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Surface desorption properties of hydrogen-terminated diamond detected by micromechanical resonator

Diamond, with its ultra-wide bandgap energy, has emerged as an extreme semiconductor due to its extraordinary electronic and thermal properties. The hydrogen-terminated diamond surface has attracted extensive attention due to its unique p-type surface conductivity. However, the fundamental nature of this p-type conductivity remains incompletely understood using existing surface analysis techniques. In this study, we investigate the dynamic thermal desorption of surface adsorbates on hydrogen-terminated diamond using single-crystal diamond microelectromechanical systems resonators, avoiding charging-related issues. By analyzing variations in resonance performance and surface conductivity, we uncover several key findings: (i) The desorption of surface adsorbates reaches saturation at approximately 873 K. (ii) The desorbed mass per unit area is around 2.3 fg/μm2, corresponding to an equivalent thickness of approximately 1 nm. (iii) The surface conductivity of hydrogen-terminated diamond can be fully restored even after annealing at 873 K, indicating the thermal stability of C–H bonds. This work offers an alternative insight into the surface properties of hydrogen-terminated diamond, accelerating the development of highly reliable diamond-based electronic devices.

EZH-2 expression and prognostic significance in patients with low-grade non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Health assessment of snacks and desserts in Guizhou Province: Analysis of fatty acids and sugar content

Introduction Dietary patterns, particularly the excessive consumption of snacks high in fats and sugars, remain a pivotal factor producing adverse impact on the global prevalence of obesity and chronic diseases. However, the current situation is that there is insufficient study on the nutritional value and health risks of local snacks and desserts of Guizhou Province. To fill this gap, this study aimed to analyze the fatty acid (FA) composition and sugar content of popular snacks and desserts in Guizhou Province. Methods A comprehensive nutritional evaluation was conducted on local snacks and desserts in Guizhou province, with a focus on the FA profile and five sugars (glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose, and lactose). The study examined how cooking methods (steaming, baking, frying) and food classification (traditional vs. non-traditional) influence the nutritional profiles of these foods, which are predominantly made from rice, wheat, and cream. Results Rice-based foods, particularly those steamed using traditional methods, showed superior nutritional profiles. They had significantly lower crude fat (7.35±1.50 g/100g) and total FA (6.10±1.55 g/100g) compared to other methods. Trans fatty acid (TFA) content was minimal (0.0179±0.0137 g/100g), and atherogenic index (AI) and thrombogenic index (TI) were low at 0.19±0.07 and 0.38±0.27, respectively. Rice-based foods also had an acceptable sugar content with no lactose, suitable for lactose-intolerant individuals. Among the rice-based foods, Rice Tofu (RT) had the best performance with the lowest Crude Fat (5.98 g/100g), AI (0.04), TI (0.05), highest monounsaturated FA (MUFA) content (3.11 g/100g), polyunsaturated FA (PUFA) to saturated FA (SFA) ratio (8.48), and n-3PUFA/n-6PUFA ratio (0.25), along with acceptable sugar levels. Conclusion The nutritional value of snacks varies widely due to differences in raw materials, cooking methods, and traditional preparation techniques. Traditional steamed rice products, especially RT, offer the best nutritional profile and can be promoted as representative healthy traditional foods in Guizhou Province.

Wafer-scale fabrication of temperature-compensated alkali vapor cells

We demonstrate wafer-scale fabrication of temperature-compensated alkali vapor cells using a mixture of Ar and N2 buffer gases. The temperature coefficient of the fractional frequency shift of the hyperfine clock resonance is reduced from a typical value of ≈30×10−9/ K for cells containing pure N2 to below ≈3×10−9/ K for the buffer gas mixture. This result is an important step toward the mass production of temperature-compensated atomic vapor cell-based devices such as chip-scale atomic clocks.

The 3D genome of plasma cells in multiple myeloma

Alpinetin protects against iron overload related osteoarthritis via NRF2/HO-1 pathway

