The COVID-19 pandemic is currently spreading across the world in an unprecedented way. "Social distancing" has become the latest buzzword in the headlines of media covering the COVID-19 pandemic As a ...result, the widely implemented social distancing measures has generated one unprecedented shift that pushes various types of human social interactions from dominantly offline to dominantly online. This becomes a "new normal" in our daily life. For our research community of studying technology-related behavior, the COVID-19 pandemic provides an unprecedented opportunity to join the worldwide efforts to fight against the current pandemic and
calls for studies examining how humans behavior with emerging technologies in extreme events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
This article addresses why children's use of mobile phones is an unparalleled complex developmental phenomenon in hopes of providing a broad context for this special section. It first outlines mobile ...phones as a sophisticated personalized and multifunction technology. Then it presents mobile phone use by children as an unparalleled complex developmental phenomenon on the basis of its four behavioral elements, two mobile cultures, and two developmental processes. It further illustrates the existing knowledge about children's mobile phones use that has been accumulated over the past 23 years and highlights 12 most studied topics, especially distracted driving and radiation exposure. It concludes with three types of scientific contributions made by the 12 articles in the special section.
Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are widely used in various manufacturing processes. Accumulation of these chemicals has adverse effects on human health, including inflammation in multiple organs, ...yet how PFAS are sensed by host cells, and how tissue inflammation eventually incurs, is still unclear. Here, we show that the double-stranded DNA receptor AIM2 is able to recognize perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), a common form of PFAS, to trigger IL-1β secretion and pyroptosis. Mechanistically, PFOS activates the AIM2 inflammasome in a process involving mitochondrial DNA release through the Ca
-PKC-NF-κB/JNK-BAX/BAK axis. Accordingly, Aim2
mice have reduced PFOS-induced inflammation, as well as tissue damage in the lungs, livers, and kidneys in both their basic condition and in an asthmatic exacerbation model. Our results thus suggest a function of AIM2 in PFOS-mediated tissue inflammation, and identify AIM2 as a major pattern recognition receptor in response to the environmental organic pollutants.
Porous ultrathin 2D catalysts are attracting great attention in the field of electro/photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and overall water splitting. Herein, a universal pH‐controlled ...wet‐chemical strategy is reported followed by thermal and phosphorization treatment to prepare large‐size, porous and ultrathin bimetallic phosphide (NiCoP) nanosheets, in which graphene oxide is adopted as a template to determine the size of products. The thickness of the resultant NiCoP nanosheets ranges from 3.5 to 12.8 nm via delicately adjusting pH from 7.8 to 8.5. The thickness‐dependent electrocatalytic performance is evidenced experimentally and explained by computational studies. The prepared large‐size ultrathin NiCoP nanosheets show excellent bifunctional electrocatalytic activity for overall water splitting, with low overpotentials of 34.3 mV for HER and 245.0 mV for oxygen evolution reaction, respectively, at 10 mA cm−2. Furthermore, the NiCoP nanosheets exhibit superior photocatalytic HER performance, achieving a high HER rate of 238.2 mmol h−1 g−1 in combination with commonly used photocatalyst CdS, which is far superior to that of Pt/CdS (81.7 mmol h−1 g−1). All these results demonstrate large‐size porous ultrathin NiCoP nanosheets as an efficient and multifunctional electro/photocatalyst for water splitting.
A facile pH‐controlled wet‐chemical strategy is developed followed by thermal and phosphorization treatment to prepare large‐size porous and ultrathin NiCoP nanosheets. Such NiCoP nanosheets are controlled to ≈3.5 nm in thickness via delicately adjusting pH to balance the nucleation and growth of metal ions, which exhibit excellent electro/photocatalytic performance for water splitting, outperforming noble‐metal catalysts in electro/photocatalytic OER and HER.
Incorporation of N,S‐codoped nanotube‐like carbon (N,S‐NTC) can endow electrode materials with superior electrochemical properties owing to the unique nanoarchitecture and improved kinetics. Herein, ...α‐MnS nanoparticles (NPs) are in situ encapsulated into N,S‐NTC, preparing an advanced anode material (α‐MnS@N,S‐NTC) for lithium‐ion/sodium‐ion batteries (LIBs/SIBs). It is for the first time revealed that electrochemical α → β phase transition of MnS NPs during the 1st cycle effectively promotes Li‐storage properties, which is deduced by the studies of ex situ X‐ray diffraction/high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy and electrode kinetics. As a result, the optimized α‐MnS@N,S‐NTC electrode delivers a high Li‐storage capacity (1415 mA h g−1 at 50 mA g−1), excellent rate capability (430 mA h g−1 at 10 A g−1), and long‐term cycling stability (no obvious capacity decay over 5000 cycles at 1 A g−1) with retained morphology. In addition, the N,S‐NTC‐based encapsulation plays the key roles on enhancing the electrochemical properties due to its high conductivity and unique 1D nanoarchitecture with excellent protective effects to active MnS NPs. Furthermore, α‐MnS@N,S‐NTC also delivers high Na‐storage capacity (536 mA h g−1 at 50 mA g−1) without the occurrence of such α → β phase transition and excellent full‐cell performances as coupling with commercial LiFePO4 and LiNi0.6Co0.2Mn0.2O2 cathodes in LIBs as well as Na3V2(PO4)2O2F cathode in SIBs.
