Ultrasensitive Near-Infrared Polarization Photodetectors with Violet Phosphorus/InSe van der Waals Heterostructures.

Near-infrared (NIR) polarization photodetectors with two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors and their van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures have presented great impact for the development of a wide range of technologies, such as in the optoelectronics and communication fields. Nevertheless, the lack of a photogenerated charge carrier at the device's interface leads to a poor charge carrier collection efficiency and a low linear dichroism ratio, hindering the achievement of high-performance optoelectronic devices with multifunctionalities. Herein, we present a type-II violet phosphorus (VP)/InSe vdW heterostructure that is predicted via density functional theory calculation and confirmed by Kelvin probe force microscopy. Benefiting from the type-II band alignment, the VP/InSe vdW heterostructure-based photodetector achieves excellent photodetection performance such as a responsivity (R) of 182.8 A/W, a detectivity (D*) of 7.86 × 1012 Jones, and an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 11,939% under a 1064 nm photon excitation. Furthermore, the photodetection performance can be enhanced by manipulating the device geometry by inserting a few layers of graphene between the VP and InSe (VP/Gr/InSe). Remarkably, the VP/Gr/InSe vdW heterostructure shows a competitive polarization sensitivity of 2.59 at 1064 nm and can be integrated as an image sensor. This work demonstrates that VP/InSe and VP/Gr/InSe vdW heterostructures will be effective for promising integrated NIR optoelectronics.

A couple-based dyadic coping intervention for colorectal cancer patient-spousal caregiver dyads: A randomized controlled study.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the clinical effects of a couple-focused dyadic coping intervention in colorectal cancer (CRC) couples. METHODS: The study was a single-blinded randomized controlled study which 226 CRC couples were recruited and randomized to either the intervention (N = 113) or the control (N = 113) group. All couples received usual care while the six-week dyadic coping intervention was provided to the intervened couples in psycho-education and skill training methods through face-to-face combined with telephone formats. Measurement data, including dyadic coping, marital satisfaction, quality of life and psychological well-being were collected at pre- and post-intervention periods. And multilevel model (MLM) was applied to analyze the effects of the intervention and the role tendency. RESULTS: A total of 173 couples completed the program and post-intervention evaluation. The retention rate was 76.5%. Results from MLM showed that the dyadic coping intervention is effective in promoting levels of dyadic coping (P < 0.001), marital satisfaction (P = 0.042), mental health (P = 0.006), and positive psychological well-being (P < 0.001), and alleviating depression (P = 0.015) in CRC couples. For role tendency, the intervention found to be more effective in CRC spousal caregivers' positive psychological well-being compared to the patients (P = 0.037). CONCLUSION: The couple-based dyadic coping intervention is effective in promoting dyadic coping and improving psychological adjustment in CRC couples. More studies were needed to further evaluate the program and its long-term efficacy in the future. In addition, given the positive effects of the intervention, clinical nursing stuffs may consider implementing such intervention in their routine work while caring for CRC couples.

A Systematic Review of Cognitive Impairment in Individuals With Colorectal Cancer.

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION: Patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) encounter varying degrees of objective and subjective cognitive impairment. The prevalence of objective and subjective cognitive impairment, factors affecting cognitive impairment, and interventions are presented in this review. LITERATURE SEARCH: The CINAHL Plus®, Cochrane Library, Embase®, PsycINFO®, PubMed®, and CNKI databases were systematically searched from the time of the database's establishment to May 2023. Manual searches for the relevant articles in the literature's references were also conducted. DATA EVALUATION: The results were independently assessed by two reviewers. SYNTHESIS: 25 studies were included. The prevalence of cognitive impairment in individuals with CRC was measured differently according to study designs. A model of factors contributing to cognitive impairment guided the integration of factors, including cancer treatments, psychosocial factors, and physical and emotional health conditions. Incorporated intervention programs could be integrated between objective and subjective aspects. Interventions relieved cognitive impairment in individuals with CRC. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING: The results of this review supported enhanced assessment and monitoring of cognitive impairment, particularly subjective cognitive impairment.

Unsupervised machine learning for flaw detection in automated ultrasonic testing of carbon fibre reinforced plastic composites.

