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The number of semiconducting MXenes with direct band gaps is extremely low; thus, it is highly desirable to broaden the MXene family beyond carbides and nitrides to expand the palette of desired chemical and physical properties. Here, we theoretically report the existence of the single-layer (SL) dititanium oxide 2H-Ti 2 O MOene (MXene-like 2D transition oxides), showing an Ising superconducting feature. Moreover, SL halogenated 2H- and 1T-Ti 2 O monolayers display tunable semiconducting features and strong light-harvesting ability. In addition, the external strains can induce Weyl fermions via quantum phase transition in 2H-Ti 2 OF 2 and Ti 2 OCl 2 monolayers. Specifically, 2H- and 1T-Ti 2 OF 2 are direct semiconductors with band gaps of 0.82 and 1.18 eV, respectively. Furthermore, the carrier lifetimes of SL 2H- and 1T-Ti 2 OF 2 are evaluated to be 0.39 and 2.8 ns, respectively. This study extends emerging phenomena in a rich family of 2D MXene-like MOene materials, which provides a novel platform for next-generation optoelectronic and photovoltaic fields.

Manipulating spin in antiferromagnetic (AFM) materials has great potential in AFM opto-spintronics. Laser pulses can induce a transient ferromagnetic (FM) state in AFM metallic systems but have never been proven in two-dimensional (2D) AFM semiconductors and related van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures. Herein, using 2D vdW heterostructures of FM MnS 2 and AFM MXenes as prototypes, we investigated optically induced interlayer spin transfer dynamics based on real-time time-dependent density functional theory. We observed that laser pulses induce significant spin injection and interfacial atom-mediated spin transfer from MnS 2 to Cr 2 CCl 2 . In particular, we first demonstrated the transient FM state in semiconducting AFM-FM heterostructures during photoexcited processes. The proximity magnetism breaks the magnetic symmetry of Cr 2 CCl 2 in heterostructures. Our results provide a microscopic understanding of optically controlled interlayer spin dynamics in 2D magnetic heterostructures and open a new way to manipulate magnetic order in 2D materials for ultrafast opto-spintronics.

Transition-metal perovskite chalcogenides (TMPCs) have emerged as lead-free alternatives to lead-halide perovskites and have been currently of increasing interest for optoelectronic applications because of their suitable band gaps, high carrier mobility, strong light absorption, and high stability. Here, we systematically report a study on the effects of Ti- and Se-alloying strategies on polaron behavior and carrier lifetimes in nonradiative recombination. Although such alloying can effectively tune the band gap of BaZrS 3 , we observe localized small polaron formation upon Ti alloying and large polarons generating in Se alloying. Ti-alloying strengthens the electron-phonon coupling, leading to a reduced carrier lifetime. Remarkably, Se-alloying weakens the electron-phonon coupling and prolongs the nonradiative electron-hole recombination lifetime by up to 60% compared to that in pristine BaZrS 3 material. The simulations rationalize the difference in carrier lifetimes in TMPC alloys and provide guidelines for further improvements in TMPC-based photoelectronic devices.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as vital regulators of gene expression during embryonic stem cell (ESC) self-renewal and differentiation. Here, we systemically analyzed the differentially regulated lncRNAs during ESC-derived cardiomyocyte (CM) differentiation. We established a perspicuous profile of lncRNA expression at four critical developmental stages and found that the differentially expressed lncRNAs were grouped into six distinct clusters. The cluster with specific expression in ESC enriches the largest number of lncRNAs. Investigation of lncRNA-protein interaction network revealed that they are not only controlled by classic key transcription factors, but also modulated by epigenetic and epitranscriptomic factors including N 6 -methyladenosine (m 6 A) effector machineries. A detailed inspection revealed that 28 out of 385 lncRNAs were modified by methylation as well as directly recruited by the nuclear m 6 A reader protein Ythdc1. Unlike other 27 non-coding transcripts, the ESC-specific lncRNA Gm2379 , located in both nucleus and cytoplasm, becomes dramatically upregulated in response to the depletion of m 6 A or Ythdc1. Consistent with the role of m 6 A in cell fate regulation, depletion of Gm2379 results in dysregulated expressions of pluripotent genes and crucial genes required for the formation of three germ layers. Collectively, our study provides a foundation for understanding the dynamic regulation of lncRNA transcriptomes during ESC differentiation and identifies the interplay between epitranscriptomic modification and key lncRNAs in the regulation of cell fate decision., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Wang, Zhang, Ding, Zhang, Wu, Huang, He, Zhou and Liu.)

