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Abstract This study proposes and experimentally validates a multifunctional, ultra-wideband polarization conversion metasurface. The design integrates polarization conversion and electromagnetic scattering functions into a single structure, enabling applications in polarization conversion, beam control, and effective reduction of the radar cross-section (RCS). The metasurface achieves linear-to-circular polarization conversion with an axial ratio (AR) of less than 3 dB across dual-band ranges of 14.6–26.8 GHz and 31–33.5 GHz. Additionally, by adjusting metallic resonant rings within the unit structure, cross-polarization conversion with a polarization conversion ratio (PCR) greater than 0.9 is realized in the 13.6–29.8 GHz frequency range, maintaining excellent stability even at oblique incidence angles up to 50°. Leveraging the phase cancellation principle, various coding arrays are designed to precisely control the scattered beams, reducing the RCS by more than 10 dB. The comparison of simulation and experimental results further validates the wide application potential of this polarization converter in fields such as wireless communication, antenna engineering, and radar stealth.

Abstract Radiotherapy (RT) controls local lesions, meantime it has the capability to induce systemic response to inhibit distant, metastatic, non-radiated tumors, which is referred to as the “abscopal effect”. It is widely recognized that radiotherapy can stimulate systemic immune response. This provides a compelling theoretical basis for the combination of immune therapy combined with radiotherapy(iRT). Indeed, this phenomenon has also been observed in clinical treatment, bringing significant clinical benefits to patients, and a series of basic studies are underway to amplify this effect. However, the molecular mechanisms of immune response induced by RT, determination of the optimal treatment regimen for iRT, and how to amplify the abscopal effect. In order to amplify and utilize this effect in clinical management, these key issues require to be well addressed; In this review, we comprehensively summarize the growing consensus and emphasize the emerging limitations of enhancing the abscopal effect with radiotherapy or immunotherapy. Finally, we discuss the prospects and barriers to the current clinical translational applications.

Abstract Background TSPAN7 is an important factor in tumor progression. However, the precise function of TSPAN7 and its role in pan-cancer are not clear. Methods Based on Xinhua cohort incorporating 370 patients with kidney neoplasm, we conducted differential expression analysis by immunohistochemistry between tumor and normal tissues, and explored correlations of TSPAN7 with patients’ survival. Subsequently, we conducted a pan-cancer study, and successively employed differential expression analysis, competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) analysis, protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis, correlation analysis of TSPAN7 with clinical characteristics, tumor purity, tumor genomics, tumor immunity, and drug sensitivity. Last but not least, gene set enrichment analysis was applied to identify enriched pathways of TSPAN7. Results In Xinhua cohort, TSPAN7 expression was significantly up-regulated (P-value = 0.0019) in tumor tissues of kidney neoplasm patients. High TSPAN7 expression was associated with decreases in overall survival (OS) (P-value = 0.009) and progression-free survival (P-value = 0.009), and it was further revealed as an independent risk factor for OS (P-value = 0.0326, HR = 5.66, 95%CI = 1.155–27.8). In pan-cancer analysis, TSPAN7 expression was down-regulated in most tumors, and it was associated with patients’ survival, tumor purity, tumor genomics, tumor immunity, and drug sensitivity. The ceRNA network and PPI network of TSPAN7 were also constructed. Last but not least, the top five enriched pathways of TSPAN7 in various tumors were identified. Conclusion TSPAN7 served as a promising biomarker of various tumors, especially kidney neoplasms, and it was closely associated with tumor purity, tumor genomics, tumor immunology, and drug sensitivity in pan-cancer level.

Abstract Due to the limitations of the model itself, the performance of switched autoregressive exogenous (SARX) models will face potential threats when modeling nonlinear hybrid dynamic systems. To address this problem, a robust identification approach of the switched gated recurrent unit (SGRU) model is developed in this paper. Firstly, all submodels of the SARX model are replaced by gated recurrent unit neural networks. The obtained SGRU model has stronger nonlinear fitting ability than the SARX model. Secondly, this paper departs from the conventional Gaussian distribution assumption for noise, opting instead for a generalized Gaussian distribution. This enables the proposed model to achieve stable prediction performance under the influence of different noises. Notably, no prior assumptions are imposed on the knowledge of operating modes in the proposed switched model. Therefore, the EM algorithm is used to solve the problem of parameter estimation with hidden variables in this paper. Finally, two simulation experiments are performed. By comparing the nonlinear fitting ability of the SGRU model with the SARX model and the prediction performance of the SGRU model under different noise distributions, the effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified.

Abstract Background The effects of air pollution on endothelial function remain unclear across populations. We aimed to use brachial artery flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) to identify demographic differences in the effects of air pollution exposure on endothelial dysfunction. Methods We measured FMD in 850 participants from October 2016 to January 2020. Location-specific concentrations of fine particulate matter

Electron beam–directed energy deposition (EB–DED) has emerged as a promising wire-based metal additive manufacturing technique. However, the effects of EBs on pendant droplets at wire tips have not yet been determined. The aim of this study is to enhance the understanding of this action by analyzing the mechanism of droplet oscillation. The pendant droplet oscillation phenomenon hinders the stable transfer of droplets to the molten pool and limits the feasibility of manufacturing complex lattice structures by EB–DED. Hence, another aim of this study is to create an oscillation suppression method. An escalating asymmetric amplitude is the main characteristic of droplet oscillation. The primary oscillation-inducing force is the recoil force generated from the EB-acted local surface of the droplet. The physical mechanism of this force is the rapid increase and uneven distribution of the local surface temperature caused by the partial action of the EB. The prerequisites for droplet oscillation include vacuum conditions, high power densities, and bypass wire feeding processes. The proposed EB–dynamic surrounding melting (DSM) method can be applied to conveniently and effectively suppress oscillations, enable the accurate transfer of droplets to the molten pool, and achieve stable processes for preparing the strut elements of lattice structures. Lowering the temperature and improving the uniformity of its distribution are the mechanisms of oscillation suppression in EB–DSM. In this study, the physical basis for interpreting the mechanism by which EBs act on droplets and the technical basis for using EB–DED to prepare complex lattice structure parts are provided.

