Nanoparticles formed on oxide surfaces are of key importance in many fields such as catalysis and renewable energy. Here, we control B-site exsolution via lattice strain to achieve a high degree of ...exsolution of nanoparticles in perovskite thin films: more than 1100 particles μm
with a particle size as small as ~5 nm can be achieved via strain control. Compressive-strained films show a larger number of exsolved particles as compared with tensile-strained films. Moreover, the strain-enhanced in situ growth of nanoparticles offers high thermal stability and coking resistance, a low reduction temperature (550 °C), rapid release of particles, and wide tunability. The mechanism of lattice strain-enhanced exsolution is illuminated by thermodynamic and kinetic aspects, emphasizing the unique role of the misfit-strain relaxation energy. This study provides critical insights not only into the design of new forms of nanostructures but also to applications ranging from catalysis, energy conversion/storage, nano-composites, nano-magnetism, to nano-optics.
Mass‐flowering crops (MFCs) are increasingly cultivated and might influence pollinator communities in MFC fields and nearby semi‐natural habitats (SNHs). Across six European regions and 2 years, we ...assessed how landscape‐scale cover of MFCs affected pollinator densities in 408 MFC fields and adjacent SNHs. In MFC fields, densities of bumblebees, solitary bees, managed honeybees and hoverflies were negatively related to the cover of MFCs in the landscape. In SNHs, densities of bumblebees declined with increasing cover of MFCs but densities of honeybees increased. The densities of all pollinators were generally unrelated to the cover of SNHs in the landscape. Although MFC fields apparently attracted pollinators from SNHs, in landscapes with large areas of MFCs they became diluted. The resulting lower densities might negatively affect yields of pollinator‐dependent crops and the reproductive success of wild plants. An expansion of MFCs needs to be accompanied by pollinator‐supporting practices in agricultural landscapes.
T cell lineages are defined by specialized functions and differential expression of surface antigens, cytokines and transcription factors. Conventional CD4
and CD8
T cells are the best studied of the ...T cell subsets, but 'unconventional' T cells have emerged as being more abundant and influential than has previously been appreciated. Key subsets of unconventional T cells include natural killer T (NKT) cells, mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells and γδ T cells; collectively, these make up ~10% of circulating T cells, and often they are the majority of T cells in tissues such as the liver and gut mucosa. Defects and deficiencies in unconventional T cells are associated with autoimmunity, chronic inflammation and cancer, so it is important to understand how their development is regulated. In this Review, we describe the thymic development of NKT cells, MAIT cells and γδ T cells and highlight some of the key differences between conventional and unconventional T cell development.
The controlled motion of a series of domain walls along magnetic nanowires using spin-polarized current pulses is the essential ingredient of the proposed magnetic racetrack memory, a new class of ...potential non-volatile storage-class memories. Using permalloy nanowires, we achieved the successive creation, motion, and detection of domain walls by using sequences of properly timed, nanosecond-long, spin-polarized current pulses. The cycle time for the writing and shifting of the domain walls was a few tens of nanoseconds. Our results illustrate the basic concept of a magnetic shift register that relies on the phenomenon of spin-momentum transfer to move series of closely spaced domain walls.
In 2013, an opportunity arose in England to develop an agri‐environment package for wild pollinators, as part of the new Countryside Stewardship scheme launched in 2015. It can be understood as a ...‘policy window’, a rare and time‐limited opportunity to change policy, supported by a narrative about pollinator decline and widely supported mitigating actions. An agri‐environment package is a bundle of management options that together supply sufficient resources to support a target group of species. This paper documents information that was available at the time to develop such a package for wild pollinators. Four questions needed answering: (1) Which pollinator species should be targeted? (2) Which resources limit these species in farmland? (3) Which management options provide these resources? (4) What area of each option is needed to support populations of the target species? Focussing on wild bees, we provide tentative answers that were used to inform development of the package. There is strong evidence that floral resources can limit wild bee populations, and several sources of evidence identify a set of agri‐environment options that provide flowers and other resources for pollinators. The final question could only be answered for floral resources, with a wide range of uncertainty. We show that the areas of some floral resource options in the basic Wild Pollinator and Farmland Wildlife Package (2% flower‐rich habitat and 1 km flowering hedgerow), are sufficient to supply a set of six common pollinator species with enough pollen to feed their larvae at lowest estimates, using minimum values for estimated parameters where a range was available. We identify key sources of uncertainty, and stress the importance of keeping the Package flexible, so it can be revised as new evidence emerges about how to achieve the policy aim of supporting pollinators on farmland.
External control of the conductivity of correlated oxides is one of the most promising schemes for realizing energy-efcient electronic devices. Vanadium dioxide (VO2), an archetypal correlated oxide ...compound, undergoes a temperature-driven metalinsulator transition near room temperature with a concomitant change in crystal symmetry. Here, we show that the metalinsulator transition temperature of thin VO2(001) lms can be changed continuously from 285 to 345 K by varying the thickness of the RuO2 buffer layer (resulting in different epitaxial strains). Using strain-, polarizationand temperature-dependent X-ray absorption spectroscopy, in combination with X-ray diffraction and electronic transport measurements, we demonstrate that the transition temperature and the structural distortion across the transition depend on the orbital occupancy in the metallic state. Our ndings open up the possibility of controlling the conductivity in atomically thin VO2 layers by manipulating the orbital occupancy by, for example, heterostructural engineering. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
The tumor microenvironment has a critical role in regulating cancer cell behavior. Tumors with high stromal content are associated with poor patient outcome. The tumor-stroma ratio (TSR) identifies ...colorectal cancers (CRC) with poor patient prognosis based on hematoxylin & eosin stained sections. The desmoplastic reaction consists to a great extent of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) of which different subtypes are known. The aim of this study is to investigate and quantify CAFs present in the tumor stroma of CRC stratified by the TSR to possibly add prognostic significance to the TSR.
The expression of established CAF markers was compared between stroma-low and stroma-high tumors using transcriptomic data of 71 stage I - III CRC. Based on literature, fibroblast and stromal markers were selected to perform multiplex immunofluorescent staining on formalin fixed, paraffin-embedded tumor sections of patients diagnosed with stage III colon cancer. Antibodies against the following markers were used: αSMA, PDGFR -β, FAP, FSP1 and the stromal markers CD45 and CD31 as reference. The markers were subsequently quantified in the stroma using the Vectra imaging microscope.
The transcriptomic data showed that all CAF markers except one were higher expressed in stroma-high compared to stroma-low tumors. Histologically, stroma-high tumors showed a decreased number of FSP1
/CD45
cells and a trend of an increased expression of FAP compared to stroma-low tumors. FAP was higher expressed at the invasive part compared to the tumor center in both stroma-high and stroma-low tumors.
The increased expression of FAP at the invasive part and in stroma-high tumors might contribute to the invasive behavior of cancer cells. Future functional experiments should investigate the contribution of FAP to cancer cell invasion. Combining the quantity of the stroma as defined by the TSR with the activity level of CAFs using the expression of FAP may result in an expanded stroma-based tool for patient stratification.
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