Carbon materials exhibit significant potential as electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbers; however, their practical application is restricted by excessively high electrical conductivity. To address this issue, a ZrO2/SiOC ceramic incorporating a three-dimensional (3D) carbon nanowires (CNWs) architecture is developed using polymer-derived ceramics (PDCs) technique. In this design, ZrO2 nanocrystals and dual-morphology CNWs (twisted/ straight) are synergistically integrated within the SiOC matrix, with the pyrolysis temperature regulating the evolution of carbon structures from branched clusters to twisted CNWs and eventually to straight CNWs. Experimental results demonstrate that the CNWs/ZrO2/SiOC ceramic (designated as the Zr-Si-2 sample) exhibits a minimum reflection loss (RLmin) of-35.1 dB at a loading of 40 wt% and a thickness of 4.35 mm. Moreover, an effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) of 5.2 GHz is achieved at a thickness of 2.50 mm. This excellent EM wave attenuation performance is attributed to several key factors, including the abundant nano-interfaces (encompassing both homogeneous and heterogeneous) formed by twisted and straight CNWs within the matrix, intrinsic defects present in both the SiOC matrix and CNWs, lattice distortion in ZrO2, and the 3D CNWs architecture. In addition to proposing a novel fabrication method for high-performance microwave absorbers, this study establishes a valuable scientific foundation for materials research and applications in relevant fields.

The recently discovered superconductor La3Ni2O7 has attracted significant attention due to its remarkably high transition temperature (Tc) under high pressure. Shortly after this discovery, thin-film La3Ni2O7 was demonstrated to exhibit ambient-pressure superconductivity; however, the corresponding Tc is only about half that of the pressurized bulk material. This striking difference raises questions about the underlying mechanisms governing superconductivity in these two structures. To address this issue, we develop a phenomenological symmetrybased method to investigate the superconducting gap structure in La3Ni2O7. Using density-functional theory methods (DFT + U), together with the experimentally determined Tc and structural symmetry, we find that both pressurized bulk and thin-film La3Ni2O7 exhibit s +/--wave pairing symmetry and two-gap superconductivity, yet their dominant microscopic pairing configurations are distinct. In the pressurized bulk, superconductivity is dominated by the out-of-plane pairing of the Ni-dz2 orbitals, while in the thin film, the in-plane pairing of the Ni-dx2-y2 orbitals prevails. Furthermore, the observed reduction in Tc can be attributed to this transition of the dominant pairing type, driven by the decreased ratio of interlayer to intralayer hoppings in the thin film. Our result sheds lights on the microscopic pairing in La3Ni2O7 and reveals the significance of the symmetry. This method can potentially be generalized to a broader range of unconventional superconductors.

Rational design on the microstructure and chemical composition is a feasible strategy to boost the performance of some conventional microwave absorbers. In this study, we designed and synthesized unique hydrogenated yolk-shell C@TiO2 composites (C@TiO2-H-2). The results indicate that the as-prepared composite can effectively modify the matching degree of characteristic impedance and dielectric loss property by high complex permittivity carbon cores, crystal/disorder microstructure of TiO2 shells, and yolk-shell microstructure. The maximum reflection loss is -76.8 dB at 7.6 GHz with an absorber thickness of 3.0 mm. With an absorber thickness of 2.0 mm, the bandwidth over -10.0 dB is 4.5 GHz from 10.7 to 15.2 GHz. Notably, C@TiO2-H-2 outperformed TiO2, hydrogenated TiO2 (TiO2-H-2), carbon microspheres (C-m), as well as unhydrogenated yolk-shell C@TiO2 (C@TiO2-N-2) microspheres, where superior reflection loss and wide response bandwidth can be achieved simultaneously. Therefore, the yolk-shell C@TiO2-H-2 microspheres are expected to be promising candidates for microwave absorption applications.

