Owing to their theoretical energy density of 2600 Wh kg−1, lithium–sulfur batteries represent a promising future energy storage device to power electric vehicles. However, the practical applications ...of lithium–sulfur batteries suffer from poor cycle life and low Coulombic efficiency, which is attributed, in part, to the polysulfide shuttle and Li dendrite formation. Suppressing Li dendrite growth, blocking the unfavorable reaction between soluble polysulfides and Li, and improving the safety of Li–S batteries have become very important for the development of high‐performance lithium sulfur batteries. A comprehensive review of various strategies is presented for enhancing the stability of the anode of lithium sulfur batteries, including inserting an interlayer, modifying the separator and electrolytes, employing artificial protection layers, and alternative anodes to replace the Li metal anode.
Anodes play an important role in resolving the issues of conventional lithium sulfur batteries. The most recent progress in anodes for lithium–sulfur batteries is introduced. To suppress the corrosion reaction that occurs and the formation of Li dendrites on the surface of lithium metal, various strategies are summarized. Employing alternative anodes for sulfur‐based rechargeable batteries is also discussed.
Heating is a knotty factor contributing to device degradation of flexible organic solar cells (FOSCs), and thermal regulation plays a crucial role in the realization of long operational lifetime. ...Herein, a passive cooling strategy for stable FOSCs is proposed by boosting the optical‐thermal radiative transfer to reduce the insufficient thermal dissipation and the elevated temperature caused by irradiation‐induced heating, while retaining their flexibility and portability. A spectrally selective coupling structure consisting of subwavelength hemisphere pattern and distributed Bragg reflector is integrated into FOSCs to collectively enhance out‐coupling of infrared radiation and limit near‐infrared absorption‐induced heat generation, leading to a reduced heat power intensity of 292.5 W cm−2 and the decreased working temperature by 9.6 °C under outdoor sunlight irradiation. The D18:Y6:PC71BM‐based FOSCs achieve a power conversion efficiency of over 17% with a prolonged T80 lifetime as long as one year under real outdoor working conditions. These results represent a new opportunity for enhancing the operational stability of FOSCs.
A spectrally selective coupling structure is integrated into flexible organic solar cells to boost the optical‐thermal radiative transfer in infrared region. The optimized device with efficiency over 17% obtains a 9.6 °C decrease in working temperature under outdoor sunlight irradiation, which prolongs T80 lifetime by over 3 times to as long as one year.
Background and Aims
The study objective was to compare the effectiveness of microwave ablation (MWA) and laparoscopic liver resection (LLR) on solitary 3–5‐cm HCC over time.
Approach and Results
From ...2008 to 2019, 1289 patients from 12 hospitals were enrolled in this retrospective study. Diagnosis of all lesions were based on histopathology. Propensity score matching was used to balance all baseline variables between the two groups in 2008–2019 (n = 335 in each group) and 2014–2019 (n = 257 in each group) cohorts, respectively. For cohort 2008–2019, during a median follow‐up of 35.8 months, there were no differences in overall survival (OS) between MWA and LLR (HR: 0.88, 95% CI 0.65–1.19, p = 0.420), and MWA was inferior to LLR regarding disease‐free survival (DFS) (HR 1.36, 95% CI 1.05–1.75, p = 0.017). For cohort 2014–2019, there was comparable OS (HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.56–1.30, p = 0.460) and approached statistical significance for DFS (HR 1.33, 95% CI 0.98–1.82, p = 0.071) between MWA and LLR. Subgroup analyses showed comparable OS in 3.1–4.0‐cm HCCs (HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.53–1.47, p = 0.630) and 4.1–5.0‐cm HCCs (HR 0.77, 95% CI 0.37–1.60, p = 0.483) between two modalities. For both cohorts, MWA shared comparable major complications (both p > 0.05), shorter hospitalization, and lower cost to LLR (all p < 0.001).
Conclusions
MWA might be a first‐line alternative to LLR for solitary 3–5‐cm HCC in selected patients with technical advances, especially for patients unsuitable for LLR.
