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Spin-gapless semiconductors are novel magnetic zero-bandgap materials whose have great potential for high-speed and low-energy spintronics applications.

A CsCu2I3 SA-based passively mode-locking fiber laser was demonstrated. The fiber laser could operate stably for at least five months, which will potentially unlock the pathways for ultrafast photonics based on lead-free halide perovskites.

In this study, we design seven stable phases of As0.25P0.75 and As0.75P0.25, focusing on their electrical and thermal properties through first-principles calculations.

Fourier ptychographic microscopy (FPM) is a promising super-resolution computational imaging technology. It stitches a series of low-resolution (LR) images in the Fourier domain by an iterative method. Thus, it obtains a large field of view and high-resolution quantitative phase images. Owing to its capability to perform high-spatial bandwidth product imaging, FPM is widely used in the reconstruction of conventional static samples. However, the influence of the FPM imaging mechanism limits its application in high-speed dynamic imaging. To solve this problem, an adaptive-illumination FPM scheme using regional energy estimation is proposed. Starting with several captured real LR images, the energy distribution of all LR images is estimated, and select the measurement images with large information to perform FPM reconstruction. Simulation and experimental results show that the method produces efficient imaging performance and reduces the required volume of data to more than 65% while ensuring the quality of FPM reconstruction.

Nitride MXenes exhibit inherent strong chemical stability and ferromagnetic properties, which are significant for their application in nanoscale spintronic devices. To demonstrate the potential of nitride MXenes in spintronics, we have designed a Sc

Fourier ptychographic microscopy (FPM) imaging is a computational imaging technology that can reconstruct wide-field high-resolution (HR) images. It uses a series of low-resolution images captured by a camera under different illumination angles. The images are stitched in the Fourier domain to expand their spectral range. Under high-angle illumination, a dark-field image is noisy with a low signal-to-noise ratio, which significantly reduces the reconstruction quality of FPM. Conventional reconstruction algorithms often have low FPM imaging performance and efficiency due to optimization strategies. In response to these problems, this paper proposes an FPM imaging method based on an improved phase recovery strategy to optimize the alternating iterative algorithm. The technique uses an improved threshold method to reduce noise in the image preprocessing stage to maximize the retention of high-frequency sample information. Moreover, an adaptive control factor is added in the subsequent iterative update process to balance the sample spectrum function. This study verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method on both simulation and experimental images. The results show that the proposed method can effectively suppress image background noise and has a faster convergence speed and higher robustness. In addition, it can be used to reconstruct HR complex amplitude images of objects under wide field-of-view conditions.

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted extensive attention for use in fiber lasers for pulse generation due to their unique nonlinear optical properties. While 2D materials with tunable band...

As indispensable components of intelligent transportation systems, traffic detection and surveillance technologies deliver speed monitoring, traffic counting, and vehicle identification and classification. This paper proposes a normal distribution transform (NDT) algorithm to improve the speed accuracy and robustness of a laser-based detector. This method can deliver more accurate estimation of vehicle speed, enabling computation of the parameters of length and height. The results of simulation with different detector update rates suggest that the average estimation errors of vehicle parameters can be reduced using the NDT matching method, especially for the low detector update rate. The study also implemented a series of field experiments using the proposed detector prototype to verify the detector’s measurements of vehicle parameters. The proposed method is a promising way in which to improve the laser-based traffic detector. In simulation test, initial experiments show that the accuracy of speed estimation can reach 95%, given the update rate of 1000 Hz for detector, the average length error can be reduced by approximately 60%. Even for speeding vehicles traveling at 150 km/h, the estimated speed error is limited to 10 km/h. In field test, for a vehicle at the speed of 80km/h, the estimation errors are within the threshold of the maximum errors of simulation, that is, 32 cm for length error and 5.71 km/h for speed error results.

