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Lead-free bilayer multiferroic films of CoFeO (CFO) and oriented BiNdTiO (BNT) were deposited on a conventional Pt(111)/Ti/SiO/Si(100) substrate by use of a sol-gel method. BNT layers with different preferred orientations were grown by use of different spinning and annealing processes. The ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, and magnetoelectric (ME) properties of the CFO-BNT bilayer thin films were investigated at room temperature. a-Axis-oriented bilayer films had larger ME voltage coefficients and larger converse ME response than c-axis-oriented films. This study shows that the orientation of the BNT layer has a stress-mediated interfacial effect which can substantially affect the magnetoelectric coupling behavior of the bilayer structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lead-free multiferroic BiNdTiO-NiFeO-BiNdTiO trilayer composite thin films were oriented and deposited on LaNiO/Si substrates via sol-gel method. In the heterostructures, the coexistence of ferroelectric polarization ( P = 7 μC/cm), magnetization ( M = 110 emu/cm), high in-plane magnetoelectric voltage coefficient (α = ~43 mV/cm Oe), and distinct converse magnetoelectric effect has been validated at room temperature, which is advantageous for multi-functional devices. The improved magnetic and magnetoelectric properties may be due to the oriented growth, whereas the ferroelectric properties was enhanced because of the improved fatigue endurance properties and reduced leakage current. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thin films of ferroelectric Pb 0.82 La 0.08 Sr 0.1 Ti 0.98 O 3 (PLST) thin films were fabricated on LaNiO 3 buffered Pt/Ti/SiO 2 /Si substrates via the sol–gel deposition method. The dielectric and tunable properties were investigated as a function of DC bias and frequency to exhibit effect of LNO buffer layer on the tunable dielectric thin film. It shows that PLST thin film deposited on LNO/Pt/Ti/SiO 2 /Si substrates possesses higher dielectric constant and lower dielectric loss compared with the one directly deposited on Pt/Ti/SiO 2 /Si substrates. Furthermore, the tunability of the LNO-buffered PLST thin film is 68% at the DC bias of 20 V, which is higher than 60% of the pure PLST thin film. The results suggest the addition of LNO buffer layer could effectively improve the dielectric and tunable properties of PLST thin film and make it suitable for high quality dielectric tunable devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lanthanum-doped ZnO (ZnLaO) polycrystalline thin films were deposited on Pt/Ti/SiO/Si substrates by a chemical solution deposition method. Metal/La-doped ZnO/Pt sandwich structures were constructed by depositing different top electrodes (Ag and Pt). Unipolar switching and bipolar switching characteristics were investigated in Pt/La-doped ZnO/Pt and Ag/La-doped ZnO/Pt structures, respectively. Compared with the undoped devices (Pt/ZnO/Pt and Ag/ZnO/Pt), the La-doped devices exhibits superior resistive switching performances, such as narrow distribution of the resistive switching properties ( R, R, V, and V), higher R/ R ratio and sharp switching transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiferroic composite thin films were fabricated based on ferroelectric (FE) Bi3.15Nd0.85Ti3O12 (BNT) and ferromagnetic (FM) La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 (LCMO) parents with different growth sequences of BNT–LCMO/LNO/STO (BL) and LCMO–BNT/LNO/STO (LB). Ferroelectric behaviour along with remnant polarization (2Pr) of 50 μC cm2 and 40 μC cm2 at room temperature, saturated magnetization values around 206 emu cm−3 and 192 emu cm−3 at 100 K were measured for BL and LB composite films, respectively. The temperature dependence of the magnetoelectric (ME) coupling effect was investigated and the ME voltage coefficients of 63 mV cm−1 Oe−1 and 60 mV cm−1 Oe−1 at 100 K were respectively obtained for the BL and LB films. The results show that the composite films exhibit both good ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties, as well as a substantial ME effect. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the layer sequences and temperature have significant impacts on the magnetoelectric coupling behaviour of these double-layered thin films, which is very likely caused by the magnetic–mechanical–electric interaction, substrate clamping and interface coupling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: High-protein (>30% of energy from protein or >1.2 g/kg/day) and moderately high-protein (22% to 29% of energy from protein or 1.0 to 1.2 g/kg/day) diets are popular for weight loss, but the effect of dietary protein on bone during weight loss is not well understood. Protein may help preserve bone mass during weight loss by stimulating insulin-like growth factor 1, a potent bone anabolism stimulator, and increasing intestinal calcium absorption. Protein-induced acidity is considered to have minimal effect on bone resorption in adults with normal kidney function. Both the quantity and predominant source of protein influence changes in bone with diet-induced weight loss. Higher-protein, high-dairy diets may help attenuate bone loss during weight loss. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Perovskite ferroelectrics (FEs) have high endurance to radiation. Strontium titanate (STO) (SrTiO3) is a kind of perovskite FE with a large dielectric constant, which has attracted a good deal of attention due to its excellent dielectric, photoelectric and optical properties. The proton radiation damage in STO thin films is investigated by computer simulations in this work. The threshold displacement energy is an important input parameter for Monte Carlo simulation based on a binary collision approximation model, so we first use molecular dynamics to calculate the averaged threshold displacement energy of Sr, O and Ti atom. The calculated values are 67, 50 and 136 eV, which are obviously larger than default value (25 eV) in the Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter (SRIM) code. The results of the SRIM simulation demonstrate the dependency of vacancy number and position distribution on the proton's energy and the angle of incidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Secondary analyses of data from 2 studies were used to assess the effects of protein intake and sex on diet-induced changes in body composition. The primary hypothesis was that the changes of body composition via energy restriction (ie, lean body mass [LBM], fat mass [FM], and bone) would be sex and diet specific. For 12 weeks, 43 male (study 1) and 45 female (study 2) overweight and obese adults consumed an energy-deficit diet (750 kcal/d less than energy needs) containing either 0.8 (normal protein [NP], 21 men and 23 women) or 1.4 g protein∙kg−1∙d−1 (high protein [HP], 22 men and 22 women). Body composition measurements were performed at preintervention and postintervention. Over time, all research participants lost weight, LBM, and FM. Independent of protein intake, the men lost more LBM in the trunk (−0.9 vs −0.5 kg) and less in the legs (−1.5 vs −1.1 kg) compared with the women (P < .05). Independent of sex, the HP group lost less LBM in the trunk and legs than the NP group. These sex and protein intake responses resulted in the NP men losing the most LBM in the legs and the NP women losing the most LBM in the trunk. Over time, men lost more FM (−5.0 vs −3.9 kg) from the trunk and less from legs (−1.7 vs −2.1 kg) than women (P < .05), which resulted in a greater decrease of the android-to-gynoid fat ratio for the men. Protein intake did not influence these sex-specific responses or have any independent effects on changes in FM. In addition, protein intake did not influence bone mineral density responses over time; bone mineral density was reduced in women, but not in men. These findings indicate that higher protein intake during weight loss promotes the retention of LBM in both the trunk and legs despite the sex-specific changes in these body regions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Bi(Zn0.5,Ti0.5)O3 (BZT) doped Pb(Zr0.4,Ti0.6)O3 (PZT) films were fabricated using a chemical solution deposition method and were characterized intensively in the present work. It was discovered that the room temperature remnant polarization and zero-field longitudinal piezoelectric constant of the BZT-doped PZT film were enhanced by 23% and 30%, respectively, as compared with those of the undoped PZT film prepared under the same experiment conditions. In order to explain the improved ferroelectric properties, the phase structures of the BZT–PZT and undoped PZT films were experimentally investigated in a broad temperature range (from 30 to 600°C) by using the high temperature two-dimensional X-ray diffraction method. It was found that the improvement in ferroelectricity does not correspond to an elevated Curie temperature (T C) or a substantially larger tetragonality (c/a). The difference on the change of T C by doping of Bi-based perovskites in PZT solid solutions between this work and some previous investigations was explained on the basis of Zr/Ti ratio, and the necessity of an in-depth theoretical investigation was addressed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Perovskite ferroelectrics have high endurance to radiation. In order to understand the mechanism at the atomic level, molecular dynamics simulation is applied to investigate the process of defects generation and displacement cascades in BaTiO3 crystal. The calculated average threshold displacement energy of O, Ba and Ti atom is 53 eV, 70 eV, and 119 eV, respectively, so the number of O defects is larger than that of Ba and Ti defects. Furthermore, the simulations show that the initial movement direction of the primary knock-on atom (PKA) has significant influence on the number of defects because of different collision type (glancing collisions or direct knocks), and the number of Frenkel defects does not simply increase with increasing PKA energy due to the annealing effect. This investigation of the collision cascades is helpful to understand the radiation damage in BaTiO3 crystal and may offer useful guidelines to the design and applications for the practical devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cerium-substituted bismuth titanate (BCT) nanofibers were synthesized using sol-gel-based electrospinning. The morphology, crystallized phase, and crystal structure of the nanofibers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. Fine-crystallinity nanofibers with diameters in the range of 100 nm to 200 nm and length over 100 μm after annealing at 750°C for 1 h were obtained. The phase transition of the BCT nanofibers was investigated by thermal analysis, and the Curie temperature was found to be 540°C. A displacement-voltage 'butterfly' curve with displacement maximum of 1.1 nm was observed by piezoresponse force microscopy, and the maximum value of the piezoelectric coefficient was up to 158 pm/V, being attributed to successful Ce co-substitution for both A- and B-sites based on Raman spectrum analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanowire structures with high-density interfaces are considered to have higher radiation damage resistance properties compared to conventional bulk structures. In the present work, molecular dynamics (MD) is conducted to investigate the irradiation effects and mechanical response changes of GaAs nanowires (NWs) under heavy-ion irradiation. For this simulation, single-ion damage and high-dose ion injection are used to reveal defect generation and accumulation mechanisms. The presence of surface effects gives an advantage to defects in rapid accumulation but is also the main cause of dynamic annihilation of the surface. Overall, the defects exhibit a particular mechanism of rapid accumulation to saturation. Moreover, for the structural transformation of irradiated GaAs NWs, amorphization is the main mode. The main damage mechanism of NWs is sputtering, which also leads to erosion refinement at high doses. The high flux ions lead to a softening of the mechanical properties, which can be reflected by a reduction in yield strength and Young's modulus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we designed double V-shaped Al/Ni multilayer energy-containing microdevices with different V-angles, and we performed finite element modeling and simulation of the heat transfer process of the designed energy-containing microdevice. Temperature-dependent resistivity was introduced to effectively simulate the phase change during ignition. We simulated the temperature and current density distribution in the central region of the Al/Ni multilayer energy-containing microdevice and predicted the ignition voltage threshold for the specific device structure. Al/Ni multilayer energy-containing microdevices with different V-angles were prepared by electron beam evaporation technology, and ignition experiments on the prepared devices under the excitation of 47 μF capacitance were conducted. The experimental results show that the critical voltage of ignition increases with the increase in the V-angle, which verifies the correctness of the proposed finite element model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying and annotating the molecular composition of individual foods will improve scientific understanding of how foods impact human health and how much variation exists in the molecular composition of foods of the same species. The complexity of this task includes distinct varieties and variations in natural occurring pigments of foods. Lipidomics, a sub-field of metabolomics, has emerged as an effective tool to help decipher the molecular composition of foods. For this proof-of-principle research, we determined the lipidomic profiles of green, yellow and red bell peppers (Capsicum annuum) using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry and a novel tool for automated annotation of compounds following database searches. Among 23 samples analyzed from 6 peppers (2 green, 1 yellow, and 3 red), over 8000 lipid compounds were detected with 315 compounds (106 annotated) found in all three colors. Assessments of relationships between these compounds and pepper color, using linear mixed effects regression and false discovery rate (<0.05) statistical adjustment, revealed 11 compounds differing by color. The compound most strongly associated with color was the carotenoid, β-cryptoxanthin (p-value = 7.4 × 10−5; FDR adjusted p-value = 0.0080). These results support lipidomics as a viable analytical technique to identify molecular compounds that can be used for unique characterization of foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research is limited in evaluating the mechanisms responsible for infant growth in response to different protein-rich foods; Methods: Targeted and untargeted metabolomics analysis were conducted on serum samples collected from an infant controlled-feeding trial that participants consumed a meat- vs. dairy-based complementary diet from 5 to 12 months of age, and followed up at 24 months. Results: Isoleucine, valine, phenylalanine increased and threonine decreased over time among all participants; Although none of the individual essential amino acids had a significant impact on changes in growth Z scores from 5 to 12 months, principal component heavily weighted by BCAAs (leucine, isoleucine, valine) and phenylalanine had a positive association with changes in length-for-age Z score from 5 to 12 months. Concentrations of acylcarnitine-C4, acylcarnitine-C5 and acylcarnitine-C5:1 significantly increased over time with the dietary intervention, but none of the acylcarnitines were associated with infant growth Z scores. Quantitative trimethylamine N-oxide increased in the meat group from 5 to 12 months; Conclusions: Our findings suggest that increasing total protein intake by providing protein-rich complementary foods was associated with increased concentrations of certain essential amino acids and short-chain acyl-carnitines. The sources of protein-rich foods (e.g., meat vs. dairy) did not appear to differentially impact serum metabolites, and comprehensive mechanistic investigations are needed to identify other contributors or mediators of the diet-induced infant growth trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conductance quantization (QC) phenomena occurring in metal oxide based memristors demonstrate great potential for high-density data storage through multilevel switching, and analog synaptic weight update for effective training of the artificial neural networks. Continuous, linear and symmetrical modulation of the device