Background: This study aimed to investigate the safety and efficacy of minimally invasive total mesoesophageal excision (TME) for esophageal cancer., Methods: We retrospectively collected data from patients with esophageal cancer who underwent esophagectomy at our center between January 2011 and June 2017. Among 611 eligible patients, 302 underwent minimally invasive total mesoesophageal excision (the TME group) and 309 underwent non-total mesoesophageal excision (the NME group). Outcomes were compared after 1-to-1 propensity score matching, and subgroup analyses were performed for cases involving pT1-2 or pT3-4a disease., Results: The propensity score matching produced 249 pairs of patients. The TME group had a shorter operative time (P < 0.001), lower intraoperative bleeding (P < 0.001), and a shorter postoperative hospital stay (P < 0.001). There were no significant differences between the two groups in the number of removed lymph nodes, 30-day mortality, or postoperative complications. In addition, both groups had similar 3-year rates of overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). However, the 3-year recurrence rate in the esophageal bed was significantly lower in the TME group (P = 0.033). Furthermore, among patients with pT3-4a disease, the TME group had better 3-year rates of OS, DFS, and recurrence., Conclusion: Minimally invasive total mesoesophageal excision appears to be a safe technique that can reduce tumor recurrence in the esophageal bed. Furthermore, this technique provided survival benefits for patients with pT3-4a disease., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Ultrafast optical control of magnetism had great potential to revolutionize magnetic storage technology and spintronics, but for now, its potential remains mostly untapped in two-dimensional (2D) magnets. Here, using the state-of-the-art real-time time-dependent density functional theory (rt-TDDFT), we demonstrate that an ultrafast laser pulse can induce a ferromagnetic state in nonmagnetic MoSe 2 monolayers interfaced with van der Waals (vdW) ferromagnetic MnSe 2 . Our results show that the transient ferromagnetism in MoSe 2 derives from photoinduced direct ultrafast interlayer spin transfer from Mn to Mo via a vdW-coupled interface, albeit with a delay of approximately a few femtoseconds. This delay was strongly dependent on laser duration and interlayer coupling, which could be used to tune the amplitude and rate spin transfer. Furthermore, we have also shown that ferromagnetic states can be photoinduced in other transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), such as PtS 2 and TaSe 2 monolayers. Overall, our findings provide crucial physical insights for exploring light-induced interlayer spin and charge dynamics in 2D magnetic systems.

While previous network compression methods achieve great success, most of them rely on the abundant training data which is, unfortunately, often unavailable in practice due to some reasons, e.g., privacy issues, storage constraints, and transmission limitations. A promising way to solve this problem is to perform compression with a few unlabeled data. Proceeding along this way, we propose a novel few-shot network compression framework named Few-Shot Slimming (FSS). FSS follows the student/teacher paradigm, and contains two steps: (1) construct the student by inheriting principal feature maps from the teacher; (2) refine the student feature representation by knowledge distillation with an enhanced mixing data augmentation method called GridMix. Specifically, in the first step, we employ normalized cross correlation to perform the principal feature analysis, and then theoretically construct a new indicator to select the most informative feature maps from the teacher for the student. The indicator is based on the variances of feature maps which can efficiently quantitate the information richness of the input feature maps in a feature-agnostic manner. In the second step, we perform the knowledge distillation for the initialized student in first step with a novel grid-based mixing data augmentation technique which greatly extends the limited sample dataset. In this way, the student is able to refine its feature representation and achieves a better result. Extensive experiments on multiple benchmarks demonstrate the state-of-the-art performance of FSS. For example, by using 0.2% label-free data of full training set, FSS yields a 60% FLOPs reduction for DenseNet-40 on CIFAR-10 with only a loss of 0.8% in top-1 accuracy, achieving a result on par with that obtained by the conventional full-data methods., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) aims to evaluate the distribution of magnetic susceptibility from magnetic resonance phase measurements by solving the ill-conditioned dipole inversion problem. Removing the artifacts and preserving the anisotropy of tissue susceptibility simultaneously is still a challenge in QSM. To deal with this issue, a novel k-QSM network is proposed to resolve dipole inversion issues in QSM reconstruction. The k-QSM network converts the results obtained by truncated k-space division (TKD) into the Fourier domain as inputs. After passing through several convolutional and residual blocks, the ill-posed signals of TKD are corrected by making the network output close to the calculation of susceptibility through multiple orientation sampling (COSMOS)-labeled QSM. To evaluate the superiority of k-QSM, comparisons with several state-of-the-art methods are performed in terms of QSM artifacts removing, anisotropy preserving, generalization ability, and clinical applications. Compared to existing methods, the k-QSM achieves a 22.31% lower normalized root mean square error, 10.30% higher peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), 33.10% lower high-frequency error norm, and 1.06% higher structural similarity. In addition, the orientation-dependent susceptibility variation obtained by k-QSM is significant, verifying that k-QSM has the ability to preserve susceptibility anisotropy. When the trained models are tested on the dataset from different centers, our k-QSM shows a strong generalization ability with the highest PSNR. Moreover, by comparing the susceptibility maps between healthy controls and drug addicts with different methods, we found the proposed k-QSM is more sensitive to the susceptibility abnormality in the patients. The proposed k-QSM method learns less-only to fix the ill-posed signals of TKD, but infers more-both COSMOS-like and anisotropy-preserving QSM results. Its generalization ability and great sensitivity to susceptibility changes can make it a potential method for distinguishing some diseases., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 He, Wang, Cao, Wang and Zhu.)

