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Exploring new near-room-temperature thermoelectric materials is significant for replacing current high-cost Bi 2 Te 3 . This study highlights the potential of Ag 2 Se for wearable thermoelectric electronics, addressing the trade-off between performance and flexibility. A record-high ZT of 1.27 at 363 K is achieved in Ag 2 Se-based thin films with 3.2 at.% Te doping on Se sites, realized by a new concept of doping-induced orientation engineering. We reveal that Te-doping enhances film uniformity and (00 l )-orientation and in turn carrier mobility by reducing the (00 l ) formation energy, confirmed by solid computational and experimental evidence. The doping simultaneously widens the bandgap, resulting in improved Seebeck coefficients and high power factors, and introduces Te Se point defects to effectively reduce the lattice thermal conductivity. A protective organic-polymer-based composite layer enhances film flexibility, and a rationally designed flexible thermoelectric device achieves an output power density of 1.5 mW cm −2 for wearable power generation under a 20 K temperature difference. Flexible Ag 2 Se possesses promising near-room-temperature thermoelectric performance, while trade-off in thermoelectric performance and flexibility enhances its practical utility. Here, the authors fabricate polycrystalline Ag 2 Se-based thin film with a high ZT of 1.27 at 363 K by Te doping.

Graphene, the thinnest, strongest, and stiffest material with exceptional thermal conductivity and electron mobility, has increasingly received world‐wide attention in the past few years. These unique properties may lead to novel or improved technologies to address the pressing global challenges in many applications including transparent conducting electrodes, field effect transistors, flexible touch screen, single‐molecule gas detection, desalination, DNA sequencing, osmotic energy production, etc. To realize these applications, it is necessary to transfer graphene films from growth substrate to target substrate with large‐area, clean, and low defect surface, which are crucial to the performances of large‐area graphene devices. This critical review assesses the recent development in transferring large‐area graphene grown on Fe, Ru, Co, Ir, Ni, Pt, Au, Cu, and some nonmetal substrates by using various synthesized methods. Among them, the transfers of the most attention kinds of graphene synthesized on Cu and SiC substrates are discussed emphatically. The advances and the main challenges of each wet and dry transfer method for obtaining the transferred graphene film with large‐area, clean, and low defect surface are also reviewed. Finally, the article concludes the most promising methods and the further prospects of graphene transfer. Graphene has increasingly received world‐wide attention in the past few years. It is necessary to transfer graphene films from growth substrate to target substrate when fabricating graphene‐based devices. This critical review assesses the recent development in transferring large‐area graphene and concludes the most promising methods and the further prospects of graphene transfer.

Tin selenide (SnSe) is one of the most promising candidates to realize environmentally friendly, cost‐effective, and high‐performance thermoelectrics, derived from its outstanding electrical transport properties by appropriate bandgaps and intrinsic low lattice thermal conductivity from its anharmonic layered structure. Advanced aqueous synthesis possesses various unique advantages including convenient morphology control, exceptional high doping solubility, and distinctive vacancy engineering. Considering that there is an urgent demand for a comprehensive survey on the aqueous synthesis technique applied to thermoelectric SnSe, herein, a thorough overview of aqueous synthesis, characterization, and thermoelectric performance in SnSe is provided. New insights into the aqueous synthesis‐based strategies for improving the performance are provided, including vacancy synergy, crystallization design, solubility breakthrough, and local lattice imperfection engineering, and an attempt to build the inherent links between the aqueous synthesis‐induced structural characteristics and the excellent thermoelectric performance is presented. Furthermore, the significant advantages and potentials of an aqueous synthesis route for fabricating SnSe‐based 2D thermoelectric generators, including nanorods, nanobelts, and nanosheets, are also discussed. Finally, the controversy, strategy, and outlook toward future enhancement of SnSe‐based thermoelectric materials are also provided. This Review guides the design of thermoelectric SnSe with high performance and provides new perspectives as a reference for other thermoelectric systems. Herein, aqueous‐solution‐based synthesis, characterizations, and thermoelectric performance in SnSe thermoelectrics are thoroughly reviewed by providing new insights including vacancy synergy, crystallization design, doping limit breakthrough, local lattice imperfection engineering, and a promising flexible thermoelectric generator based on appropriate synthesis design.

