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Although Ru‐based materials are among the outstanding catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), the instability issue still haunts them and impedes the widespread application. The instability of Ru‐based OER catalysts is generally ascribed to the formation of soluble species through the over‐oxidation of Ru and structural decomposition caused by involvement of lattice oxygen. Herein, an effective strategy of selectively activating the lattice oxygen around Ru site is proposed to improve the OER activity and stability. Our synthesized spinel‐type electrocatalyst of Ru and Zn co‐doped Co3O4 showed an ultralow overpotential of 172 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and a long‐term stability reaching to 100 hours at 10 mA cm−2 for alkaline OER. The experimental results and theoretical simulations demonstrated that the lattice oxygen site jointly connected with the octahedral Ru and tetrahedral Zn atoms became more active than other oxygen sites near Ru atom, which further lowered the reaction energy barriers and avoided generating excessive oxygen vacancies to enhance the structural stability of Ru sites. The findings hope to provide a new perspective to improve the catalytic activity of Ru‐incorporated OER catalysts and the stability of lattice‐oxygen‐mediated mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The current work was carried out to enhance the quality (including product colour, rehydration performance, textural properties, product cracking rate and sensory evaluation) of microwave freeze‐dried prepared taro balls, a popular starch‐based food product, by synergistic addition of guar gum and sodium bicarbonate. The results showed that taro balls with added sodium bicarbonate had the shortest freeze‐drying time (153 min), but the high‐cracking rate (66.67%) was not acceptable to consumers. The addition of guar gum could effectively reduce the cracking rate (17.5%) during freeze‐drying of taro balls, but did not significantly improve sensory evaluation and textural properties. The combination of sodium bicarbonate and guar gum demonstrated satisfactory positive effects in increasing the rehydration rate of freeze‐dried taro balls (53.67%), maintaining the whiteness (WI = 84.52) and reducing the cracking rate (21.67%). Although sodium bicarbonate alone produced the best results in terms of sensory ratings and textural properties, there was no significant difference between the effects of sodium bicarbonate alone and the combination of the two food additives on rehydrated taro balls. Therefore, the combination of sodium bicarbonate and guar gum is an appropriate hybrid strategy for producing high quality freeze‐dried taro balls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The inherent poor cooking quality and poor texture of mixed‐grain pasta limit consumer acceptance. This study systematically investigated the effect of curdlan in the processing of sweet potato puree oat mixed‐grain noodles, and comprehensively analysed a number of key indicators such as cooking characteristics, moisture state, texture properties, microstructure, starch crystallinity characteristics, short‐range ordered structure and thermal properties. At the production practice level, the study clearly indicated that the 0.6% curdlan addition ratio was the best solution in sweet potato puree oat mixed‐grain noodles processing. This finding not only significantly reduces the fracture rate, water absorption rate and cooking loss rate during the cooking process, but also significantly improves the quality and yield of the product, and brings significant improvement in the taste and texture of the noodles, which is of great significance for industrial production. In the microstructural and molecular studies, we revealed how curdlan could enhance the structural stability and mechanical strength of noodles by promoting the uniform distribution of starch granules in the gluten protein network. Further, through X‐ray diffraction, ordered structure and thermal property analyses, we have found that colchicine can effectively regulate the interactions of hydrogen bonding between starch and the content of straight‐chain and branched‐chain starch, which significantly reduces the crystallinity, ordered short‐chain structure and enthalpy of pasting of starch in the pasta. These in‐depth research results not only help us to understand more comprehensively the formation mechanism of the modification of pasta quality by curdlan, but also provide a solid theoretical foundation and practical guidance for the improvement of pasta quality in mixed grains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Belief rule base (BRB) is an effective nonlinear relationship modeling approach. It has been widely used in the fault diagnosis of electromechanical systems. To improve the performance of the BRB‐based diagnostic model, a two‐phase features extraction approach called CNPCA based on complex network (CN) and principal component analysis (PCA) is proposed in this paper. In the first phase, the