Due to the complicated metabolic and regulatory networks of l-serine biosynthesis and degradation, microbial cell factories for l-serine production using non-model microorganisms have not been reported. In this study, a combination of synthetic biology and process optimization were applied in an ethanologenic bacterium Zymomonas mobilis for l-serine production. By blocking the degradation pathway while introducing an exporter EceamA from E. coli, l-serine titer in recombinant Z. mobilis was increased from 15.30 mg/L to 62.67 mg/L. It was further increased to 260.33 mg/L after enhancing the l-serine biosynthesis pathway. Then, 536.70 mg/L l-serine was achieved by removing feedback inhibition with a SerA mutant, and an elevated titer of 687.67 mg/L was further obtained through increasing serB copies while enhancing the precursors. Finally, 855.66 mg/L l-serine can be accumulated with the supplementation of the glutamate precursor. This work thus not only constructed an l-serine producer to help understand the bottlenecks limiting l-serine production in Z. mobilis for further improvement, but also provides guidance on engineering non-model microbes to produce biochemicals with complicated pathways such as amino acids or terpenoids.

Summary: The prophylactic implantation of biological mesh can effectively prevent the occurrence of stoma-site incisional hernia (SSIH) in patients undergoing stoma retraction. Therefore, our study prospectively established and validated a mixed model, which combined radiomics, stepwise regression, and deep learning for the prediction of SSIH in patients with temporary ileostomy. The mixed model showed good discrimination of the SSIH patients on all cohorts, which outperformed deep learning, radiomics, and clinical models alone (overall area under the curve [AUC]: 0.947 in the primary cohort, 0.876 in the external validation cohort 1, and 0.776 in the external validation cohort 2). Moreover, the sensitivity, specificity, and precision for predicting SSIH were improved in the mixed model. Thus, the mixed model can provide more information for SSIH precaution and clinical decision-making.

As more multi-ancestry GWAS summary data become available, we have developed a comprehensive trans-ancestry pathway analysis framework that effectively utilizes this diverse genetic information. Within this framework, we evaluated various strategies for integrating genetic data at different levels-SNP, gene, and pathway-from multiple ancestry groups. Through extensive simulation studies, we have identified robust strategies that demonstrate superior performance across diverse scenarios. Applying these methods, we analyzed 6,970 pathways for their association with schizophrenia, incorporating data from African, East Asian, and European populations. Our analysis identified over 200 pathways significantly associated with schizophrenia, even after excluding genes near genome-wide significant loci. This approach substantially enhances detection efficiency compared to traditional single-ancestry pathway analysis and the conventional approach that amalgamates single-ancestry pathway analysis results across different ancestry groups. Our framework provides a flexible and effective tool for leveraging the expanding pool of multi-ancestry GWAS summary data, thereby improving our ability to identify biologically relevant pathways that contribute to disease susceptibility.

Underground coal gasification (UCG) as an alternative coal mining technology is attracting much attention. However, due to the high experimental cost of UCG, the evolution mechanism of coal seam should be deeply explored prior to the implement of experiments. By virtue of the great computational power of computers, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is able to simulate the production process of UCG at a relatively lower cost. The in-situ ignition and combustion of deep coal seam heated by 1 000 K flue gas is simulated and the changes of temperature, molar O2 fraction and porosity are analyzed by the CFD software, Fluent, developed by Ansys cor-poration. It is elucidated that pumping 1 000 K flue gas for 500 s is inadequate for coal seam ignition, while 1 000 s heating has been enough for coal seam ignition. On the internal surface of coal seam, the high temperature is accumulated in the 0−0.6 m coal seam near inlet. The maximum temperature before ignition is below inlet temperature of heating flue gas, 1 000 K, while the maximum temperature after ignition exceeds 1 000 K and reaches up to 1 250 K. Almost all O2 is consumed in the high-temperature zone, while less than 2% molar O2 fraction arrives at the internal surface of coal seam in other lower-temperature zones. The porosity rapidly increases in high-temperature zone and at 1000 s the porosity in the part of coal seam reaches up to 0.9. In the interior of coal seam, the thicker the coal seam is, the lower the temperature rises. The maximum temperature on 7 cm line is only 500 K at 1 000 s and 2 000 s, much lower than that on the internal surface of coal seam when it is heated for the same time. During 2 000 s ignition, little O2 penetrates 7 cm and 14 cm coal seam and the porosities of interior coal seam are all below 0.4. The low porosities are attributed to the low temperature and low molar O2 fraction. The simulation on temperature, molar O2 fraction and porosity may provide a reference for how to promote the reaction in the interior of coal seam.

Abstract Electrochemical uranium extraction from nuclear wastewater represents an emerging strategy for recycling uranium resources. However, in nuclear fuel production which generates the majority of uranium-containing nuclear wastewater, fluoride ion (F−) co-exists with uranyl (UO2 2+), resulting in the complex species of UO2Fx and thus decreasing extraction efficiency. Herein, we construct Tiδ+-PO4 3− ion pair extraction sites in Ti(OH)PO4 for efficient electrochemical uranium extraction in wastewater from nuclear fuel production. These sites selectively bind with UO2Fx through the combined Ti-F and multiple O-U-O bonds. In the uranium extraction, the uranium species undergo a crystalline transition from U3O7 to K3UO2F5. In real nuclear wastewater, the uranium is electrochemically extracted with a high efficiency of 99.6% and finally purified as uranium oxide powder, corresponding to an extraction capacity of 6829 mg g−1 without saturation. This work paves an efficient way for electrochemical uranium recycling in real wastewater of nuclear production.

Abstract Great efforts are being made to develop advanced polygenic risk scores (PRS) to improve the prediction of complex traits and diseases. However, most existing PRS are primarily trained on European ancestry populations, limiting their transferability to non-European populations. In this article, we propose a novel method for generating multi-ancestry Polygenic Risk scOres based on enSemble of PEnalized Regression models (PROSPER). PROSPER integrates genome-wide association studies (GWAS) summary statistics from diverse populations to develop ancestry-specific PRS with improved predictive power for minority populations. The method uses a combination of $${{{{{{\mathscr{L}}}}}}}_{1}$$ L 1 (lasso) and $${{{{{{\mathscr{L}}}}}}}_{2}$$ L 2 (ridge) penalty functions, a parsimonious specification of the penalty parameters across populations, and an ensemble step to combine PRS generated across different penalty parameters. We evaluate the performance of PROSPER and other existing methods on large-scale simulated and real datasets, including those from 23andMe Inc., the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium, and All of Us. Results show that PROSPER can substantially improve multi-ancestry polygenic prediction compared to alternative methods across a wide variety of genetic architectures. In real data analyses, for example, PROSPER increased out-of-sample prediction R2 for continuous traits by an average of 70% compared to a state-of-the-art Bayesian method (PRS-CSx) in the African ancestry population. Further, PROSPER is computationally highly scalable for the analysis of large SNP contents and many diverse populations.