Context Alpinetin(APT) is a natural product with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. Iron overload has been recognized in recent years as a new way to exacerbate osteoarthritis. Objective This study evaluated the effects of ATP on iron overload related osteoarthritis. Materials and methods C57BL/6J mice were randomly allocated to five groups as follows (n = 10 mice each): (1) sham; (2) destabilized medial meniscus(DMM); (3) DMM + ID; (4) DMM + ID + APT-L (50 mg/kg APT gavage daily); (5) DMM + ID + APT-H (100 mg/kg APT gavage daily). The chondrocytes treated by FAC (100μM) were used as an in vitro model of iron overload and the effect of APT was observed. Flow cytometry, fluorescence microscopy, Western blot, qRT-PCR and micro-CT were used to detect the mechanism of action of the APT. Result Our studies showed that APT improved the viability of chondrocytes induced by iron overload. APT can reduce apoptosis of chondrocytes (19.41 ± 2.12% vs. 9.82 ± 1.74%). Furthermore, APT was found significantly attenuated ROS accumulation (2.04 ± 0.31 vs. 1.44 ± 0.15-fold) of chondrocytes through upregulating antioxidant genes NRF2 (1.18 ± 0.13 vs. 1.55 ± 0.17-fold) and HO-1 (1.27 ± 0.15 vs. 1.77 ± 0.20-fold). In vivo experiments revealed that APT attenuated cartilage damage (OARSI score 5.75 ± 1.32 vs. 3.75 ± 0.96) and subchondral bone proliferation in iron overload osteoarthritis mice. Conclusions Our results show that APT can attenuate iron overload-induced cartilage damage in vivo and in vitro via the NRF2/HO-1 pathway. We demonstrated for the first time that APT has promising applications in iron overload diseases.

Resonant dynamics governed by interlayer frozen bubbles in h-BN/graphene heterostructures

The graphene–hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) heterostructures represent a pivotal platform for the exploration of dynamic characteristics of nanoelectromechanical systems, unconventional quantum Hall effects, and related phenomena. However, the inevitable formation of interfacial bubbles during the stacking process of these heterostructures significantly compromise device performance. Consequently, it is imperative to attain a more profound comprehension of the electromechanical properties under the conditions of bubble interfaces in the h-BN/graphene system. Beyond conventional quasi-static methodologies (e.g., STEM imaging, AFM-based techniques, blister tests), initiating from the resonant response of nanoelectromechanical systems offers a dynamic approach to probe interfacial interactions. Herein, we have utilized the pickup technique with h-BN to accomplish the stacking of h-BN/graphene heterostructures and the assembly of dual-clamped resonators in a single step. At conditions of 5 K, we analyzed its unique resonant dynamical response, which is attributed to the domination of interlayer frozen bubbles. We discovered that these “frozen bubbles” consistently maintain the coupling effect between the two layers of materials, even when the heterostructure exhibits independent vibrational modes due to significant gate-induced electrostatic pulling. Simultaneously, the thicker layer of h-BN masks the influence of graphene's negative thermal expansion coefficient, dominating the temperature response of the heterostructure's resonance, thus providing a possible means for localized modulation of interfaces. Our work furnishes further insights into comprehending the impact of interlayer bubbles on the electromechanical response within van der Waals heterostructures at cryogenic temperatures.

Survival outcomes in secondary and primary acute lymphoblastic leukemia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Enhancing Circularly Polarized Luminescence of Anthraquinones via J‐Type Supramolecular Polymerization

AbstractCircularly polarized luminescence materials based on cost‐effective point‐chiral luminophores are highly desirable; however, their performance is often hindered by weak exciton–chirality coupling between the luminophore and its adjacent stereocenters. Here, we introduce J‐type supramolecular polymerization as an effective strategy to address this challenge. By attaching amide groups to point‐chiral anthraquinone luminophores, the formation of directional hydrogen bonds facilitates efficient chirality transfer from peripheral stereocenters to anthraquinones, resulting in supramolecular polymers with amplified chiroptical asymmetry. More importantly, the incorporation of acetylene spacers reduces torsional angle of the anthraquinone core compared to the nonacetylene control compound (1.81° versus 33.4°), promoting J‐aggregation and increasing emission intensity. This structural optimization enables the supramolecular polymers to achieve a circularly polarized luminescence brightness of 13.8 M⁻¹cm⁻¹, marking a significant advancement in point‐chiral luminophore systems. Furthermore, the integration of Förster resonance energy transfer into these supramolecular polymers allows for the fabrication of color‐tunable circularly polarized electroluminescent devices. Overall, J‐type supramolecular polymerization represents a promising approach for developing high‐performance chiroptical materials by simultaneously optimizing emission dissymmetry and quantum efficiency.