Recently, two-dimensional (2D) Janus semiconductors have attracted great attention in photocatalytic applications owing to their extraordinary properties, especially the intrinsic polarization-induced spontaneous carrier separation, strong optical absorption, and ultrahigh solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency. However, experimental achievable candidates for 2D intrinsic Janus semiconductors are rarely reported. Herein, based on density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we uncovered two new 2D photocatalysts, namely, Janus Nb 3 SBr 7 and Ta 3 SBr 7 bilayers. We revealed that both structures are highly feasible to be obtained from their bulk counterparts. Excitingly, intrinsic charge separations emerge in both structures, which are beneficial to the repression of recombinations of their photoexcited carriers. Optical absorptions of both structures can be activated in the visible and even infrared regions. Most interestingly, Nb 3 SBr 7 and Ta 3 SBr 7 bilayers can exhibit ultrahigh STH efficiencies of 35% and 31%, respectively, which are larger than those of most 2D Janus structures. In addition, we further found that these distinguished photocatalytic properties are rather robust and are independent of their stacking modes. Experimental feasibilities and robust coexistences of intrinsic charge separations, ultrahigh STH efficiencies, and strong absorptions endow Nb 3 SBr 7 and Ta 3 SBr 7 bilayers as hopeful photocatalysts for water splitting.

Flocculation is an economical and effective pretreatment technology for landfill leachate. An iron salt flocculant is often used in landfill leachate pretreatment, but the flocs that are formed are affected by the operation sequence, which subsquently influences flocculation. This study selected three representative landfill leachates (i.e., mature landfill leachate (MLL), biologically treated landfill leachate (BTL), and nanofiltration concentrate leachate (NFCL)). The effect of different operation modes on the removal of organic matter from landfill leachate by flocculation was studied, and a strategy to control colloidal instability is put forward. The results revealed that adjusting the pH value to 9 using NaOH changes the zeta potential of leachate when the leachate and sludge are not separated, which affects electric neutralization in flocculation and colloidal stability. Furthermore, a part of the collected organic matter is released to the leachate again, leading to a decrease in the flocculation pretreatment effect. In this improved flocculation process, the leachate and sludge are first separated, and the pH value of the system is then adjusted to 9. The effect of OH - on electric neutralization is avoided and the remaining Fe 3+ can further remove organic matter from leachates. Finally, the UV 254 removal efficiencies of MLL, BTL, and NFCL increased by 20.38%, 28.67%, and 22.67%, respectively. In a full-scale application, i.e., an NFCL treatment facility, the UV 254 removal efficiency during long-term operation reached 87.50%. Therefore, the colloid instability control strategy this study proposes can provide theoretical and engineering references for the flocculation pretreatment of landfill leachate., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Walking-induced fluctuations have a significant influence on indoor airflow and pollutant dispersion. This study developed a method to quantify the robustness of ventilation systems in the control of walking-induced fluctuation control. Experiments were conducted in a full-scale chamber with four different kinds of ventilation systems: ceiling supply and side return (CS), ceiling supply and ceiling return (CC), side supply and ceiling return (SC), and side supply and side return (SS). The measured temperature, flow and pollutant field data was (1) denoised by FFT filtering or wavelet transform; (2) fitted by a Gaussian function; (3) feature-extracted for the range and time scale disturbance; and then (4) used to calculate the range scale and time scale robustness for different ventilation systems with dimensionless equations developed in this study. The selection processes for FFT filtering and wavelet transform, FFT filter cut-off frequency, wavelet function, and decomposition layers are also discussed, as well as the threshold for wavelet denoising, which can be adjusted accordingly if the walking frequency or sampling frequency differs from that in other studies. The results show that for the flow and pollutant fields, the use of a ventilation system can increase the range scale robustness by 19.7%-39.4% and 10.0%-38.8%, respectively; and the SS system was 7.0%-25.7% more robust than the other three ventilation systems. However, all four kinds of ventilation systems had a very limited effect in controlling the time scale disturbance., (© Tsinghua University Press 2022.)