Various material design strategies have been developed to enhance photocatalytic performance of TiO2. However, no report is available on applications of the photopiezocatalysis strategy on TiO2 due to its lack of piezoelectricity. Here we developed a low-temperature molten salt etching process to create rutile TiO2 nanoparticles by etching [MgO6] octahedrons away from MgTiO3 by molten NH4Cl, during which a lattice distortion occurred in TiO2. The lattice distortion broke the structure symmetry of rutile TiO2 and subsequently endowed these rutile TiO2 nanoparticles with an unusual piezoelectric response with the maximum effective piezoelectric coefficient (d33) of ~41.6 pm/V, which had not previously been found in TiO2 photocatalysts. Thus, the photopiezocatalysis strategy was applied for the first time to enhance the photocatalytic performance of these TiO2 nanoparticles. The creation of lattice distortion to induce piezoelectricity could be extended to other photocatalysts that the photopiezocatalysis strategy has not been applied to and may generate novel functionalities for various technical applications.

Abstract We analyse the STU sectors of the four-dimensional maximal gauged supergravities with gauge groups SO(8), SO(6) ⋉ ℝ12 and [SO(6) × SO(2)] ⋉ ℝ12, and construct new domain-wall black-hole solutions in D = 4. The consistent Kaluza-Klein embedding of these theories is obtained using the techniques of Exceptional Field Theory combined with the 4d tensor hierarchies, and their respective uplifts into D = 11 and type IIB supergravities are connected through singular limits that relate the different gaugings.

In this study, four high-chromium wear-resistant steels with varying vanadium contents were prepared. Their mechanical properties, corrosion behaviour and impact–abrasion–corrosion behaviour were comprehensively investigated in a simulated corrosive slurry environment. The result indicated the effectiveness of vanadium in enhancing the impact toughness of the steel. Notably, high-chromium steel with 0.2% vanadium exhibited notable characteristics, including a Rockwell hardness of 56.2 HRC and an impact toughness of 113.5 J. Introducing vanadium enhanced the corrosion resistance of high-chromium steels in electrochemical experiments. In terms of impact–abrasion–corrosion performance, the high-chromium steel containing 0.2% vanadium exhibited the highest resistance to impact–abrasion–corrosion when subjected to both the impact energies of 3 J and 6 J. Comprehensive examinations of surface and cross-sectional damage, coupled with detailed microstructure and microhardness analyses, revealed that the development of a white etching layer on the material's surface is crucial to enhancing its resistance to impact–abrasion–corrosion.

The two-phase titanium alloy Ti–10 V–5Al-2.5Fe-0.1 B was taken as the experimental material, and thermal compression experiments were carried out at a deformation temperature of 770–920 °C and a strain rate of 0.0005–0.5 s−1. An Arrhenius model, a modified Johnson-Cook model, and an improved BP neural network model based on the sparrow search algorithm (SSA-BP) model were established to predict the high temperature rheological stress of the alloy. A comparison of the prediction accuracy of the three models was made. When the partial random data in the rheological curves was used for model building and relatively independent data were used for predicting the rheological stress, the SSA-BP model had higher prediction accuracy, which exhibits the highest mean square correlation coefficient (R2) value of 0.9992 and the lowest root mean square error (RMSE) and average absolute relative error (AARE) values of 1.3031, and 2.0947 %, respectively. The ability of three models to predict the rheological stress for the new process parameters was verified. Results show that the SSA-BP model still has better prediction ability, which exhibits the highest mean square correlation coefficient (R2) value of 0.9720 and the lowest root mean square error (RMSE) and average absolute relative error (AARE) values of 5.0099, and 6.0382 %, respectively. The predicted values of SSA-BP for the rheological stress were used to construct the hot processing map. Results show that the trend of the power dissipation factor (η) value from the hot processing map predicted by SSA-BP can well agree with the microstructure evolution of the alloy.

The residual bearing capacity after fire is of great significance for safety assessment and repair of building structures. To accurately evaluate the residual strength of corroded beam after natural cooling, this study investigated the residual bearing capacity of corroded beam considering the bond deterioration after fire exposure. First, the bond behavior and flexural-deformation capacity was conducted by pullout test and bending test after corrosion erosion and fire temperatures damage. The bond deterioration test shows that when the temperature rises above 200℃ and the corrosion level exceeds 4.3 %, the bond strength decreases by 16.5 %. At the temperature reaches 600℃ or the corrosion degree reaches 13.8 %, the bond behavior damage exceeds 50 %. The bending test indicates that corrosion and high temperature damage both decrease the bending bearing capacity of the beam, but the influence of high temperature damage on the residual bearing capacity is greater than that of corrosion. The bond property deterioration decreases the strain value of the tensile rebar during the bending process, and decreases the bending capacity of the beam. Finally, a bond-slip constitutive model suitable for corroded beams after fire is proposed, which is applied to the calculation of the ultimate moment of the beam. The modified value of beam bearing capacity considering bond deterioration has better collimation and higher safety margin. The bond-slip constitutive model and the modified calculation method of bending moment of beam are helpful to provide more accurate performance assessment of beam after the coupling effect of corrosion and fire damage.

Sodium carbonate solvent absorbent has been widely studied for CO2 reduction to deal with global warming because of its green, low cost, and non-corrosive advantages. However, in the application of sodium carbonate as an absorbent for CO2 capture, there is no unified cognition of the mass transfer process, which leads to the lack of guidance for the industrial large-scale process. Moreover, the mechanism of mass transfer enhancement of surfactants, which can effectively improve the mass transfer performance, has not been effectively explored in the literature. Based on this, this paper firstly adopts the molecular dynamics method to analyze the solution characteristics after surfactant addition and optimize the surfactant. Subsequently, a classical dissolved oxygen test method was used to measure the gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient for CO2 absorption into sodium carbonate solution. And based on this mass transfer coefficient measurement method, the mass transfer process of sodium carbonate solution with surfactant was analyzed. The results showed that the sodium carbonate solution with 5 wt% concentration and 10 wt% concentration at 30 °C did not satisfy the pseudo first-order fast chemical reaction kinetics assumption. To improve CO2 absorption mass transfer rate, dodecyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (DTAC) surfactant was introduced, which was improved by 119 % compared with non-enhanced solvent at 5 wt% concentration solution, and the assumption of pseudo first order fast chemical reaction was satisfied. After the introduction of surfactant, the barrier effect decreased the liquid phase mass transfer coefficient, but the Marangoni effect happened in the 5 wt% concentration of sodium carbonate solution, which enhanced the liquid-phase mass-transfer coefficient. This finding reveals the mechanism of mass transfer promotion of sodium carbonate by the surfactant DTAC, which is of great engineering significance for the application in the field of decarbonization after the introduction of surfactant.