conductance is a critical issue in QC behavior of memristors. In this contribution, we employ the scanning probe microscope (SPM) assisted electrode engineering strategy to control the ion migration process to construct single conductive filaments in Pt/HfOx/Pt devices. Upon deliberate tuning and evolution of the filament, 32 half integer quantized conductance states in the 16 G0 to 0.5 G0 range with enhanced distribution uniformity was achieved. Simulation results revealed that the numbers of the available QC states and fluctuation of the conductance at each state play an important role in determining the overall performance of the neural networks. The 32-state QC behavior of the hafnium oxide device shows improved recognition accuracy approaching 90% for handwritten digits, based on analog type operation of the multilayer perception (MLP) neural network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bi3.15Nd0.85Ti2.99Mn0.01O12 (BNTM) thin films with (200)-orientations, (117)-orientations, and mixed-orientations were prepared by sol-gel methods. The influence of orientations on polarization fatigue behaviors of BNTM thin films were systematically investigated at both low and elevated temperatures. It was found that the changed trends of the polarization fatigue of (200)-oriented and (117)-oriented BNTM thin films at elevated temperatures were opposite. The fatigue properties become exacerbated for the (200)-oriented ones and become improved for the (117)-oriented ones, while the reduction of remanent polarization first decreases and then increases for the mixed-oriented ones. It can be assumed that the different roles played by domain walls and interface layer with increasing T in these thin films have caused such differences, which was certified by the lower activation energies (0.12–0.13 eV) of (200)-oriented BNTM thin films compared to those of BNTM thin films (0.17–0.31 eV) with other orientations through the temperature-dependent impedance spectra analysis. With the aid of piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM), the non-neutral tail-to-tail or head-to-head polarization configurations with greater probabilities for (117)-oriented and mixed-oriented thin films were found, while a majority of the neutral head-to-tail polarization configurations can be observed for (200)-oriented ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ionic memristors can emulate brain‐like functions of biological synapses for neuromorphic technologies. Apart from the widely studied excitatory‐excitatory and excitatory‐inhibitory synapses, reports on memristors with the inhibitory‐inhibitory synaptic behaviors remain a challenge. Here, the first biaxially inhibited artificial synapse is demonstrated, consisting of a solid electrolyte and conjugated microporous polymers bilayer as neurotransmitter, with the former serving as an ion reservoir and the latter acting as a confined transport. Due to the migration, trapping, and de‐trapping of ions within the nanoslits, the device poses inhibitory synaptic plasticity under both positive and negative stimuli. Remarkably, the artificial synapse is able to maintain a low level of stable nonvolatile memory over a long period of time (≈60 min) after multiple stimuli, with feature‐inferencing/‐training capabilities of neural node in neuromorphic computing. This work paves a reliable strategy for constructing nanochannel ionic memristive materials toward fully inhibitory synaptic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although health benefits of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet are established, it is not understood which food compounds result in these benefits. We used metabolomics to identify unique compounds from individual foods of a DASH-style diet and determined if these Food-Specific Compounds (FSC) are detectable in urine from participants in a DASH-style dietary study. We also examined relationships between urinary compounds and blood pressure (BP). Nineteen subjects were randomized into 6-week controlled DASH-style diet interventions. Mass spectrometry-based metabolomics was performed on 24-hour urine samples collected before and after each intervention and on 12 representative DASH-style foods. Between 66–969 compounds were catalogued as FSC; for example, 4-hydroxydiphenylamine was found to be unique to apple. Overall, 13–190 of these FSC were detected in urine, demonstrating that these unmetabolized food compounds can be discovered in urine using metabolomics. Although linear mixed effects models showed no FSC from the 12 profiled foods were significantly associated with BP, other endogenous and food-related compounds were associated with BP (N = 16) and changes in BP over time (N = 6). Overall, this proof of principle study demonstrates that metabolomics can be used to catalog FSC, which can be detected in participant urine following a dietary intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a controllable equal-gap large-area silicon drift detector (L-SDD) is designed. The surface leakage current is reduced by reducing the SiO2-Si interface through the new controllable equal-gap design. The design of the equal gap also solves the problem whereby the gap widens due to the larger detector size in the previous SDD design, which leads to a large invalid area of the detector. In this paper, a spiral hexagonal equal-gap L-SDD of 1 cm radius is selected for design calculation, and we implement 3D modeling and simulation of the device. The simulation results show that the internal potential gradient distribution of the L-SDD is uniform