α‐MnS nanoparticles are in situ encapsulated into N,S‐codoped nanotube‐like carbon (α‐MnS@N,S‐NTC) as an advanced anode for Li/Na‐ion batteries. The α → β phase transition during the 1st cycle in LIBs is for the first time revealed by ex situ X‐ray diffraction and high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy studies, which improves the electrode kinetics and Li‐storage properties. α‐MnS@N,S‐NTC also exhibits superior performance in Li/Na‐ion half/full cells.
We report a monometallic dysprosium complex, Dy(OtBu)2(py)5BPh4 (5), that shows the largest effective energy barrier to magnetic relaxation of Ueff=1815(1) K. The massive magnetic anisotropy is due ...to bis‐trans‐disposed tert‐butoxide ligands with weak equatorial pyridine donors, approaching proposed schemes for high‐temperature single‐molecule magnets (SMMs). The blocking temperature, TB , is 14 K, defined by zero‐field‐cooled magnetization experiments, and is the largest for any monometallic complex and equal with the current record for Tb2N2{N(SiMe3)2}4(THF)2.
Record‐breaking: A monometallic dysprosium complex, Dy(OtBu)2(py)5BPh4, displaying near‐perfect pentagonal bipyramid geometry defined by two strong axial tert‐butoxide ligands and five weak equatorial pyridine donors is reported. This complex displays massive magnetic anisotropy, approaching the limit of a two‐coordinate complex, with an energy barrier to magnetic relaxation of Ueff=1815(1) K and a blocking temperature of TB=14 K.
Scientific research in colleges and universities is of great significance to national innovation. Based on the evolutionary game theory, this paper constructs a theoretical model of the state, ...universities, and researchers. This paper also conducts numerical simulation on the model. The results reveal that when the scientific researchers' success rate reaches a certain threshold, more and more scientific researchers will choose to invest in scientific research. Then, universities and the state will hold a long-term incentive attitude toward scientific research and scientific innovation. The study further found that the greater the success rate of researchers, the faster universities and the state will actively encourage scientific research.
Device-to-Device (D2D) communications play a key role in the next generation mobile communication networks and wireless systems (5G) and the Internet of Things ecosystem. D2D group communications are ...significant for group based services. In spite of its benefits, new application scenarios and new system architecture expose the D2D group communications to unique security threats. Although there are numerous studies on security and privacy in two-user D2D communications, a lack of solutions on secure and privacy-preserving D2D group communications would restrict their wide usage. In this paper, we propose two privacy-preserving authentication and key Agreement protocols (PPAKA-HAMC and PPAKA-IBS) to guarantee secure and anonymous D2D group communications. In our protocols, a group of D2D users mutually authenticate with each other without leaking their identity information while negotiate a common D2D group session key for secure communications in a D2D session. Formal security analysis and comprehensive performance evaluation show security and effectivity of our protocols.
While esters are frequently used as traditional electrophiles in substitution chemistry, their application in cross‐coupling chemistry is still in its infancy. This work demonstrates that methyl ...esters can be used as coupling electrophiles in Ni‐catalyzed Heck‐type reactions through the challenging cleavage of the C(acyl)−O bond under relatively mild reaction conditions at either 80 or 100 °C. With the σ‐NiII intermediate generated from the insertion of acyl NiII species into the tethered C=C bond, carbonyl‐retentive products were formed by domino Heck/Suzuki–Miyaura coupling and Heck/reduction pathways when organoboron and mild hydride nucleophiles are used.
Partner up: Methyl esters are shown to be viable cross‐coupling partners in intramolecular cyclization reactions with a tethered olefin. Both a boronic acid and mild hydride donors can be used in this nickel‐catalyzed reaction, providing differentially substituted indanone products.
The relationship between humans and digital technologies has been documented extensively in the past decades, but has yet to be reviewed through the lens of the current global pandemic crisis. This ...review synthesizes the rapidly growing literature on digital technology use during the current COVID‐19 pandemic. It addresses the following four topics: (1) the specific digital technologies that have been used, (2) the specific populations who have used these digital technologies, (3) the specific activities that individuals and groups have used these digital technologies, and (4) the specific effects of using these digital technologies on humans during the pandemic. The 281 empirical articles we have identified suggest that (1) 28 various forms of technologies have been used, ranging from computers to artificial intelligence, (2) 8 different populations of users are using these technologies, primarily medical professionals, (3) 32 generalized types of activities are involved, including providing health services remotely, analyzing data, and communicating, and (4) 35 various effects have been observed, such as improved patient outcomes, continued education, and decreased outbreak impact. Through this rapid review, we sketched an expansive, multilevel model of the current knowledge of how humans are using technology during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Major findings and future directions are discussed.
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