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Cucumber is a warm climate vegetable that is sensitive to chilling reactions. Chilling can occur at any period of cucumber growth and development and seriously affects the yield and quality of cucumber. Hydrogen (H2) is a type of antioxidant that plays a critical role in plant development and the response to stress. Hydrogen-rich water (HRW) is the main way to use exogenous hydrogen. This study explored the role and mechanism of HRW in the cucumber defense response to chilling stress. The research results showed that applying 50% saturated HRW to the roots of cucumber seedlings relieved the damage caused by chilling stress. The growth and development indicators, such as plant height, stem diameter, leaf area, dry weight, fresh weight, and root length, increased under the HRW treatment. Photosynthetic efficiency, chlorophyll content, and Fv/Fm also improved and reduced energy dissipation. In addition, after HRW treatment, the REC and MDA content were decreased, and membrane lipid damage was reduced. NBT and DAB staining results showed that the color was lighter, and the area was smaller under HRW treatment. Additionally, the contents of O2− and H2O2 also decreased. Under chilling stress, the application of HRW increased the activity of the antioxidases SOD, CAT, POD, GR, and APX and improved the expression of the SOD, CAT, POD, GR, and APX antioxidase genes. The GSSG content was reduced, and the GSH content was increased. In addition, the ASA content also increased. Therefore, exogenous HRW is an effective measure for cucumber to respond to chilling stress.

As the conventional scaling of Si based CMOS is approaching its limit at 7 nm technology node, many perceive that the adoption of novel materials and/or device structures are inevitable to keep Moore's law going. High mobility channel materials such as III-V compound semiconductors or Ge are considered promising to replace Si in order to achieve high performance as well as low power consumption. However, interface and oxide traps have become a major obstacle for high-mobility semiconductors (such as Ge, GaAs, InGaAs, GaSb, etc) to replace Si CMOS technology. Therefore novel high-k dielectrics, such as epitaxially grown crystalline oxides, have been explored to be incorporated onto the high mobility channel materials. Moreover, to enable continued scaling, extremely scaled devices structures such as nanowire gate-all-around structure are needed in the near future. Moreover, as the CMOS industry moves into the 7 nm node and beyond, novel lithography techniques such as EUV are believed to be adopted soon, which can bring radiation damage to CMOS devices and circuit during the fabrication process. Therefore radiation hardening technology in future generations of CMOS devices has again become an interesting research topic to deal with the possible process-induced damage as well as damage caused by operating in radiation harsh environment such as outer space, nuclear plant, etc. In this thesis, the electrical properties of a few selected emerging novel CMOS devices are investigated, which include InGaAs based extremely scaled ultra-thin body nanowire gate-all-around MOSFETs, GOI (Ge On Insulator) CMOS with recessed channel and source/drain, GaAs MOSFETs with crystalline La based gate stack, and crystalline SrTiO3, are investigated to extend our understanding of their electrical characteristics, underlying physical mechanisms, and material properties. Furthermore, the radiation responses of these aforementioned novel devices are thoroughly investigated, with a focus on the total ionizing dose (TID) effect, to understand the associated physical mechanisms, and to help to inspire ideas to improve radiation immunity of these novel devices. The experimental methods used in this thesis research include the measurements of C-V, I-V characteristics, where novel gate stack and interface characterization techniques are employed, such as AC Gm method, 1/f low frequency noise method, inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS) for chemical bonding and defects detection, and carrier transport modeling. Sentaurus TCAD simulations are also carried out to obtain more physical insight in the complex, extremely scaled, device structures.

Starting from many-body theory, the density profile function of ideal Fermi systems in harmonic and delta traps are obtained under the quantum mechanics and thermodynamic statistical physics, respectively. The related thermodynamic properties are analyzed based on the Fermi-Dirac distribution and exact solution of the density profile function.

Cucumber is a warm climate vegetable that is sensitive to chilling reactions. Chilling can occur at any period of cucumber growth and development and seriously affects the yield and quality of cucumber. Hydrogen (H[sub.2]) is a type of antioxidant that plays a critical role in plant development and the response to stress. Hydrogen-rich water (HRW) is the main way to use exogenous hydrogen. This study explored the role and mechanism of HRW in the cucumber defense response to chilling stress. The research results showed that applying 50% saturated HRW to the roots of cucumber seedlings relieved the damage caused by chilling stress. The growth and development indicators, such as plant height, stem diameter, leaf area, dry weight, fresh weight, and root length, increased under the HRW treatment. Photosynthetic efficiency, chlorophyll content, and Fv/Fm also improved and reduced energy dissipation. In addition, after HRW treatment, the REC and MDA content were decreased, and membrane lipid damage was reduced. NBT and DAB staining results showed that the color was lighter, and the area was smaller under HRW treatment. Additionally, the contents of O[sub.2] [sup.−] and H[sub.2]O[sub.2] also decreased. Under chilling stress, the application of HRW increased the activity of the antioxidases SOD, CAT, POD, GR, and APX and improved the expression of the SOD, CAT, POD, GR, and APX antioxidase genes. The GSSG content was reduced, and the GSH content was increased. In addition, the ASA content also increased. Therefore, exogenous HRW is an effective measure for cucumber to respond to chilling stress.

