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In this paper, the existence of positive periodic solutions is studied for Liénard equation with a singularity of repulsive type, x ″ (t) + f (x (t)) x ′ (t) + φ (t) x μ (t) − 1 x γ (t) = e (t) , where f : (0 , + ∞) → R is continuous, which may have a singularity at the origin, the sign of φ (t) , e (t) is allowed to change, and μ, γ are positive constants. By using a continuation theorem, as well as the techniques of a priori estimates, we show that this equation has a positive T-periodic solution when μ ∈ [ 0 , + ∞) . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring an efficient nonnoble metal catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is critical for industrial alkaline water electrolysis. However, it remains a great challenge due to the additional energy required for H─OH bond cleavage and the lack of enough H2O adsorption sites for most catalysts. Herein, the integration of oxophilic Eu2O3 with NiCo alloy with evoked multisite synergism to facilitate water dissociation for alkaline HER is proposed. The optimized Eu2O3‐NiCo exhibits excellent HER activity with a low overpotential of only 60 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and good electrochemical stability, which is superior to that of Eu2O3‐free NiCo and comparable to benchmark Pt/C. The key roles of Eu2O3 on the enhanced HER performance of Eu2O3‐NiCo are identified by in situ Raman spectroscopy and theoretical calculations. It is discovered that the Eu2O3 with strong oxophilicity facilitates the adsorption of H2O and the breakage of H─OH bonding while evoking the electron redistribution at Eu2O3/NiCo interface and accelerating the Volmer step in alkaline HER. Furthermore, the obtained Eu2O3‐NiCo as both anode and cathode displays excellent overall water‐splitting activity and stability in 1.0 M KOH solution. It is believed that this study provides an important inspiration to design high‐performance electrocatalysts toward HER based on rare‐earth materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Berberine (BBR) is an alkaloid found in plants. It has neuroprotective, anti‐inflammatory and lipid‐lowering activity. However, the efficacy of treatment with BBR and the mechanisms through which it acts need further study. Aims: This study investigated the therapeutic effects and the mechanism of action of BBR on obesity‐induced insulin resistance in peripheral tissues. Methods: High‐fat‐fed C57BL/6J mice and low‐fat‐fed C57BL/6J mice with miR‐27a overexpression were given BBR intervention (100 mg/kg, po), and the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and insulin tolerance test (ITT) were performed. Palmitic acid‐stimulated hypertrophic adipocyte models were treated with BBR (10 μM). Related indicators and protein expression levels were examined. Results: The AUCs of the OGTT and the ITT in the BBR intervention group were reduced significantly (p < 0.01) (p < 0.05), and the serum biochemical parameters, including FBG, TC, TG and LDL‐C were significantly reduced after BBR intervention. In the in vitro experiments, the triglyceride level and volume of lipid droplets decreased significantly after BBR intervention (p < 0.01) (p < 0.05). Likewise, BBR ameliorates skeletal muscle and pancreas insulin signalling pathways in vivo and in vitro. Discussion: The results showed that BBR significantly ameliorated insulin resistance, reduced body weight and percent body fat and improved serum biochemical parameters in mice. Likewise, BBR reduced triglyceride level and lipid droplet volume in hypertrophic adipocytes, BBR improved obesity effectively. Meanwhile, BBR ameliorated the histomorphology of the pancreas, and skeletal muscle and pancreas insulin related signalling pathways of islets in in vitro and in vivo experiments. The results further demonstrated that BBR inhibited miR‐27a levels in serum from obese mice and supernatant of hypertrophic adipocytes. miR‐27a overexpression in low‐fat fed mice indicated that miR‐27a caused insulin resistance, and BBR intervention significantly improved the miR‐27a induced insulin resistance status. Conclusion: This study demonstrates the important role of BBR in obesity‐induced peripheral insulin resistance and suggest that the mechanism of its effect may be inhibition of miR‐27a secretion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AgBiSe2 undergoes two structural transitions in its service temperature range. Increasing entropy by alloying is considered an effective solution for modulating phase transition, but the efficacy of increasing entropy is limited by solubility and the selection of alloying components depends on trial and error. This study first confirmes that trigonal AgBiSe2 is metavalently bonded and searches metavalent PbTe as the alloying material based on the 2D map spanned by quantitative chemical bonding descriptors of electrons transferred (ET) and electrons shared (ES). The large solubility can be explained by the same bonding mechanism. PbTe alloying successfully stabilizes cubic AgBiSe2 to room temperature. Further, by optimizing the carrier concentration, the average ZT value from 300 to 773 K of (AgBiSe2)0.7(PbTe)0.3Cu0.02 reaches 0.42, which is 40% higher than that of pristine AgBiSe2. Simultaneously, heavy alloying leads to solid solution strengthening with enhanced hardness. This study not only paves the way for practical applications of AgBiSe2‐based materials but also provides an effective strategy for screening potential alloying candidates to solve the structure‐transition issue from the viewpoint of chemical bonding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Host-associated resident microbiota can protect their host from pathogens—a community-level trait called colonization resistance. The effect of the diversity of the resident community in previous studies has shown contradictory results, with higher diversity either strengthening or weakening colonization resistance. To control the confounding factors that may lead to such contradictions, we use mathematical simulations with a focus on species interactions and their impact on colonization resistance. We use a mediator-explicit model that accounts for metabolite-mediated interactions to perform in silico invasion experiments. We show that the relationship between colonization resistance and species richness of the resident community is not monotonic because it depends on two underlying trends as the richness of the resident community increases: a decrease in instances of augmentation (invader species added, without driving out resident species) and an increase in instances of displacement (invader species added, driving out some of the resident species). These trends hold consistently under different parameters, regardless of the number of compounds that mediate interactions between species or the proportion of the facilitative versus inhibitory interactions among species. Our results show a positive correlation between resistance and diversity in low-richness communities and a negative correlation in high-richness communities, offering an explanation for the seemingly contradictory trend in the resistance-diversity relationship in previous reports. Author summary: Empirically, different trends have been observed between the richness of a resident community and how resistant that community is against the introduction of new members: resident communities with higher richness can be more resistant against invaders in some cases and less resistant in other cases. To explain what can cause such seemingly contradictory trends, we used simulations of the invasion process using a simple model of microbial interactions through metabolites and metabolic byproducts. We found that two underlying trends consistently exist: the chance of augmentation (invader species added, without driving out resident species) and the chance of displacement (invader species added, driving out some of the resident species) decreases, in communities with higher richness. The combination of these two trends can lead to a not monotonic relationship between resistance against invaders and the species richness of the resident community. Our model predicts that in low-richness (versus high-richness) communities, resistance-diversity has a positive (versus negative) correlation, explaining the previously observed trends in the resistance-diversity relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aortic dissection is usually managed with interventional therapy, conservative therapy, and surgery to inhibit disease progression and improve prognoses. Nevertheless, the absence of meticulous and effective nursing during the treatment greatly increases the complication rates, which is detrimental to the recovery of patients. This study aimed to explore the efficacy of predictive pain intervention in the nursing process of patients with aortic dissection. Sixty patients with aortic dissection who were admitted to our hospital from December 2018 to December 2020 were observed in this study. Specifically, these patients were randomly and equally classified into Group A (patients who were given conventional nursing intervention) and Group B (patients who were