weighted visibility graph method is applied to transform the time series data of monitored variables into complex networks. Then the statistical attributes of the constructed networks are extracted as the initial features. In the second phase, the PCA method is used to process the initial features and the principal component features are obtained. After that, the CNPCA‐BRB diagnostic model for the electromechanical system is constructed. The experimental results of the elevator fault diagnosis show that the constructed diagnostic model outperforms better than the classical ones. It demonstrates that the CNPCA approach can ensure the integrity of fault information in the features and improve the separability of the fault features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voltage‐gated ion channels prevalent in neurons play important roles in generating action potential and information transmission by responding to transmembrane potential. Fabricating bio‐inspired ionic transistors with ions as charge carriers will be crucial for realizing neuro‐inspired devices and brain‐liking computing. Here, we reported a two‐dimensional nanofluidic ionic transistor based on a MXene membrane with sub‐1 nm interlayer channels. By applying a gating voltage on the MXene nanofluidic, a transmembrane potential will be generated to active the ionic transistor, which is similar to the transmembrane potential of neuron cells and can be effectively regulated by changing membrane parameters, e.g. thickness, composition, and interlayer spacing. For the symmetric MXene nanofluidic, a high on/off ratio of ~2000 can be achieved by forming an ionic depletion or accumulation zone, contingent on the sign of the gating potential. An asymmetric PET/MXene‐composited nanofluidic transitioned the ionic transistor from ambipolar to unipolar, resulting in a more sensitive gate voltage characteristic with a low subthreshold swing of 560 mV/decade. Furthermore, ionic logic gate circuits, including the "NOT", "NAND", and "NOR" gate, were implemented for neuromorphic signal processing successfully, which provides a promising pathway towards highly parallel, low energy consumption, and ion‐based brain‐like computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The current study introduces a novel infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying technique for the dehydration of green soybeans, which aims to enhance the drying quality and efficiency. The investigation involves an examination of the flow pattern in the spouted bed to obtain relevant data, followed by an optimization of the entire drying process. The drying process of green soybeans was simulated using SolidWorks and ANSYS Fluent software, based on the principles of computational fluid dynamics. RESULTS: The simulation test results showed that the simulation outcomes were consistent with the experimental data. The optimal conditions for the process of green soybean infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying were found to be an inlet speed of 8 m/s and a temperature of 50 °C with the wavelength and power settings of the infrared board at 10 μm and 500 W, respectively. CONCLUSION: The simulation method selected in this article, based on gas–solid two‐phase flow dynamics, is feasible for green soybean infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying process. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Chlorogenic acid (CA) is a natural antioxidant with multiple biological activities, but its stability is poor. In this article, CA‐load pea protein nanoparticles (PPCNPs) were constructed by an anti‐solvent method to enhance CA stability and characterised by multiple technologies. The results exhibited that the particle size of PPCNPs ranged from 211.62 to 429.79 nm, and the zeta potential ranged from −41.21 to −35.85 mV. PPCNPs had the highest encapsulation efficiency (61.2%) at the CA/pea protein isolate (PPI) mass ratio of 1:20. The loading capacity increased with the ratio of CA/PPI ranging from 1.3% to 3.8%. SEM showed that the nanoparticle surface was an irregular lamellar structure. FTIR showed that O–H and C–H functional group interactions occurred between CA and PPI. DSC results showed that CA was encapsulated in PPCNPs with an amorphous structure. During in vitro digestion, the ABTS radical scavenging ability and retention ratio of CA in PPCNPs was higher than that of free CA. Moreover, PPCNPs increased the bio‐accessibility of CA in vitro by 7.75%, compared with unencapsulated CA. These results suggested that PPCNPs constructed by the anti‐solvent method can reduce the degradation of CA and improve the biological activity of CA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyaniline (PANI) can achieve reversible optical modulation in visible and infrared (IR) bands under the action of voltage. However, PANI‐based electrochromic devices cannot cope with the dual detection of visible and IR light to realize the transmission of information due to the linkage restriction between the spectral modulation in the visible and IR region. Here, IR low‐absorptive