Background Activated sludge (AS) of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is one of the world’s largest artificial microbial ecosystems and the microbial community of the AS system is closely related to WWTPs' performance. However, how to predict its community structure is still unclear. Results Here, we used artificial neural networks (ANN) to predict the microbial compositions of AS systems collected from WWTPs located worldwide. The predictive accuracy R 2 1:1 of the Shannon–Wiener index reached 60.42%, and the average R 2 1:1 of amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) appearing in at least 10% of samples and core taxa were 35.09% and 42.99%, respectively. We also found that the predictability of ASVs was significantly positively correlated with their relative abundance and occurrence frequency, but significantly negatively correlated with potential migration rate. The typical functional groups such as nitrifiers, denitrifiers, polyphosphate-accumulating organisms (PAOs), glycogen-accumulating organisms (GAOs), and filamentous organisms in AS systems could also be well recovered using ANN models, with R 2 1:1 ranging from 32.62% to 56.81%. Furthermore, we found that whether industry wastewater source contained in inflow (IndConInf) had good predictive abilities, although its correlation with ASVs in the Mantel test analysis was weak, which suggested important factors that cannot be identified using traditional methods may be highlighted by the ANN model. Conclusions We demonstrated that the microbial compositions and major functional groups of AS systems are predictable using our approach, and IndConInf has a significant impact on the prediction. Our results provide a better understanding of the factors affecting AS communities through the prediction of the microbial community of AS systems, which could lead to insights for improved operating parameters and control of community structure. 2jzZ-nU4sRefzvXQz6KqH6 Video Abstract

A bstract We study the holographic complexity of noncommutative field theories. The four-dimensional N = 4 noncommutative super Yang-Mills theory with Moyal algebra along two of the spatial directions has a well known holographic dual as a type IIB supergravity theory with a stack of D3 branes and non-trivial NS-NS B fields. We start from this example and find that the late time holographic complexity growth rate, based on the “complexity equals action” conjecture, experiences an enhancement when the non-commutativity is turned on. This enhancement saturates a new limit which is exactly 1/4 larger than the commutative value. We then attempt to give a quantum mechanics explanation of the enhancement. Finite time behavior of the complexity growth rate is also studied. Inspired by the non-trivial result, we move on to more general setup in string theory where we have a stack of D p branes and also turn on the B field. Multiple noncommutative directions are considered in higher p cases.

Keeping mammalian gastrointestinal (GI) tract communities in balance is crucial for host health maintenance. However, our understanding of microbial communities in the GI tract is still very limited. In this study, samples taken from the GI tracts of C57BL/6 mice were subjected to 16S rRNA gene sequence-based analysis to examine the characteristic bacterial communities along the mouse GI tract, including those present in the stomach, duodenum, jejunum, ileum, cecum, colon and feces. Further analyses of the 283,234 valid sequences obtained from pyrosequencing revealed that the gastric, duodenal, large intestinal and fecal samples had higher phylogenetic diversity than the jejunum and ileum samples did. The microbial communities found in the small intestine and stomach were different from those seen in the large intestine and fecal samples. A greater proportion of Lactobacillaceae were found in the stomach and small intestine, while a larger proportion of anaerobes such as Bacteroidaceae, Prevotellaceae, Rikenellaceae, Lachnospiraceae, and Ruminococcaceae were found in the large intestine and feces. In addition, inter-mouse variations of microbiota were observed between the large intestinal and fecal samples, which were much smaller than those between the gastric and small intestinal samples. As far as we can ascertain, ours is the first study to systematically characterize bacterial communities from the GI tracts of C57BL/6 mice.

