Chiral perovskites have emerged as a significant class of materials showing promising optoelectronic and spintronic applications. Reports of chiral perovskite ferroelectrics, however, have been ...scarce. In this work, we have successfully synthesized homochiral lead–iodide perovskite ferroelectrics (R)‐N‐(1‐phenylethyl)ethane‐1,2‐diaminiumPbI4 and (S)‐N‐(1‐phenylethyl)ethane‐1,2‐diaminiumPbI4 by introducing a methyl group into the organic cation of the parent (N‐benzylethane‐1,2‐diaminium)PbI4. Vibrational circular dichroism spectra identify the chiral mirroring relationship. They both undergo 222F2‐type paraelectric–ferroelectric behavior at around 378 K coupled with clear ferroelastic domain “ON/OFF” switching. Besides, they exhibit an evident thermochromism with color change from orange–yellow to orange–red. To our knowledge, the discovery of integrated ferroelectricity, ferroelasticity, and reversible thermochromism in chiral perovskites is unprecedented.
2D homochiral lead‐iodide perovskites were constructed by the introduction of a chiral center. The perovskites exhibit coexisting ferroelectricity, ferroelasticity, and reversible thermochromism, offering great application prospects for next‐generation smart devices.
In most plants, major unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) are three C18 species, namely, oleic (18:1), linoleic (18:2), and α-linolenic (18:3) acids. These simple compounds play multiple crucial roles
and ...are also important economic traits of oil crops. The enzymatic steps of C18 UFA biosynthesis have been well established. However, the associated FA/lipid trafficking between the plastid and the endoplasmic reticulum remains largely unclear, as does the regulation of the expression and activities of the involved enzymes. In this review, we will revisit the biosynthesis of C18 UFAs with an emphasis on the trafficking, and present an overview of the key enzymes and their regulation. Of particular interest is the emerging regulatory network composed of transcriptional factors and upstream signaling pathways. The review thereby provides the promise of using physical, biochemical and/or genetic means to manipulate FA composition and increase oil yield in crop improvement.
In this paper, a novel colour image encryption algorithm based on chaos has been proposed. We use chaotic system to encrypt the
R,
G,
B components of a colour image at the same time and make these ...three components affect each other. So the correlations between
R,
G,
B components can be reduced and the security of algorithm is increased. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can encrypt colour image effectively and resist various typical attacks.
DNA alkylating agents generally kill tumor cells by covalently binding with DNA to form interstrand or intrastrand cross-links. However, in the case of cisplatin, only a few DNA adducts (<1%) are ...highly toxic irreparable interstrand cross-links. Furthermore, cisplatin is rapidly detoxified by high levels of intracellular thiols such as glutathione (GSH). Since the discovery of its mechanism of action, people have been looking for ways to directly and efficiently remove intracellular GSH and increase interstrand cross-links to improve drug efficacy and overcome resistance, but there has been little breakthrough. Herein, we hypothesized that the anticancer efficiency of cisplatin can be enhanced through iodo-thiol click chemistry mediated GSH depletion and increased formation of DNA interstrand cross-links via mild hyperthermia triggered by near-infrared (NIR) light. This was achieved by preparing an amphiphilic polymer with platinum(IV) (Pt(IV)) prodrugs and pendant iodine atoms (iodides). The polymer was further used to encapsulate IR780 and assembled into Pt–I–IR780 nanoparticles. Induction of mild hyperthermia (43 °C) at the tumor site by NIR light irradiation had three effects: (1) it accelerated the GSH-mediated reduction of Pt(IV) in the polymer main chain to platinum(II) (Pt(II)); (2) it boosted the iodo-thiol substitution click reaction between GSH and iodide, thereby attenuating the GSH-mediated detoxification of cisplatin; (3) it increased the proportion of highly toxic and irreparable Pt-DNA interstrand cross-links. Therefore, we find that mild hyperthermia induced via NIR irradiation can enhance the killing of cancer cells and reduce the tumor burden, thus delivering efficient chemotherapy.
As an aperture-divided computational imaging system, microlens array (MLA) -based light field (LF) imaging is playing an increasingly important role in computer vision. As the trade-off between the ...spatial and angular resolutions, deep learning (DL) -based image super-resolution (SR) methods have been applied to enhance the spatial resolution. However, in existing DL-based methods, the depth-varying defocus is not considered both in dataset development and algorithm design, which restricts many applications such as depth estimation and object recognition. To overcome this shortcoming, a super-resolution task that reconstructs all-in-focus high-resolution (HR) LF images from low-resolution (LR) LF images is proposed by designing a large dataset and proposing a convolutional neural network (CNN) -based SR method. The dataset is constructed by using Blender software, consisting of 150 light field images used as training data, and 15 light field images used as validation and testing data. The proposed network is designed by proposing the dilated deformable convolutional network (DCN) -based feature extraction block and the LF subaperture image (SAI) Deblur-SR block. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves more appealing results both quantitatively and qualitatively.
A hybrid design method for broadband radar cross section (RCS) reduction based on reflection diffusion is proposed and successfully demonstrated. To this end, we first analyze the scattering behavior ...of full parabolic-phased metasurface and find out its weaknesses in achieving perfect diffusive patterns. Then, we alleviate the issue of full parabolic-phased method through hybridizing two strategies, i.e., concave/convex chessboard arrangement and random focal lengths. The proposed hybrid design makes the phase profile aperiodic without any mirror symmetry, which is the key for achieving perfect diffusive scattering behavior within a wide operation band. The numerical and experimental results show that our proposed design features broadband, polarization insensitivity, and wide incidence angle and can efficiently decrease the RCS more than 10 dB within 7.8-23.2 GHz. Our approach comprehensively solves the issues of narrow band, high bistatic RCS value, time-consuming optimization process, and sensitivity to different polarization and incident angles, promising great potential in stealth applications.