given predictive pain intervention). Subsequently, the pain score, complication rates, and nursing satisfaction in the two groups were compared and analyzed. Compared with patients in Group A, patients in Group B had significantly lower pain scores (P< 0.05); complication rates were significantly lower in Group B than in Group A (6.67% vs. 23.33%, P< 0.05); patient satisfaction with care was significantly better in Group B compared to Group A (96.67% vs. 73.33%, P< 0.05). Predictive pain intervention is widely recognized as useful in the treatment of patients with aortic dissection. It has significant clinical application value as it can largely alleviate pain and is relatively safe for patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Cardiac dysfunction after sepsis the most common and severe sepsis-related organ failure. The severity of cardiac damage in sepsis patients was positively associated to mortality. It is important to look for drugs targeting sepsis-induced cardiac damage. Our previous studies found that 4-phenylbutyric acid (PBA) was beneficial to septic shock by improving cardiovascular function and survival, while the specific mechanism is unclear. Objectives: We aimed to explore the specific mechanism and PBA for protecting cardiac function in sepsis. Methods: The cecal ligation and puncture-induced septic shock models were used to observe the therapeutic effects of PBA on myocardial contractility and the serum levels of cardiac troponin-T. The mechanisms of PBA against sepsis were explored by metabolomics and network pharmacology. Results: The results showed that PBA alleviated the sepsis-induced cardiac damage. The metabolomics results showed that there were 28 metabolites involving in the therapeutic effects of PBA against sepsis. According to network pharmacology, 11 hub genes were found that were involved in lipid metabolism and amino acid transport following PBA treatment. The further integrated analysis focused on 7 key targets, including Comt, Slc6a4, Maoa, Ppara, Pparg, Ptgs2 and Trpv1, as well as their core metabolites and pathways. In an in vitro assay, PBA effectively inhibited sepsis-induced reductions in Comt, Ptgs2 and Ppara after sepsis. Conclusions: PBA protects sepsis-induced cardiac injury by targeting Comt/Ptgs2/Ppara, which regulates amino acid metabolism and lipid metabolism. The study reveals the complicated mechanisms of PBA against sepsis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enterobacter cloacae complex (ECC) widely exists in the hospital environment and is one of the important conditional pathogens of hospital-acquired infection. To investigate the distribution of integrons and carbapenem-resistant genes in clinical ECC, 70 isolates of ECC from non-sputum specimens were collected. Class 1 and class 2 integron integrase gene intI1 and intI2, as well as common carbapenem-resistant genes, blaKPC, blaVIM, blaIMP, blaNDM, blaGES, and blaOXA-23, were screened. Gene cassette arrays and common promoters of class 1 integron together with subtypes of carbapenem-resistant genes were determined by sequencing. Resistant rates to commonly used antimicrobial agents between class 1 integron-positive and integron-negative ECC isolates were analyzed. The whole-genome of blaNDM-7 harboring Enterobacter hormaechei was sequenced and the sequence around blaNDM-7 was analyzed. Twenty isolates were positive for intI1. Nineteen different antimicrobial-resistant gene cassettes and 11 different gene cassette arrays, including aadA22-lnuF, were detected in this study. Common promoters of class 1 integron PcH1, PcW, PcW-P2, and PcH2 were detected in 12, 4, 3, and 1 isolates, respectively. The rates of antimicrobial resistance of intI1-positive isolates were higher than those of intI1-negative isolates to clinical commonly used antimicrobial agents. Carbapenem-resistant genes blaKPC-2, blaNDM-1, blaNDM-2, and blaNDM-7 were detected in 2, 1, 1, and 1 isolates, respectively. blaNDM-7 was located between bleMBL and IS5. To the best of our knowledge, this study reported for the first time of blaNDM-7 in ECC isolate in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) fruit extracts on oxidative stress levels in rodent models. Animal studies meeting the inclusion criteria were retrieved from PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, and VIP Periodical Service Platform. The Systematic Review Center for Laboratory Animal Experimentation (SYRCLE) risk‐of‐bias tool was used to evaluate the risk of bias in the included studies. A meta‐analysis was performed based on the guidelines provided in the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (CHSRI) by using Stata 17.0 software. Nineteen studies were included in the meta‐analysis. Jujube fruit extracts significantly decreased the level of malonaldehyde (MDA) and increased the levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH‐Px). Meanwhile, there was no significant improvement in the catalase (CAT) levels. In addition, there was considerable heterogeneity in the results of the meta‐analysis. The results of the subgroup analysis indicated that the animal model, type of extracts, and source of target parameters may have contributed to the heterogeneity. Jujube fruit extracts are healthy and effective antioxidant dietary supplements that may be an effective adjunctive therapy for diseases in which oxidative stress is a major pathological factor. However, the overall methodological quality of the included studies was low, and additional research is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Skin color is an important trait that determines the cosmetic appearance and quality of fruits. In cucumber, the skin color ranges from white to brown in mature fruits. However, the genetic basis for this important trait remains unclear. We conducted a genome‐wide association study of natural cucumber populations, along with map‐based cloning techniques, on an F2 population resulting from a cross between Pepino (with yellow‐brown fruit skin) and Zaoer‐N (with creamy fruit skin). We identified CsMYB60 as a candidate gene responsible for skin coloration in mature cucumber fruits. In cucumber accessions with white to pale yellow skin color, a premature stop mutation (C to T) was found in the second exon region of CsMYB60, whereas light yellow cucumber accessions exhibited splicing premature termination caused by an intronic mutator‐like element insertion in CsMYB60. Transgenic CsMYB60c cucumber plants displayed a yellow‐brown skin color by promoting accumulation of flavonoids, especially hyperoside, a yellow‐colored flavonol. CsMYB60c encodes a nuclear protein that primarily acts as a transcriptional activator through its C‐terminal activation motif. RNA sequencing and DNA affinity purification sequencing assays revealed that CsMYB60c promotes skin coloration by directly binding to the YYTACCTAMYT motif in the promoter regions of flavonoid biosynthetic genes, including CsF3′H, which encodes flavonoid 3′‐hydroxylase. The findings of our study not only offer insight into the function of CsMYB60 as dominantly controlling fruit coloration, but also highlight that intronic DNA mutations can have a similar phenotypic impact as exonic mutations, which may be valuable in future cucumber breeding programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to investigate the preoperative prediction value of computed tomography (CT) radiomics combined with traditional imaging features in the grading of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (CCRCC) by extracting and analyzing the CT radiomics information of patients with CCRCC. One hundred thirty four patients with CCRCC who were admitted to our Hospital, Sun Yat‐sen University (Futian, Shenzhen), between June 2019 and June 2023 were enrolled in this study. According to the WHO/ISUP classification standard, the patients were divided into the high differentiation group (III + IV) and the low differentiation group (I + II); they were divided into the study group and the validation group, with a ratio of 7:3 and the best features of the validation group were screened to construct the radiomics model. There were significant differences in the radiomics scores between the high differentiation group and the low differentiation group of CCRCC (p < 0.05). Computed tomography radiomics combined with traditional imaging features has favourable effects on predicting the differentiation degree of CCRCC before surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coupling of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) with the star‐quad cable having reference conductor is analyzed by using the proposed model, which is based upon multi‐conductor transmission line theory. Expressions for common‐mode (CM) and differential‐mode (DM) currents are developed. Two cases are mainly discussed: the first case is the star‐quad cable with a central reference conductor, and the second case with the outside reference conductor. A rigorous comparison between these two cases shows that when the reference conductor is placed at the center, the magnitude of CM current is reduced dramatically, which is beneficial for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). The CM current