and forms a drift electric field, with the direction of electron drift pointing towards the collecting anode. The L-SDD has an excellent electron drift channel inside, and this article also analyzes the electrical performance of the drift channel to verify the correctness of the design method of the L-SDD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High‐performance stretchable optoelectronic synaptic transistor arrays are key units for constructing and mimicking simulated neuromorphic vision systems. In this study, ultra‐low power consumption and low‐operation‐voltage stretchable all‐carbon optoelectronic synaptic thin film transistors (TFTs) using sorted semiconducting single‐walled carbon nanotubes (sc‐SWCNTs) modified with CdSe/ZnS quantum dots as active layers on ionic liquid‐based composite elastomer substrates are first reported. The resulting stretchable TFT devices show enhancement‐mode characteristics with excellent electrical properties (such as the record on/off ratios up to 105, negligible hysteresis, and small subthreshold swing), excellent mechanical tensile properties (such as the only 12.4% and 6.4% degradations of the carrier mobility after 20% vertical and horizontal strain stretching), and optoelectronic synaptic plasticity (for the recognition of Morse codes) with ultra‐low power consumptions (15.38 aJ) at the operating voltage from −1 to 0.2 V. At the same time, the designed nonvolatile conductance of the stretchable SWCNT optoelectronic synapse thin film transistors (SSOSTFTs) stimulated by UV light and the bending angle are first used to simulate stretchable neuromorphic vision systems (including the functions of the crystalline lens and optic cone cells as bionic eyes) for detecting the atmospheric environment with a record accuracy of 95.1% as a bionic eye. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The propagation of light through turbulent media results in refractive index fluctuations, causing distortion and blurring of images captured by imaging equipment. Consequently, it is of paramount importance to mitigate turbulence effects. Deep convolutional neural networks incorporating attention mechanisms have demonstrated remarkable success in dynamic video restoration. However, in most networks, the attention mechanism is limited to capturing simple contextual features, failing to adequately exploit multi-level image features. This paper introduces IDSSI, an effective model that utilizes semantic and spatio–temporal information for turbulence mitigation. A novel two-branch feature extraction structure is proposed, capable of extracting multi-scale enhanced features with semantic information under limited supervision. These perceived semantic features are subsequently fused into global features, enhancing multi-scale perception for turbulence repair. Furthermore, a new Spatial–Temporal feature learning strategy is proposed. This approach facilitates the extraction and modulation of temporal information by obtaining edge cues, effectively concatenating and merging with spatial features. This strategy serves as an efficient alternative to 3D convolution. Experimental results on relevant datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed model over current state-of-the-art turbulence repair methods. • We propose a Two-stage feature extraction structure to extract semantic features and global features. This work is trying to introduce semantic information to low computer vision tasks. • We propose a temporal feature modulation module, which effectively replaces 3D convolution, overcomes information loss, and reduces computation. • Extensive experiment results on both synthetic and real world video deturbulence benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness of IDSSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To investigate the application effect of 24 h dynamic electrocardiogram in the diagnosis of asymptomatic myocardial ischemia with arrhythmia in elderly patients with coronary heart disease. Methods. A total of 206 elderly patients suspected of coronary heart disease (CHD) with asymptomatic myocardial ischemia and arrhythmia were selected as the research subjects. 24 h dynamic electrocardiogram and conventional electrocardiogram examinations were conducted. Coronary angiography was used as the gold standard to observe the performance of the two examination methods in the diagnosis of asymptomatic myocardial ischemia with arrhythmia in elderly patients with CHD. Results. Coronary angiography showed 174 positive cases and 32 negative cases among the 206 patients. The diagnostic results of a conventional electrocardiogram showed 150 positive cases and 20 negative cases. Its sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were 86.21%, 62.50%, 82.52%, 92.59%, and 45.45%, respectively. The diagnostic results of 24 h dynamic electrocardiograms showed 168 positive cases and 29 negative cases. Its sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were 96.55%, 96.63%, 95.63%, 98.25%, and 82.86%, respectively. The above results indicated that 24 h dynamic electrocardiogram was significantly better (P < 0.05). The detection rate of arrhythmia types by 24-hour dynamic electrocardiogram was significantly higher than that of conventional electrocardiogram (P < 0.05). Conclusion. 24 h dynamic electrocardiogram is helpful for the diagnosis of asymptomatic myocardial ischemia with arrhythmia in elderly patients with CHD and can improve the detection rate, thereby providing a basis for clinical diagnosis and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]