The discovery of two-dimensional (2D) magnetic materials provides an ideal testbed for manipulating the magnetic properties at the atomically thin and 2D limit. This review gives recent progress in the emergent 2D magnets and heterostructures, focusing on the theory side. We summarize different theoretical models, ranging from the atomic to micrometer-scale, used to describe magnetic orders. Then, the current strategies for tuning magnetism in 2D materials are further discussed, such as electric field, magnetic field, strain, optics, chemical functionalization, and spin-orbit engineering. Finally, we conclude with the future challenges and opportunities for 2D magnetism.

In the family of 2D materials, atomically thin magnetic systems are relatively new and highly exploitable. Understanding the spin symmetry in such materials has opened a new path toward controlling the magnetic texture. In this study, we have shown that the plethora of different interface formations in the Janus or pure metal-semiconductor-based van der Waals heterostructures 1T-VXY (X, Y = S, Se, Te)-Cr 2 A 3 B 3 (A, B = I, Cl, Br) allows us to explore and modify the spin-orbit and ligand-metal interactions to fine-tune magnetic anisotropy and different spin symmetries in these systems. We have utilized the interlayer interactions to modulate spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in heterolayers to regulate the magnetic anisotropy in such systems. We have compared systems with the same compositions and different interfaces, for example, Janus VSTe-Janus Cr 2 I 3 Br 3 and Janus VTeS-Janus Cr 2 I 3 Br 3 , to show that the first one is an Ising ferromagnet, whereas the second one is an XY ferromagnet because of the SOC effect of the heavy ligand atoms.

Background: Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy type 1 (FSHD1) is a rare disease, which is often underdiagnosed due to its heterogeneous presentations and complex molecular genetic basis, leading to a lack of population-based epidemiology data, especially of prevalence and disease progression., Methods: Fujian Neuromedical Centre (FNMC) is a diagnosis centre for clinical-genetic FSHD in China, and the only one employing pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE)-based Southern blotting for all FSHD1 genetic tests. Three sources distributed across all six spatial zones in China, were used to obtain information regarding FSHD1 events, namely, FNMC, Genetic and Myopathy Group (branches of the Neurology Society of the Chinese Medical Association), and "FSHD-China" (an organization supported by FSHD patients). During 2001-2020, all genetically-confirmed FSHD1 from China were registered in FNMC. Follow-up was conducted in the 20-year period to obtain data on disease progression, which was mainly described in terms of independent ambulation loss., Findings: Of the 1,744 FSHD1 genetic tests (total test number 1,802) included in the analysis, 997 (57.2%) patients from 620 families were diagnosed with FSHD1. The estimated prevalence of genetically-confirmed FSHD1 in China is 0.75 per million (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.70-0.79) during 2001-2020, with 0.78 (95% CI, 0.72-0.85) in males and 0.71 (95% CI, 0.65-0.78) in females. The estimated prevalence increased from 0.22 (95% CI, 0.19-0.26) per million in 2001-2015 to 0.53 (95% CI, 0.49-0.57) per million in 2016-2020 ( p < 0.001). The prevalence in Fujian province was 7.10 per million, 4.66 per million, and 2.44 per million, during 2001-2020, 2001-2015, and 2016-2020, respectively. Among the 861 symptomatic plus asymptomatic patients of the total 997 patients, the median onset age at first-ever muscle weakness was 16 years of age (range 1-81); the median number of contracted D4Z4 repeats was 5 units (range 1-9); the median 4qA-allele-specific methylation level was 41% (range 14%-69%). Of the 977 symptomatic patients followed-up during 2001-2020, 117 patients (12.0%) lost independent ambulation. The expected duration from onset of first-ever muscle weakness to onset of independent ambulation loss was 40 years. The group with loss of independent ambulation had a smaller number of contracted D4Z4 repeats ( p < 0.001) and had an earlier onset age of first-ever muscle weakness ( p < 0.001) compared to the group without loss of independent ambulation., Interpretation: Our research captures the largest genetically-confirmed FSHD1 population worldwide, to calculate its prevalence of 0.75 per million in China from 2001 to 2020. Approximately 12.0% of symptomatic plus asymptomatic patients of FSHD1 will lose independent ambulation in 40 years from onset of first-ever muscle weakness., Funding: This work has been supported by the grants (U2005201, 81870902, N.W.) and (81974193, 81671237, Z.Q.W.) from the National Natural Science Foundation of China; Joint Funds for the Innovation of Science and Technology of Fujian Province (2018Y9082) (N.W.), and the Key Clinical Specialty Discipline Construction Program of Fujian (N.W.)., Competing Interests: All authors report no conflict of interest., (© 2021 The Author(s).)