Tantalum disulfide (TaS2), an emerging group VB transition metal dichalcogenide, with unique layered structure, rich phase diagrams, metallic behavior, higher carrier concentration and mobility is emerging as a prototype for revealing basic physical phenomena and developing practical applications. However, its photonics properties and even engineering-related processes are still rare. Here, the top-down experiment demonstration, including synthesis, thickness optimization and nonlinear optical application, has been reported. In addition, the ultrafast (∼373 fs) erbium-doped fiber pulse with a small time-bandwidth product (∼0.34) and long-term stability (∼25 days) was realized using the nonlinear absorption properties of the high-quality 2H-TaS2 nanosheet. These results suggest an experimental route for further ultrafast photonics exploration based on metallic transition metal dichalcogenides.

The acceleration profile of leading vehicles at intersections is critical for emission estimation and microlevel queue simulation. Data obtained from experiments using a high-resolution driving sim...

Photocatalytic water splitting, an environmentally friendly approach for producing hydrogen, is a feasible and efficient solution for the environmental and energy crisis. A major challenge for photocatalytic water splitting is searching for catalysts with suitable band gap and band alignment with promising electronic and optical properties. Herein, we predict a novel two-dimensional material, monolayer RhTeCl, which is potentially exfoliable from its bulk counterparts with a small cleavage energy (~0.39 J/m2). Dynamical, thermal, and mechanical stabilities, as well as suitable direct band gap (2.49 eV) and band edge positions qualify monolayer RhTeCl as a promising candidate for photocatalytic water splitting. High electron mobility and exciton binding energy further suppress the electron-hole recombination, and good light harvesting ability is presented with pronounced optical absorbance in the visible light and ultraviolet regions. In addition, the Gibbs free energy diagram shows that water splitting on...

Background Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are reported to play important roles in tumorigenesis of various malignant tumors. However, the clinical significance of aberrant lncRNA expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is still elusive. Methods Firstly, a differentially expressed lncRNA CTC‐297N7.9 in HCC was detected by analyzing the data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Secondly, the expression level of CTC‐297N7.9 was examined in four HCC cell lines and 60 pairs of HCC tissues by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay at our center. Thirdly, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to evaluate the diagnostic value of CTC‐297N7.9 for HCC. Correlation and survival analysis of HCC patients from the TCGA and our center were also carried out to assess the predictive value of CTC‐297N7.9. Finally, survival prognostic models were established combining lncRNA expression and other clinical parameters. Results The expression of CTC‐297N7.9 was downregulated in HCC cell lines and HCC tissues. ROC curve revealed its significant diagnostic value in HCC. CTC‐297N7.9 expression correlated with serum alpha‐fetal protein (AFP), tumor stage, and tumor differentiation. Survival analysis indicated that overall survival (OS) and disease‐free survival (DFS) are all positively associated with CTC‐297N7.9 expression, especially in patients without viral hepatitis or cirrhosis. Cox regression analysis showed that CTC‐297N7.9 expression level is an independent prognostic factor for both OS and DFS in HCC patients. Based on the model, CTC‐297N7.9 was observed to be negatively correlated to risk score, indicating its role as a protective factor for HCC. Conclusion Our study demonstrated that the low expression of CTC‐297N7.9 is associated with poor prognosis in HCC patients, suggesting its possible role as a potential prognostic marker for HCC., Our study demonstrated a novel long noncoding RNA CTC‐297N7.9, which expression was negatively correlated with the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients, using bioinformatics analysis method and tissue specimen. CTC‐297N7.9 was proved to have potential to be a prognostic biomarker for HCC.

Gallium sulfide (GaS), with a hexagonal structure, has received extensive attention due to its graphene-like structure and derived optical properties. Here, high-quality GaS was obtained via chemical vapor synthesis and then prepared as a saturable absorber by the stamp-assisted localization-transfer technique onto fiber end face. The stability of the material and the laser damage threshold are maintained due to the optimized thickness and the cavity integration form. The potential of the GaS for nonlinear optics is explored by constructing a GaS-based Erbium-doped mode-locked fiber laser. Stable femtosecond (~448 fs) mode-locking operation of the single pulse train is achieved, and the robust mode-locked operation (>30 days) was recorded. Experimental results show the potential of GaS for multi-functional ultrafast high-power lasers and promote continuous research on graphene-like materials in nonlinear optics and photonics.

