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This study investigates the interplay between environmental evolution and organic matter (OM) accumulation during the Late Devonian, with a focus on the Frasnian-Famennian (F-F) transition in the Lengshuijiang section, South China. By analyzing geochemical proxies such as Total Organic Carbon (TOC), Phosphorus/Aluminum (P/Al) ratios, Chemical Index of Alteration (CIA), and Co/Ni ratios, we aim to elucidate the factors that controlled OM enrichment during this period. Our findings suggest that the processes driving OM accumulation, including primary productivity and preservation mechanisms, were closely linked to significant environmental changes. The data reveal that periods of high TOC coincided with anoxic or euxinic conditions, driven by global sea-level changes and oceanic stagnation, contributing to increased environmental stress and the F-F mass extinction. Additionally, fluctuations in CIA values indicate alternating warm and humid to cooler, more arid climatic phases, which likely exacerbated environmental stress and disrupted marine ecosystems. This research highlights the interconnectedness of climate, ocean chemistry, and biological evolution during periods of significant environmental upheaval, offering valuable insights into the processes that drove one of Earth's most profound biotic crises.

Crop yield has always been an important problem in solving the demand of the global population increase and food supply. In addition to increasing planting density, improving crop photosynthetic efficiency is the most effective measurement to increase crop yield. Maize is the world’s largest crop with a typically high photosynthetic efficiency, however, how to further increase its photosynthetic efficiency is still largely unknown, especially since its photosynthetic efficiency change during the process of modern maize breeding has not yet been reported. In this study, several typical important photosynthetic efficiency indexes, including chlorophyll content, maximum photochemical efficiency () and actual photochemical efficiency (ΦPSII), were compared between representative inbred lines of different ages. The results showed that the chlorophyll content, Fv/Fm and ΦPSII were significantly increased with age during the modern maize breeding process, which guided the breeding and improvement of new varieties of maize with high photosynthetic efficiency.

As a pioneering zone for the transformation of old and new growth drivers, the characteristics and issues manifested by Shandong Province during the course of industrial structure adjustment and economic transformation can best represent the green transformation and sustainable development of the Chinese economy. On the basis of multidimensional panel data from 2007 to 2020, this study employs the superefficiency slack-based measure (super-SBM) model, which considers undesirable outputs, and the global Malmquist–Luenberger (GML) index to measure the green total factor productivity (GTFP) of 16 cities in Shandong Province and analyzes the dynamic characteristics of GTFP and its growth drivers from three dimensions—overall characteristics, regional differences, and urban scale levels. The results show that (1) the GTFP of Shandong Province exhibited a year-on-year decline before 2011, transformed into slow growth during 2011–2015, and then presented rapid growth after 2015. Overall, GTFP, technical efficiency, and technological progress increased at average annual rates of 0.95%, 0.74%, and 0.21%, respectively. Before 2015, the variation in GTFP relied mainly on technical efficiency, whereas after 2015, technological progress made a greater contribution to GTFP. (2) The Jiaodong Economic Circle experienced the greatest growth in GTFP, followed by the Provincial Capital Economic Circle, whereas the Lunan Economic Circle exhibited an overall downward trend. The enhancement of technical efficiency was the main driving force for the growth of GTFP in each economic circle and the main cause for the formation of the GTFP gap among economic circles. (3) Compared with other cities, regional megacities such as Jinan and Qingdao possess unparalleled advantages in terms of economy, talent, and infrastructure; therefore, the growth rate of GTFP is significantly greater in these megacities than in other cities.

Phototherapy can offer a safe and non-invasive solution against infections, while promoting wound healing. Conventional phototherapeutic devices are bulky and limited to hospital use. To overcome these challenges, we developed a wearable, flexible red and blue LED (r&bLED) patch controlled by a mobile-connected system, enabling safe self-application at home. The patch exhibits excellent skin compatibility, flexibility, and comfort, with high safety under system supervision. Additionally, we synthesized a sprayable fibrin gel (F-gel) containing blue light-sensitive thymoquinone and red light-synergistic NADH. Combined with bLED, thymoquinone eradicated microbes and biofilms within minutes, regardless of antibiotic resistance. Furthermore, NADH and rLED synergistically improved macrophage and endothelial cell mitochondrial function, promoting wound healing, reducing inflammation, and enhancing angiogenesis, as validated in infected diabetic wounds in mice and minipigs. This innovative technology holds great promise for revolutionizing at-home phototherapy for chronic infected wounds. Chronic wounds significantly diminish quality of life. Here, the authors developed a wearable LED device and sprayable fibrin gel for safe home use. The LED device and fibrin gel effectively eradicated microbes and improved wound healing, as validated in infected diabetic wounds in mice and minipigs

Underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) have become a hot research topic because of their various aquatic applications. As the underwater sensor nodes are powered by built-in batteries which are difficult to replace, extending the network lifetime is a most urgent need. Due to the low and variable transmission speed of sound, the design of reliable routing algorithms for UWSNs is challenging. In this paper, we propose a Q-learning based delay-aware routing (QDAR) algorithm to extend the lifetime of underwater sensor networks. In QDAR, a data collection phase is designed to adapt to the dynamic environment. With the application of the Q-learning technique, QDAR can determine a global optimal next hop rather than a greedy one. We define an action-utility function in which residual energy and propagation delay are both considered for adequate routing decisions. Thus, the QDAR algorithm can extend the network lifetime by uniformly distributing the residual energy and provide lower end-to-end delay. The simulation results show that our protocol can yield nearly the same network lifetime, and can reduce the end-to-end delay by 20–25% compared with a classic lifetime-extended routing protocol (QELAR).

γ-secretase is an intramembrane proteolytic enzyme that is mainly involved in the cleavage and hydrolysis of the amyloid precursor (APP). The catalytic subunit presenilin 1 (PS1) is the catalytic subunit of γ-secretase. Since it was found that PS1 is responsible for Aβ-producing proteolytic activity, which is involved in Alzheimer’s disease, it is believed that reducing the activity of PS1 and preventing or delaying the production of Aβ could help treat Alzheimer’s disease. Consequently, in recent years, researchers have begun investigating the potential clinical efficacy of PS1 inhibitors. Currently, most PS1 inhibitors are only used as a tool to study the structure and function of PS1, and a few inhibitors with a high selectivity have been tested in clinics. Less-selective PS1 inhibitors were found to not only inhibit Aβ production but also inhibit Notch cleavage, which led to serious adverse events. The archaeal presenilin homologue (PSH) is a surrogate protease of presenilin that is useful for agent screening. In this study, we performed 200 ns molecular dynamics simulations (MD) of four systems to explore the conformational changes of different ligands binding to PSH. Our results indicated that the PSH-L679 system formed 3–10 helices in TM4, loosening up TM4 and allowing substrates to enter the catalytic pocket, thereby making it less inhibitory. Additionally, we found that III-31-C can bring TM4 and TM6 closer, resulting in the contraction of the PSH active pocket. Altogether, these results provide the basis for the potential design of newer PS1 inhibitors.

The distribution and trend of clear-sky surface solar radiation (SSR) and the quantitative effects of aerosol and water vapor are investigated in northern China during 2001–2015 using radiation simulations and satellite observations. Clear-sky SSR in northern China is high in summer and low in winter, which is dominated by astronomical factors and strongly modulated by the seasonal variations of radiative effects of aerosol (ARE) and water vapor (WVRE). The larger variation of WVRE than ARE indicates that water vapor plays a more important role in moderating the seasonal variation of clear-sky SSR. Clear-sky SSR shows an overall decreasing trend of –0.12 W/m2 per year, with decrease more strongly than –0.60 W/m2 per year in west-central Shandong and increase (about 0.40 W/m2) in south-central Inner Mongolia. The consistency of spatial distribution and high correlation between clear-sky SSR and ARE trend indicate that the clear-sky SSR trend is mainly determined by aerosol variation. Dust mass concentration decreases about 16% in south-central Inner Mongolia from 2001 to 2015, resulting in the increase in clear-sky SSR. In contrast, sulfate aerosol increases about 92% in west-central Shandong, leading to the decreasing trend of clear-sky SSR.

Certain chemotherapeutics can induce tumor cells’ immunogenic cell death (ICD), release tumor antigens, and thereby trigger personalized antitumor immune responses. Co-delivery of adjuvants using nanocarriers could amplify the ICD-induced tumor-specific immunity achieving a synergistic chemo-immunotherapeutic effect. However, complicated preparation, low drug loading efficiency, and potential carrier-associated toxicity are the major challenges that limited its clinical applications. Herein, a carrier-free core–shell nanoparticle (MPLA-CpG-sMMP9-DOX, MCMD NPs) was constructed by facile self-assembly of spherical nucleic acids (SNA) with two adjuvants of CpG ODN and monophosphoryl lipid A (MPLA) as a core and doxorubicin (DOX) radially around the dual-adjuvants SNA as a shell. The results demonstrated that MCMD NPs could enhance drugs accumulation in tumors, and release DOX upon enzymatic degradation of matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) peptide in the tumor microenvironment (TME), which enhanced the direct-killing effect of DOX on tumor cells. The core of MPLA-CpG SNA efficiently boosted the ICD-induced antitumor immune response to further attack tumor cells. Thus, MCMD NPs achieved a synergistic therapeutic effect of chemo-immunotherapy with reduced off-target toxicity. This study provided an efficient strategy for the development of a carrier-free nano-delivery system for enhanced cancer chemo-immunotherapy.