Abstract The integration of electrochromic devices and energy storage systems in wearable electronics is highly desirable yet challenging, because self‐powered electrochromic devices often require an open system design for continuous replenishment of the strong oxidants to enable the coloring/bleaching processes. A self‐powered electrochromic device has been developed with a close configuration by integrating a Zn/MnO2 ionic battery into the Prussian blue (PB)‐based electrochromic system. Zn and MnO2 electrodes, as dual shared electrodes, the former one can reduce the PB electrode to the Prussian white (PW) electrode and serves as the anode in the battery; the latter electrode can oxidize the PW electrode to its initial state and acts as the cathode in the battery. The bleaching/coloring processes are driven by the gradient potential between Zn/PB and PW/MnO2 electrodes. The as‐prepared Zn||PB||MnO2 system demonstrates superior electrochromic performance, including excellent optical contrast (80.6%), fast self‐bleaching/coloring speed (2.0/3.2 s for bleaching/coloring), and long‐term self‐powered electrochromic cycles. An air‐working Zn||PB||MnO2 device is also developed with a 70.3% optical contrast, fast switching speed (2.2/4.8 s for bleaching/coloring), and over 80 self‐bleaching/coloring cycles. Furthermore, the closed nature enables the fabrication of various flexible electrochromic devices, exhibiting great potentials for the next‐generation wearable electrochromic devices.

China’s oases are the center of human life and economic development for tens of millions of inhabitants in drylands. However, oases have experienced a significant expansion of cropland during the past three decades, which has resulted in rapidly increasing agricultural water demand and increasing water shortages in the region. Although crop switching is recognized as a promising strategy for improving the sustainability of agricultural production, little is known about how much it can improve the sustainability of oasis cropping systems and whether there are trade-offs among multiple sustainability goals. Here, we used a crop-water-use model, data on crop production and nutrient content, observational data on streamflow, and oasis land-use data to assess the impacts of different crop switching scenarios on water demand, nutrient supply, and income. The results showed that oasis agricultural water demand increased from 28.5 km3 to 41.1 km3 between 1987 and 2017, with 74.6 % of the oasis counties experiencing increasing agricultural water stress. By replacing all crops with those having the lowest water demand in each respective county, the demand for irrigation can be reduced by 23.1 %, and the demand for groundwater reduced by as much as 72.8 %. Crop switching scenarios that also consider crop species diversity, in which replacing the highest water demand crops with alternative crops (those with the lowest water demands, highest protein production, or highest calorie production) in each county can effectively reduce irrigation water demand (8.5–12.9 % for streamflow and 32.7–43.3 % for groundwater), while increasing protein (21.3–35.8 %) and calorie (27.5–42.7 %) production as well as income (1.4–2.4 %). Our research provides potential solutions to effectively alleviate the conflict between agricultural development and the environment in oasis regions.

Abstract Background With increasing detection of small renal masses and accumulating evidence that nephron sparing surgery (NSS) could achieve oncological equivalence and functional superiority compared with radical nephrectomy (RN), NSS has become first‐line therapy for some patients with localized renal masses. Objective This study aims to review the publications in the kidney neoplasm and NSS field, exploring the research hotspots. Method Kidney neoplasm and NSS related publications before July 3th 2023 were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection database. We then used bibliometric analysis to conduct performance analysis, citation analysis and co‐citation network of publications, together with keyword co‐occurrence analysis. Results Seven thousand five hundred and sixty‐four documents were finally retrieved, and the annual publications increased exponentially. The most productive authors were “KAOUK JH” and “GILL IS”, while USA, and 12 American affiliations such as CLEVELAND CLINIC FOUNDATION and MAYO CLINIC were far leading in this field. Journal of Urology and European Urology were journals with the highest citations and h‐index. Discussion Through literature reviewing plus co‐occurrence and clustering analysis, the therapeutic effects of partial nephrectomy (PN) versus RN on patients with localized renal cell carcinoma, different operative approaches of PN, and conservative NSS methods were deemed as the most focused topics. Conclusion Three aspects were the most important hotspots in this field. Firstly, how to provide the optimal management choices for different patients. Secondly, therapeutic effects of different management options and surgical techniques needed more prospective and randomized studies. Finally, more novel technologies and surgical techniques were required.

As an important intermediate for dual carbon targets, catalytic CO oxidation under mild conditions has received sufficient attention, as the reaction mechanism is directly related to the type of employed catalyst. High performance computing is performed with density functional theory to elucidate the mechanism of CO oxidation catalyzed by sulfur doped fullerene (C60-xSx (x = 1 ∼ 3)). The total activation energy for the first CO oxidation on C59S, C58S2, and C57S3 increases gradually, as implies that the CO oxidation on C59S should be easier than those on the other two dopants. Distinct electrons (0.852 e and 1.479 e) are transferred to oxygen atoms (O2) from C59S with the adsorption of O2 and CO. There is no synergistic effect for the doping S atoms. All elementary reactions on C59S are exothermic processes. This means that C59S is a potential material for addressing environmental protection issues and H2 purification for fuel cell applications.

Abstract Using a recently developed formulation of double field theory in superspace, the graviton, B-field, gravitini, dilatini, and Ramond-Ramond bispinor are encoded in a single generalized supervielbein. Duality transformations are encoded as orthosymplectic transformations, extending the bosonic O(D, D) duality group, and these act on all constituents of the supervielbein in an easily computable way. We first review conventional non-abelian T-duality in the Green-Schwarz superstring and describe the dual geometries in the language of double superspace. Since dualities are related to super-Killing vectors, this includes as special cases both abelian and non-abelian fermionic T-duality. We then extend this approach to include Poisson-Lie T-duality and its generalizations, including the generalized coset construction recently discussed in [ arXiv:1912.11036 ]. As an application, we construct the supergeometries associated with the integrable λ and η deformations of the AdS5 × S5 superstring. The deformation parameters λ and η are identified with the possible one-parameter embeddings of the supergravity frame within the doubled supergeometry. In this framework, the Ramond-Ramond bispinors are directly computable purely from the algebraic data of the supergroup.