Black arsenic phosphorus As

Anisotropy-based half-metallic materials are highly efficient in spintronic devices and have important applications in spintronics. Anatase phase TiO2 has attracted much attention because of its anisotropy, but its non-magnetism limits its applications in spintronics. We investigate the electronic structure of 3d transition metal-doped anatase phase TiO2 by first principles method to achieve spin injection of anatase. The calculation results exhibit that the Sc, Cr, Mn, Fe, and Ni-doped systems are half-metallic ferromagnets while other doped systems behave as magnetic metals except the V-doped system is a magnetic semiconductor. The calculated formation energy under O-rich condition are negative shows that all half-metals are thermodynamically stable, and we construct devices along the y-direction of the half-metal and find that the device based on the Cr-doped system has the best electronic transfer capacity under zero bias. Then we use the Cr-doped system as the electrode and the pure anatase unit cell as the central scattering region to construct devices in different directions. We find that the magnitude of the current along different transport directions varied greatly, and the calculated anisotropic magnetoresistance was as high as 300%. Furthermore, whether spin configurations (PC) or antiparallel configurations (APC), there is a 100% spin-filtering efficiency of the device, and we find a significant negative differential resistance effect of the device in PC. These results suggest that Cr-doped anatase phase TiO2 can be used in spintronics.

Black arsenical phosphorus (b-AsP), a derivative of black phosphorus, is a bimetallic alloy compound with the advantage of high carrier mobility, high stability, and tailorable configuration. However, lack of an effective tool to facilitate the application of AsP as a magnetic device. Herein, band gap modulation and the introduction of magnetism can be achieved by doping non-metallic atoms in three different AsP configurations. And the doping of the same atom will cause variation in the electronic structure depending on the configuration. Surprisingly, doping with both enriched elements C and O transforms AsP into a magnetic material. Furthermore, the source of the magnetic moment is explained by solving the wave function of the doped AsP, which is caused by the orbital coupling of the C and O atoms to AsP. To excavate the potentials of this magnetic AsP system for magnetic devices, field-effect transistors based on two doped armchair AsP3 nanoribbons are simulated. The devices show considerable negative differential conductivity effect and good spin filtering efficiency. These findings suggest that AsP doping with enriched elements C and O could be an excellent candidate for future spintronics applications.

Rising consumer demand for healthy snacks drives a rapid market growth of protein-rich foods. While numerous studies used extrusion-based 3D food printing, only few investigated binder jet 3D printing to structure food materials. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of binder jet 3D printing to create protein-rich foods using Calcium Caseinate (CaCas) powder. We successfully printed foods using powder mixtures of CaCas, starch, and medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) powder. Addition of native starch to CaCas reduced swelling upon binder addition and enhanced the printability of powder mixtures. High protein model foods with different texture properties were obtained by changing ingredient, binder composition and post-treatment by heating. Food textures obtained ranged from crumbly to springy. This study highlights new opportunities to create protein-rich foods using binder jet 3D printing technology.

Recently, a new two-dimensional nonmagnetic semiconductor material, black arsenic-phosphorus (bAsP), has gained great research attention for experimental and theoretical works owing to its excellent physical properties. The present work attempted to investigate the electromagnetic properties of three 1 : 1 bAsP structures (bAsP-1, bAsP-2, and bAsP-3) substituted with transition metals (TM) by using first principles. Among these substituted bAsP systems, V substitutes P of bAsP-1, Ni substitutes As of bAsP-1, Mn substitutes P of bAsP-2, Fe substitutes As of bAsP-2 and Mn substitutes P of bAsP-3 and these are found to be half-metals. Among them, the system where Ni substitutes As of the bAsP-1 shows the largest binding energy and is the most stable structure. The system where one Ni atom substitutes As of bAsP-1 (As_Ni) and the system where two Ni atoms substitute As of bAsP-1 (2As_2Ni) are selected to develop magnetic tunnel junctions where it is found that the increase in the concentration of Ni in the electrodes increases the spin polarized current. More interestingly, a perfect spin filtering effect with 100% spin polarization and tunnel magnetoresistance of above 104% can be obtained in the one Ni substituted-system (As_Ni) and two Ni-substituted system (2As_2Ni). The negative differential resistance ratio is as high as 3.2 × 107% when the voltage is 0.5 V in the parallel spin configuration of As_Ni. The present research displays that the TM-substituted bAsP structure can be used in the fabrication of spintronic devices.

