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ZnIn2S4 nanosheets are a promising photoanode for driving photoelectrochemical (PEC) hydrogen fuel production; nevertheless, poor charge separation and sluggish surface reaction kinetics hinder its PEC performance to an extreme degree. Herein, a facile element doping strategy (i.e., P element) was developed to obtain the desired photoanode. As a result, the ZnIn2S4-P (ZIS-P5) photoanode exhibits a remarkable photocurrent density of 1.66 mA cm−2 at 1.23 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode (VRHE) and a much lower onset potential of 0.12 V vs. RHE for water oxidation. Careful electrochemical analysis confirms that the P doping and sulfur vacancies (Sv) not only facilitate the hole transfer, but also boost surface reaction kinetics. Finally, the "killing two birds with one stone" goal can be achieved. Moreover, the optimized photoanode also presents high PEC performance for urea oxidation, obtaining a photocurrent density of 4.13 mA cm−2 at 1.23 V vs. RHE. This work provides an eco-friendly, simple and effective method to realize highly efficient solar-to-hydrogen conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The institutional environment is critical to economic growth. A favorable business environment can reduce unnecessary transaction costs. This study examined the impact of institutional friction costs on economic growth, based on panel data for 38 OECD countries from 2004 to 2020. The contribution of this paper is that, first, we explore methods to measure the cost of institutional friction, and the measurements show that the total cost of institutional friction tends to be lower in high-income countries than in upper-middle-income countries. Second, we find that reducing the cost of institutional friction helps to promote economic growth through an empirical fixed-effects analysis approach with panel data. The empirical results remain significant after robustness and endogeneity tests. Third, we find that the effect of institutional friction costs on economic growth is more pronounced in high-income countries and even more pronounced in countries with inefficient governments. Fourth, the mediation effect test finds that institutional friction costs affect economic growth by increasing firm innovation. Overall, reducing the costs of institutional friction helps promote economic growth, and this study suggests that policy makers in each country should develop measures to reduce the costs of institutional friction to improve efficiency and economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: For many aquatic animals, temperature is an important environmental factor that influences how they develop, reproduce, behave, and survive. For both economic and ecological reasons, the Qingtian paddy field carp (Cyprinus carpio var qingtianensis) is an important species of fish in China. It is an important aquaculture fish suitable for rice–fish coculture systems. In the current study, we utilized metabolomics to investigate the impact of differential metabolites and metabolic pathways in Qingtian paddy field carp liver tissue under thermal stress. Our findings clarify the molecular regulatory mechanism of PF carp adaptation to thermal stress at the metabolic level and offer novel hypotheses for the biological regulation of many other fish species that generate thermal stress. Extreme fluctuations in water temperature lead to significant economic losses for the aquaculture industry. Cyprinus carpio var qingtianensis (locally called Qingtian paddy field carp), is a local variety commonly found in Zhejiang province, China. Unlike traditional aquaculture environments, the water temperature range between day and night in the rice field environment is much larger, and the high temperature in summer may exceed the growth threshold of fish because there is no manual intervention; therefore, the study of how the Qingtian paddy field carp (PF carp) adapts to high-temperature conditions can shed light how the species adapt to the rice field environment. To investigate the molecular mechanisms of this fish under thermal stress, the liver metabolomics of Qiangtian paddy field carp (PF carp) were analyzed. In this study, metabolomics was used to examine the metabolic reaction of PF carp (102 days old, 104.69 ± 3.08 g in weight, 14.65 ± 0.46 cm in length) at water temperatures of 28 °C (control group, CG), 34 °C (experimental group (EG) 34), and 38 °C (EG38). The results show that 175 expression profile metabolites (DEMs), including 115 upregulated and 60 downregulated metabolites, were found in the CG vs. EG34. A total of 354 DEMs were inspected in CG vs. EG38, with 85 metabolites downregulated and 269 metabolites upregulated. According to the pathway enrichment study, various pathways were altered by thermal stress, including those of lipid, amino-acid, and carbohydrate metabolism. Our study presents a potential metabolic profile for PF carp under thermal stress. It also demonstrates how the host responds to thermal stress on a metabolic and molecular level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vitality of outdoor space is largely determined by its quality, which encompasses many factors such as traffic accessibility, openness, microclimate, etc. Creating space with high quality can attract more visitors and contribute to urban vitality and sustainability. Visualization of quality distribution can aid the design and management of high-quality outdoor spaces. In this study, we developed a method for generating an integrated outdoor space quality map by normalizing, weighting, and summing up the traffic accessibility, openness, and microclimate distributions in the space. Field surveys were conducted on a neighborhood park in Shanghai, China, to obtain data to determine the relative importance of the studied factors. Integrated mapping was then performed on the park as a case study. As for accessibility, since the park only has one entrance, the metric step distance (MSD) increased with the distance from that entrance, indicating poor accessibility. The high openness found in the central areas of the park