The ascomycete fungus Beauveria bassiana is a pathogen of hundreds of insect species and is commercially produced as an environmentally friendly mycoinsecticide. We sequenced the genome of B. ...bassiana and a phylogenomic analysis confirmed that ascomycete entomopathogenicity is polyphyletic, but also revealed convergent evolution to insect pathogenicity. We also found many species-specific virulence genes and gene family expansions and contractions that correlate with host ranges and pathogenic strategies. These include B. bassiana having many more bacterial-like toxins (suggesting an unsuspected potential for oral toxicity) and effector-type proteins. The genome also revealed that B. bassiana resembles the closely related Cordyceps militaris in being heterothallic, although its sexual stage is rarely observed. A high throughput RNA-seq transcriptomic analysis revealed that B. bassiana could sense and adapt to different environmental niches by activating well-defined gene sets. The information from this study will facilitate further development of B. bassiana as a cost-effective mycoinsecticide.
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•This study estimated aboveground and net aboveground biomass on sparse shrub communities with large surface fluctuations.•This study provides the most suitable RGB algorithm for ...calculating vegetation coverage in sandy areas.•The relationship between vegetation coverage and aboveground biomass of shrub communities in Mu Us sandy land was study.studied.
Accurate detection of vegetation cover and biomass of shrub communities in sandy area is beneficial for evaluating ecosystem, improving remote sensing models, and assessing the accuracy of remote sensing. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have replaced traditional measurement methods in biomass and fraction of vegetation coverage (FVC) detection owing to the high spatial resolution of their imagery, their high positioning accuracy, and their ease of use. The existing methods of detecting biomass via UAVs, however, are not suitable for surface fluctuations, dwarf shrubs, and herbs. Futhermore, the method of calculating FVC using UAV RGB images has not yet been tested in sandy areas. To accurately extract FVC data, aboveground biomass (ABS) and net aboveground biomass (NABS) of shrub communities in the desert regions, UAV RGB images of 87 sample plots in the Mu Us sandy land were collected and used to obtain the FVC and biomass information via the object-based classification method, single shrub canopy biomass model and vegetation index-based method. The results are as follows: (1) the method of calculating ABS and NABS based on shrub canopy width extraction can be used in desert shrub communities, and results show that the ABS and NABS of vegetation communities increases from 15 to 800 g/m2 and 10–250 g/m2, respectively, in the Mu Us sandy land; and (2) the lowest value of ABS (NABS) appeared in the mobile sandy dunes and the highest value appeared in the semi-fixed sandy dunes; (3) under fixed thresholds conditions, the FVC can be extracted accurately using the excess green method, visible atmospherically resistant index, vegetative index, green red vegetation index and red green blue vegetation index (RGBVI); and (4) the correlation between the FVC calculated by the five RGB vegetation indexes and NABS in this study is greater than that between FVC and ABS (e.g. R2NABS - RGBVI = 0.734, R2ABS - RGBVI = 0.666), and the FVC calculated by RGBVI can be used to estimate NABS in the Mu Us sandy land. This study will provide new insights for field investigations of the ABS, NABS, and FVC in sandy areas.
Mass spectra and wave functions of the
J
P
=
1
2
+
(
bcq
) baryons are calculated by the relativistic Bethe–Salpeter equation (BSE) with considering the mixing effects between the
1
+
and
0
+
(
bc
...)-diquarks inside. Based on the diquark picture, the three-body problem of baryons is transformed into two two-body problems. The BSE and wave functions of the
0
+
diquark are given, and then solved numerically to obtain the effective mass spectra and form factors. Also we present the wave functions at zero point for the (
bc
)-diquark. Considering the obtained diquark form factors, the (
bcq
) baryons are then described by the BSE as the bound state of a diquark and a light quark, where the interaction kernel includes the inner transitions between the
0
+
and
1
+
diquarks. The general wave function of the
1
2
+
(
bcq
) baryons is constructed and solved to obtain the corresponding mass spectra. Especially, by using the obtained wave functions, the mixing effects between
Ξ
bc
(
Ω
bc
)
and
Ξ
bc
′
(
Ω
bc
′
)
in ground states are computed and determined to be small (
∼
1
%
). The numerical results indicate that it is a good choice to take
Ξ
bc
and
Ξ
bc
′
as the baryon states with the inside (
bc
)-diquarks occupying the definite spin.
The present study was designed to explore whether serum stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1) levels were associated with diabetic kidney disease (DKD). Serum SDF-1 levels were measured by sandwich ...ELISA. Patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) <60 mL/min/1.73 m2 or a urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR) ≥30 mg/g for 3 months were identified as having DKD. Among the recruited type 2 diabetic patients, 18.71% (n = 32) were found to have DKD, and the serum SDF-1 levels of these patients were higher than those of patients without DKD (p < 0.05). Serum SDF-1 levels were positively correlated with cystatin C levels, the UACR and DKD incidence (r = 0.330, 0.183 and 0.186, respectively, p < 0.05) and inversely related to eGFR (r = –0.368, p < 0.001). After adjusting for other clinical covariates by multivariate logistic regression analyses, serum SDF-1 levels were found to be an independent contributor to DKD, and the odds ratio (95% confidence interval) was 1.438 (1.041–1.986). Furthermore, receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed that the optimal SDF-1 cutoff value for indicating DKD was 5.609 ng/mL (its corresponding sensitivity was 82.00%, and specificity was 46.90%). Our results demonstrated that serum SDF-1 levels were closely associated with DKD and could be considered a potent indicator for DKD in patients with T2D.
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