magnitude of the outside reference conductor is relatively very high due to the large CM current loop area, which is the least possible for the central reference conductor. There is no significant change in the DM current magnitude for both cases because the DM current has no direct dependence on the CM current loop area. A commercial software, FEKO, which utilizes the method of momentum (MoM), is used to compare the results of our proposed method, which are in good agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experiment investigated the influences of different dietary fat levels on histology, oxidative status, and immune response in gill and kidney of yellow catfish (Pelteobagrus fulvidraco). Three diets with different fat levels of 63.1 g/kg (low-fat, LF), 93.3 g/kg (medium-fat, MF), and 153.2 g/kg (high-fat, HF) were prepared to feed yellow catfish. The experiment continued for 56 days, and at the end of the experiment, gill and kidney tissues were sampled. As a result, both gill and kidney showed different degrees of tissue damage in HF group in terms of histology observation. HF increased the malondialdehyde content in gill but showed no effect on kidney, indicating that gill is more susceptible to injury than kidney under high-energy intake conditions. Additionally, HF diet significantly increased the activities of total-superoxide dismutase and catalase to eliminate excess peroxides both in gill and kidney. Moreover, HF diet significantly upregulated the expressions of pro-inflammatory cytokines (il6 and tnfα) and downregulated the expression of anti-inflammatory cytokines (il10), indicating that HF-diet-induced inflammatory response both in gill and kidney. These findings reveal the potential regulatory approach for fish gill and kidney health by dietary fat level, which will help to understand the adverse impacts of dietary lipid imbalance on the health of fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, atmospheric composite pollution has become increasingly serious, and accelerating VOC governance has become the focus of and difficulty in atmospheric governance. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) come from a wide range of sources, and industrial sources are the main source of anthropogenic VOC emissions in China. Chemicals, oil refining, and solvents are three typical VOC-emitting industries, and their control is an important part of accelerating and optimizing VOC governance. It can be controlled by source control, process control, and pipe end treatment; among these, pipe end treatment is divided into recovery technology and destruction technology. In pipeline end treatment, with the key materials of adsorption, absorption, catalytic oxidation, and catalytic combustion, the research and development of adsorbents, absorbents and catalysts has become a hot spot in recent years. This paper summarizes the chemical materials used in typical VOC pipe end-treatment technology (including adsorbents used in the adsorption method, absorbents used in the adsorption method, and catalysts used in the catalytic oxidation and catalytic combustion methods), summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of various materials and their application range, and looks forward to the direction of future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Empathy is a critical component of nursing care, impacting both nurses' and patients' outcomes. However, perceived empathy from spouses during pregnancy and its impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) are unclear. This study aimed to examine pregnant women's perceived empathy from their spouses and assess the relation of perceived empathy on HRQoL. Methods: This cross-sectional study, performed in the obstetric clinics or wards of four well-known hospitals in Anhui Province, China, included 349 pregnant women in the second or third trimester; participants were recruited by convenience sampling and enrolled from October to December 2021. A general information questionnaire, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), a purpose-designed empathy questionnaire and the Medical Outcomes Study 12-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12) were used to evaluate the pregnant women's general information, perceptions of empathy and HRQoL. Data were analysed using SPSS 22 at a threshold of P < 0.05. Descriptive analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, Student's t test, ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis were used for analysis. Results: The pregnant women's total empathy, physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) scores were 41.6 ± 9.0, 41.6 ± 7.6, and 47.7 ± 9.1, respectively. Correlation analysis revealed that the purpose-designed empathy questionnaire items were significantly positively correlated with perspective taking and empathic concern but were not correlated with the personal distress dimension and were only partially correlated with the fantasy dimension. Maternal physical condition during pregnancy, planned pregnancy, and occupational stress were predictors of the PCS score (β = 0.281, P < 0.01; β = 0.132, P = 0.02; β = -0.128, P = 0.02). The behavioural empathy item of our purpose-designed empathy questionnaire and empathic concern were important predictors of the MCS score (β = 0.127, P = 0.02; β = 0.158, P < 0.01), as well as other demographic and obstetric information, explaining 22.0% of the variance in MCS scores totally (F = 12.228, P < 0.01). Conclusions: Pregnant women perceived lower empathy from their spouses and reported lower HRQoL. Perceived empathy, particularly behavioural empathy, may significantly impact pregnant women's MCS scores but has no effect on their PCS scores. Strategies that foster perceived empathy from spouses among pregnant women are essential for facilitating healthy pregnancies and potentially improving maternal and child health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the dynamics (including shadowing property, expansiveness, topological stability and entropy) of several types of upper semi-continuous set-valued maps are mainly considered from differentiable dynamical systems points of view. It is shown that (1) if f is a hyperbolic endomor-phism then for each ε> 0 there exists a C1-neighborhood U of f such that the induced set-valued map F f , U has the ε-shadowing property, and moreover, if f is an expanding endomorphism then there exists a C1-neighborhood U of f such that the induced set-valued map F f , U has the Lipschitz shadowing property; (2) when a set-valued map F is generated by finite expanding endomorphisms, it has the shadowing property, and moreover, if the collection of the generators has no coincidence point then F is expansive and hence is topologically stable; (3) if f is an expanding endomorphism then for each ε> 0 there exists a C1-neighborhood U of f such that h (F f , U , ε) = h (f) (4) when F is generated by finite expanding endomorphisms with no coincidence point, the entropy formula of F is given. Furthermore, the dynamics of the set-valued maps based on discontinuous maps on the interval are also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the uncertainty of the structure and environment of the electric driving system (EDS), the fault signature of the rotating mechanism is complicated. A novel method based on Hilbert transform with modified fast kurtogram (HTMFK), which is used for identifying the bearing faults in the EDS, is proposed. The modified principle and algorithm flow of the proposed method are derived. A high pass filter based on the frequency band identified by HTMFK is constructed and applied to fault diagnosis. Simulation signals demonstrate the ability of demodulating signals and identifying the fault resonance band. The bearing fault bench experiment of EDS is carried out in a semianechoic chamber. The corresponding fault tests are conducted according to different operating conditions. The applicability of HTMFK is verified by comparing the square envelope spectrums. Compared with other methods, the proposed method identifies the fault resonance frequency band more effectively and expands the application range of bearing fault diagnosis in EDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optical communication is a particularly compelling technology for tackling the speed and capacity bottlenecks in data communication in modern society. Currently, the silicon photodetector plays a dominant role in high-speed optical communication across the visible-near-infrared spectrum. However, its intrinsic rigid structure, high working bias and low responsivity essentially limit its application in next-generation flexible optoelectronic devices. Herein, we report a narrow-bandgap non-fullerene acceptor (NFA) with a remarkable π-extension in the direction of both central and end units (CH17) with respect to the Y6 series, which demonstrates a more effective and compact 3D molecular packing, leading to lower trap states and energetic disorders in the photoactive film. Consequently, the optimized solution-processed organic photodetector (OPD) with CH17 exhibits a remarkable response time of 91 ns (λ = 880 nm) due to the high charge mobility