The use of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) composite materials for critical components has significantly surged within the energy and aerospace industry. With this rapid increase in deployment, reliable post-manufacturing Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) is critical for verifying the mechanical integrity of manufactured components. To this end, an automated Ultrasonic Testing (UT) NDE process delivered by an industrial manipulator was developed, greatly increasing the measurement speed, repeatability, and locational precision, while increasing the throughput of data generated by the selected NDE modality. Data interpretation of UT signals presents a current bottleneck, as it is still predominantly performed manually in industrial settings. To reduce the interpretation time and minimise human error, this paper presents a two-stage automated NDE evaluation pipeline consisting of a) an intelligent gating process and b) an autoencoder (AE) defect detector. Both stages are based on an unsupervised method, leveraging density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise clustering method for robust automated gating and undefective UT data for the training of the AE architecture. The AE network trained on ultrasonic B-scan data was tested for performance on a set of reference CFRP samples with embedded and manufactured defects. The developed model is rapid during inference, processing over 2000 ultrasonic B-scans in 1.26 s with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.922 in simple and 0.879 in complex geometry samples. The benefits and shortcomings of the presented methods are discussed, and uncertainties associated with the reported results are evaluated.

Stratum affects the distribution of soil selenium bioavailability by modulating the soil physicochemical properties: A case study in a Se-enriched area, China.

The soil selenium (Se) content and bioavailability are important for human health. In this regard, knowing the factors driving the concentration of total Se and bioavailable Se in soils is essential to map Se, enhance foodstuffs' Se content, and improve the Se nutritional status of humans. In this study, total Se and Se bioavailability (i.e., phosphate extracted Se) in surface soils (0-20 cm) developed on different strata were analyzed in a Se-enriched region of Southwest China. Furthermore, the interaction between the stratum and soil properties was assessed and how did the stratum effect on the concentration and spatial distribution of Se bioavailability in soils was investigated. Results showed that the median concentration of total Se in soils was 0.308 mg/kg, which is higher than China's soil background. The mean proportion of phosphate extracted Se in total Se was 12.2 %. The values of total Se, phosphate extracted Se, and soil organic matter (SOM) in soils increased with the increasing stratum age. In contrast, the coefficient of weathering and eluviation (BA) values decreased. The analysis of statistics and Geodetector revealed that the SOM, stratum, and BA were the dominant controlling factors for the contents and distributions of soil total Se and phosphate extracted Se. This study provided strong evidence that the soil properties that affected the total Se and Se bioavailability were modulated by the local geological background, and had important practical implications for addressing Se malnutrition and developing the Se-rich resource in the study region and similar geological settings in different parts of the globe.

Advances in the Pathogenesis of Metabolic Liver Disease-Related Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most common cancer globally and the primary cause of death in cancer cases, with significant public health concern worldwide. Despite the overall decline in the incidence and mortality rates of HCC in recent years in recent years, the emergence of metabolic liver disease-related HCC is causing heightened concern, especially in countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and P.R. China. The escalation of metabolic liver disease-related HCC is attributed to a combination of factors, including genetic predisposition, lifestyle choices, and changes in the living environment. However, the pathogenesis of metabolic liver disease-associated HCC remains imperfect. In this review, we encapsulate the latest advances and essential aspects of the pathogenesis of metabolic liver disease-associated HCC, including alcoholic liver disease (ALD), metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), and inherited metabolic liver diseases.

Unraveling Intracellular Protein Corona Components of Nanoplastics via Photocatalytic Protein Proximity Labeling.

Bioaccumulation of nanoplastic particles has drawn increasing attention regarding environmental sustainability and biosafety. How nanoplastic particles interact with the cellular milieu still remains elusive. Herein, we exemplify a general approach to profile the composition of a "protein corona" interacting with nanoparticles via the photocatalytic protein proximity labeling method. To enable photocatalytic proximity labeling of the proteome interacting with particles, iodine-substituted BODIPY (I-BODIPY) is selected as the photosensitizer and covalently conjugated onto amino-polystyrene nanoparticles as a model system. Next, selective proximity labeling of interacting proteins is demonstrated using I-BODIPY-labeled nanoplastic particles in both Escherichia coli lysate and live alpha mouse liver 12 cells. Mechanistic studies reveal that the covalent modifications of proteins by an aminoalkyne substrate are conducted via a reactive oxygen species photosensitization pathway. Further proteomic analysis uncovers that mitochondria-related proteins are intensively involved in the protein corona, indicating substantial interactions between nanoplastic particles and mitochondria. In addition, proteostasis network components are also identified, accompanied by consequent cellular proteome aggregation confirmed by fluorescence imaging. Together, this work exemplifies a general strategy to interrogate the composition of the protein corona of nanomaterials by endowing them with photooxidation properties to enable photocatalytic protein proximity labeling function.

The effect of a couple-based posttraumatic growth intervention in supporting couples coping with colorectal cancer: A randomized controlled study.