Exploring various properties of aerosols can help to better understand global climate changes, emissions, and environment. In this study, a synergy observation experiment from sun photometer and Lidar was carried out to reveal aerosol optical properties and direct radiative effect (DARE) in Central China from the novel perspective of aerosol components. Our results showed that the annual mass concentration of black carbon (BC) was low (2.49 mg/m2), but having large heating effect with the DARE of 9.27 W/m2 at the top of atmosphere. The brown carbon was found highest in summer (0.52 mg/m2) and its annual DARE was 0.10 W/m2, close to the average of China. Additionally, retrieved columnar concentration of BC had the same magnitude with the MEERA‐2 product, and showed better results at the surface (R = 0.56) because the considering of aerosol vertical profiles. This study showed the significance of exploring expanded aerosol information from observations. Plain Language Summary Improving aerosol observation through complementary instruments and attempting to expand existing products is one of the development directions of aerosol remote sensing technology. In line with this idea, our study conducted a joint observation experiment in Central China using ground‐based passive and active remote sensing instruments, successfully obtaining the new products about aerosol component. The information of component not only shows the seasonal variation of regional aerosol composition, facilitating comparisons of aerosol environments across different areas, but also helps to better understand the impact of aerosol particles on the climate system. For example, although black carbon aerosols account for a small proportion of the atmosphere, they can exhibit a strong warming effect on the Earth. In addition, our results also showed that the average distribution of total column mass concentration of black carbon from retrieval is consistent with reanalysis data in the magnitude, and can get better results at the surface mainly due to the consideration of vertical distribution of the atmosphere. This reveals that the information about aerosol component obtained from observations can complement and contrast with reanalysis data, with the goal of promoting the improvement and development of products from different sources. Key Points Aerosol optical, componential, and radiative properties are retrieved from joint observations of sun photometer and Lidar Annual volume mass concentrations of black carbon and brown carbon are 2.49 mg/m2 and 0.43 mg/m2, respectively By considering vertical profile, correlation coefficient of black carbon between retrieving and measuring reaches 0.56 at surface

Aeolus is the first satellite mission to directly observe wind profile information on a global scale. After implementing a set of bias corrections, the Aeolus data products went public on 12 May 2020. However, Aeolus wind products over China have thus far not been evaluated extensively by ground-based remote sensing measurements. In this study, the Mie-cloudy and Rayleigh-clear wind products from Aeolus measurements are validated against wind observations from the radar wind profiler (RWP) network in China. Based on the position of each RWP site relative to the closest Aeolus ground tracks, three matchup categories are proposed, and comparisons between Aeolus wind products and RWP wind observations are performed for each category separately. The performance of Mie-cloudy wind products does not change much between the three matchup categories. On the other hand, for Rayleigh-clear and RWP wind products, categories 1 and 2 are found to have much smaller differences compared with category 3. This could be due to the RWP site being sufficiently approximate to the Aeolus ground track for categories 1 and 2. In the vertical, the Aeolus wind products are similar to the RWP wind observations, except for the Rayleigh-clear winds in the height range of 0–1 km. The mean absolute normalized differences between the Mie-cloudy (Rayleigh-clear) and the RWP wind components are 3.06 (5.45), 2.79 (4.81), and 3.32 (5.72) m/s at all orbit times and ascending and descending Aeolus orbit times, respectively. This indicates that the wind products for ascending orbits are slightly superior to those for descending orbits, and the observation time has a minor effect on the comparison. From the perspective of spatial differences, the Aeolus Mie-cloudy winds are consistent with RWP winds in most of east China, except in coastal areas where the Aeolus Rayleigh-clear winds are more reliable. Overall, the correlation coefficient R between the Mie-cloudy (Rayleigh-clear) wind and RWP wind component observation is 0.94 (0.81), suggesting that Aeolus wind products are in good agreement with wind observations from the RWP network in China. The findings give us sufficient confidence in assimilating the newly released Aeolus wind products in operational weather forecasting in China.