and low parasitic capacitance, exceeding the values of most commercial Si photodiodes and all NFA-based OPDs operating in self-powered mode. More significantly, the flexible OPD exhibits negligible performance attenuation (<1%) after bending for 500 cycles, and maintains 96% of its initial performance even after 550 h of indoor exposure. Furthermore, the high-speed OPD demonstrates a high data transmission rate of 80 MHz with a bit error rate of 3.5 |$ \times $| 10−4, meaning it has great potential in next-generation high-speed flexible optical communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthesis of 3d–4f single molecule magnets (SMMs) with novel topologies and exploration of the magnetic relaxation mechanism of SMMs have continuously received considerable attention because high performance SMMs could be obtained. In this work, we selected N-3-methoxysalicylidene-2-amino-3-hydroxypyridine (H2L) and di-2-pyridyl ketone (dpk) for reaction with Ni(NO3)2·6H2O, Dy(NO3)3·5H2O and trimethylamine in a CH3OH solution, and a novel Ni4Dy4 complex, [Ni4Dy4(L)6(L′)2{(py)2C(OCH3)O}2(μ3-CO3)2(CH3OH)2]·10CH3OH·13H2O (1, (py)2C(OCH3)(OH) = the hemiacetal form of dpk), was obtained. The magnetic diluted complex, [Ni4Y3.91Dy0.09(L)6(L′)2{(py)2C(OCH3)O}2(μ3-CO3)2(CH3OH)2]·10CH3OH·12H2O (2), and the Y analogue of 1, [Ni4Y4(L)6(L′)2{(py)2C(OCH3)O}2(μ3-CO3)2(CH3OH)2]·10CH3OH·11H2O (3), were also obtained. The carbonate ions in 1–3 were formed by spontaneous fixation of atmospheric CO2. Structural analysis revealed that the metallic core in 1 can be viewed as a Ni2Dy2 butterfly connecting two NiDy subunits on each side. To our knowledge, the structural topologies of 1–3 were not reported previously. The magnetic susceptibilities of 3 were fitted by PHI, indicating that the magnetic coupling between Ni1 and Ni1a in the "Ni2Y2 butterfly" subunit of 3 is ferromagnetic. Alternating-current (ac) susceptibility studies revealed that 1–2 exhibit single molecule magnet behavior under a zero dc field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Neuro-inflammatory response promotes the initiation and sustenance of lumbar disc herniation (LDH). Protectin D1 (PD1), as a new type of specialized pro-resolving mediator (SPM), can improve the prognosis of various inflammatory diseases. Recent studies have shown that over representation of calcitonin gene-related peptides (CGRP) may activate nociceptive signaling following nerve injury. Silent information regulator 1 (SIRT1) is ubiquitously expressed in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord and plays a role in the pathogenesis of LDH. In this study, we investigated the analgesic effects of PD1 and elucidated the impact of neurogenic inflammation in the pathogenesis of neuropathic pain induced by non-compressive lumbar disc herniation (NCLDH) in a rat model. Methods. NCLDH models were established by applying protruding autologous nucleus pulposus to the L5 Dorsal root ganglion (DRG). PD1, SIRT1 antagonist or agonist, CGRP or antagonist were administered as daily intrathecal injections for three consecutive days postoperatively. Behavioral tests were conducted to assess mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia. The ipsilateral lumbar (L4–6) segment of the spinal dorsal horn was isolated for further analysis. Alterations in the release of SIRT1 and CGRP were explored using western blot and immunofluorescence. Results. Application of protruded nucleus (NP) materials to the DRG induced mechanical and thermal allodynia symptoms, and deregulated the expression of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines in rats. Intrathecal delivery of PD1 significantly reversed the NCLDH-induced imbalance in neuro-inflammatory response and alleviated the symptoms of mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia. In addition, NP application to the DGRs resulted the spinal upregulation of CGRP and SIRT1 expression, which was almost restored by intrathecal injection of PD1 in a dose-dependent manner. SIRT1 antagonist or agonist and CGRP or antagonist treatment further confirmed the result. Conclusion. Our findings indicate PD1 has a potent analgesic effect, and can modulate neuro-inflammation by regulating SIRT1-mediated CGRP signaling in NCLDH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-speed and sensitivity solution-processed organic photodetectors (OPDs) have drawn great attention for their promising applications in next-generation optoelectronics, including optical communication, imaging, autonomous driving, and military security. However, current OPDs commonly suffer from slow response speed due to low charge mobility, significantly hindering their applications in optical wireless communication. Herein, a pair of nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs), featuring a prominent π extension in the central units with respect to Y6, are synthesized with the same backbone but different halogenations in end cap groups, namely, CH-4Cl and CH-4F. The OPD based on CH-4Cl exhibits a remarkably short response time of 270 ns (λ = 850 nm) and detectivity of >1013 Jones in a self-powered mode, improving 34% and 500% compared to the values of OPD with CH-4F NFA, respectively, which ranks the highest speed among self-powered solution-processed binary OPD-based on NFAs. This outstanding performance is attributed to the low trap states and energetic disorders of OPDs with CH-4Cl. Furthermore, the high-speed OPD demonstrates a promising application in high-speed optical wireless communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: A study in eastern China has found that over 40% of zoo animals are infected with gastrointestinal parasites, which pose a threat to their welfare and the health of visitors and veterinarians. More than 11 parasite species were identified in the study conducted at Zhuyuwan Zoo, including two species of Ascaris, and they detected Paramphistomum spp. eggs in the captive Père David's deer and Fasciola spp. eggs in sika deer, which had not been previously reported in Chinese zoos. The study highlights the need for prevention and control measures to be implemented to tackle parasitic diseases in zoo animals. The burden of gastrointestinal parasites in zoo animals has serious implications for their welfare and the health of veterinarians and visitors. Zhuyuwan Zoo is located in the eastern suburb of Yangzhou city in eastern China, in which over 40 species of zoo animals are kept. In order to understand the infection status of GI parasites in Zhuyuwan Zoo, a total of 104 fresh fecal samples collected randomly from birds (n = 19), primates (n = 19), and non-primate mammals (n = 66) were analyzed using the saturated saline flotation technique and nylon sifter elutriation and sieving method for eggs/oocysts, respectively. Two Ascaris species were molecularly characterized. The results showed that the overall prevalence of parasitic infection was 42.3% (44/104). The parasitic infection rate in birds, primates, and non-primate mammals were 26.3% (5/19), 31.6% (6/19), and 50.0% (33/66), respectively. A total of 11 species of parasites were identified, namely, Trichostrongylidae, Capillaria sp., Trichuris spp., Strongyloides spp., Amidostomum sp., Toxascaris leonina, Baylisascaris transfuga, Parascaris equorum, Paramphistomum spp., Fasciola spp., and Eimeria spp. Paramphistomum spp. eggs were first detected from the captive Père David's deer, and Fasciola spp. eggs were first reported from sika deer in zoo in China. A sequence analysis of ITS-2 and cox1 showed that the eggs isolated from the African lion (Panthera leo Linnaeus, 1758) were T. leonina, and the eggs from the brown bear (Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1758) were B. transfuga. The public health threat posed by these potential zoonotic parasitic agents requires attention. These results lay a theoretical foundation for prevention and control of wild animal parasitic diseases at zoos in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient orogens within the supercontinent like Columbia can remain stable evolution as long as the cratons. What kind of lithospheric mantle was beneath those orogens and how it evolved into a stable state are still enigmatic. The Trans‐North China orogen (TNCO) is one of the typical collisional orogens within the Columbia supercontinent and was formed at ca. 1.85 Ga. Our work reveals that a cluster of kimberlites intruded the orogenic belt at ca. 1.54 Ga. These rocks were originally generated under a thick lithosphere (>200 km). Their entrained olivine cores show a composition of overlapping olivines from refractory mantle peridotites. The results suggest a thick and refractory lithospheric mantle beneath the TNCO at ca. 1.54 Ga. Such craton‐like property may result from large volume melt extraction from the lithospheric mantle, possibly caused by the ca. 1.78 Ga large igneous event, which eventually induces the long‐term stability of the TNCO during the subsequent supercontinent cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs first‐principles calculations to investigate the structural stability, electronic properties, and elastic properties of Co‐, Ni‐, Cu‐, and Mo‐doped β‐Si3N4. After optimizing