Radiation-induced intestinal injury is a common complication of radiotherapy for abdominal and pelvic malignancies. Due to its rapid proliferation, the small intestine is particularly sensitive to radiation, making it a critical factor limiting treatment. Ferulic acid (FA), a derivative of cinnamic acid, exhibits antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-radiation properties. In this study, we established a mouse model of radiation-induced intestinal injury using a dose of 11 Gy at a rate of 96.62 cGy/min. Our findings indicate that FA’s protective effects against radiation-induced intestinal injury may be mediated through the parkinsonism-associated deglycase (DJ-1) nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and silent mating type information regulation 2 homolog 1 (Sirt1) nuclear Factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) NOD-like receptor family, pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3). FA was found to mitigate changes in oxidative stress indices and inflammatory factors induced by radiation, as well as to attenuate radiation-induced pathological alterations in the small intestine. Furthermore, FA enhanced the expression of DJ-1 and Nrf2 at both the transcriptional and protein levels, inhibited NLRP3 protein fluorescence intensity, and reduced the expression of NLRP3, interleukin-18 (IL-18), and interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β). Additionally, FA suppressed the transcription and translation of NF-κB, NLRP3, cysteine-aspartic acid protease-1 (Caspase-1), IL-18, and IL-1β by upregulating Sirt1, thereby alleviating radiation-induced inflammatory injury in the small intestine. Thus, FA holds promise as an effective therapeutic agent for ameliorating radiation-induced intestinal injury.

The thermal compression experiments of the GH99 alloy were carried out at different strains from 1020 °C to 1170 °C and 0.001 s−1–1 s−1 conditions using a Gleeble-3800 thermal compression simulation tester. Construction of thermal processing maps with four instability criteria were superimposed on Murty, Prasad, Gegel, and Malas at different strains based on stress-strain data. Based on the theoretical basis, prediction results, and EBSD microstructure characterization method of four instability criteria, the suitable forming processing region and rheological instability region of the alloy were predicted. It was found that the Prasad instability criterion had the most accurate prediction results. The instability range predicted by Murty was accurate under minor strains, but as the strain increased, the expected instability range slightly increased compared to the actual range. However, the Gegel and Malas criteria have biases in predicting alloys under low-rate conditions at different strains. A scientific and rational optimization was carried out to select hot working process parameters for GH99 alloy in response to the influence of strain on its hot deformation behavior.

The disruption of hematopoietic and immune functions is a significant consequence of the long-term effects of radiation exposure. This study investigated the potential mechanisms by which ferulic acid (FA) acts as a radioprotective agent in mitigating radiation-induced immune damage. C57BL/6J mice were exposed to a dose of 6.0 Gy of 60Co γ irradiation. FA was administered at doses of 25, 50, and 100 mg/kg/d for 7 days before and 30 days following irradiation. We evaluated changes in peripheral blood cells, T and B lymphocytes, natural killer cells in the spleen, and hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells in the bone marrow (BM). Whole-genome transcriptome sequencing of BM was performed to explore potential mechanisms. FA administration resulted in a significant reduction in malonaldehyde levels (p < 0.0001), an increase in catalase and beta-nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide levels in serum (p < 0.05), and enhanced multipotent progenitors (p < 0.01) and common lymphoid progenitors (p < 0.05) in the BM. Additionally, there was an elevation in white blood cell levels, red blood cell levels, and hemoglobin levels in peripheral blood (p < 0.01). Transcriptome analysis indicated that FA reversed the radiation-induced expression of genes related to immunity and inflammation. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay experiments further demonstrated that FA reduced interleukin-6 levels in the BM and decreased JAK1, JAK2, and STAT3 protein content (p < 0.01). In conclusion, FA might mitigate hematopoietic and immune damage by modulating the JAK/STAT signaling pathway.

The polarization direction-dependent SBS threshold was investigated, and the terminal polarization control technique was demonstrated to restore the linear polarization state. By increasing the relative angle of the injecting polarization direction from 0° to 90°, the measured SBS threshold increased until reaching a maximum value, beyond which it decreased in a nearly symmetrical trend. The highest SBS threshold was achieved with the relative polarization angle being 45°, delivering a 67% threshold enhancement compared with that at 0°. A quarter-wave-plate was used to restore the polarization state of the output laser manually from an elliptic to a linearly polarized state, and temperature-dependent polarization fluctuation was observed, which intensified as the laser power was scaled. By reducing the cooling temperature, a 1 kW laser with a linearly polarized state was demonstrated using a 45° polarization direction-injected monolithic PM amplifier.

BackgroundProstate cancer (PCa) is one of the most threatening health problems for the elderly males. However, our understanding of the disease has been limited by the research technology for a long time. Recently, the maturity of sequencing technology and omics studies has been accelerating the studies of PCa, establishing themselves as an essential impetus in this field.MethodsWe assessed Web of Science (WoS) database for publications of sequencing and omics studies in PCa on July 3rd, 2023. Bibliometrix was used to conduct ulterior bibliometric analysis of countries/affiliations, authors, sources, publications, and keywords. Subsequently, purposeful large amounts of literature reading were proceeded to analyze research hotspots in this field.Results3325 publications were included in the study. Research associated with sequencing and omics studies in PCa had shown an obvious increase recently. The USA and China were the most productive countries, and harbored close collaboration. CHINNAIYAN AM was identified as the most influential author, and CANCER RESEARCH exhibited huge impact in this field. Highly cited publications and their co-citation relationships were used to filtrate literatures for subsequent literature reading. Based on keyword analysis and large amounts of literature reading, ‘the molecular pathogenesis of PCa’ and ‘the clinical application of sequencing and omics studies in PCa’ were summarized as two research hotspots in the field.ConclusionSequencing technology had a deep impact on the studies of PCa. Sequencing and omics studies in PCa helped researchers reveal the molecular pathogenesis, and provided new possibilities for the clinical practice of PCa.