The intrinsic functionality of two-dimensional (2D) materials is crucial for both fundamental studies and practical applications in information processing and storage. In particular, 2D ferromagnets have emerged as a major research field, bringing in new concepts, physical effects, and device designs. More competitive ferromagnetic materials in 2D systems with the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) state and room-temperature ferromagnetism are much desired. Herein, we predicted stable XC6 (X = V, Nb, and Cu) monolayers through first-principles calculations. Novel topological properties, including the gapless edge state, anomalous hall conductance, Chern number and Berry curvature, were systematically investigated. Without spin-orbit coupling, both VC6 and NbC6 monolayers are ferromagnetic Dirac half-metals, while CuC6 monolayers is a nonmagnetic Dirac semimetal. With spin-orbit coupling, both VC6 and NbC6 monolayers exhibit intrinsic QAH insulators with large out-of-plane magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy and a high Curie temperature of 425 K and 520 K, respectively, and the CuC6 monolayer is a quantum spin Hall (QSH) insulator. Our results provide a promising platform for realizing the QAH and QSH phases and the fantastic integration of Dirac physics, spintronics, and valleytronics. Monolayer NbC6withdouble Dirac points in two different spin channels with and without SOC.

Carbon-based magnetic molecular junctions are promising candidates for nanoscale spintronic applications because they are atomically thin and possess high stability and peculiar magnetism. Herein, based on first-principles and non-equilibrium Green's function, we designed a carbon-based molecular spintronic device composed of carbon atomic chains, zigzag-edged graphene nanoribbon (ZGNR), and a perylene molecule. Our results show that the device exhibits integrated spintronic and spin caloritronic functionalities, such as the bias-voltage driven spin filtering effect, negative differential resistance effect and giant magnetoresistance, temperature-gradient driven spin Seebeck effect, thermal spin filtering effect, high thermal magnetoresistance, and thermal colossal giant magnetoresistance. Furthermore, considering the phonon vibration effect, the spin and charge thermoelectric figure of merits (ZTsp and ZTch) can be enhanced and the peak of ZTsp is much larger than that of ZTch, indicating the excellent thermospin performance. The asymmetrical contact configuration between the carbon atomic chain and perylene/ZGNR inhibits the phonon thermal conductivity significantly, leading to the optimal ZTsp and ZTch of 2.4 and 0.5 at 300 K, respectively. These results suggest multifunctional spintronic and spin caloritronic applications for the perylene-based molecular device.

Background The interaction between tumor cells and immune or non-immune stromal cells creates a unique tumor microenvironment, which plays an important role in the growth, invasion and metastasis of gastric cancer (GC). Methods The candidate genes were selected to construct risk-score by univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis. Nomograms were constructed by combining clinical pathological factors, and the model performance was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic curve, decision curve analysis, net reclassification improvement and integrated discrimination improvement. The functional enrichment between high-risk group (HRisk) and low-risk group (LRisk) was explored through GO, KEGG, GSVA and ssGSEA. CIBERSORT, quanTIseq and xCell were used to explore the immune cell infiltration between HRisk and LRisk. The relevant EMT scores, macrophage infiltration scores and various metabolic scores were calculated through the “IOBR” package and analyzed visually. Results Through univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis, we obtained the risk-score of fittings six lipid metabolism related genes (LMAGs). Through survival analysis, we found that risk-score has significant prognostic significance and can accurately reflect the metabolic level of patients. The AUCs of the nomogram model incorporating risk-score 1, 3 and 5 years were 0.725, 0.729 and 0.749 respectively. In addition, it was found that the inclusion of risk-score could significantly improve the prediction performance of the model. It was found that the arachidonic acid metabolism and prostaglandin synthesis were up-regulated in HRisk, and more tumor metastasis related markers and immune related pathways were also enriched. Further study found that HRisk had higher immune score and M2 macrophage infiltration. More importantly, the immune checkpoints of tumor associated macrophages involved in tumor antigen recognition disorders increased significantly. We also found that ST6GALNAC3 can promote arachidonic acid metabolism and up-regulate prostaglandin synthesis, increase M2 macrophage infiltration, induce epithelial mesenchymal transformation, and affect the prognosis of patients. Conclusions Our research found a novel and powerful LMAGs signature. Six-LMAGs features can effectively evaluate the prognosis of GC patients and reflect the metabolic and immune status. ST6GALNAC3 may be a potential prognostic marker to improve the survival rate and prognostic accuracy of GC patients, and may even be a potential biomarker of GC patients, indicating the response to immunotherapy.