the structure of each doped system, it can be determined that all systems are stable structures, as evidenced by the binding energy and forming energy. Then, the electronic properties of the doped systems are analyzed using the energy band and density of states. The findings reveal that the introduction of Co, Ni, and, Cu, reduces the energy bandgap compared to pure Si3N4. More notably, the doping of Mo eliminates the bandgap and results in strong metallicity in the doped systems. Moreover, all doped systems display magnetic moments. Finally, the investigation of elastic properties shows that all doped structures are ductile. The doping of Co, Ni, Cu, and Mo metals improves the toughness of Si3N4. In addition, the doping change of Co is the most obvious. These findings provide a theoretical foundation for future research on the preparation of ductile Si3N4 ceramics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of generative models, abused Deepfakes have aroused public concerns. As a defense mechanism, face forgery detection methods have been intensively studied. Remote photoplethysmography (rPPG) technology extract heartbeat signal from recorded videos by examining the subtle changes in skin color caused by cardiac activity. Since the face forgery process inevitably disrupts the periodic changes in facial color, rPPG signal proves to be a powerful biological indicator for Deepfake detection. Motivated by the key observation that rPPG signals produce unique rhythmic patterns in terms of different manipulation methods, we regard Deepfake detection also as a source detection task. The Multi-scale Spatial–Temporal PPG map is adopted to further exploit heartbeat signal from multiple facial regions. Moreover, to capture both spatial and temporal inconsistencies, we propose a two-stage network consisting of a Mask-Guided Local Attention module (MLA) to capture unique local patterns of PPG maps, and a Temporal Transformer to interact features of adjacent PPG maps in long distance. Abundant experiments on FaceForensics + + and Celeb-DF datasets prove the superiority of our method over all other rPPG-based approaches. Visualization also demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bio-based vitrimers present a promising solution to the issues associated with non-renewable and non-recyclable attributes of traditional thermosetting resins, showcasing extensive potential for diverse applications. However, their broader adoption has been hindered by the requirement for catalyst inclusion during the synthesis process. In this study, a cardanol-based curing agent with poly-hydroxy and tertiary amine structures was prepared by a clean synthetic method under the theory of click chemistry. The reaction of a cardanol-based curing agent with diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A formed catalyst-free, self-healing, and recyclable bio-based vitrimers. The poly-hydroxy and tertiary amine structures in the vitrimers promoted the curing of epoxy-carboxylic acid in the cross-linked network and served as internal catalysts of dynamic transesterification. In the absence of catalysts, the vitrimers network can achieve topological network rearrangement through dynamic transesterification, exhibiting excellent reprocessing performance. Moreover, the vitrimers exhibited faster stress relaxation (1500 s at 180 °C), lower activation energy (92.29 kJ·mol−1) and the tensile strength of the recycled material reached almost 100% of the original sample. This work offers a new method for preparing cardanol-based epoxy vitrimers that be used to make coatings, hydrogels, biomaterials, adhesives, and commodity plastics in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 1,2:3,4:9,10:9,19-tetraseco-cycloartane triterpene spiroketal lactone, pseudoamaolide P (1), two new labdane-type diterpenoids, pseudoamains A and B (2-3), and four known cembrane-type diterpenoids (4–7) were isolated from the seeds of Pseudolarix amabilis. The structures of these compounds were elucidated by spectroscopic analyses, including HRESIMS, 1D-, and 2D-NMR. The anti-inflammatory activities of the compounds were evaluated by suppressing the transcription of the NF-κB-dependent reporter gene in LPS-induced 293 T/NF-κB-luc cells. All compounds do not show potent activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] Cu doped CeO 2 (Cu-CeO 2) nanoparticles were synthesized via the hydrothermal method, exhibiting multiple nanozyme activities such as good oxidase-like (OXD), peroxidase-like (POD) and catalase-like (CAT) activities. These Cu-CeO 2 nanoparticles were successfully utilized to modulate the levels of oxygen and hydrogen peroxide in cells. The OXD and POD mimics showed optimal at pH of 3.5 and 4.0, but their activities significantly decreased under neutral or slightly acidic conditions. On the other hand, the CAT activity was excellent at pH 6.5, while the OXD and POD mimics were less effective. These findings demonstrated that nanozyme activity of Cu-CeO 2 nanoparticles is pH-dependent. Consequently, within the microenvironment of tumor cells, the CAT can efficiently catalyze the conversion of H 2 O 2 into O 2 , unaffected by H 2 O 2 /O 2 consuming mimics. Both oxygen indicator and oxygen tester measurements confirmed a significant increase in O 2 levels in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). Furthermore, confocal microscopic imagings using fluorescence probes for H 2 O 2 and O 2 validated the variations of H 2 O 2 /O 2 in cells. This study highlights the ability of Cu-CeO 2 to regulate intracellular reactive oxygen levels and its tremendous potential in nanotherapy and alleviating tumor hypoxia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now, no recommendations of gestational weight gain (GWG) after gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) diagnosis for Chinese women was made. This study aimed to explore the optimal GWG after oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) for Chinese women with GDM. The GWG status of 11,570 women was retrospectively analyzed. Binary regression model and restricted cubic spline were used to estimate the association between GWG after OGTT and the predicted probability of adverse outcomes. Based on above, the optimal GWG was defined as the range that not exceed 1% increase in the predicted probability from the lowest point. Results shown that every increased one unit GWG after OGTT was associated with higher risks of macrosomia, cesarean section and LGA, and lower risk of preterm birth. According to the WHO and Working Group on Obesity in China (WGOC) recommended pre-pregnancy BMI category, the optimal GWG were proposed: 3.66 to 6.66 kg/3.66 to 6.66 kg in underweight group, 3.07 to 6.50 kg/3.02 to 6.40 kg in normal weight group, 1.06 to 2.73 kg/0 to 1.99 kg in overweight group, and not applicable/− 0.22 to 2.53 kg in obese group, respectively. Therefore, it is necessary to classified Chinese population based on the WGOC recommended pre-pregnancy BMI category, that influenced the contribution of pre-pregnancy BMI groups and the optimal GWG recommendation for GDM women with overweight or obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possible laser cooling of AuAl molecules was investigated using high‐level ab initio calculations and considering the spin‐orbit coupling effect. Multi‐reference configuration interaction and the Davidson correction were also employed. Six Λ‐S electronic states were obtained, which were divided into 14 Ω states via spin‐orbit coupling. The optical transition A1Π1→X1∑0+ showed potential for laser‐cooling applications owing to its highly diagonal Franck‐Condon factors and larger vibrational branching ratios. A possible optical cycling scheme using four lasers at near‐resonance wavelengths to eliminate vibrational branching loss is proposed. This scheme can be experimentally tested in future laser‐cooling experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