The ultramafic dikes in the Tarim large igneous province（Tarim LIP）, exposed in the Xiaohaizi area in the northwestern Tarim Basin of northwestern China, have porphyritic textures, and the olivine and clinopyroxene are as the major phenocryst phases. The groundmass therein consists of clinopyroxene, plagioclase and Fe-Ti oxides, with the cryptocrystalline texture. The olivine phenocrysts in one typical ultramafic dike have Fo（Mg/（Mg＋Fe）） numbers ranging from 73 to 85, which are not in equilibrium with the olivine（Mg# of 89） from the host rock crystalized. Combined with microscope observation, both the olivine and clinopyroxene phenocrysts as well as some Fe-Ti oxides in the ultramafic rock are accounted as cumulates. The liquid（parental magma） composition of SiO2 of 45.00 wt.%–48.82 wt.%, MgO of 9.93 wt.%– 18.56 wt.%, FeO of 5.85 wt.%–14.17 wt.%, CaO of 7.54 wt.%–11.52 wt.%, Al2O3 of 8.70 wt.%–11.62 wt.% and TiO2 of 0.00 wt.%–3.43 wt.% in the Xiaohaizi ultramafic rock was estimated by mass balance, and the results show a reasonable liquid proportion in the cumulate-bearing ultramafic dike（ca. 45%–60% in the whole rock）. The estimated parental magma composition corresponds to a melting temperature of 1 300–1 550 oC, which is equal or higher than those of a normal asthenosphere mantle, supporting the involvement of a mantle plume. Combined with other previous studies, an evolution model for the formation processes of the Xiaohaizi ultramafic dike of the Tarim LIP is proposed.

In this study, we draw on moral cleansing theory to investigate the consequence of unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) from the perspective of the actors. Specifically, we hypothesize that after conducting UPB, people may feel guilty and tend to cleanse their wrongdoings by providing suggestions or identifying problems at work (i.e., prohibitive and promotive voice). We further hypothesize that the above relationship is moderated by the actor’s moral identity symbolization. We conducted three studies, including experiment and surveys, to test our hypotheses. Results of these studies show consistent support to our hypotheses. In particular, individuals reported more felt guilt after conducting UPB, and they tended to compensate with more prohibitive and promotive voice subsequently. In addition, the indirect relationship from UPB acting to both voice behaviors via felt guilt was stronger for people with a high level of moral identity symbolization. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

CwlM, identified as an N-acetylmuramoyl-l-alanine amidase, plays crucial roles in the synthesis and remodeling of peptidoglycan in mycobacteria. This protein also appears to participate in both drug susceptibility and tolerance mechanisms within these organisms. In our study, we employed CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) to deplete CwlM in Mycobacterium smegmatis ( M. smegmatis ) and examined the resulting effects on the susceptibility of mycobacteria to first-line anti-tuberculosis drugs, including isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RIF), pyrazinamide (PZA), and ethambutol (EMB), as well as the β-lactams cefoxitin and imipenem. Our findings revealed that CwlM depletion increased the susceptibility of the bacterium to RIF, EMB, cefoxitin, and imipenem, while tolerance was heightened against INH and PZA. The enhanced antibiotic susceptibility can primarily be attributed to increased permeability of the bacterial cell wall. Conversely, the observed tolerance to INH might be ascribed to elevated expression of the amidase known as hydrazidase along with its LuxR-type regulator. Furthermore, several genes associated with peptidoglycan synthesis appeared to correlate with increased expression levels of either hydrazidase or its LuxR-type regulator. Collectively, these findings indicate that CwlM depletion significantly influences the susceptibility of M. smegmatis towards certain anti-tuberculosis drugs and may be implicated in drug susceptibility and tolerance mechanisms in M. smegmatis .

Currently, the value of induction chemoimmunotherapy before chemoradiotherapy (CRT) in unresectable stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has not been explored. This study was designed to explore the efficacy and safety of induction chemoimmunotherapy in patients with unresectable stage III NSCLC. Unresectable stage III NSCLC patients who received CRT with or without induction chemoimmunotherapy between August 2014 and December 2021 were retrospectively enrolled. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were assessed from the initiation of treatment and estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. The potential factors affecting PFS and OS were analyzed by univariate and multivariate Cox regression models. One-to-one propensity score matching (PSM) was used to further minimize confounding. A total of 279 consecutive patients were enrolled, with 53 (19.0%) receiving induction chemoimmunotherapy followed by CRT (I-CRT group), and the remaining 226 (81.0%) receiving CRT alone (CRT group). After PSM, the median PFS was 24.8 months in the I-CRT group vs. 13.3 months in the CRT group (P=0.035). The median OS was not reached (NR) vs. 36.6 months ((P=0.142). The incidence of treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) was similar in both groups, except that the incidence of hematological toxicity was higher in the I-CRT group (77.1% vs. 58.3%, P=0.049). Compared to induction chemotherapy, induction chemoimmunotherapy demonstrated a superior objective response rate (60.4% vs. 22.2%, P<0.001) and further prolonged PFS (median NR vs. 13.2 months, P=0.009) and OS (median NR vs. 25.9 months, P=0.106) without increasing the incidence of TRAEs in patients receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Induction chemoimmunotherapy is safe and may improve outcomes of CRT in patients with unresectable stage III NSCLC. Moreover, induction chemoimmunotherapy may further improve treatment response and survival outcomes compared to induction chemotherapy before cCRT.