inorganic pigments as colorants and IR high‐transparent polymer as a binder are utilized to prepare colored films with high transparency. A camouflage layer against visible light detection is constructed on the surface of IR electrochromic devices, and the information transmission is realized in the IR band by controlling the thermal radiation characteristics. Furthermore, thermochromic microcapsules (TMs) that change color under external thermal stimuli are introduced to fabricate a thermochromic and IR transparent functional layer, which is attached to the surface of IR electrochromic devices and endows the devices with separate spectral modulation ability in the visible and IR region. Multicolored displays are fabricated by arraying various devices. Moreover, visual patterns are prepared on the surface of IR electrochromic devices by dispensing technology. This configuration endows the device with a promising potential for anti‐counterfeiting, optical security, and related applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying (IRSBD) is an innovative hybrid drying technology based on infrared drying and spouted bed drying, which has the advantages of higher drying efficiency and better uniformity. Temperature is an important process parameter that affects drying characteristics and product quality. Considering the overall quality of the product, drying at a constant temperature may not be the best solution. However, there is a lack of research on dynamically varying drying schemes. In this study, the effects of constant and variable temperature drying processes on the drying characteristics, uniformity, energy consumption, and quality of Chinese yams were evaluated. Results: The shortest drying time and lowest energy consumption were obtained by IRSBD at 70 °C, followed by staged rising temperature drying (SRTD). However, SRTD achieved the best drying uniformity. The Peleg model could describe the dehydration kinetics of dried yams well (R2 > 0.99). A high drying temperature (70 °C) favored the preservation of bioactive compounds (polyphenols and flavonoids) and gave the best antioxidant activity and equilibrium rehydration ratio of dried yams but resulted in poor color. Samples dried with SRTD showed comparable good antioxidant activity and better color than those dried at 70 °C. Conclusion: A reasonable variable temperature drying scheme using IRSBD is considered to be better when considering the drying performance and overall quality of the products. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulmonary sarcomatoid carcinoma (PSC) is a unique form of poorly differentiated nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and is notorious for its highly malignant nature and dismal prognosis. To introduce effective treatment for PSC patients, precise subtyping of PSC is demanding. In our study, TTF‐1 and P40 immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining were applied to 56 PSC patients with multiomics data. According to IHC results, we categorized these patients into three subgroups and profiled their molecular contexture using bioinformatic skills. IHC results classified these patients into three subgroups: TTF‐1 positive subgroup (n = 27), P40 positive subgroup (n = 15) and double‐negative subgroup (n = 14). Spindle cell samples accounted for 35.71% (5/14) of double‐negative patients, higher than others (P =.034). The three subgroups were heterogeneous in the genomic alteration spectrum, showing significant differences in the RTK/RAS pathway (P =.004) and the cell cycle pathway (P =.030). The methylation profile of the double‐negative subgroup was between the other two subgroups. In similarity analysis, the TTF‐1 and p40 subgroups were closely related to LUAD and LUSC, respectively. The TTF‐1 positive subgroup had the highest leukocyte fraction (LF) among several cancer types, and the tumor mutation burden (TMB) of the p40 positive subgroup ranked third in the TMB list, suggesting the applicability of immunotherapy for PSC. The study established a new subtyping method of PSC based on IHC results and reveals three subgroups with distinct molecular features, providing evidence for refined stratification in the treatment of PSC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ion transport under nanoconfined spaces is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature and plays an important role in the energy conversion and signal transduction processes of both biological and artificial systems. Unlike the free diffusion in continuum media, anomalous behaviors of ions are often observed in nanostructured systems, which is governed by the complex interplay between various interfacial interactions. Conventionally, nanoionics mainly refers to the study of ion transport in solid‐state nanosystems. In this review, to extent this concept is proposed and a new framework to understand the phenomena, mechanism, methodology, and application associated with ion transport at the nanoscale is put forward. Specifically, here nanoionics is summarized into three categories, i.e., biological, artificial, and hybrid, and