermeasures in this field are discussed. Furthermore, an outlook into novel opportunities in PESW‐related academic research and how to accelerate the pace of real‐world applications is presented.

Microalgae are considered one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly ways for carbon dioxide fixation. The bubbles play an important role in analyzing the radiation transfer in photobioreactors during microalgae growth. Herein, Chlorella sp. and Scenedesmus obliquus were cultured in the airlift flat plate photobioreactor and evaluated for the temporal evolution of radiation characteristics. A one-dimensional model of bubbles on time-dependent radiation transfer in a photobioreactor was proposed, and it was well verified with the experimental result. The results indicated that with the increase of bubble volume fraction or the decrease of bubble radius, the local irradiance increased at the illuminated surface of the microalgal culture and was attenuated more rapidly along with the radiation transfer. The average specific growth rate of microalgae decreases as bubble volume fraction increases or bubble radius decreases. The volume fraction of 0.003 and a radius of 3.5 mm are the optimal operating conditions in this study for microalgae growth and carbon dioxide fixation. The presented analysis would facilitate the design and optimization of the optical and aeration configurations of photobioreactors for carbon dioxide fixation.

The light scattering properties of particles play important roles in radiative transfer in many dispersed systems, such as turbid atmosphere, ocean water, nanofluids, composite coatings and so on. As one of the scattering property parameters, the scattering phase functions of particles are strongly dependent on the particle size, size distribution, and morphology, as well as on the complex refractive indices of the particles and surrounding media. For the sake of simplicity, the empirical phase function models are widely used in many practical applications. In this work, we focus on the radiative transfer problem in dispersed systems composed of spherical particles, and give quantitative analyses of the impact of scattering phase functions on the radiative transfer process. We fit the scattering phase functions of four different types of practical dispersed systems using four previously proposed empirical phase function models, including the Henyey–Greenstein (HG) model, Cornette Shanks (CS) model, Reynold and McCormick (RM) model and two-term Reynolds–McCormick (TTRM) model. By comparing the radiative transfer characteristics (i.e., hemispherical reflectance, hemispherical transmittance and total absorptance) of dispersed layers calculated using the Monte Carlo method, the relative errors caused by using the empirical phase functions are systematically investigated. The results demonstrate that the HG, CS and RM models cause obvious errors in the calculation of hemispherical reflectance in many cases. Meanwhile, the induced errors show no obvious regularity, but are related to the particle size and layer optical thickness. Due to the good fitting effect in both forward and backward directions, the TTRM model provides significantly higher performances in fitting the phase functions of all considered cases than the widely used single-term parametrizations. Moreover, for different particle sizes and layer optical thicknesses, the induced errors of the TTRM model in radiative transfer characteristics are very small, especially for the case of polydisperse particles. Our results can be used to guide the design, analysis and optimization of dispersed systems in practical optics and photonics applications.

Noniridescent and nonfading structural colors generated from metallic and dielectric nanoparticles with extraordinary optical properties hold great promise in applications such as image display, color printing, and information security. Yet, due to the strong wavelength dependence of optical constants and the radiation pattern, it is difficult and time-consuming to design nanoparticles with the desired hue, saturation, and brightness. Herein, we combined the Monte Carlo and Mie scattering simulations and a bidirectional neural network (BNN) to improve the design of gold nanoparticles’ structural colors. The optical simulations provided a dataset including color properties and geometric parameters of gold nanoparticle systems, while the BNN was proposed to accurately predict the structural colors of gold nanoparticle systems and inversely design the geometric parameters for the desired colors. Taking the human chromatic discrimination ability as a criterion, our proposed approach achieved a high accuracy of 99.83% on the predicted colors and 98.5% on the designed geometric parameters. This work provides a general method to accurately and efficiently design the structural colors of nanoparticle systems, which can be exploited in a variety of applications and contribute to the development of advanced optical materials.

All-dielectric metasurfaces supporting surface phonon polaritons (SPhPs) have lower optical loss and stronger optical confinement compared to plasmonic systems. However, most polar materials with SPhPs have narrow Reststrahlen bands, typically within a few micrometers, thus limiting their application range. Barium titanate (BTO) is an anisotropic polar dielectric with two Reststrahlen bands supporting SPhPs in the mid-infrared to terahertz range and exhibits high-quality SPhPs characteristics due to its high dielectric function ratio (-ε'/ε'). Herein, we construct BTO anisotropic metasurfaces and investigate the excitation, coupling, and application of SPhPs modes within them. Localized optical modes at subwavelength scales can be excited over a wide range but require large meta-atomic heights (>300 nm). The higher-order hybrid mode predominantly displays monopole characteristics, boasting a high Q-factor of 125, while the transverse dipole mode exhibits robust field enhancement capabilities (|E/E0| = 173, a penetration depth of 404.7 nm). Together, they surpass conventional all-dielectric metasurfaces by nearly a factor of two in correlation performance. These properties are theorized to offer significant advantages in thermal emission, self-referenced sensing, and molecular detection. The findings of this work confirm the considerable contribution of SPhPs to promoting BTO metasurfaces for applications in mid-infrared nanophotonics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]