Background Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the three major cancers in the world and is the cancer with the most liver metastasis. The present study aimed to investigate the role of metallothionein 2A (MT2A) in the modulation of CRC cell proliferation and liver metastasis, as well as its molecular mechanisms. Methods The expression profile of metallothionein 2A (MT2A) in colorectal cancer retrieved from TCGA, GEO and Oncomine database. The biological effect of MT2A overexpression was investigated mainly involving cell proliferation and migration in CRC cells as well as growth and metastasis in CRC animal models. To explore the specific mechanism of MT2A metastasis in CRC, transcriptome sequencing was used to compare the overall expression difference between the control group and the MT2A overexpression group. Results Metallothionein 2A (MT2A) was downregulated in the tumor tissues of patients with CRC compared to adjacent normal tissues and was related to the tumor M stage of patients. MT2A overexpression inhibited CRC cell proliferation and migration in cells, as well as growth and metastasis in CRC animal models. While knockdown of MT2A had the opposite effect in cells. Western blotting confirmed that MT2A overexpression promoted the phosphorylation of MST1, LAST2 and YAP1, thereby inhibiting the Hippo signaling pathway. Additionally, specific inhibitors of MST1/2 inhibited MT2A overexpression-mediated phosphorylation and relieved the inhibition of the Hippo signaling pathway, thus promoting cell proliferation. Immunohistochemistry in subcutaneous grafts and liver metastases further confirmed this result. Conclusions Our results suggested that MT2A is involved in CRC growth and liver metastasis. Therefore, MT2A and MST1 may be potential therapeutic targets for patients with CRC, especially those with liver metastases.

Based on an auxiliary differential equation (ADE) and a new temporal basis function, we propose a 3-D ADE finite-difference time-domain method (FDTD) with weighted Laguerre polynomials (WLPs), 3-D ADE-WLP-FDTD for short, to calculate wave propagation in general dispersive materials. Our proposed method introduces a linear combination of three WLPs as a temporal basis to improve computational efficiency and reduce memory usage. The ADE technique, which can effectively model dispersive media, was used to establish the relationship between the electric displacement vector and electric field intensity. Two numerical examples were presented to validate the advantages of the proposed approach. The simulation results reveal that compared with the conventional ADE-WLP-FDTD method, the proposed method can speed up the computational process and reduce memory usage with comparable accuracy.

Clinically, increasing the peritoneal barrier is an effective adjunct to reducing postoperative peritoneal adhesion. This study presents a facile template for preparing a supramolecular hybrid hydrogel through dynamic covalent cross-linking between carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS), 2-formylphenylboronic acid (2-FPBA), and quercetin (Que). The as-prepared complex CMCS/2-FPBA/Que (CFQ) hydrogel exhibited favorable antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant effects. A L929 cytotoxicity evaluation confirmed the favorable cytocompatibility of the CFQ hydrogel. The postoperative anti-adhesion ability of the CFQ hydrogel was further evaluated in rats with lateral wall defects and cecal abrasions. Compared with control groups, the tissue adhesion rate was significantly reduced by increasing the Que concentration in all the hydrogel-treated groups. Additionally, the sustained-release time of the C3F0.8Q0.08 hydrogel can exceed 14 days, which is highly desirable for clinical wound treatment. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: Postoperative adhesions are a very common postoperative complication that seriously affects the quality of life of patients. The currently commonly used methods for preventing adhesion mainly use degradable barrier materials for physical separation. In this study, we prepared a dual dynamic covalently cross-linked CFQ hydrogel, which is not only degradable and injectable, but also has multiple properties such as antibacterial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, which can effectively prevent postoperative adhesion and promote wound healing.

Based on the weighted Laguerre polynomials (WLPs) and artificial anisotropic (AA) parameters, a 3-D unconditionally stable finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) electromagnetic simulation approach is proposed. The implementation of WLPs in time domain effectively eliminates the time step and AA parameters in spatial difference, resulting in suppressed numerical dispersion error. The monochromatic wave is employed as an example to obtain the numerical dispersion relationship of 3-D AA-WLP-FDTD under AA parameter, in which reduced numerical dispersion error is observed. Compared with the conventional WLP-FDTD technique, this approach demonstrates smaller numerical dispersion error under similar calculation cost.