Converting non‐visual light into photocurrent while maintaining high visual transparency is vital for semitransparent organic solar cells (ST‐OSCs) application, yet often challenging over ...insufficient invisible light‐harvesting. Herein, spectrally selective optical manipulation for ST‐OSCs with high visual light transparency and full‐spectral non‐visual light reflection is proposed by matching the optical admittance of ultrathin Ag films using ZnS and MgF2. The reflection of optically enhanced ST‐OSCs at the spectral region beyond the human eye's response spectrum is improved and the transmission in the visual region is simultaneously enhanced. By further integrating an anti‐reflective structure, the optimal structure boosts the average visible transmittance and power conversion efficiency of ST‐OSCs to 44.3% and 12.6%, respectively, yielding a record light utilization efficiency of 5.6%. Corresponding flexible ST‐OSCs with high mechanical stability implies that this work provides a facile and universal strategy for ST‐OSCs aiming at building integrated photovoltaics.
Semitransparent organic solar cells (ST‐OSCs) are constructed with spectrally selective transparent electrodes for high transparency in visual regions and strong light harvesting beyond the human eye's response spectrum. The optical admittance matching induces the ST‐OSCs to achieve a power conversion efficiency of 12.6%, an average visible transmittance of 44.3%, and a record high light utilization efficiency of 5.6%.
SUMMARY
Vegetative propagation (VP) is an important practice for production in many horticultural plants. Sugar supply constitutes the basis of VP in bulb flowers, but the underlying molecular basis ...remains elusive. By performing a combined sequencing technologies coupled with ultra‐high performance liquid chromatography‐quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry approach for metabolic analyses, we compared two Lycoris species with contrasting regeneration rates: high‐regeneration Lycoris sprengeri and low‐regeneration Lycoris aurea. A comprehensive multi‐omics analyses identified both expected processes involving carbohydrate metabolism and transcription factor networks, as well as the metabolic characteristics for each developmental stage. A higher abundance of the differentially expressed genes including those encoding ethylene responsive factors was detected at bulblet initiation stage compared to the late stage of bulblet development. High hexose‐to‐sucrose ratio correlated to bulblet formation across all the species examined, indicating its role in the VP process in Lycoris bulb. Importantly, a clear difference between cell wall invertase (CWIN)‐catalyzed sucrose unloading in high‐regeneration species and the sucrose synthase‐catalyzed pathway in low‐regeneration species was observed at the bulblet initiation stage, which was supported by findings from carboxyfluorescein tracing and quantitative real‐time PCR analyses. Collectively, the findings indicate a sugar‐mediated model of the regulation of VP in which high CWIN expression or activity may promote bulblet initiation via enhancing apoplasmic unloading of sucrose or sugar signals, whereas the subsequent high ratio of hexose‐to‐sucrose likely supports cell division characterized in the next phase of bulblet formation.
Significance Statement
At a time of unprecedented climate change and losses in biodiversity, vegetative propagation (VP) is a particularly practical strategy for the survival and yield realization of many plant species. Assisted by horticultural techniques such as cross‐cutting, VP contributes significantly to the commercial production and global horticultural industry as seen in the production of flower bulbs. However, the molecular mechanism orchestrating vegetative regeneration capacities remains largely unknown. Here, we addressed this issue in Lycoris bulbs using multi‐omics approaches. The analyses identified CWIN‐mediated sucrose‐to‐hexose conversion as a metabolic marker for bulblet initiation in Lycoris and a potential molecular target for improving bulb production.
Both the uncoordinated Pb2+ and excess PbI2 in perovskite film will create defects and perturb carrier collection, thus leading to the open‐circuit voltage (VOC) loss and inducing rapid performance ...degradation of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Herein, an additive of 3‐aminothiophene‐2‐carboxamide (3‐AzTca) that contains amide and amino and features a large molecular size is introduced to improve the quality of perovskite film. The interplay of size effect and adequate bonding strength between 3‐AzTca and uncoordinated Pb2+ regulates the mineralization of PbI2 and generates low‐dimensional PbI2 phase, thereby boosting the crystallization of perovskite. The decreased defect states result in suppressed nonradiative recombination and reduced VOC loss. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of modified PSC is improved to 22.79% with a high VOC of 1.22 V. Moreover, the decomposition of PbI2 and perovskite films is also retarded, yielding enhanced device stability. This study provides an effective method to minimize the concentration of uncoordinated Pb2+ and improve the PCE and stability of PSCs.