Two-dimensional (2D) arsenic–phosphorus (AsP), as a derivative of black phosphorus (BP), has achieved great progress in regards to preparation methods, property modulation, and front application, which can be attributed to the following two points. The first is that a method has been developed of alloying BP with the congener element arsenic to produce high-quality AsP; the second is that stable AsP possesses unique electronic and optical properties. To conclude the continuous and extensive research, this review focuses on synthesis details, modulation strategies, and application advances of stable AsP. Firstly, several pathways to prepare AsP with different phases are listed. Secondly, multiple solutions to optimize the electronic properties of AsP are discussed, such as strain regulation and composition tuning, and especially composition tuning of AsP including element modification, atomic substitution, and dopant participation, which can bring about adjustments of the lattice structure, bandgaps, and electronic properties. Based on the regulated AsP, applications in infrared photodetectors, high-performance transistors, and efficient-energy storage devices and so on have been widely developed. Although there are challenges ahead, this review may bring new insights into and inspirations for further development of 2D AsP-based materials and devices.

The objective of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of lymph node dissection (LND) in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC).A literature search with a date range of January 2000 to January 2018 was performed to identify studies comparing lymph node dissection (LND+) with non-lymph node dissection (LND-) for patients with ICC. The LND + group was further divided into positive (LND + N+) and negative (LND + N-) lymph node status groups based on pathological analysis.13 studies including 1377 patients were eligible. There were no significant differences in overall survival (OS) (HR 1.13, 95% CI 0.94-1.36; P = 0.20), disease-free survival (DFS) (HR 1.23, 95% CI 0.94-1.60; P = 0.13), or recurrence (OR 1.39, 95% CI 0.90-2.15; P = 0.14) between LND + group and LND-group. Postoperative morbidity was significantly higher in the LND + group (OR 2.67, 95% CI 1.74-4.10; P 0.001). A subset analysis showed that OS was similar between LND + N- and LND-groups (HR 1.13, 95% CI 0.82-1.56; P = 0.450). However when comparing, OS of the LND-group to the LND+N+ group there was a significant increase in OS for the LND-group (HR 3.26, 95% CI 1.85-5.76; P 0.001).LND does not seem to positively affect overall survival and is associated with increased post-operative morbidity.

Background: Sorafenib appears to increase the survival rate of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients, but its response rate is seriously limited due to drug resistance. Molecular mechanisms underlying sorafenib resistance are still unknown. Herein, we explored the possible role of miR-1226-3p in sorafenib resistance of HCC. Methods: The miR-1226-3p expression level in HCC cell lines was evaluated by qRT-PCR. Cell viabilities to sorafenib were measured by CCK-8 assay. Cell apoptosis and proliferation were detected by flow cytometry and EdU proliferation assay. A luciferase reporter of DUSP4 3'-UTR was used for validation as a target gene of miR-1226-3p. Finally, the effects of in vivo antitumor efficacy of miR-1226-3p combined with sorafenib were evaluated by HCC tumor xenografts in nude mice. Results: Bioinformatics analysis from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets GSE56059 suggested that miR-1226-3p expression was downregulated in HCC patients who showed progressive disease (PD) after sorafenib treatment. SK-HEP-1 cells expressed lower levels of miR-1226-3p than HepG2 cells. We confirmed that SK-HEP-1 cells were more resistant to sorafenib compared to HepG2 cells. In addition, miR-1226-3p mimic increased cell apoptosis of SK-HEP-1 cells, whereas miR-1226-3p inhibitor significantly impaired cell apoptosis of HepG2 cells after sorafenib treatment. Moreover, we validated that miR-1226-3p directly targeted dual specificity phosphatase 4 (DUSP4), and further demonstrated that knockdown of DUSP4 reduced sorafenib resistance by regulating the JNK-Bcl-2 axis. Conclusions: miR-1226-3p promotes sorafenib sensitivity of HCC through downregulation of DUSP4 expression, and targeting miR-1226-3p may be a novel therapeutic strategy for overcoming sorafenib resistance.