刚体是考虑了物体大小的理想模型.刚体在一定的支撑物上无滑滚动时,刚体与支撑物的接触会造成对刚体运动的限制.本文提出用定解问题思想研究刚体运动,将刚体视为一个有大小的系统,"无滑滚动条件"理解为系统的边界条件,求解刚体运动的定解问题即可获得刚体运动信息,揭示"无滑滚动条件"的本质.

基于自由电子气体模型,利用线性响应理论结合格林函数方法求解了单层原子体系的等离激元频率,得出了可适用于高电子密度短波情形的等离激元色散关系的解析解.研究结果表明:原子层的厚度会降低等离激元的频率,原子层越厚,等离激元频率越小,这种变小在波矢越大时表现得越明显.当单层原子的厚度趋于零时,其等离激元的色散关系趋近于纯二维等离激元的色散关系.此外,在单层原子体系等离激元频率的一阶近似中,发现长波近似下等离激元频率的相对修正与波矢以及原子层的厚度都呈线性关系.

In this paper, we provide visualization methods to reveal the physical mechanisms of photoinduced charge transfer in neutral and charged donor-acceptor systems. These visualization methods use the charge density difference and transition density matrix, which can promote deeper understanding of photoinduced charge transfer in donor-acceptor systems.

Hydrogels have attracted widespread attention for breaking the bottlenecks faced during facile drug delivery. To date, the preparation of jelly carriers for hydrophobic drugs remains challenging. In this study, by evaporating ethanol to drive the formation of hydrogen bonds, hydrophilic poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and certain hydrophobic compounds [luteolin (LUT), quercetin (QUE), and myricetin (MYR)] were rapidly prepared into supramolecular hydrogel within 10 min. The gelation performance of these three hydrogels changed regularly with the changing sequence of LUT, QUE, and MYR. An investigation of the gelation pathway of these hybrid gels reveals that the formation of this type of gel follows a simple supramolecular self-assembly process, called "hydrophobe-hydrophile crosslinked gelation". Because the hydrogen bond between PVA and the drug is noncovalent and reversible, the hydrogel has good plasticity and self-healing properties, while the drugs can be controllably released by tuning the output stimuli. Using a rat sidewall-cecum abrasion adhesion model, the as-prepared hydrogel was highly efficient and safe in preventing postsurgical adhesion. This work provides a useful archetypical template for researchers interested in the efficient delivery and controllable release of hydrophobic drugs.

Fibrotic diseases pose significant clinical challenges due to their broadness and complexity. Thus, a better understanding of fibrogenesis and the development of more effective treatments is imperative. Recent evidence suggests a significant antifibrotic potential of an endogenous glycoprotein, endostatin. While endostatin has been widely studied for its role as an anticancer adjuvant by inhibiting tumor angiogenesis, its possible implication in fibrosis remains largely unclear. Here, we review the role of endostatin in various cellular processes and highlight its antifibrotic activity. We hypothesize that endostatin conveys a homeostatic function in the process of fibrosis by regulating (a) TGF-β1 and its downstream signaling; (b) RhoA/ROCK pathway; (c) NF-κB signaling pathway; (d) expression of EGR-1; (e) PDGF/PDGFR pathway; (f) autophagy-related pathways; (g) pathways associated with cell proliferation and apoptosis. Finally, we propose a schematic model of the antifibrotic roles and mechanisms of endostatin; also, we outline future research directions of endostatin and aim to present a potential therapeutic approach for fibrosis.

Chirality of macrolide antibiotics (MA) are theoretically analyzed with absorption spectroscopy, electronic circular dichroism (ECD) and Raman optical activity (ROA) spectra. Physical mechanism of optical properties is revealed by the coupling interactions of transition electric dipole moments, transition magnetic dipole moments and transitional electric quadrupole moments. Our results demonstrate that S3 excited state is of strong linear optical absorption; while S1 excited state is of strong ECD. The ROA spectra excited with the resonance S3 electronic transition can well reveal the chirality of MA. Our two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D) visualization analysis methods clearly demonstrate the relationship between vibrational modes of ROA and interactions of electric and magnetic coupling. Our results can visually promote deeper understanding physical mechanism of molecular chirality and extending potential applications on the analysis of molecular chirality.