discussed the characteristics of each system. Compared with nanoelectronics, nanoionics is an emerging research field with many theoretical and practical challenges. With this forward‐looking perspective, it is hoped that nanoionics can attract increasing attention and find wide range of applications as nanoelectronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resveratrol is a phenolic compound and has significant benefits for human health. Peanut, rich in resveratrol and with considerable biological activity, is generally considered as the raw material of functional food. Because of the low output of fresh peanut extracts, dried peanut powder often be used for extracting functional components. The effects of hot‐air drying (HD), infrared radiation drying (IRD), and microwave‐freeze‐drying (MFD) on the resveratrol extraction income and antioxidant activity of peanut were study. The most valid and economical method was IRD. The IRD peanut resveratrol extraction ratio was 33.5% and the DPPH free radical eliminate rate was 42.5%. The MFD peanut resveratrol extraction ratio was 40.9% and the DPPH free radical eliminate rate was 40.3%. However, the MFD energy consumption was the most. Practical Applications: This study investigated the effects of different drying methods on the drying characteristics of peanuts and the extraction rate of the antioxidant active substance resveratrol. It was found that MFD could be used to obtain peanut powder with high resveratrol extraction rate and antioxidant activity, and IRD had excellent energy‐saving performance, and the relatively high extraction rate of the corresponding product is more favored by the industry. The results obtained in the current work would help the comprehensive utilization of peanut and provide new ideas for the food industry to extract natural compound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freezing has a long history as an effective food preservation method, but traditional freezing technologies have quality limitations, such as the potential for water loss and/or shrinkage and/or nutrient loss, etc. in the frozen products. Due to enhanced quality preservation and simpler thawing operation, synergistic technologies for freezing are emerging as the optimal methods for frozen food processing. This article comprehensively reviewed the recently developed synergistic technologies for freezing and pretreatment, for example, ultrasonication, cell alive system freezing, glass transition temperature regulation, high pressure freezing, pulsed electric field pretreatment, osmotic pretreatment, and antifreeze protein pretreatment, etc. The mechanisms and applications of these techniques are outlined briefly here. Though the application of new treatments in freezing is relatively mature, reducing the energy consumption in the application of these new technologies is a key issue for future research. It is also necessary to consider scale‐up issues involved in large‐scale applications as much of the research effort so far is limited to laboratory or pilot scale. For future development, intelligent freezing should be given more attention. Freezing should automatically identify and respond to different freezing conditions according to the nature of different materials to achieve more efficient freezing. Practical Application: This paper provides a reference for subsequent production and research, and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of different novel synergistic technologies, which points out the direction for subsequent industry development and research. At the same time, it provides new ideas for the freezing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chest X‐ray images taken under different conditions follow different distributions, preventing the models trained on a domain from generalising well on the other domain. In this paper, a generative domain adaptation (GDA) method is proposed to address this issue and facilitate the learning process for downstream analysis. GDA adapts different domains to a virtual common one where images are aligned at the appearance level. To this end, a domain shared generator is used to transform the input images and two competitive discriminators are used to adversarially supervise the transforming process. The domain discriminator drives the generator to narrow the domain gap while the fidelity discriminator forces the generator to keep the inherent information. Moreover, a specific classification or detection network is attached to the generator to supervise it in a task‐oriented manner. Experiment results on a large‐scale dataset containing 46k chest X‐ray images demonstrate that GDA outperforms representative domain adaptation methods by a large margin for both disease classification and lesion detection as well as provides useful transformed images to assist experts for diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi‐key fully homomorphic encryption (MKFHE) allows computations on ciphertexts encrypted by different users, which can be applied to implement secure multi‐party computing (MPC). The current