indicate that people may easily notice the central spaces and conduct activities there. The microclimate map denoted by physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) shows that in winter in Shanghai, the distribution of heat stress is mainly dominated by solar radiation. By integrating the distributions of accessibility, openness, and microclimate, we found that some spaces had better space quality than others. Based on the comprehensive map, we proposed a series of design strategies. The method developed in this study provides a quantitative tool to design outdoor spaces with high quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to images taken on land scenes, images taken over water are more prone to degradation due to the influence of the haze. However, existing image dehazing methods are mainly developed for land-scene images and perform poorly when applied to overwater images. To address this problem, we collect the first overwater image dehazing dataset and propose a Generative Adversial Network (GAN)-based method called OverWater Image Dehazing GAN (OWI-DehazeGAN). Due to the difficulties of collecting paired hazy and clean images, the dataset contains unpaired hazy and clean images taken over water. The proposed OWI-DehazeGAN is composed of an encoder–decoder framework, supervised by a forward-backward translation consistency loss for self-supervision and a perceptual loss for content preservation. In addition to qualitative evaluation, we design an image quality assessment neural network to rank the dehazed images. Experimental results on both real and synthetic test data demonstrate that the proposed method performs superiorly against several state-of-the-art land dehazing methods. Compared with the state-of-the-art, our method gains a significant improvement by 1.94% for SSIM, 7.13% for PSNR and 4.00% for CIEDE2000 on the synthetic test dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hybrid materials that are created by supporting or incorporating polyoxometalates (POMs) into/onto metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have a unique set of properties. They combine the strong acidity, oxygen-rich surface, and redox capability of POMs, while overcoming their drawbacks, such as difficult handling, a low surface area, and a high solubility. MOFs are ideal hosts because of their high surface area, long-range ordered structure, and high tunability in terms of the pore size and channels. In some cases, MOFs add an extra dimension to the functionality of hybrids. This review summarizes the recent developments in the field of POM@MOF hybrids. The most common applied synthesis strategies are discussed, together with major applications, such as their use in catalysis (organocatalysis, electrocatalysis, and photocatalysis). The more than 100 papers on this topic have been systematically summarized in a handy table, which covers almost all of the work conducted in this field up to now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a fast-growing type of malignant primary brain tumor. To explore the mechanisms in GBM, complex biological networks are used to reveal crucial changes among different biological states, which reflect on the development of living organisms. It is critical to discover the kernel differential subgraph (KDS) that leads to drastic changes. However, identifying the KDS is similar to the Steiner Tree problem that is an NP-hard problem. In this paper, we developed a criterion to explore the KDS (CKDS), which considered the connectivity and scale of KDS, the topological difference of nodes and function relevance between genes in the KDS. The CKDS algorithm was applied to simulated datasets and three single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) datasets including GBM, fetal human cortical neurons (FHCN) and neural differentiation. Then we performed the network topology and functional enrichment analyses on the extracted KDSs. Compared with the state-of-art methods, the CKDS algorithm outperformed on simulated datasets to discover the KDSs. In the GBM and FHCN, seventeen genes (one biomarker, nine regulatory genes, one driver genes, six therapeutic targets) and KEGG pathways in KDSs were strongly supported by literature mining that they were highly interrelated with GBM. Moreover, focused on GBM, there were fifteen genes (including ten regulatory genes, three driver genes, one biomarkers, one therapeutic target) and KEGG pathways found in the KDS of neural differentiation process from activated neural stem cells (aNSC) to neural progenitor cells (NPC), while few genes and no pathway were found in the period from NPC to astrocytes (Ast). These experiments indicated that the process from aNSC to NPC is a key differentiation period affecting the development of GBM. Therefore, the CKDS algorithm provides a unique perspective in identifying cell-type-specific genes and KDSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the viewpoint of mechanics, weld cracking tends to occur if the induced tensile stress surpasses a certain value for the particular materials and the welding processes. Welding residual stresses (WRS) can be profoundly affected by the restraint conditions of the welded structures. For estimating the tendency of weld cracking, the small-scale H-type slit joints have been widely used for cracking tests. However, it is still hard to decide whether the real large-scale component can also be welded without cracking even though the tested weld cracking specimens on the laboratory scale can be welded without cracking. In this study, the intensity of restraint which quantitatively indicates how much a joint is restrained is used. The influence of restraint condition (intensity of restraint) on WRS is systematically investigated using both the numerical simulation and the experimental method. The achievement obtained in the current work is very beneficial to design effective H-type self-restrained cracking test specimens for evaluating the sensitivity of the material and the welding procedures for weld cracking in the real large-scale components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]