OBJECTIVES: To promote posttraumatic growth (PTG) in colorectal cancer (CRC) couples, a couple-based PTG intervention was conducted, and the intervention had previously proved be feasible in CRC couples. The current study was conducted to validate the effects of intervention in CRC couples. METHOD: This is a randomized controlled study that included 174 CRC couples. All participants were randomized to either the intervention (usual care plus 5-week PTG intervention, n = 87) or the control group (usual care, n = 87). Data were collected from CRC couple dyads at baseline and immediately post-intervention periods. Primary outcome refers to positive changes, and secondary outcomes include marital satisfaction, quality of life (QOL), and anxiety and depression. Multilevel modeling was applied to analyze the intervention effects. RESULTS: Participants in the program showed increased PTG, marital satisfaction, and QOL both physically and mentally, and decreased levels of anxiety and depression over time. And spousal caregivers showed greater improvement in marital satisfaction and physical QOL compared with patients. In addition, significant intervention effects were shown in the participants' benefit finding, physical health and depressive symptoms. CONCLUSION: The study confirmed the effect of the PTG intervention on CRC couples' benefit finding, physical health and depressive symptoms. However, this study only measured outcome variables at two time-points. Future studies should add follow-up assessments to evaluate long-term effects of the intervention in CRC couples. REGISTRATION NUMBER: ChiCTR2300067809.

Porphyrin-based covalent organic frameworks as doxorubicin delivery system for chemo-photodynamic synergistic therapy of tumors.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a non-invasive treatment method that has garnered significant attention in recent years. Nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems can achieve targeted drug release, thereby significantly reducing side effects and enhancing therapeutic efficacy. In this study, a covalent organic framework (COF) with an approximately spherical structure connected by azo bonds was synthesized. The synthesized COF was utilized as a hypoxia-responsive carrier for doxorubicin (DOX) drug delivery and was modified with hyaluronic acid (HA). DOX@COF@HA exhibited a reactive release under hypoxic conditions. Under normal oxygen conditions, the release of DOX was 16.9 %, increasing to 60.2 % with the addition of sodium hydrosulfite. In vitro experiments revealed that the group combining photodynamic therapy with chemotherapy exhibited the lowest survival rates for 4T1 and MHCC97-L cells. In vivo experiments further validated the effectiveness of combination therapy, resulting in a tumor volume of only 33 mm3 after treatment, with no significant change in mouse weight during the treatment period. DOX@COF@HA nanoplatforms exhibit substantial potential in tumor treatment.

Harnessing the Synergetic Effects of Ag, Mn Dopants in Eco-Friendly Ultraviolet Selective Quantum Dots for Luminescent Solar Concentrators.

Quantum dots (QDs) are promising building blocks for luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs), yet most QD-based LSCs suffer from toxic metal composition and color tinting. UV-selective harvesting QDs can enable visible transparency, but their development is restricted by large reabsorption losses and low photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY). The developed here Ag, Mn: ZnInS2/ZnS QDs show a high PLQY of 53% due to the passivating effect of ZnS shell. These QDs selectively absorb UV light and emit orange-red light with a large Stokes shift of 180 nm. A LSC of 5 × 5 × 0.2 cm3, fabricated using a poly(lauryl methacrylate) (PLMA) as a matrix, maintains 87% of integrated PL after 7 h of UV exposure. The QD-PLMA achieved 90.7% average visible transparency (AVT) and a color rendering index (CRI) of 95.8, which is close to plain PLMA (AVT = 90.8%; CRI = 99.5), yielding excellent visible light transparency. Incorporating Si-PVs at LSC edges, the Ag, Mn: ZIS/ZnS QD-LSC achieved an optical efficiency of 1.42%, ranking competitively among high-performing UV-harvesting LSCs.

Structures and activation mechanism of the Gabija anti-phage system.

Prokaryotes have evolved intricate innate immune systems against phage infection1-7. Gabija is a highly widespread prokaryotic defence system that consists of two components, GajA and GajB8. GajA functions as a DNA endonuclease that is inactive in the presence of ATP9. Here, to explore how the Gabija system is activated for anti-phage defence, we report its cryo-electron microscopy structures in five states, including apo GajA, GajA in complex with DNA, GajA bound by ATP, apo GajA-GajB, and GajA-GajB in complex with ATP and Mg2+. GajA is a rhombus-shaped tetramer with its ATPase domain clustered at the centre and the topoisomerase-primase (Toprim) domain located peripherally. ATP binding at the ATPase domain stabilizes the insertion region within the ATPase domain, keeping the Toprim domain in a closed state. Upon ATP depletion by phages, the Toprim domain opens to bind and cleave the DNA substrate. GajB, which docks on GajA, is activated by the cleaved DNA, ultimately leading to prokaryotic cell death. Our study presents a mechanistic landscape of Gabija activation.