The sodium-ion battery is a promising battery technology owing to its low price and high abundance of sodium. However, the sluggish kinetics of sodium ion makes it hard to achieve high-rate performance, therefore impairing the power density. In this work, a fiber-in-tube Co9 S8 -carbon(C)/Co9 S8 is designed with fast sodiation kinetics. The experimental and simulation analysis show that the dominating capacitance mechanism for the high Na-ion storage performance is due to abundant grain boundaries, three exposed layer interfaces, and carbon wiring in the design. As a result, the fiber-in-tube hybrid anode shows a high specific capacity of 616 mAh g-1 after 150 cycles at 0.5 A g-1 . At 1 A g-1 , a capacity of ca. 451 mAh g-1 can be achieved after 500 cycles. More importantly, a high energy density of 779 Wh kg-1 and power density of 7793 W kg-1 can be obtained simultaneously.

Background The role of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) in targeted therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains largely unknown. The current study aimed to clarify the mechanistic effects of targeting TNF-α to overcome sorafenib resistance in HCC. Methods A correlation of TNF-α expression with the prognosis was analyzed in 62 HCC patients who underwent surgical resection and subsequent received adjuvant sorafenib treatment. The relation of TNF-α expression and sorafenib sensitivity was determined in different HCC cell lines. The combined therapeutic effects of sorafenib and ulinastatin, which could inhibit TNF-α expression, on HCC were examined in vitro and in vivo. Findings High TNF-α expression was correlated with poor outcomes in HCC patients who received adjuvant sorafenib after surgery. In vitro experiments showed that TNF-α promotes HCC cell resistant to sorafenib through inducing epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Notably, the current study revealed that sorafenib has no significant influence on the expression and secretion of TNF-α, and sorafenib had limited effectiveness on reversing EMT in HCC cells with high TNF-α expression. Inhibiting the expression of TNF-α with ulinastatin significantly enhanced the anti-tumor effect of sorafenib on HCC cells with high expression of TNF-α in vitro and in vivo. Interpretation: Our findings indicate that TNF-α may serve as a novel predictor of sorafenib sensitivity in HCC patients. Sorafenib combined with ulinastatin may improve the effectiveness of treatment of HCC in patients with high expression of TNF-α. Fund This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no.81572398; no.81672419), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province (no. 2017A010105003; no.2015A050502023; no.2016A020216010), and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (no.2014A030313061; no. 2013B021800101).

Atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) exhibit fascinating excitonic properties which are of critical importance for potential applications in nanoscale optoelectronics. In particular, stacked TMDC layers without lattice mismatch allow modulation of their band structures and optoelectronic properties through manipulation of the constituent materials along the stacking direction. Current understanding of TMDC layer-by-layer structures is mainly based on optical measurements and DFT calculations. In this work, we use a phenomenological tight-binding model, combined with DFT calculations, to understand the measured layer-dependent excitonic response of WS2. This explicit and effective model can quantitatively predict the layer-dependent excitonic states and can also be used to study interlayer excitons (direct and indirect exciton states) in TMDC multilayer structures. In addition, we find that the temperature dependence of the A exciton emission energy of monolayer WS2 can be well described with the Varshni formula, and that the emission intensity variation with temperature is associated with thermal redistribution of exciton population and increased non-radiative damping due to the enhanced electron–phonon interaction at elevated temperatures.