External-cavity diode laser (ECDL) can continuously change the output wavelength by scanning its optical resonance cavity (ORC), which is a piezoelectric transducer (PZT) actuated mechanical system. However, because of the inherent hysteresis characteristic of PZT and limited system bandwidth, the dynamic response of the ORC system exhibits both the nonlinearity and vibration while high-frequency triangular wave scanning, thereby resulting in the degradation of the output wavelength performance of the ECDL. As a result, a trajectory optimization method is presented to improve the scanning characteristics of the ORC system. Firstly, the hysteresis behavior of PZT is described by the elliptic model to generate a compensation voltage for the PZT. Secondly, the cusp region of the compensation voltage is optimized by a frequency domain objective function to greatly reduce the high-order harmonic components of the compensation voltage. Finally, an optimal voltage trajectory for driving the ORC system is obtained. The experimental results demonstrate the validity of our proposed trajectory optimization method for simultaneously suppressing the nonlinearity and vibration of the ORC system within the scanning frequency of 100 Hz. • A trajectory optimization method is designed based on an ellipse model and spectrum shaping. • The method can improve the scanning characteristics of the ORC system. • A frequency domain objective function is developed to minimize the ORC system vibration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intraseasonal Pacific–Japan (PJ) pattern, characterized by a pronounced quasi-biweekly oscillation, is triggered by deep convection around the western North Pacific. Three possible dynamical mechanisms on multiple timescales responsible for the growth and decay of the quasi-biweekly PJ pattern are proposed in this study based on daily reanalysis data from the Japanese 55 year Reanalysis for the 1958‒2021 period. First, the eastward-propagating wave energy associated with the quasi-biweekly circumglobal teleconnection in the upstream region enters the mid-latitude North Pacific and induces the wavelike barotropic geopotential height anomalies, amplifying the magnitudes of three mid-latitude centers of the PJ pattern by about 40% through their linear constructive interference. Secondly, the barotropic feedback forcing of both high-frequency and low-frequency transient eddies triggered by the pronounced meridional SST gradient over the mid-latitude Pacific is beneficial to the development and persistence of the PJ-related centers to the east of Japan and around the Bering Strait, whereas it damps the PJ-related center in the Gulf of Alaska, increasing the amplitude difference between the former two centers and the latter center. Such feedback forcing also leads to the asymmetry of the positive and negative PJ events. Thirdly, the dry energy conversion from the background atmospheric circulation and the moist process due to the convective heating over the western North Pacific are both efficient enough to energize the PJ pattern in the developing and mature stages, indicating that the quasi-biweekly PJ pattern can be viewed as a convectively coupled dynamical mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many solid crystals exhibit a structural phase transition where a subset of its ions or entire molecules become orientationally ordered. As to why such ordering occurs remains mostly unresolved. We consider the extremely weak magnetic elements arising from the reorientations of the molecules experiencing mutual resonance to play the chief role. Two new features are identified in d-camphor: (1) the magnetic susceptibility abruptly changes when crossing the order–disorder phase transition at TII–III = 239.8 K during cooling and at TIII–II = 245.2 K during warming and (2) the complex dielectric constant exhibits two successive discontinuities only 0.2 K apart near the critical temperatures when the sweeping rate is only 0.1 K/min. We discuss how the change in entropy associated with order–disorder transitions in plastic crystals represents temporal changes rather than spatial changes in the system. Our findings may be extended to study why many other crystalline solids exhibit orientational ordering and irreversibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic facial expression recognition (DFER) is of great significance in promoting empathetic machines and metaverse technology. However, dynamic facial expression recognition (DFER) in the wild remains a challenging task, often constrained by complex lighting changes, frequent key-points occlusion, uncertain emotional peaks and severe imbalanced dataset categories. To tackle these problems, this paper presents a depth neural network model based on spatial key-points optimized region feature fusion and temporal self-attention. The method includes three parts: spatial feature extraction module, temporal feature extraction module and region feature fusion module. The intra-frame spatial feature extraction module is composed of the key-points graph convolution network (GCN) and a convolution network (CNN) branch to obtain the global and local feature vectors. The newly proposed region fusion strategy based on face spatial structure is used to obtain the spatial fusion feature of each frame. The inter-frame temporal feature extraction module uses multi-head self-attention model to obtain the temporal information of inter-frames. The experimental results show that our method achieves accuracy of 68.73%, 55.00%, 47.80%, and 47.44% on the DFEW, AFEW, FERV39k, and MAFW datasets. Ablation experiments showed that the GCN module, fusion module, and temporal module improved the accuracy on DFEW by 0.68%, 1.66%, and 3.25%, respectively. The method also achieves competitive results in terms of parameter quantity and inference speed, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the entropy of discrete Heisenberg group actions is considered. Let α be a discrete Heisenberg group action on a compact metric space X. Two types of entropies, h~(α)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\tilde{h}(\alpha)$$\end{document} and h(α) are introduced, in which h~(α)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\tilde{h}(\alpha)$$\end{document} is defined in Ruelle’s way and h(α) is defined via the natural extension of α. It is shown that when X is the torus and α is induced by integer matrices then h~(α)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\tilde{h}(\alpha)$$\end{document} is zero and h(α) can be expressed via the eigenvalues of the matrices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the extensive application of object detection in intelligent security, the demand for detecting prohibited items in X-ray images has become increasingly stringent. Unlike natural images, X-ray images present unique challenges such as complex backgrounds and mutual occlusion between prohibited and normal items. Consequently, applying traditional detection methods to X-ray images remains a significant challenge. To tackle these challenges, we have developed a unique frequency-aware dual-stream transformers (FDTNet) that is specifically designed for analyzing X-ray images. The FDTNet consists of two streams: one handles the original image, while the other deals with an image that has been enhanced with frequency domain features. In order to achieve precise detection of prohibited items, we introduce a frequency-aware module (FAM) that enhances the representation of prohibited items by utilizing information from the frequency domain. This FAM can be easily integrated into other backbones or detectors as it is a plug-and-play module. Additionally, to enhance the fusion of feature maps from both streams, we utilize a global and channel attention module (GCA) that aggregates texture representations for spatial feature streams. Our evaluation of the proposed FDTNet on the OPIXray datasets and PIDray datasets demonstrates that our detection mAP achieves 88.02 and 68.2, respectively. Extensive experiments conducted on publicly available datasets provide substantial evidence that our proposed network significantly improves the detection of prohibited items compared to state-of-the-art methods. [Display omitted] • The dual-stream design is used to extract RGB features and frequency features respectively • Global and channel attention module enhances the features generated by the RGB stream using attention mechanisms. • Frequency-aware module encodes frequency features, enabling better capture frequency information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we utilize an absorbed diffusion process to model the dynamics of a single species under the influence of demographic stochasticity and component Allee effects. The trajectories of stochastic solutions exhibits multi-scale dynamics distinct from those of the corresponding mean-field model. The primary focus is on analyzing transient dynamics before extinction, which is described by the quasi-stationary distribution. The paper provides results on the existence, uniqueness, and exponential convergence to the quasi-stationary distribution for initial distributions with compact support. Due to the singularity of the noise at 0, we employ the idea of changing variables to transfer the model into one-dimensional Kolmogorov diffusions with a drift possibly exploding at 0, to prove the main results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting forest carbon sinks (FCSs) offsetting is a crucial way to improve the farmers' livelihoods, promote low-carbon rural development. There is no consensus on the factors affecting farmers' willingness to accept (WTA) and enterprises' willingness to pay (WTP), it makes the benefits of FCSs face difficulties such as unstable eco-compensation financing channels and difficult to establish standards. This study estimates carbon stocks, analyzes WTA and WTP, explores eco-compensation standards of the FCSs and its influencing factors, which are verified by questionnaires and interviews with 360 farmers and 117 enterprise managers on Mizhi County of Shaanxi Province in China as a case. The results show that the WTA was influenced by individual characteristics, climate change perceptions, FCSs perceptions, and policy participation. The WTP was influenced by managerial position, subjective perceptions, choice preferences, behavioural implementation intentions, and policy incentives. The contingent