Viral acute respiratory illnesses in elite athletes: A 12-month controlled follow-up study

Background Viral acute respiratory illnesses (ARIs) are the most common acute illnesses in elite athletes. However, the occurrence, aetiology, and clinical manifestations of viral ARIs in athletes remain unclear. Methods Twenty-four elite cross-country skiers and 22 elite orienteers were followed for 12 months. Thirty-two normally exercising, healthy young adults were recruited as controls. Occurrences of ARI symptoms were collected weekly with a digital questionnaire. Nasal swabs for respiratory viruses were collected at the onset of symptoms and once monthly when asymptomatic. Results A significantly higher incidence density (per person per year) of ARI during the 12-month follow-up period was detected in the skiers compared to the controls (mean (SD) 3.39 (2.13) vs. 2.11 (1.98), respectively, p = 0.037) whereas the differences between the skiers and orienteers (mean (SD) 2.39 (1.07)) and between the orienteers and controls did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.053 and 0.506, respectively). The COVID-19 pandemic prevention measures and lockdown dramatically eliminated the occurrence of ARIs in all study groups. ARI episodes were shorter and milder in the orienteers (not studied in the skiers) compared to the controls (p = 0.001 and p = 0.001). A combination of international flights and participation in a competition was associated with a significant risk of an ARI episode in the skiers (p = 0.048). Rhinoviruses (54.1%) and seasonal coronaviruses (21.6%) were the most common viruses detected in all study groups. Conclusion The incidence of ARIs was higher among the skiers compared to the orienteers and the controls. However, ARI episodes were shorter and milder in the orienteers compared to the controls.

Turbulence-induced particle resonance before detachment from a flat surface

Particle resuspension is a common phenomenon in nature and industries but not fully understood yet. In this work, we report direct experimental evidence for turbulence-induced resonance of wall-adhered particles before detachment. The recorded frequency is one or two orders of magnitude lower than that normally predicted by the Rock n' Roll model. The frequency ratio ϕ, between the natural frequency of particle adhesion and wall turbulence frequency, is found to be the key parameter that determines the occurrence of turbulence-induced resonance. This work may shed light on the resonance-enhanced cleaning of very small particles.

CleanSeqU algorithm for decontamination of catheterized urine 16S rRNA sequencing data

“Stay committed on the frontlines”: sustainability of the activism of social workers in Guiyang, China

Social work has played an increasingly important role in social governance, service provision and driving for social change in China. Despite of the advancement of social work at the macro level in the country, substantial challenges remain to the sustainability of activism of social workers under the current social and economic context in China. Yet the fundamental reasons that underpin social workers’ persistence in activism haven’t been well investigated. By following the sustained commitment theory, the researchers investigated how and why frontline social workers sustain their activism over time. Qualitative research was conducted with 15 frontline social workers from local organizations in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, China. The findings highlight the role of “creativity” in maintaining activism of social workers in a way that both challenge and advance the sustained commitment theory. Instead of being confined to a fixed set of creative actions described by the theory, this study stresses the creativity of social workers in addressing challenges and generating feasible strategies in specific contexts. An essential prerequisite “confidence” for creativity in sustaining activism in social work was introduced. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of sustained activism in social work through the lens of social workers and the enhancement of the professional support for social workers in China.

Steering high-order perfect vector beams in coherent laser arrays for suppressive crosstalk optical links

Coherent beam combining (CBC) has offered an unparalleled approach in achieving high-capacity and high-bandwidth free-space optical (FSO) communication due to its versatile integration functionality and advanced synthetic ability. However, the existing CBC technologies focus primarily on the phase engineering, where crosstalk between different modes is easily involved, thus leading to nontrivial crosstalk in FSO links based on current coherent laser arrays (CLAs). To address this challenge, we propose an encoding method that enables crosstalk reduction via nonorthogonal polarization multiplexing. This is achieved by leveraging concentrically arranged high-order perfect vector beams (PVBs) via well-designed structure of the CLAs. Moreover, the achievable arbitrary high-order PVBs could strongly support the establishment of high-dimensional encoding paradigm. As a conceptual demonstration, we illustrate information transfer case of “NUDT” with zero bit error rate, indicating that the polarization controlled CLA is advantageous in suppressive crosstalk between multi-channels. Compared to phase coupling appearing in coaxial transmitting vortex beams, the observed PVBs display completely independent stable transmitting paths. Therefore, the manipulation of high-order vector beams within the CLA system is hopefully continuously improving the performances of optical links.

Association between estimated glucose disposal rate and the risk of MAFLD in American adults: a cross-sectional study

Overlapping point cloud registration algorithm based on KNN and the channel attention mechanism