We introduce the propagation of Pearcey Gaussian (PG) beams in a strongly nonlocal nonlinear medium (SNNM) analytically. Our results show that PG beams propagating in the SNNM have two different focusing positions. The intensity peak appears at different focusing positions depending on the selection of the nonlinear parameters. In addition, the effects of the nonlinear parameters and the scaling factor on the trajectory, the position of the intensity focusing, the intensity evolution between focus locations, and the radiation force are studied.

The spin transport across a zero-dimensional (0D) single-molecule sandwiched by two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) ferromagnetic electrodes may open vast opportunities to create novel mixed-dimensional spintronics devices. However, this remains unexplored yet. Inspired by the recent discovery of 2D intrinsic ferromagnets Fe 3 GeTe 2 , using first-principles spin transport calculations, we show that single-molecule junctions based on Fe 3 GeTe 2 can yield perfect spin filtering and a significant magnetoresistance (MR) of up to ∼6075%. This remarkable MR is more than 2 orders of magnitude higher than the MR obtained for the corresponding junctions with conventional ferromagnetic metals ( e.g ., Ni, Fe, and Co). We demonstrate the results of two representative examples that are feasible in the experiments: (i) A benzene or (ii) bezenedithiol (BDT) connected either through a scanning tunneling microscope or break-junction setups. We find that the conductance of BDT junctions is more than 10 times larger than that of the benzene junction due to a much stronger hybridization effect at the molecule-metal interfaces. The key mechanism of the perfect spin filtering and large MR in single-molecule junctions is mainly determined by the intrinsic properties of Fe 3 GeTe 2 electrodes, while the actual conductance is determined by the hybridization strength of the majority spin channel at the molecule-metal interfaces. It is also predicted that the perfect spin filtering and the remarkably huge MR are highly insensitive to structural variations, interface defects, and stacking orders of the electrodes. Our results provide important insights for expanding molecular spintronics platforms from conventional ferromagnetic metals to new 2D vdw magnets.

We theoretically propose a high-efficiency tunable metalens based on an ellipse-shaped perforated graphene metasurface. By optimizing the axial length ratio of the elliptical aperture, we find the elliptical aperture with high reflectivity over a broad band by means of observing the reflectivity at different frequencies. Then, varying the orientation of the elliptical aperture from 0° to 180°, the reflected wave can generate a continuous 2 π range phase shift while keeping its amplitude high, which is necessary to achieve focusing. The metalens exhibits extraordinary tunability of focal length via uniformly changing the Fermi energy of graphene. The focus can be shifted above 72 µm with focusing efficiency reaching over 70%. In addition, the tunable metalens is also capable of broadband focusing modulation and plane focusing. The presented metalens exhibits outstanding focusing efficiency in dynamic focusing, thereby manifesting great practicability in dynamic imaging and robust stable imaging.

Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/jtd-21-529). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) is a promising alternative to Pt-based catalysts for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in an acidic environment. However, alkaline HER activity for molybdenum disulfide is limited by its slow water dissociation kinetics. Interface engineering is an effective strategy for the design of alkaline HER catalysts. However, the restricted heterointerfaces of current catalysts have significantly limited their alkaline HER performance. Herein, a novel assembly of cobalt-doped interface- and defect-rich MoS 2 /Ni 3 S 2 hetero-nanosheet anchoring on hierarchical carbon framework for alkaline HER is reported by directly vulcanizing NiMoO 4 nanosheets. In the heterostructure nanosheet, Ni 3 S 2 acts as a water dissociation promoter and MoS 2 acts as a hydrogen acceptor. Density functional theory calculations find that redistribution of charges at the heterointerface can reduce hydrogen adsorption Gibbs free energy (∆G H* ) and water decomposition energy barrier. The resulting hierarchical electrode with the synergistic effect of both hybrid components shows a low overpotential of 89 mV at -10 mA cm -2 in 1 m KOH, a Tafel slope as low as 62 mV dec -1 , and can run at -100 mA cm -2 for at least 50 h without obvious voltage change. This study provides a potentially feasible strategy for the design of heterostructure-based electrocatalysts with abundant active interfaces., (© 2021 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Antiferromagnetic material possesses excellent robustness to an external magnetic field perturbation, which makes it promising in application of spintronic devices. The magnon-phonon interaction plays a vital role in spintronic devices. In this work, we performed first-principles calculation to study the effect of magnon-phonon interaction on magnon spectra of the antiferromagnetic MXenes Cr 2 TiC 2 FCl, and calculated the phonon dominated magnon relaxation time based on the magnon spectra broadening. Due to the large exchange constants across Cr-Cr pairs, high magnon energy is found in Cr 2 TiC 2 FCl. We find that compared with the acoustic magnons, the optical magnons have stronger interaction with phonon modes. Moreover, relaxation time of optical magnons and acoustic magnons have quite different wavevector dependence. Our results about spin coupling to specific phonon polarizations can shed light on the understanding of magnon damping and energy dissipation in two-dimensional antiferromagnetic materials.

Laser-induced switching of spins in materials is of great interest to revolutionize future magnetic storage technology and spintronics, which is generally realized in multicomponent ferrimagnetic (FiM) compounds but rare in 2D magnets. Using density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we show that 2D MXenes, including Cr 2 VC 2 F 2 , Mo 2 VC 2 F 2 , Mo 2 VN 2 F 2 , Mo 3 C 2 F 2 , and Mo 3 N 2 F 2 , have unusual FiM order. Interestingly, our real-time time-dependent DFT simulations demonstrate that laser pulses can directly induce ultrafast spin-selective charge transfer between magnetic sublattices in a few femtoseconds and further generate dramatic changes in the magnetic structure of these MXenes, including a transition from FiM to transient ferromagnetism (FM). The microscopic mechanism behind this ultrafast switching of spin is governed by the optically induced intersite spin transfer (OISTR) effect, which theoretically enables the ultrafast optical manipulation of the magnetic state in MXenes. Our results open new opportunities for exploring the optical manipulation of spin in 2D magnets.

Solar-driven interfacial evaporation system is attracting intensive attention for harvesting clean water in the utilization of solar energy. To improve solar-driven interfacial evaporation performance for better application, structuring a solar absorber with high solar-thermal conversion efficiency is critical. Semiconductor materials with stable and economic properties are good candidates as solar absorbers. Semiconductors with a narrow band gap have been proved to offer a broad solar absorption spectrum in the applications of photoelectricity and photocatalysis. However, the correlation between band gap and solar-driven interfacial evaporation performance has not been systematically studied. Herein, TiO 2 is selected as a semiconductive absorber and a reproducible process is developed to fabricate band gap engineered TiO 2 to understand the relationship between the "electronic structure" and the "performance" in the field of solar-driven interfacial evaporation. After the band gap engineering from 3.2 to 2.23 eV, correlative tests of solar-driven interfacial evaporation performance as well as first-principles calculations are employed to study the correlation mentioned above. As a result, we find that a narrower band gap contributes to improved solar-thermal conversion efficiency and the Ti 3+ -doped TiO 2 (Ti 3+ -TiO 2 ) with the narrowest band gap of 2.23 eV outperforms other samples, achieving the highest evaporation rate of 1.20 kg m -2 h -1 (solar-thermal conversion efficiency of 77.1%). Besides, the Ti 3+ -TiO 2 also shows the good ability of photocatalytic degradation. This work may provide a way for semiconductor materials to be designed as solar absorbers with higher solar-thermal conversion efficiency and better solar-driven interfacial evaporation performance for applications in clean water harvesting.

Two-dimensional (2D) Janus structures, which are totally different from prevailing 2D structures, are more interesting for photocatalytic water splitting. Here we proposed some inartificial 2D Ge 4 Se 9 Janus structures. Excellent photocatalytic properties are revealed: (a) Ge 4 Se 9 structures exhibit layer-independent direct gap character with appropriate band gaps of 2.53, 2.22, 2.11, and 2.03 eV for monolayered, bilayered, triple-layered, and four-layered structures, respectively. (b) Band edge positions of these 2D structures are suitable for the driving of the evolution reaction of water splitting. (c) More importantly, owning to intrinsic electric polarization, the charge densities of the valence band maximum (VBM) and the conduction band minimum (CBM) of triple-layered and four-layered Ge 4 Se 9 structures can be notably separated. (d) In addition, we also observed that these 2D structures can possess rather pronounced optical absorption in the visible light region. This work discloses some inartificial 2D Janus structures whose fascinating properties render them as promising photocatalysts for water splitting.