As the dominant waste disposal process, incineration is regarded as the main incentive for the “not-in-my-backyard” syndrome, and faces an inescapable pressures of ultra-low emissions (ULE). Establishing precise response relationships between emission factors (EFs) and full-process influencing factors can provide guidance for the synergistic mitigation of flue gas pollutants (FGPs). In this work, the multi-dimensional EFs of FGPs were identified by initially integrating FGPs concentration monitoring data of existing 1,226 processing lines in China, technologies applied and operational experience (OE), local economic and political characteristics. Significant regional imbalance performance was observed, which EFs in the coastal regions were 3.55–92.39 % lower than those of the inland areas. NOx, SO2, HCl were identified as critical components requiring further reduction under the ULE standards, with exceedance rates recorded at 73.07 %, 38.90 %, and 56.69 %, respectively. An indicative value of 20 mg/m3 for PM is recommended for the control of heavy metals of Cd + Tl and Sb + As + Pb + Cr + Co + Cu + Mn + Ni based on the correlation coefficients of r = 0.28 (p

Biochar is a very promising material for soil remediation. However, most studies mainly focus on the adsorption ability of biochar on one heavy metal, which is difficult to evaluate the actual remediation effect since soils were contaminated with multiple heavy metals. In order to improve the soil remediation efficiency, we used the joint remediation method of magnetically modified biochar and ryegrass to remediate the soil polluted by compound heavy metals (chromium, nickel, copper, zinc, arsenic and cadmium), and evaluate the effect on the process of organic carbon mineralization in polluted soils. It was found that magnetic biochar and ryegrass together decreased the concentrations of Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, and Cd in soils by 24.12 %, 23.30 %, 22.01 %, 9.98 %, 14.83 %, and 15.08 %, respectively, and reduced the available fractions. Ryegrass roots were the main accumulation part of heavy metals, and the order of enrichment effect was ranked as Zn > As > Cr > Cu > Ni > Cd. In addition, magnetic biochar can maintained the stability of the organic carbon pool, and inhibited the emission of volatile organic compounds from ryegrass. Overall, this study indicates that magnetic biochar spheres combined with ryegrass is an effective method for heavy metals co-contaminated soils, and has the excellent remediation ability for actual co-contaminated soils.

Stem cell senescence and exhaustion, a hallmark of aging, lead to declines in tissue repair and regeneration in aged individuals. Emerging evidence has revealed that epigenetic regulation plays critical roles in the self-renew, lineage-commitment, survival, and function of stem cells. Moreover, epigenetic alterations are considered important drivers of stem cell dysfunction during aging. In this review, we focused on current knowledge of the histone modifications in the aging of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). The aberrant epigenetic modifications on histones, including methylation and acetylation, have been found in aging MSCs. By disturbing the expression of specific genes, these epigenetic modifications affect the self-renew, survival, and differentiation of MSCs. A set of epigenetic enzymes that write or erase these modifications are critical in regulating the aging of MSCs. Furthermore, we discussed the rejuvenation strategies based on epigenetics to prevent stem cell aging and/or rejuvenate senescent MSCs.

Landslide is a typical geological disaster distributed in most countries worldwide. Due to long-term natural weathering and human engineering disturbances, the instability of landslides is prone to occur. Once monitoring and disposal methods are implemented inappropriately, they can lead to landslide hazards, seriously threatening the safety of people’s lives and property. For a long time, extensive research on landslide monitoring has been conducted from various countries, providing crucial technical support for reducing the incidence and severity of landslide hazards. However, considering the complex geological conditions of actual landslides and the direct impact of internal and external factors such as rainfall, storms, and earthquakes, the early warning accuracy of landslide hazards is still relatively low. Therefore, based on advanced research achievements, it is significant to carry out research on the current status and development trends of landslide monitoring technology. Based on the Web of Science core database, this study quantitatively analyzes the advanced research achievements in global landslide monitoring in the past decade using bibliometric analysis. A systematic analysis of landslide monitoring technology development is conducted according to each study’s publication time, keywords, and countries. On this basis, a multi-dimensional monitoring system for landslides was proposed, which utilizes the complementary advantages of multi-dimensional monitoring technology to achieve all-round, high-precision, and real-time monitoring of landslides. Finally, taking the Xinpu landslide in the Three Gorges Region of China as an example, a multi-source and multi-field-monitoring experiment was conducted. The application of landslide multi-field-monitoring technology provides an essential reference for monitoring, early warning, as well as the scientific prevention and control of landslide hazard.

Photocatalytic CO2 reduction to valuable chemical compounds could be a promising approach for carbon-neutral practice. In this work, a simple and robust thermal decomposition process was developed with ammonium carbonate ((NH4)2CO3) as both precipitation agent and sacrificial template to produce fine Nb2O5 nanoparticles with the rich existence of surface hydroxyl (–OH) groups. It was found by density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experiments that the rich existence of the surface –OH groups enhanced the adsorption of both reactants (CO2 and H2O molecules) for the photocatalytic CO2 reduction on these fine Nb2O5 nanoparticles, and the highly selective conversion of CO2 to the high-value chemical compound of ethylene (C2H4, ~68 μmol·g−1·h−1 with ~100% product selectivity) was achieved under simulated solar illumination without usage of any sacrificial agents or noble metal cocatalysts. This synthesis process may also be readily applied as a surface engineering method to enrich the existence of the surface –OH groups on various metal oxide-based photocatalysts for a broad range of technical applications.

Abstract The external calibration between 3D LiDAR and 2D camera is an extremely important step towards multimodal fusion for robot perception. However, its accuracy is still unsatisfactory. To improve the accuracy of calibration, we first analyze the interference factors that affect the performance of the calibration model under a causal inference framework in this study. Guided by the causality analysis, we present Iter-CalibNet (Iterative Calibration Convolutional Neural Network) to infer a 6 degrees of freedom (DoF) rigid body transformation between 3D LiDAR and 2D camera. By downscaling point clouds to obtain more overlapping region between 3D–2D data pair and applying iterative calibration manner, the interference of confounding bias in the calibration model is effectively eliminated. Moreover, our Iter-CalibNet adds non-local neural network after each convolution operation to capture the transformation relationship. We also combine the geometric loss and photometric loss obtained from the interframe constraints to optimize the calibration accuracy. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our Iter-CalibNet can achieve leading performance by comparison with other CNN based and traditional calibration methods.