NTRU‐based MKFHE has the following two drawbacks: One is that the relinearisation process during homomorphic evaluation is so complicated that the corresponding computation time is costly. The other is that a class of subfield attacks are proposed and affects the security of NTRU schemes over power‐of‐2 cyclotomic rings for large moduli q, especially for the NTRU‐based fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) schemes. In this work, an efficient MKFHE scheme is proposed over prime cyclotomic rings with fewer relinearisations, which seems a good choice because of its potential to resist a subfield attack. More specifically, the time of the relinearisation process is reduced by half in homomorphic evaluations by separating the homomorphic multiplication and the relinearisation process (implementing two homomorphic multiplication operations together before relinearisation), while in current NTRU‐type MKFHE schemes, these two processes are usually performed together. The error bound of the basic function components is re‐analysed over prime cyclotomic rings in the average case, which can be used in the error analysis of our scheme. We construct an efficient NTRU‐based single‐key FHE scheme and an efficient MKFHE scheme over prime cyclotomic rings through relinearisation and modulus‐switching techniques. The MKFHE scheme proposed has the on‐the‐fly property and has a tight ciphertext size compared with the GSW‐type and BGV‐type MKFHE schemes. An experiment shows that the homomorphic evaluation of the optimised single‐key FHE scheme proposed is 1.9 times faster than an efficient NTRU‐type MKFHE DHS16 proposed at DCC 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aldose Reductase (AR, ALR2) is a member of the aldo‐keto reductase superfamily that plays a critical role in diabetic complications. In this work, benzothiazolone was employed as the scaffold, and the C6 position was modified with aryl and heterocyclic groups to design potent inhibitor against ALR2. 2‐(6‐(4‐hydroxystyryl)‐2‐oxobenzothiazol‐3(2H)‐yl)acetic acid (6 c) was identified the most active with IC50 value of 18.8 nM. 2‐(6‐(3,4‐dihydroxyphenyl)‐2‐oxobenzothiazol‐3(2H)‐yl)acetic acid (4 c) and 2‐(6‐(4‐hydroxy‐3‐methoxystyryl)‐2‐oxobenzothiazol‐3(2H)‐yl)acetic acid (6 b) were also strong in the ALR2 inhibition, and even exhibited good antioxidant activity by tests of DPPH radical scavenging and lipid peroxidation suppression. 6 b having C6‐hydroxymethoxystyryl sidechain is suggested as a promising candidate for further structure optimizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a method to obtain the random permeability field of the single‐layer woven fabric. Specifically, a unit cell model based on actual geometric characteristics of a single‐layer fiber reinforcement is established in the open‐source software TexGen. The local permeability value is retrieved from flow analysis in the software ANSYS/CFX based on TexGen voxel models. Probability distribution of reinforcement permeability is determined from the image analysis. Then, continuous random fields describing the local permeability in the fiber reinforcement are generated based on the Karhunen‐Loève (K‐L) expansion method, and suitable dimension‐reducing techniques are employed to represent all the random fields in the physical system. Furthermore, influences of the selected correlation lengths on the random field are explored. Finally, it is demonstrated in the flow numerical simulation that the stochastic flow model indeed more qualitatively and quantitatively agrees with the radial injection experiment than the traditional basic model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND RESULTS CONCLUSION Goji berries, renowned for their nutritional benefits, are traditionally dried to extend shelf life and preserve quality. However, conventional drying methods often result in uneven drying, color loss and reduced rehydration capacity. This study investigates an innovative hybrid strategy combining ultrasonic–ethyl oleate (US+AEEO) pretreatment with heat pump drying (HPD) to enhance the drying process of Goji berries.Fresh Goji berries underwent US+AEEO pretreatment, which significantly disrupted the waxy layer, enhancing drying efficiency and water infiltration during rehydration. Compared to freeze drying (FD), HPD combined with US+AEEO pretreatment resulted in higher retention of total polyphenol content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) in the Goji soaking soup. Specifically, the HPD‐US+AEEO samples exhibited the highest TPC and TFC levels, significantly outperforming FD samples. Additionally, the DPPH and ABTS antioxidant assays demonstrated higher scavenging activities in HPD‐US+AEEO samples. The rehydration kinetics revealed that HPD samples had a superior rehydration rate and final moisture content compared to FD samples. Low‐field nuclear magnetic resonance and magnetic resonance imaging analyses confirmed enhanced water distribution and higher mobility in HPD‐US+AEEO samples. Scanning electron microscopy indicated a more porous structure in US+AEEO‐treated samples, facilitating better water absorption and functional component retention.The combination of US+AEEO pretreatment with HPD significantly improves the drying process of Goji berries, enhancing nutrient retention, color preservation and rehydration properties. This innovative drying method offers a promising solution for producing high‐quality dried Goji berries, benefiting both the food industry and health‐conscious consumers. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In Experiment 1, a total of 100 growing pigs (Duroc × [Landrace × Yorkshire]) with an average initial body weight (BW) of 24.88 ± 1.57 kg were randomly allotted to 2 × 2 factorial arrangement with two concentrations of palm kernel expellers (PKE) in diets at 0% or 10%, and two concentrations of supplemental probiotics at 0 or 6.0 × 107 colony‐forming units/kg. There were five replicate pens per treatment with five pigs per pen. In Experiment 2, eight barrows with average initial BW of 25.78 ± 0.19 kg were allotted to a replicated 4 × 4 Latin square design with four diets and four periods per square. Four experimental diets were the same as Experiment 1. In Experiment 1, dietary probiotic supplementation improved (P < 0.05) the average daily gain (ADG), nutrient digestibility and the fecal Lactobacillus counts. Furthermore, interactive effects (P < 0.05) between PKE and probiotics were observed on ADG and growth‐to‐feed ratio. In Experiment 2, an interactive effect (P < 0.05) of PKE and probiotics was observed in apparent ileal digestibility of nitrogen and some amino acids. In conclusion, dietary probiotics did not improve PKE utilization and the use of probiotics in non‐PKE‐containing diet was more favorable than in PKE‐containing diet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Tumor neovascularization (TNV) is a common pathologic basis for malignant growth and metastasis. However, the mechanism of TNV pathogenesis is not fully understood. Ras homolog gene family, member A (RhoA), a Rho guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) family member, may be involved in a hypoxia-induced vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) pathway that regulates TNV angiogenesis through an unclear mechanism. METHODS: The regulation of RhoA on p53, the p53 binding protein homolog murine double minute 2 (MDM2), and VEGF was analyzed in hypoxic MCF-7 cells using Western blot analysis, real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis, coimmunoprecipitation, and immunofluorescence staining assays. Changes in proliferation, invasion, migration, stress fiber formation, and tube formation were detected in an MCF-7 human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) coculture system. Correlations of RhoA expression with MDM2, wild-type p53 (wt-p53), and VEGF expression in breast cancer tissues and relations between RhoA and breast cancer clinical features were analyzed by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: Activated RhoA down-regulated p53 protein, which increased VEGF expression in hypoxic MCF-7 cells; whereas p53 messenger RNA levels were not altered. In addition, the ubiquitin-mediated degradation of p53 was enhanced by active RhoA. RhoA and MDM2 colocalized in the cytoplasm of hypoxic MCF-7 cells and interacted with each other physically. Furthermore, nutlin-3, a specific MDM2 inhibitor, was capable of reducing activated RhoA-induced p53 protein stability and attenuating VEGF accumulation. In an MCF-7-HUVEC coculture system, nutlin-3 effectively inhibited HUVEC proliferation, invasion, migration, stress fiber formation, and tube formation mediated by activated RhoA under hypoxic conditions. Data from 129 clinical breast cancer specimens with wt-p53 revealed that high RhoA expression was correlated with high MDM2 expression, low wt-p53 expression, and high VEGF expression. CONCLUSIONS: The current data suggested that activated RhoA promotes VEGF expression and hypoxia-induced angiogenesis through the up-regulation of MDM2 to decrease p53 stability. Cancer 2012. © 2012 American Cancer Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rare-earth (RE) (Eu3+, Gd3+, Tb3+, and Dy3+)-doped BiFeO3 (BFO) ceramics were prepared by a modified solid-state reaction method, which adopted higher heating as well as cooling rates during sintering process. All the fabricated samples showed ferroelectric hysteresis loops with a remnant polarization of 21-35 μC/cm2. A piezoelectric coefficient ( d33) of ∼48 pC/N was obtained and this value was showed to be composition independent. The pyroelectric properties of our samples were studied as a function of temperature. Generally, the pyroelectric coefficient slightly decreased with temperature, and this is attributed to the increase of electrical conduction at higher temperatures. Among the different doped BFO ceramics, Gd-doped samples exhibited the largest pyroelectric coefficient of 146 μC/m2K at room temperature. For the magnetic properties, slim hysteresis loop with remnant magnetizations of 0.016-0.044 emu/g were obtained in all the doped samples. Our results revealed that the RE-doped BFO ceramics