Key Message: Our study firstly elaborated the underlying mechanism of endogenous CH 4 -induced abiotic tolerance, along with an alteration of ABA sensitivity by mimicking the endogenous CH 4 production in MtMCR transgenic Arabidopsis. Endogenous methane (CH 4 ) production and/or emission have been ubiquitously observed in stressed plants. However, their physiological roles remain unclear. Here, the methyl-coenzyme M reductase gene from Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum (MtMCR), encoding the enzyme of methanogenesis, was expressed in Arabidopsis thaliana, to mimic the production of endogenous CH 4 . In response to salinity and osmotic stress, MtMCR expression was up-regulated in transgenic plants, resulting in significant increase of endogenous CH 4 levels. Similar results were observed in abscisic acid (ABA) treatment. The functions of endogenous CH 4 were characterized by the changes in plant phenotypes related to stress and ABA sensitivity during the germination and post-germination periods. When challenged with osmotic stress, a reduction in water loss and stomatal closure, were observed. Redox homeostasis was reestablished during osmotic and salinity stress, and ion imbalance was also restored in salinity conditions. The expression of several stress/ABA-responsive genes was up-regulated, and ABA sensitivity, in particularly, was significantly altered in the MtMCR transgenic plants. Together, our genetic study for the first time elaborated the possible mechanism of endogenous CH 4 -enhanced salinity and osmotic tolerance, along with an alteration of ABA sensitivity. These findings thus provided novel cues for understanding the possible roles of endogenous CH 4 in plants.

Antiferromagnetic (AF) spin devices could be one of the representative components for applications of spintronics thanks to the numerous advantages such as resistance to magnetic field perturbation, stray field-free operation, and ultrahigh device operation speed. However, detecting and manipulating the spin of AF materials is still a major challenge due to the absence of a net magnetic moment and spin degeneracy in the band structure. Bipolar antiferromagnetic semiconductors are promising solutions to these problems. Herein, using density functional theory calculations, we present asymmetrical functionalized double MXenes (Cr2TiC2FCl) that behave as a novel bipolar antiferromagnetic semiconductor (BAFS) with vanishing magnetism, in which the valence band and conduction band around the Fermi level exhibit opposite spin directions. Remarkably, gate voltage can manipulate the spin orientation of the AF Cr2TiC2FCl and lead to a transition from BAFS to half-metal antiferromagnets (HMAF). Moreover, the mixed functionalized double MXenes with various F/Cl concentrations show the BAFS feature due to the different chemical environment for the Cr atom. Our results presented herein open a new strategy towards AF spintronics and the realization of the AF spin field effect transistor.

Rationale: Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is a common disease resulting in end-stage renal disease. The incidence of FSGS is increasing in Western countries. The clinical manifestations include proteinuria, hypoproteinemia, oedema, and hypertension. Single-gene heritable mutations are considered to be the source of FSGS pathogenicity according to recent in-depth studies on the pathogenesis. Here, we first reported the case of a Chinese boy whose histology presented with FSGS caused by a compound heterozygous mutation., Patient Concerns: A 7-year-old Chinese boy was repeatedly admitted to our hospital for fever, cough, and proteinuria since he was 1.6 years old., Diagnoses: FSGS was identified by renal biopsy. Whole exome sequencing (WES) showed that a novel mutation of crumbs homolog 2 (CRB2) was identified in a Chinese boy with FSGS., Interventions: Patient was treated with low-dose corticosteroid and mycophenolate mofetil for maintenance therapy., Outcomes: At last follow-up, protein (+∼++) was observed in his urinalysis., Lessons: We identified a novel mutation of CRB2 in a Chinese boy with FSGS that had never been described in a previous report. These findings suggested that mutations in recessive disease genes are more frequent among early-onset disease.