Synthesis of Fluorine-Containing Multisubstituted Oxa-Spiro[4,5]cyclohexadienones via a Fluorinated Alcohol-Catalyzed One-Pot Sequential Cascade Strategy.

In recent years, the application of fluorinated alcohols as solvents, cosolvents, or additives has become important in modern organic synthesis. However, their potential as efficient catalysts in organic synthesis has not been well-explored. In this article, we report on the development of a one-pot sequential cascade reaction of p-quinone methides with difluoroenoxysilanes using hexafluoroisopropanol as catalyst. This reaction allows for the preparation of fluorinated multisubstituted oxa-spiro[4,5]cyclohexadienones. By using 50 mol % 1,1,1,3,3,3-Hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP), the reaction proceeds smoothly to yield 1,6-conjugated products, which are then subjected to oxidative dearomatization/hemiacetalization using PhI(OAc)2. The overall process affords moderate to high yields and excellent diastereoselectivities.

Single-Component Photochemical Afterglow Near-Infrared Luminescent Nano-Photosensitizers: Bioimaging and Photodynamic Therapy.

Long afterglow luminescence-guided photodynamic therapy (PDT) performs advantages of noninvasiveness, spatiotemporal controllability, and higher signal to noise ratio. Photochemical afterglow (PCA) system emitting afterglow in an aqueous environment is highly suitable for biomedical applications, but still faces the challenges of poor tissue penetration depth and responsive sensitivity. In this work, two novel compounds, Iso-TPA and ABEI-TPA, are designed and synthesized to integrate the PCA system as a single component by coupling near-infrared (NIR) photosensitizers with singlet oxygen cache units, respectively. Both compounds emit NIR afterglow based on photochemical reaction. ABEI-TPA exhibits higher photoluminescence quantum efficiency with nonconjugated linkage, while Iso-TPA with conjugated linkage possesses better reactive oxygen species generation efficiency to achieve stronger PCA and effective PDT, which is ascribed to stronger intramolecular charge transfer effect of Iso-TPA. Iso-TPA nanoparticles can achieve effective long-lasting NIR afterglow in vivo bioimaging up to 120 s with higher imaging resolution and outstanding PDT efficacy of tumor, exhibiting promising potential on bioimaging and therapy.

Synthesis of gem-Difluoro-3,4-dihydro-2H-pyrans via a TfOH-Catalyzed [4 + 2] Annulation of Difluoroenoxysilanes with α-Cyano Chalcones.

Difluoroenoxysilane, a commonly used difluoroallylating reagent, has attracted considerable attention in recent years. However, its application in the annulation reaction for the construction of fluorinated heterocyclic compounds remains relatively limited. Presented here is the Brønsted acid-catalyzed efficient formal [4 + 2] annulation of difluoroenoxysilanes with α-cyano chalcones. The developed protocol demonstrates tolerance to various substituents under mild reaction conditions, providing a reliable approach to construct gem-difluoro-3,4-dihydro-2H-pyrans in good to excellent yields with high diastereoselectivities.

Quantum plasmonics pushes chiral sensing limit to single molecules: a paradigm for chiral biodetections.

Chiral sensing of single molecules is vital for the understanding of chirality and their applications in biomedicine. However, current technologies face severe limitations in achieving single-molecule sensitivity. Here we overcome these limitations by designing a tunable chiral supramolecular plasmonic system made of helical oligoamide sequences (OS) and nanoparticle-on-mirror (NPoM) resonator, which works across the classical and quantum regimes. Our design enhances the chiral sensitivity in the quantum tunnelling regime despite of the reduced local E-field, which is due to the strong Coulomb interactions between the chiral OSs and the achiral NPoMs and the additional enhancement from tunnelling electrons. A minimum of four molecules per single-Au particle can be detected, which allows for the detection of an enantiomeric excess within a monolayer, manifesting great potential for the chiral sensing of single molecules.

Artificial Intelligence in battling infectious diseases: A transformative role.

It is widely acknowledged that infectious diseases have wrought immense havoc on human society, being regarded as adversaries from which humanity cannot elude. In recent years, the advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has ushered in a revolutionary era in the realm of infectious disease prevention and control. This evolution encompasses early warning of outbreaks, contact tracing, infection diagnosis, drug discovery, and the facilitation of drug design, alongside other facets of epidemic management. This article presents an overview of the utilization of AI systems in the field of infectious diseases, with a specific focus on their role during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article also highlights the contemporary challenges that AI confronts within this domain and posits strategies for their mitigation. There exists an imperative to further harness the potential applications of AI across multiple domains to augment its capacity in effectively addressing future disease outbreaks.