Objective. We sought to evaluate the association between femoral neck (FN) and lumbar spine (LS) bone mineral densities (BMDs) with severity of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and prevalence of osteopenia or osteoporosis (OP) among the CKD group. Methods. Cross-sectional data from 11050 participants aged ≥20 years from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were analyzed. Specifically, Pearson correlation was applied to analyze the relationship between BMD and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). General linear models (GLMs) were adjusted for potential confounders and used to analyze mean BMD, based on CKD and CKD stages. Results. FN BMD was positively correlated with the eGFR in the total and male CKD, but not in the female CKD population. LS BMD was not significantly associated with eGFR. After controlling for partial correlations, FN T-score was positively correlated with the eGFR in the total at-risk population. According to FN BMD, OP prevalence was positively associated with CKD stage. However, according to LS BMD, there was no significant association between OP and CKD stage. Conclusion. Our results may explain the higher prevalence of hip fracture, relative to that of the spine, among CKD patients and generate meaningful insights to guide care, prevention, and treatment regimens for CKD patients. However, the fact that this was a cross-sectional study may limit the possibility of drawing concrete conclusions. Nevertheless, these findings open up a new frontier for further studies to uncover the higher decrease of FN BMD compared to LS BMD among CKD cases.

Microbes spontaneously release membrane vesicles (MVs), which play roles in nutrient acquisition and microbial interactions. Iron is indispensable for microbes, but is a difficult nutrient to acquire. However, whether MVs are also responsible for efficient iron uptake and therefore involved in microbial interaction remains to be elucidated. Here, we used a Gram-positive strain, Dietzia sp. DQ12-45-1b, to analyze the function of its MVs in heme-iron recycling and sharing between species. We determined the structure and constituent of MVs and showed that DQ12-45-1b releases MVs originating from the mycomembrane. When comparing proteomes of MVs between iron-limiting and iron-rich conditions, we found that under iron-limiting conditions, heme-binding proteins are enriched. Next, we proved that MVs participate in extracellular heme capture and transport, especially in heme recycling from environmental hemoproteins. Finally, we found that the heme carried in MVs is utilized by multiple species, and we further verified that membrane fusion efficiency and species evolutionary distance determine heme delivery. Together, our findings strongly suggest that MVs act as a newly identified pathway for heme recycling, and represent a public good shared between phylogenetically closely related species.

A bstract We obtain the complete and independent bases of effective operators at mass dimension 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 in both standard model effective field theory with light sterile right-handed neutrinos ( ν SMEFT) and low energy effective field theory with light sterile neutrinos ( ν LEFT). These theories provide systematical parametrizations on all possible Lorentz-invariant physical effects involving in the Majorana/Dirac neutrinos, with/without the lepton number violations. In the ν SMEFT, we find that there are 2 (18), 29 (1614), 80 (4206), 323 (20400), 1358 (243944) independent operators with sterile neutrinos included at the dimension 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 for one (three) generation of fermions, while 24, 5223, 3966, 25425, 789426 independent operators in the ν LEFT for two generations of up-type quarks and three generations of all other fermions.

Succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) also known as complex II or succinate:quinone oxidoreductase is an enzyme involved in both oxidative phosphorylation and tricarboxylic acid cycle; the processes that generate energy. SDH is a multi-subunit enzyme which requires a series of proteins for its proper assembly at several steps. This enzyme has medical significance as there is a broad range of human diseases from cancers to neurodegeneration related to SDH malfunction. Some of these disorders have recently been linked to defective assembly factors, reinvigorating further research in this area. Apart from that this enzyme has agricultural importance as many fungicides have been/will be designed targeting specifically this enzyme in plant fungal pathogens. In addition, we speculate it might be possible to design novel fungicides specifically targeting fungal assembly factors. Considering the medical and agricultural implications of SDH, the aim of this review is an overview of the SDH assembly factors and critical analysis of controversial issues around them.