ObjectiveTo compare the diagnostic performance of automated breast ultrasound (ABUS) and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in breast cancer.MethodsPublished studies were collected by systematically searching the databases PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Web of Science. The sensitivities, specificities, likelihood ratios and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were confirmed. The symmetric receiver operator characteristic curve (SROC) was used to assess the threshold of ABUS and CEUS. Fagan’s nomogram was drawn. Meta-regression and subgroup analyses were applied to search for sources of heterogeneity among the included studies.ResultsA total of 16 studies were included, comprising 4115 participants. The combined sensitivity of ABUS was 0.88 [95% CI (0.73–0.95)], specificity was 0.93 [95% CI (0.82–0.97)], area under the SROC curve (AUC) was 0.96 [95% CI (0.94–0.96)] and DOR was 89. The combined sensitivity of CEUS was 0.88 [95% CI (0.84–0.91)], specificity was 0.76 [95% CI (0.66–0.84)], AUC was 0.89 [95% CI (0.86–0.92)] and DOR was 24. The Deeks’ funnel plot showed no existing publication bias. The prospective design, partial verification bias and blinding contributed to the heterogeneity in specificity, while no sources contributed to the heterogeneity in sensitivity. The post-test probability of ABUS in BC was 75%, and the post-test probability of CEUS in breast cancer was 48%.ConclusionCompared with CEUS, ABUS showed higher specificity and DOR for detecting breast cancer. ABUS is expected to further improve the accuracy of BC diagnosis.

All-fiber coherent beam combiners based on the self-imaging effect can achieve a near-perfect single laser beam, which can provide a promising way to overcome the power limitation of a single-fiber laser. One of the key points is combining efficiency, which is determined by various mismatches during fabrication. A theoretical model has been built, and the mismatch error is analyzed numerically for the first time. The mismatch errors have been numerically studied with the beam quality and combining efficiency being chosen as the evaluation criteria. The tolerance of each mismatch error for causing 1% loss is calculated to guide the design of the beam combiners. The simulation results are consistent with the experimental results, which show that the mismatch error of the square-core fiber is the main cause of the efficiency loss. The results can provide useful guidance for the fabrication of all-fiber coherent beam combiners.

IntroductionExercise addiction (EA) is a dysfunctional behavior characterized by exaggerated training which has adverse effects on physiology and psychology. To examine the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the Exercise Dependence Scale-Revised (EDS-R) and the social and psychological aspects related to EA, a large sample behavioral study was conducted.MethodsCollege students were selected as the target group. All of them were asked to finish the scales about exercise, including the Chinese version of EDS-R and the Motives for Physical Activity Measure-Revised scales. A confirmatory factor analysis, Mann-Whitney U test, and hierarchical regression test were performed to test the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of EDS-R and find the explanatory variables of EA.ResultsA total of 837 (556 female) students with a mean age of 20.38 years were recruited in the present study. The Chinese version of EDS-R showed good reliability and validity (McDonald’s ω = 0.973, CR = 0.99, AVE = 0.80) in Chinese college students. EA was positively correlated with exercise frequency and ability motivation across the study sample. Besides, the Mann-Whitney U test revealed that the exercise motivation difference is the primary cause of the gender gap in EA.ConclusionThe Chinese version of EDS-R is a relatively robust and accurate instrument to assess the risk of EA. Additionally, exercise frequency and motivation may be the potential risk factors for EA. The screening of risk factors is of great significance for the early detection and prevention of EA.

Signals are susceptible to nonlinear effects in the process of underwater visible light communication (UVLC) channel transmission.In order to improve the communication performance of the system, it is very important to recover the received signals.A bidirectional gated recurrent unit model based on Bayesian optimization algorithm (BO-BiGRU) was proposed as post equalizer in UVLC system, which could automatically find the optimal hyperparameters.BO-BiGRU model was applied to the 1.2 m underwater experimental platform.64 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM)-carrierless amplitude-and-phase modulation (CAPM) was adopted, and 3.10 Gbit/s rate of data transfer was achieved under the condition that the bit error ratio (BER) of the system was less than 3.8×10-37% forward error correction (FEC), which is 128 Mbit/s higher than the traditional post equalization method.

Abstract There are still some problems in the study of hydraulic fracture (HF) network evolution in cemented naturally fractured reservoirs, such as microseismic mapping showing exaggerated stimulated reservoir volume in some cases. In addition, the dominant role of natural fracture (NF) cementation strength, injection rate, in situ stress difference, NF distribution, and fracture initiation sequence of perforations in synthetically influencing fracture network formation needs to be further studied. For this purpose, a three‐dimensional matrix hexahedral element global coupled 0‐thickness cohesive element hydraulic fracturing model was developed. Results show that each interaction between HF and NF causes HF diameter shrinkage, which increases the propagation pressure of HF. When the cementation strength of the NF is low, the HF tends to deviate toward the tip of the NF to form a complex fracture network. Increasing the injection rate and the number of NFs can significantly enhance the complexity of the HF network, but does not change the HF and NF interaction pattern. The in situ stress differences dominate the morphology of the HF network when the cementation strength of NFs is constant. The stress interference of multiple fractures under segmented fracturing may form “S”‐shaped HFs, and the HFs are difficult to maintain a symmetrical morphology in the direction of the well axis. In addition, some NFs in inactivated damaged zones have developed a certain width geometrically due to the induced effect of HF, but they are still isolated by the low permeability matrix and might only generate some microseismic events.

Objectives As a new type of pressure-resistant structure, the titanium alloy sandwich cylindrical shell has not yet been studied comprehensively. The topology of the core layer needs to be confirmed using the optimization method. This paper carries out the core topology optimization of titanium alloy pressure- resistant sandwich cylindrical shells.methodsAn unreinforced cylindrical shell with high thickness is selected as the analysis object, and the axisymmetric element is used to calculate the structural stresses via ANSYS. The cylindrical shell is divided into the upper, middle and lower regions along the thickness direction. The structures of the middle region are set as the design variables, and a two-stage topology optimization mathematical model of its core structure is proposed. Based on Matlab, the main control program of the genetic algorithm is established to carry out the core layout optimization of the unreinforced cylindrical shell along the axial direction only and both the axial direction and radial direction respectively.resultsThe optimal core topological form consists of equidistant ribs connecting the inner shell and outer shell vertically.ConclusionsA sandwich cylindrical shell under hydrostatic pressure is a reasonable pressure-resistant structure.