Rational Control of Near-Infrared Colloidal Thick-Shell Eco-Friendly Quantum Dots for Solar Energy Conversion.

Thick-shell colloidal quantum dots (QDs) are promising building blocks for solar technologies due to their size/composition/shape-tunable properties. However, most well-performed thick-shell QDs suffer from frequent use of toxic metal elements including Pb and Cd, and inadequate light absorption in the visible and near-infrared (NIR) region due to the wide bandgap of the shell. In this work, eco-friendly AgInSe2 /AgInS2 core/shell QDs, which are optically active in the NIR region and are suitable candidates to fabricate devices for solar energy conversion, are developed. Direct synthesis suffers from simultaneously controlling the reactivity of multiple precursors, instead, a template-assisted cation exchange method is used. By modulating the monolayer growth of template QDs, gradient AgInSeS shell layers are incorporated into AgInSe2 /AgInS2 QDs. The resulting AgInSe2 /AgInSeS/AgInS2 exhibits better charge transfer than AgInSe2 /AgInS2 due to their favorable electronic band alignment, as predicted by first-principle calculations and confirmed by transient fluorescence spectroscopy. The photoelectrochemical cells fabricated with AgInSe2 /AgInSeS/AgInS2 QDs present ≈1.5-fold higher current density and better stability compared to AgInSe2 /AgInS2 . The findings define a promising approach toward multinary QDs and pave the way for engineering the QDs' electronic band structures for solar-energy conversion.

A lightweight multi-modality medical image semantic segmentation network base on the novel UNeXt and Wave-MLP.

Medical images sometimes contain diseased regions that are different sizes and. shapes, which makes it difficult to accurately segment these areas or their edges. However, directly coupling CNN and MLP to construct global and local dependency. models may also cause significant computational complexity issues. In this paper, a. unique, lightweight UNeXt network segmentation model for medical images based on. dynamic aggregation tokens was proposed. Firstly, the Wave Block module in Wave-MLP was introduced to replace the Tok-MLP module in UNeXt. The phase term in Wave Block can dynamically aggregate tokens, improving the segmentation accuracy of the model. Secondly, an AG attention gate module is added at the skip connection to suppress irrelevant feature representations in the sampling path of the encoding. network, thereby reducing computational costs and paying attention to noise and artifacts. Finally, the Focal Tversky Loss was added to handle both binary and multiple classification jobs. Quantitative and qualitative experiments were conducted on two public datasets: COVID-19 CT and BraTS 2018 MRI. The Dice score, Precision score, recall score, and Iou score of the proposed model on the COVID-19 dataset were 0.928, 0.867, 0.916, and 0.940, respectively. On BraTS 2018, the Dice scores of the ET, WT, and TC categories were 0.933, 0.925, and 0.918, respectively, and the HD scores were 1.595, 2.348, and 1.549, respectively. At the same time, the model is lightweight and has a considerably decreased training time with GFLOPs and Params of 0.52 and 0.76, respectively. The proposed lightweight model is superior to other existing methods in terms of segmentation accuracy and computing complexity according to experimental data.

A scoping literature review of factors influencing cancer patients' self-perceived burden.

PURPOSE: A cancer diagnosis disrupts the peaceful lives and plans of patients and even their caregivers, and patients can easily feel burdened when they are being cared for by others. However, the influencing factors of self-perceived burden (SPB) have not been summarized, and related research is still in its infancy. This review explores factors related to the SPB of cancer patients and identifies future research directions. METHOD: A systematic search, including trolling through six electronic databases, was conducted to identity articles published in English and Chinese from January 2003 to April 2022, using key terms related to cancer patients' burden on others; a manual search was also performed on the articles' reference lists. RESULTS: Thirty-three articles were identified. The content was described into three groups: patient-related factors, caregiver-related factors, and family-related (financial) factors. Despite the heterogeneity, patients' physical/disease factors, psychological factors, social factors, caregiver type, quality of care provided, caregiver physical and psychological status, and financial factors were all correlated with SPB. CONCLUSIONS: This literature review shows that SPB imposes a huge burden on cancer patients, and that SPB in cancer patients is influenced by patient-related factors, caregiver-related factors, and family factors. These influencing factors directly or indirectly affect SPB. In addition, SPB is complex and studies related to its factors deserve a further detailed analysis based on the actual situation of the patients in order to make the results more accurate and relevant.