The development of one-dimensional (1D) nanowires with controllable magnetic properties is important for spintronic applications. Herein, we systematically investigated the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of 1D transition-metal (TM) compounds (Ta 4 TMTe 4 , TM = Cr, Fe, Co and Ni) through density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Ta 4 CrTe 4 and Ta 4 FeTe 4 are non-magnetic, while Ta 4 CoTe 4 and Ta 4 NiTe 4 are predicted to have antiferromagnetic ground states. Interestingly, uniaxial strain can induce nonmagnetism-ferromagnetism and nonmagnetism-antiferromagnetism transitions in Ta 4 CrTe 4 and Ta 4 FeTe 4 nanowires, respectively. Moreover, the antiferromagnetic ground states in Ta 4 CoTe 4 and Ta 4 NiTe 4 can be switched to ferromagnetic states through moderate strain. These strain-dependent magnetic moment and magnetic coupling transitions are related to the redistribution of d states in TM atoms. Our findings suggest a new route for facilitating the design of nanoelectronics and spintronics.

Donor-acceptor dyads hold the key to tuning of electrochemical properties and enhanced mobility of charge carriers, yet their incorporation into a heterogeneous polymer network proves difficulty owing to the fundamentally different chemistry of the donor and acceptor subunits. A family of sulfur- and nitrogen-containing porous polymers (SNPs) are obtained via Sonogashira-Hagihara cross-coupling and combine electron-withdrawing triazine (C 3 N 3 ) and electron-donating, sulfur-containing linkers. Choice of building blocks and synthetic conditions determines the optical band gap (from 1.67 to 2.58 eV) and nanoscale ordering of these microporous materials with BET surface areas of up to 545 m 2  g -1 and CO 2 capacities up to 1.56 mmol g -1 . Our results highlight the advantages of the modular design of SNPs, and one of the highest photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rates for a cross-linked polymer without Pt co-catalyst is attained (194 μmol h -1  g -1 )., (© 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Ganoderma lucidum triterpene-loaded microemulsions (TMEs) using Coix lacryma-jobi (adlay) seed oil as oil phase were prepared, characterized, and evaluated for enhanced antitumor activity. Ternary phase diagrams for the TMEs were constructed and the optimal preparation was developed. Transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering showed that this formulation had a well defined spherical shape, a homogeneous distribution, a small size, and a narrow polydispersity index. The drug-loading rate was determined to be 9.87% by ultraviolet spectrophotometry, and acceptable stability under various stimulations in vitro was confirmed. Importantly, the TME formulation showed a significantly greater antiproliferative effect towards human lung carcinoma (A549) cells and murine lung tumor (Lewis) cells in comparison with suspension formulations containing triterpene and adlay seed oil as a positive control. The half-maximal inhibitory concentration of the TMEs was about 0.62 mg crude drug per mL, being 2.5-fold improved relative to that of the corresponding suspension formulation, but no significant cytotoxicity was observed for the bare microemulsion in A549 cells and Lewis cells. In vivo, the TME formulation showed markedly enhanced antitumor efficacy in a xenograft model of Lewis lung cancer after intragastric administration. Compared with cyclophosphamide, the TME formulation showed similar antitumor activity but less general toxicity. These results indicate the feasibility of using a microemulsion to increase the solubility of triterpene and adlay. TMEs hold promise as an efficient drug delivery system for the treatment of lung cancer.

The purpose of this study was to develop an optimized nanostructured lipid carrier formulation (NLC) for tripterine, and to estimate the potential of NLCs as oral delivery system. Tripterine-loaded NLCs were prepared by the solvent evaporation method. The average drug entrapment efficiency, particle size and zeta potential of the optimized tripterine-loaded NLCs were 78.64 +/- 0.37%, 109.6 +/- 5.8 nm and -29.8 +/- 1.3 mV, respectively. The tripterine-loaded NLCs showed spherical morphology with smooth surface under the transmission electron microscope (TEM). The crystallization of drug in NLC was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The drug was in an amorphous state in the NLC matrix. According to the in vitro release study, the tripterine-loaded NLCs showed a delayed release profile of tripterine. The rat intestinal perfusion model was used to study the absorption of tripterine solution and tripterine-loaded NLCs. The Peff* (effective permeability) of tripterine-loaded NLCs in the duodenum, jejunum, ileum and colon was approximately 2.1, 2.7, 1.1, 1.2-fold higher than that of tripterine solution, respectively. The 10% ABS (percent absorption of 10 cm of intestine) of tripterine-loaded NLCs in the duodenum, jejunum, ileum and colon was approximately 2.2, 2.3, 1.2, 1.3-fold higher than that of tripterine solution, respectively. The intestinal toxicity of tripterine formulated in the NLCs was investigated and compared with the tripterine solution by the MTT assay with Caco-2 cell models. According to the result, the tripterine-loaded NLCs could greatly decrease the cytotoxicity of the drug. In conclusion, the NLC formulation remarkably improved the absorption of tripterine and showed a better biocompatibility.