posses an improvement in both the electrical and magnetic properties. On the basis of our studies, we demonstrate that RE-doped BFO is a potential candidate for magnetoelectric device applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Three freeze–thaw (FT) pre‐treatments using different freezing methods that freezing at −80 °C (FT‐80), freezing at −25 °C (FT‐25) and vacuum freezing (VFT) were used for carrot slices, the effects and mechanisms of FT pre‐treatment on the drying characteristics and product quality of carrots during microwave freeze drying (MFD) were studied. The results showed that FT pre‐treatment under different freezing methods affected the water state of carrots, resulting in varying degrees of moisture loss and shortening drying time by 14.3% to 42.8%. VFT treatment caused the greatest water loss (35.33%) during FT and significantly increased the effective moisture diffusivity in the MFD process. FT treatments did not cause any significant degradation in the colour of the carrots. The VFT and FT‐80 treatments resulted in an elevated rehydration ratio, increased crispiness of MFD carrots and products with a porous microstructure and higher porosity. In contrast, the FT‐25 treatment led to a decrease in porosity due to destructive damage to the carrot cell structure. However, this damage favoured the extractability of carotenoids, resulting in a higher carotenoid content than the other treatments. This study provides a theoretical foundation for the practical implementation of FT pre‐treatment using various freezing methods on fresh foods prior to drying. It is recommended to employ VFT pre‐treatment before MFD due to its efficiency and effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biological‐machine interface (BMI) devices represent a significant step toward adaptive and cognitive technologies. However, current BMI devices emphasize the analysis of electrophysiology and often overlook the chemical information of neurotransmitters in the process of signaling between neurons. To bridge this gap, a light‐gated artificial postsynaptic membrane (APM) is introduced, capable of reading dopamine (DA) released from rat pheochromocytoma cells and regulate neural signal transmission. Like the biological postsynaptic membrane, the APM is a porous membrane functionalized by DA‐specific aptamers and azobenzene (Azo) molecules in different regions. Azo molecules act as a light‐responsive trigger that controls DA release, while DA‐specific aptamers capture DA, which converts its concentration information into an ionic current signal. By light‐enhanced responses to DA exocytosis from rat pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells, the APM confirms its ability to communicate with biological systems, which lays the foundation for developing biological‐machine interaction systems with more advanced functionalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fabricating efficient non‐platinum‐group‐metal catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in proton‐exchange membrane fuel cells still remains a big challenge. This study creates a unique bamboo‐like architecture of Mn and Fe single atomic sites (SASs) anchored on core‐shell structure of nanopaticles@carbon nanotubes (MnFe SASs/NPs@CNTs) via a precursor route, where the Fe nanoparticles (NPs) (identified as γ‐Fe and Austenite) are confined into CNTs, such an architecture exhibits compelling ORR activity and durability in 0.1 m HClO4. Experiments and calculations both reveal that the electron donor–acceptor paradigm between Mn SASs and Fe NPs launches a lattice‐electron coupling mechanism not only increasing occupation of π‐antibonding orbital in Mn−*O intermediates but also rising Jahn–Teller effect, thereby destabilize the Mn−*O intermediate and eventually facilitate the potential‐limiting step from *O to *OH. Such a coupling activation of the ORR‐inert Mn SASs greatly improves ORR performances of MnFe SASs/NPs@CNTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanofiltration (NF) membranes have excellent separation capabilities and selective performance, and are widely applied in the field of concentration and separation of salt and inorganic salt mixtures. In this article, NF membranes with a higher comprehensive performance were fabricated using a thinner coated organic phase during interfacial polymerization, which greatly reduced the rejection of sodium chloride and significantly improved the water flux without reducing the rejection of magnesium sulfate. Structure comparison found that thinner polyamide separation layer resulted in the higher crosslinking degree, smaller particle, and relatively rough surface. Based on these analyses, we hypothesized that thermodynamically efficiency in the system varies with the coating thickness. Finally, the mechanism of the influence of the coating thickness of organic phase during heat treatment on the interfacial polymerization process and membrane structure was discussed. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2020, 137, 48284. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]