valuation method was used to estimate an interval value of [106.92 $/hm2, 142.01 $/hm2] $/hm2 for the WTA. The value of FCSs in the case area increased from $1.40 million in 2010 to $9.92 million in 2020, which led to the determination of the eco-compensation standard is $226.90/hm2 for farmers. The study aims to guarantee the farmers' livelihood through eco-compensation, which not only effectively realizes the value of FCSs, but also helps enterprises to increase the WTP for increasing FCSs, which in turn helps the local government to promote the regional FCSs trading to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality. [Display omitted] • Determine the eco-compensation standard based on willingness of farmers and enterprises. • Explore the factors affecting forest carbon offsetting standards. • Contingent valuation method is used to estimate farmers' willingness to accept. • Increasing willingness to pay is conducive to enterprises increasing forest carbon sinks. • Promoting forest carbon eco-compensation is an important way to improve farmers' livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Pyrolytic graphite heat dissipation to reduce temperature differences in a PEMFC. • A HT-PEMFC heat balance model is developed to evaluate heat spreader feasibility. • 3-D simulations of single cell operation with heat spreader are conducted. • Temperature difference in the MEA can be less than 5 K with TPG heat dissipation. • TPG is better than thermal oil for HT-PEMFC heat dissipation. Good heat dissipation to reduce the inside temperature difference can help prolong the lifetime of high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (HT-PEMFCs). This study presents a thermal management method based on a heat spreader composed of pyrolytic graphite and copper for a HT-PEMFC. First, the feasibility of using pyrolytic graphite for HT-PEMFC heat dissipation is evaluated using the heat balance model. Then, a three-dimensional single cell model is coupled with heat transfer, mass transfer and electrochemical reactions to simulate the HT-PEMFC operation with the heat spreader thermal dissipation. The model is used to investigate the effect of various heat spreader structures composed of two kinds of pyrolytic graphite and the operating voltage on the temperature distribution and current density distribution. Finally, the HT-PEMFC with this thermal management method is compared with oil cooling. The results show that the TPG (thermal pyrolytic graphite) provides better HT-PEMFC heat dissipation than the PGS (pyrolytic graphite sheet). The heat can be dissipated from both sides to further reduce the temperature difference in the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) by 64.7 % over that with single-side heat dissipation. In addition, the TPG heat dissipation improves the current density uniformity to almost the same as that of oil cooling with the TPG giving a lower temperature difference of less than 5 K. The parasitic power with the TPG heat dissipation is 9.5 % less and the stack volume and weight are 14.2 % and 2 % less than with oil heat dissipation with a temperature difference of 10 K in the MEA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transformative shift towards working from home (WFH) triggered by the pandemic has demonstrated its potential to become a long-term arrangement in many corporations. However, extant literature has paid limited attention to comprehending the intricate process through which employees evaluate the WFH experience. This study endeavors to assess the long-term continuous intentions to WFH by investigating the relationship between WFH characteristics and the perceived person-environment fit. Drawing upon the person-environment fit theory, our research framework incorporates six distinct characteristics of the WFH environment that directly influence the perceived person-environment fit, which has implications on job satisfaction, job performance, and work-life balance, as well as the continuous intentions to WFH. Analyzing survey data gathered from 243 respondents in Vietnam with the PLS technique, our results reveal positive associations between the ability to handle interruptions and physical isolation, the adequacy of job autonomy, and perceived person-environment fit. Perceived person-environment fit was found to positively affect the intention to continue WFH, job performance, job satisfaction, and work-life balance. Additionally, the moderating role of extroversion in these relationships was discussed, shedding light on the nuanced interplay between personality traits and the WFH experience. We discuss how employers can tailor policies that align with employee expectations, and individuals can make informed decisions regarding work-life balance and overall satisfaction. • The ability to handle interruptions and physical isolation is positively related to P-E fit for WFH employees. • Adequacy of autonomy is positively related to P-E fit. • P-E fit is positively related to the intention to continue WFH. • P-E fit positively affects job performance, job satisfaction, and work-life balance. • Extraversion weakens the relationship between job satisfaction and continuance intention to WFH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • A chiral MOP [Cu 12 (L V) 12 (H 2 O) 12 ] as a novel stationary phase for GC separations. • The MOP coated column exhibited good resolution ability towards various enantiomers. • Multiple types of mixtures including n-alkanes, alkylbenzenes, n-alcohols, and isomers were well separated on the MOP coated column. Metal-organic polyhedra (MOPs), as a novel class of porous materials, exhibit distinctive application potential in molecular recognition, separation, catalysis, luminescent materials, drug delivery, and biomedicine owing to their tunable geometric shape and size, well-defined cavities, and discrete characteristics. In this study, we report that a chiral MOP [Cu 12 (L V) 12 (H 2 O) 12 ] (V = L-valine) coated capillary column was used for gas chromatographic separations. The MOP coated capillary column offered the efficient separation of n-alkanes, alkylbenzenes, n-alcohols, multiple types of isomers, and enantiomers with high selectivity. Various enantiomers including esters, halogenated hydrocarbons, alcohols, ethers, aldehydes, and amino acid derivatives were well resolved on this chiral column, especially for some amino acid derivatives (e.g., Rs = 5.24 for tyrosine derivative). Compared with the commercial β- DEX 120 column for separation of the tested racemates, the chiral resolution performance of the MOP coated column can be complementary to that of β -DEX 120 column. Using 1,2-dichloropropane and o, m, p -dichlorobenzene as analytes, the MOP coated column exhibited good stability and reproducibility for gas chromatographic separations. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) of the retention time and peak area for repeated separation of 1, 2-dichloropropane and o, m, p -dichlorobenzene were less than 1.15 and 0.79 %, respectively. The results show that the chiral MOP holds great potential as a novel type of CSP for application in gas chromatography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NH 3 ·H 2 O can result in severe accidents when leaking in a confined space. In this work, a novel powder-water mist synergistic strategy for decontaminating NH 3 ·H 2 O in a confined space is proposed. Initially, FeCl 3 /AlCl 3 was employed to modify diatomite, decorating its pore structure and augmenting the number of acidic adsorption sites. The modified diatomite achieves a notable efficiency of 74.6%, surpassing that of the raw diatomite (43.8%). Subsequently, surfactants were introduced to increase the contact area between the water mist and NH 3 , while a thickening agent was employed to suppress the fluidity of NH 3 ·H 2 O. Ultimately, the powder-water mist synergistic decontamination system was constructed by integrating the diatomite with a thickening agent and water mist containing surfactants. The synergistic system exhibits a superior decontamination efficiency of approximately 80%. This work generates fresh insight into decontaminating NH 3 ·H 2 O in a confined space and offers a crucial avenue for future advancements in decontamination technology. [Display omitted] • A novel powder-water mist synergistic decontamination method is presented. • Modified treatments enhance the decontamination efficiency of diatomite on NH 3 ·H 2 O. • This synergistic method exhibits satisfactory decontamination effects on NH 3 ·H 2 O. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there is a growing interest in developing ultralong organic room‐temperature phosphorescence (ORTP) with lifetimes in the range of seconds. As one of the important three primary colors, ultralong blue ORTP is an indispensable core component in RTP regulation and application, however, the large Stokes shift characteristics pose certain challenges in developing ultralong blue ORTP. Here, a new family of blue phosphors are synthesized and ultralong blue ORTP are realized through crystal assembly in water and organic phase. Remarkably, compared to crystal materials obtained in organic phases, assembly materials obtained in water enabled long‐lived blue ORTP with lifetimes up to 2.3 s and phosphorescence quantum yield reached as high as 29.27%. In addition to the efficient and green assembly form, such dark blue ORTP materials possessed high thermal stability and flexible tunability. Moreover, the superiority of the selected assembly components is demonstrated by comparing them with polymer assembly and the proposed blue ORTP materials show great potential in an organic programmable information encryption/anti‐counterfeiting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aimed to compare the effects of a mobile health intervention based on social cognitive theory with standard care on maximal mouth opening, exercise compliance, and self-efficacy in patients receiving proton and heavy ion therapy for head and neck cancer. Methods: This open-label, parallel-group, randomized, superiority trial involved a self-developed “Health Enjoy System” intervention. We assessed maximal mouth opening, exercise compliance, and self-efficacy at baseline (T0), post-treatment (T1), and at 1 month (T2) and 3 months (T3) after radiotherapy. Generalized estimating equations were used to analyze differences between the groups over time, with results reported as P values and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results: The study included 44 participants. At T3, the intervention group showed a 6 mm greater increase in maximal interincisal opening than the control group (mean difference = 6.0, 95% CI = 2.4 to 9.5, P = 0.001). There was also a significant difference in exercise compliance between the groups (mean difference = 31.7, 95% CI = 4.6 to 58.8, P = 0.022). However, no significant difference in self-efficacy was found between the groups. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that an mHealth intervention incorporating behavior change theory could effectively enhance or maintain maximal mouth opening in patients undergoing proton and heavy ion therapy for head and neck cancer in China. This approach provides valuable support during and after treatment. Trial registration: ChiCTR: ChiCTR2300067550. Registered 11 Jan 2023. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the mechanism by which fucoxanthin acts as a novel ferroptosis inducer to inhibit tongue cancer. The MTT assay was used to detect the inhibitory effects of fucoxanthin on SCC−25 human tongue squamous carcinoma cells. The levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), and total iron were measured. Reverse transcription–quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT−qPCR) and Western blotting were used to assess glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4), nuclear factor erythroid 2−related factor 2 (Nrf2), Keap1, solute carrier family 7 member 11 (SLC7A11), transferrin receptor protein 1 (TFR1), p53, and heme oxygenase 1 (HO−1) expression. Molecular docking was performed to validate interactions. Compared with the control group, the activity of fucoxanthin−treated SCC−25 cells significantly decreased in a dose− and time−dependent manner. The levels of MMP, GSH, and SOD significantly decreased in fucoxanthin−treated SCC−25 cells; the levels of ROS, MDA, and total iron significantly increased. mRNA and protein expression levels of Keap1, GPX4, Nrf2, and HO−1 in fucoxanthin−treated cells were significantly decreased, whereas levels of TFR1 and p53 were significantly increased, in a concentration−dependent manner. Molecular docking analysis revealed that binding free energies of fucoxanthin with p53, SLC7A11, GPX4, Nrf2, Keap1, HO−1, and TFR1 were below −5 kcal/mol, primarily based on active site hydrogen bonding. Our findings suggest that fucoxanthin can induce ferroptosis in SCC−25 cells, highlighting its potential as a treatment for tongue cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum computing has already demonstrated great computational potential across multiple domains and has received more and more attention. However, due to the connectivity limitations of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices, most of the quantum algorithms cannot be directly executed without the help of inserting SWAP gates. Nevertheless, more SWAP gates lead to a longer execution time and, inevitably, lower fidelity of the algorithm. To this end, this paper proposes an optimized qubit mapping algorithm based on a dynamic look-ahead strategy to minimize the number of SWAP gates inserted. Firstly, a heuristic algorithm is proposed based on maximizing physical qubit connectivity to generate the optimal initial qubit mapping, which reduces the need for logical qubit shifts during subsequent SWAP gate insertion. Secondly, in the form of directed acyclic graphs, we identify quantum gates that violate the constraints of physical coupling and insert SWAP gates to remap qubits, thereby overcoming the limitations of qubit interactions. Finally, the optimal SWAP gate insertion strategy is built by comparing the cost of different SWAP gate insertion strategies through a multi-window look-ahead strategy to reduce the number of SWAP gates inserted. The experimental results show that the strategy in this paper decreases the number of SWAP gate insertions and significantly reduces the depth of quantum circuits when performing qubit mapping compared with state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study Design: A retrospective analysis. Purpose: To investigate the occurrence of central sensitization (CS) in patients with osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs) and identify the association between CS and residual back pain (RBP). Overview of Literature: RBP is a vexing complication that affects 6.3%–17.0% of patients with OVCFs who underwent percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP). Given the negative effect of RBP on patients' psychological and physiological statuses, efforts to preoperatively select patients who are at risk for RBP development have a high priority to offer additional treatment and minimize this complication. Methods: Preoperatively, all 160 patients with OVCFs underwent pressure-pain threshold (PPT), temporal summation (TS), conditioned pain modulation (CPM), and imaging assessments. Pain intensity and pain-related disability were evaluated before and after PVP. Results: Preoperatively, patients with OVCFs had lower PPTs in both local pain and pain-free areas and lower CPM and higher TS in pain-free areas than healthy participants (p<0.05). Unlike patients with acute fractures, patients with subacute/chronic OVCFs showed higher TS with or without lower CPM in the pain-free area compared with healthy participants (p<0.05). Postoperatively, RBP occurred in 17 of 160 patients (10.6%). All preoperative covariates with significant differences between the RBP and non-RBP groups were subjected to multivariate logistic regression, showing that intravertebral vacuum cleft, posterior fascia edema, numeric rating pain scale scores for low back pain at rest, and TS were independently associated with RBP (p<0.05). Conclusions: Augmented central pain processing may occur in patients with OVCFs, even in the subacute stage, and this preexisting CS may be associated with RBP. Preoperative assessment of TS in pain-free areas may provide additional information for identifying patients who may be at risk of RBP development, which may be beneficial for preventing this complication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nigerian Younger Granite (NaYG) province is renowned for its world-class anorogenic alkaline ring granite complexes and has been recognized as a potential host for abundant Nb–Sn–W–Mo mineralization. In this study, a comprehensive investigation was conducted on the southernmost complex of the province, known as the Afu granite complex, encompassing petrography, zircon U–Pb dating and Lu–Hf isotopes, and whole-rock geochemical analyses. The dominant rocks within the Afu complex consist of biotite granite and albite biotite granite. Both rock units exhibit typical characteristics of A1-type granite, including elevated levels of alkali oxides (Na2O + K2O = 8.01–8.52 wt%) and high field strength elements (Zr + Nb + Ce + Y = 495–950 ppm), as well as high FeOT/(FeOT + MgO) and Ga/Al ratios, similar to other younger granites found in Nigeria. Bulk rock Sm–Nd and zircon Lu–Hf isotopic data (εNd(t) = −2.6 to 0.9; εHf(t) = −7.2 to −0.5) indicate a predominantly crustal material-dominated magma source, with some contribution from mantle-derived magma. The linear correlations observed between Rb/Sr and Nb/Ta ratios as well as Sr contents from biotite granite to albite biotite granite suggest the significant role played by magma differentiation. The elevated bulk Nb contents observed in all rocks, along with the presence of Sn–W-bearing quartz veins, contribute to the rare metal mineralization of the Afu complex and indicate a combination of magmatic and hydrothermal processes. Additionally, zircon U–Pb dating results from the Afu granites reveal their relatively young ages (149–148 Ma) compared to other NaYGs (263–151 Ma), suggesting the cessation of anorogenic alkaline magmatism within the NaYG province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]