With the advancement of sensor technologies such as LiDAR and depth cameras, the significance of three-dimensional point cloud data in autonomous driving and environment sensing continues to increase.Point cloud registration stands as a fundamental task in constructing high-precision environmental models, with particular significance in overlapping regions where the accuracy of feature extraction and matching directly impacts registration quality. Despite advancements in deep learning approaches, existing methods continue to demonstrate limitations in extracting comprehensive features within these overlapping areas. This study introduces an innovative point cloud registration framework that synergistically combines the K-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm with a channel attention mechanism (CAM) to significantly enhance feature extraction and matching capabilities in overlapping regions. Additionally, by designing an effectiveness scoring network, the proposed method improves registration accuracy and enhances system robustness in complex scenarios. Comprehensive evaluations on the ModelNet40 dataset reveal that our approach achieves markedly superior performance metrics, demonstrating significantly lower root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) compared to established methods including iterative closest point (ICP), Robust & Efficient Point Cloud Registration using PointNet (PointNetLK), Go-ICP, fast global registration (FGR), deep closest point (DCP), self-supervised learning for a partial-to-partial registration (PRNet), and Iterative Distance-Aware Similarity Matrix Convolution (IDAM). This performance advantage is consistently maintained across various challenging conditions, including unseen shapes, novel categories, and noisy environments. Furthermore, additional experiments on the Stanford dataset validate the applicability and robustness of the proposed method for high-precision 3D shape registration tasks.

Mitigating carrier loss in photoelectrochemical photocathodes: An approach combining optical computation and experimental validation

Metal oxide semiconductors hold significant promise for overcoming bottlenecks in optoelectronic devices, such as stability and power density limitations. However, their performance has been severely constrained by substantial carrier losses caused by small polaron hopping mechanisms. Understanding and mitigating these losses is critical for advancing the efficiency of optoelectronic technologies. In this work, we integrate an optical transfer matrix model with quantum efficiency measurements to analyze minority carrier dynamics in p-type CuBi2O4 (CBO) photocathodes. This approach reveals significant bulk recombination losses, and improvements were achieved through a textured film approach using rapid thermal annealing. Consequently, the textured CBO photocathodes with oriented grains achieved a notable enhancement in the photoelectrochemical performance, reaching a photocurrent density of 1.96 mA cm−2. Carrier loss analysis within the film indicates that the textured films significantly increase the electrons' collection length to 83 nm and reduce the bulk loss from 80% to 70%. This work provides a quantitative analysis and collection remediations of photocarriers in photoelectronic thin films.

Eco-friendly bioactives from Nyctanthes arbor-tristis (L.) for targeted control of Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus with reduced impact on Toxorhynchites splendens

MSD: Multi-stage deception for data privacy protection

With the exponential growth of electronically transmitted and stored data, ensuring data privacy and security has become a fundamental challenge for organizations and enterprises. Traditional encryption methods have limitations, such as vulnerability to advanced attacks and high computational complexity, that lead to the exploration of complementary strategies like deception techniques for enhanced protection. These methods aim to mislead unauthorized users by presenting protected data as if it were authentic, but the attack resilience is still insufficient. Multi-stage deception (MSD) methods leverage multiple deception strategies, such as complement, swapping, and stack reversal, to improve data protection levels and resistance against decryption attempts. Combining these techniques addresses gaps in single-stage approaches and offers a more robust defense. The proposed MSD method incorporates a classification of encryption and deception techniques and introduces a novel evaluation approach targeting critical performance factors. A tailored pseudocode algorithm is designed to optimize deception for various attribute types, validated through simulations. Simulation results reveal that the MSD method achieves a 100% value change in the first stage and 92% in the second stage, with an overall accuracy exceeding 95%. These findings demonstrate the method’s effectiveness in elevating data protection levels while maintaining low computational complexity. The study highlights the potential of multi-stage deception as a powerful tool for safeguarding sensitive information, achieving superior performance in data security. By offering a scalable and adaptable framework, the MSD method addresses emerging challenges in data protection while setting the stage for further advancements.

Joint first principles and experimental investigation on the improved performance of the Ta2O5 interface layer for an MoS2/WS2 channel

Transition metal dichalcogenides are attractive channel materials for an aggressive dimension scaling of double-gated field-effect transistors. Some challenges, however, remain nowadays, including finding a suitable top high-κ dielectric and a way to deposit it. Recently, an amorphous Ta2O5 interface layer grown on top of MoS2 has been shown to improve the device's electrical performance compared to a deposited amorphous Al2O3 film. In this work, we investigate the origin of such an improvement, combining experimental and first-principles approaches. The former suggests a comparable n-type doping of the 2D material for the Al2O3 and Ta2O5 interface layer based on x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Within the first-principles approach, we construct several amorphous Ta2O5 atomistic models and their interfaces with a MoS2 or WS2 monolayer. We demonstrate that a clean interface can in principle be achieved between the 2D material and Ta2O5 with a proper surface passivation, with a defect-free electronic bandgap a potential fluctuation within the 2D material under control. Little differences are found between MoS2 and WS2 in the corresponding interface at the theoretical level. The electronic properties are found to strongly depend on the coordination of the metal atoms at the oxide surface. Combining these analyses, we conclude that a higher interface quality for the Ta2O5 layer with MoS2 than for the Al2O3 one is a plausible explanation for the improved performances.