The introduction of 3‐AzTca regulates the mineralization of PbI2 and perovskite by strengthening the metallic Pb frame, thereby reducing the defects and improving the environmental stability of PbI2 and perovskite film. The champion perovskite solar cell achieves a low voltage deficit of 0.37 V, an efficiency of 22.79%, and enhanced stability.
The efficiency of optimization for the high dimensional problem has been improved by the metamodeling techniques in multidisciplinary in the past decades. In this study, comparative studies are ...implemented for high dimensional problems on the accuracy of four popular metamodeling methods, Kriging (KRG), radial basis function (RBF), least square support vector regression (LSSVR) and cut-high dimensional model representation (cut-HDMR) methods. Besides, HDMR methods with different basis functions are considered, including KRG-HDMR, RBF-HDMR and SVR-HDMR. Four factors that might influence the quality of metamodeling methods involving parameter interaction of problems, sample sizes, noise level and sampling strategies are considered. The results show that the LSSVR with Gaussian kernel, using Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) strategy, constructs more accurate metamodels than the KRG. The RBF with Gaussian basis function performs poor in the group. Generally, cut-HDMR methods perform much better than the other metamodeling methods when handling the function with weak parameter interaction, but not better when handling the function with strong parameter interaction.
Background & Aims
BCAT1 initiates the catabolism of branched‐chain amino acids. Here, we investigated the function of BCAT1 and its transcriptional regulatory mechanism in hepatocellular carcinoma ...(HCC).
Methods
RNASeq was used to evaluate BCAT1 mRNA levels in HCC and normal matched specimens. After the exogenous expression of BCAT1 in BEL‐7404 cells and the suppression of endogenous BCAT1 expression with shRNA in HepG2 cells, the cell proliferation, clone‐forming ability and cell‐cycle changes were measured with MTT assay, colony‐forming assay and flow cytometry respectively. A xenograft model was used to investigate the effect of BCAT1 on cancer growth in vivo. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and luciferase reporter technologies were used to confirm the transcriptional regulation of the BCAT1 gene by MYC. The expression of the BCAT1 and MYC proteins in 122 HCC tissues was determined with an immunohistochemical analysis.
Results
BCAT1 mRNA was clearly increased in HCC tissues and hepatomas. The ectopic expression of BCAT1 in BEL‐7404 cells enhanced their proliferation, clone formation, tumourigenic properties, S–G2/M phase transition and chemoresistance to cisplatin. The suppression of BCAT1 expression in HepG2 cells significantly inhibited their proliferation, clone formation, and S–G2/M phase transition and caused their chemosensitization to cisplatin. MYC affected the transcriptional regulation of BCAT1. Clinical data showed that BCAT1 expression correlated with a significantly poorer prognosis.
Conclusion
BCAT1 plays a pathogenic role in HCC by causing cell proliferation and chemoresistance. The MYC transcription factor is involved in regulating the transcriptional activity of BCAT1. BCAT1 expression has prognostic significance for the survival of patients with HCC.
Using narrow bandgap nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs) can broaden the absorption spectrum of organic solar cells (OSCs) to the near‐infrared region. However, the simultaneously decreased extinction ...coefficient of the active layer at the blue region results in inevitable light escaping and energy loss. Herein, a blazed grating‐based device configuration consisting of a patterned rear electrode is employed to compensate for the low absorption of nonfullerene OSCs. Experimental results reveal that the normal incidence light, especially blue light, that bounces off the patterned rear electrode is concentrated in a large tilted angle and subsequently trapped in waveguide mode. Along with the excitation of surface plasmon polariton, the structured nonfullerene OSCs using a new‐designed PM6:M36 active layer obtain the broadband absorption enhancement with 1.5 times increase at the blue region. The optimized device achieves an 8.95% increase in photocurrent and a champion power conversion efficiency of approaching 18%, which is the highest reported value among all the devices based on A‐D‐A type NFAs.
An effective light‐deflecting pattern is introduced to nonfullerene organic solar cells to improve energy conversion efficiency in the blue region. The normal incidence light is guided into a cavity‐like chamber and mostly captured by the active layer, resulting in broadband absorption enhancement. The optimized device based on all A‐D‐A type nonfullerene acceptors achieves the highest reported efficiency of approaching 18%.
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