Abstract Background Hospice and palliative care nursing (HPCN) in China is mainly available at public primary care institutions, where nursing homes (NHs) are rarely involved. Nursing assistants (NAs) play an essential role in HPCN multidisciplinary teams, but little is known about their attitudes towards HPCN and related factors. Methods A cross-sectional study was designed to evaluate NAs’ attitudes towards HPCN with an indigenised scale in Shanghai. A total of 165 formal NAs were recruited from 3 urban and 2 suburban NHs between October 2021 and January 2022. The questionnaire was composed of four parts: demographic characteristics, attitudes (20 items with four sub-concepts), knowledge (nine items), and training needs (nine items). Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation, and multiple linear regression were performed to analyse NAs’ attitudes, influencing factors, and their correlations. Results A total of 156 questionnaires were valid. The mean score of attitudes was 72.44 ± 9.56 (range:55–99), with a mean item score of 3.6 ± 0.5 (range:1–5). The highest score rate was “perception of the benefits for the life quality promotion” (81.23%), and the lowest score rate was “perception of the threats from the worsening conditions of advanced patients” (59.92%). NAs’ attitudes towards HPCN were positively correlated with their knowledge score (r = 0.46, P

Abstract Recent progress in generalised geometry and extended field theories suggests a deep connection between consistent truncations and dualities, which is not immediately obvious. A prime example is generalised Scherk-Schwarz reductions in double field theory, which have been shown to be in one-to-one correspondence with Poisson-Lie T-duality. Here we demonstrate that this relation is only the tip of the iceberg. Currently, the most general known classes of T-dualities (excluding mirror symmetry) are based on dressing cosets. But as we discuss, they can be further extended to the even larger class of generalised cosets. We prove that the latter give rise to consistent truncations for which the ansatz can be constructed systematically. Hence, we pave the way for many new examples of T-dualities and consistent truncations. The arising structures result in covariant tensors with more than two derivatives and we argue how they might be key to understand generalised T-dualities and consistent truncations beyond the leading two derivative level.

Nb2O5 nanoparticles with an average particle size of 10 nm supported on a rhombic dodecahedral metal organic framework (MOF) were successfully synthesized by a facile one-pot hydrothermal reaction and subsequent calcination process. Experimental results demonstrated that the prepared catalyst drastically improved the hydrogen storage behavior of MgH2. 7 wt% Nb2O5@MOF doped MgH2 started to desorb hydrogen at 181.9 °C and 6.2 wt% hydrogen could be released within 2.6 min and 6.3 min at 275 °C and 250 °C, respectively. The fully dehydrogenated composite also displayed excellent hydrogenation by decreasing the onset absorption temperature to 25 °C and taking up 4.9 wt% and 6.5 wt% hydrogen within 6 min at 175 °C and 150 °C, respectively. Moreover, the corresponding activation energy was calculated to be 75.57 ± 4.16 kJ mol−1 for desorption reaction and 51.38 ± 1.09 kJ mol−1 for absorption reaction. After 20 cycles, 0.5 wt% hydrogen capacity was lost for the MgH2+7 wt% Nb2O5@MOF composite, much lower than 1.5 wt% of the MgH2+7 wt% Nb2O5 composite. However, the addition of Nb2O5@MOF had limited effect on reducing the dehydrogenation enthalpy of MgH2. Microstructure analysis revealed that Nb2O5 particles were uniformly distributed on surface of the MgH2 matrix and synergistically improved the hydrogen storage property of MgH2 with MOF.

Abstract Relation triple extraction is a combination of named entity recognition and relation prediction. Early works ignore the problem of data overlap when extracting triples, resulting in poor extraction performance. Subsequent works improve the capability of the model to extract overlapping triples through generative and extractive methods. These works achieve considerable performance but still suffer from some defects, such as poor extraction capability for individual triplets and inappropriate spatial distribution of the data. To solve the above problems, we perform sequence-to-matrix transformation and propose the NEDORT model. NEDORT predicts all subjects in the sentence and then completes the extraction of relation–object pairs. There are overlapping parts between relation–object pairs, so we conduct the conversion of sequence to matrix. We design the Differential Amplified Multi-head Attention method to extract subjects. This method highlights the locations of entities and captures sequence features from multiple dimensions. When performing the extraction of relation–object pairs, we fuse subject and sequence information through the Biaffine method and generate relation–sequence matrices. In addition, we design a multi-layer U-Net network to optimize the matrix representation and improve the extraction performance of the model. Experimental results on two public datasets show that our model outperforms other baseline models on triples of all categories

The Gleeble-3800 thermomechanical simulator unit was used to perform single-pass hot compression tests of the single-phase BCC structure AlFeCoNiMo0.2 high-entropy alloy at the deformation temperature of 950–1150 °C and strain rate of 0.001-1s−1. The hot deformation behavior of the alloy was studied, and the dynamic recrystallization critical strain was determined by the work hardening rate. The dynamic recrystallization mechanism of the alloy was revealed with the microstructure characterization techcique. The study results showed: The dynamic recrystallization critical strain of AlFeCoNiMo0.2 high entropy alloy did not show any notable dependency on the deformation temperature and strain rate. Without reaching the recrystallization temperature, the massive generation of subgrain structures suppresses the formation of dynamic recrystallization grains. The nucleation mechanism of the high-entropy alloy is subgrain merging mechanism caused by dislocation motion.

This study used polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and heat-treated polyacrylonitrile (H-PAN) membranes to enrich nutmeg essential oils, which have more complex compositions compared with common oils. The oil rejection rate of the H-PAN membrane was higher than that of the PAN membrane for different oil concentrations of nutmeg essential oil-in-water emulsions. After heat treatment, the H-PAN membrane showed a smaller pore size, narrower pore size distribution, a rougher surface, higher hydrophilicity, and higher oleophobicity. According to the GC-MS results, the similarities of the essential oils enriched by the PAN and H-PAN membranes to those obtained by steam distillation (SD) were 0.988 and 0.990, respectively. In addition, these two membranes also exhibited higher essential oil rejection for Bupleuri Radix, Magnolia Officinalis Cortex, Caryophylli Flos, and Cinnamomi Cortex essential oil-in-water emulsions. This work could provide a reference for membrane technology for the non-destructive separation of oil with complex components from oil-in-water emulsions.

The nature of the active sites of transition metal oxides during the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has attracted much attention. Herein, we constructed well-defined nickel oxide/Au (111) model catalysts to study the relationship between the structures and their OER activity using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), electrochemical measurements, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The deposited nickel oxides on Au (111) were found to exhibit a two-dimensional (2D)/three-dimensional (3D) structure by regulating the annealing temperature. Combining STM, XPS and electrochemical measurements, our results demonstrated an optimal OER reactivity could be achieved for NiOx with a 2D structure on Au and provided a morphological description of the active phase during electrocatalysis.