We report a strong one-photon photoluminescence (PL) behavior of a silver nanowire directly coupled gold film. The PL peak position of the silver nanowire-coupled gold film deviates from the intrinsic interband transition of gold materials and is not sensitive to the diameter change of the silver nanowire. We attribute this strong PL behavior to the intraband transition of hot electrons dominated by high-order gap plasmons, which are excited in the ultra-small gap formed by an ultra-thin polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) layer coated on the silver nanowire. The results show that the energy required for the strong PL of the heterogeneous system mainly comes from the gold film, acting as an incident energy absorber enhanced by the high-order gap plasmons, while the silver nanowire acts an efficient incident energy focusing antenna. In situ Raman scattering spectra and time-resolved PL intensity integral curves were used to record the carbonization and disappearance process of PVP. The understanding of the PL behavior of the silver nanowire directly coupled gold film proves the universality of plasmon-modulated PL theory and is also of great significance to improve the generation and utilization efficiency of hot electrons with high-order gap plasmons in the fields of catalysis and incident energy capture.

Recently, the Fano effect of aluminum nanostructures has attracted a lot of attentions in several detector and sensor applications, but the role of coupling gap in it remains unintuitive. In this paper, a homotactic aluminum rod trimer (HART) is designed to form the plasmonic Fano resonances and visualize the important role of coupling gap size. The plasmon hybridization model and far field images were used to qualitatively describe the formation mechanism of Fano resonance. The simulation results intuitively show that the Fano dip of HART with a smaller coupling gap size has a higher red-shift speed when increasing the refractive index of surrounding environment or the length of HART with a fixed axial ratio ( L S /L L = 0.6). Our study provides the insights to the key role of coupling gap in the performance of Fano structures.

Background and Aims: Emitasvir is a new type of hepatitis C virus (HCV) nonstructural protein 5A (NS5A) inhibitor, and the data of phase 2 trial has shown emitasvir-sofosbuvir to have good safety and tolerance. We conducted this phase 3 trial to further verify the efficacy and safety. Methods: We evaluated the antiviral activity and safety of a 12-week regimen of emitasvir phosphate (100 mg) combined with sofosbuvir (400 mg) once daily in non-cirrhotic patients with genotype 1 HCV infection. The primary endpoint was a sustained virological response at 12 weeks (SVR12) after the end of treatment. Results: Of the 362 patients enrolled in the trial, 39.8% were male, 99.2% had HCV genotype 1b, 0.8% had genotype 1a and 79.8% were treatment-naive. The average age was 47.2 years. All patients completed the treatment and follow-up. All 3 patients with genotype 1a achieved SVR. Two genotype 1b treatment-naive patients experienced virologic relapse. The rate of SVR12 was 99.7% (358/359), and SVR24 was 99.4% (357/359) in genotype 1b. Overall, 36.2% had resistance-associated substitutions (RASs) in NS5A and 98.3% had RASs in NS5B at baseline. The RASs at baseline had no effect on the rates of response. Serious adverse events were reported in 16 patients and were not related to emitasvir-sofosbuvir. Most adverse events did not require therapy. Conclusions: The 12 weeks of treatment with emitasvir-sofosbuvir was a highly efficient and safe treatment for a wide range of patients with HCV genotype 1b infection without cirrhosis, who had not been treated or who had been treated with interferon-based regimen previously.

Artemisinin and its derivatives are of great research value in biology. In this work, we study their chiral and optical properties. The multidimensional multifunction analysis method is used to analyze the linear and nonlinear optical processes (one-photon and two-photon absorption: OPA and TPA), electronic circular dichroism (ECD), and Raman optical activity (ROA) mechanisms under light excitation. Transition dipole moments (TDMs) and charge difference density (CDD) are used to describe the electromagnetic interaction between ECD and ROA when a substance is excited by light. The theoretical research results of the study show that the dioxygen atoms provide an intermediary for the transfer between charges and also enhance the role of the TDMs. This generalized chiral theory can not only explain the traditional sources of chirality but also distinguish whether the molecule has chirality when the chiral center is not obvious. By analyzing ROA and different vibration modes, we can clearly observe that each part of the molecule responds differently when excited.