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Pseudocapacitance holds great promise for improving energy densities of electrochemical supercapacitors, but state-of-the-art pseudocapacitive materials show capacitances far below their theoretical values and deliver much lower levels of electrical power than carbon-based materials due to poor cation accessibility and/or long-range electron transferability. Here we show that in situ corundum-to-rutile phase transformation in electron-correlated vanadium sesquioxide can yield nonstoichiometric rutile vanadium dioxide layers that are composed of highly sodium ion accessible oxygen-deficiency quasi-hexagonal tunnels sandwiched between conductive rutile slabs. This unique structure serves to boost redox and intercalation kinetics for extraordinary pseudocapacitive energy storage in hierarchical isomeric vanadium oxides, leading to a high specific capacitance of ~1856 F g –1 (almost sixfold that of the pristine vanadium sesquioxide and dioxide) and a bipolar charge/discharge capability at ultrafast rates in aqueous electrolyte. Symmetric wide voltage window pseudocapacitors of vanadium oxides deliver a power density of ~280 W cm –3 together with an exceptionally high volumetric energy density of ~110 mWh cm –3 as well as long-term cycling stability. Pseudocapacitive materials could enable high-performance electrochemical supercapacitors, but their practical capacitance and power density remain low. Here the authors show that in situ phase transformation triggers extraordinary pseudocapacitive energy storage in metallic isomeric vanadium oxides.

In China, Tomato chlorosis virus (ToCV) and Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) are widely present in tomato plants. The epidemiology of these viruses is intimately associated with their vector, the whitefly ( Bemisia tabaci MED). However, how a ToCV+TYLCV mixed infection affects viral acquisition by their vector remains unknown. In this study, we examined the growth parameters of tomato seedlings, including disease symptoms and the heights and weights of non-infected, singly infected and mixed infected tomato plants. Additionally, the spatio-temporal dynamics of the viruses in tomato plants, and the viral acquisition and transmission by B. tabaci MED, were determined. The results demonstrated that: (i) ToCV+TYLCV mixed infections induced tomato disease synergism, resulting in a high disease severity index and decreased stem heights and weights; (ii) as the disease progressed, TYLCV accumulated more in upper leaves of TYLCV-infected tomato plants than in lower leaves, whereas ToCV accumulated less in upper leaves of ToCV-infected tomato plants than in lower leaves; (iii) viral accumulation in ToCV+TYLCV mixed infected plants was greater than in singly infected plants; and (iv) B. tabaci MED appeared to have a greater TYLCV, but a lower ToCV, acquisition rate from mixed infected plants compared with singly infected plants. However, mixed infections did not affect transmission by whiteflies. Thus, ToCV+TYLCV mixed infections may induce synergistic disease effects in tomato plants.

The growth of inch-scale high-quality graphene on insulating substrates is desirable for electronic and optoelectronic applications, but remains challenging due to the lack of metal catalysis. Here we demonstrate the wafer-scale synthesis of adlayer-free ultra-flat single-crystal monolayer graphene on sapphire substrates. We converted polycrystalline Cu foil placed on Al 2 O 3 (0001) into single-crystal Cu(111) film via annealing, and then achieved epitaxial growth of graphene at the interface between Cu(111) and Al 2 O 3 (0001) by multi-cycle plasma etching-assisted–chemical vapour deposition. Immersion in liquid nitrogen followed by rapid heating causes the Cu(111) film to bulge and peel off easily, while the graphene film remains on the sapphire substrate without degradation. Field-effect transistors fabricated on as-grown graphene exhibited good electronic transport properties with high carrier mobilities. This work breaks a bottleneck of synthesizing wafer-scale single-crystal monolayer graphene on insulating substrates and could contribute to next-generation graphene-based nanodevices. High-quality wafer-scale single-crystal monolayer graphene is achieved on sapphire substrate, by epitaxially growing graphene at the Cu(111)/sapphire interface and then detaching Cu film via immersion in liquid nitrogen and rapid heating.

This paper shows a 2-step procedure for obtaining a variable-bandwidth recursive digital filter whose structure contains cascaded second-order (2nd-order) sections. Such a cascade-form structure is insensitive to the round-off noises that come from filter-coefficient quantizations in hardware implementations. This paper also shows how to utilize a 2-step procedure to get a variable-bandwidth recursive filter that is absolutely stable. The first step (Step-1) of the 2-step procedure designs a series of constant-bandwidth filters for approximating a series of evenly discretized variable specifications, and the second step (Step-2) fits the coefficient values obtained from Step-1 by employing individual polynomials. To ensure the stability of the resultant constant-bandwidth filters in Step-1, coefficient transformations are first executed on the 2nd-order transfer function's denominator-coefficients, and then each coefficient of both numerator and transformed denominator is found as an individual polynomial. Once all the polynomials are obtained, the polynomials corresponding to the transformed denominator are further converted to composite functions for ensuring the stability. Hence, the 2-step procedure not only produces a cascade-form variable-bandwidth filter that has low quantization errors, but also ensures the stability. A lowpass example is included for verifying the achieved stability and showing the high approximation accuracy.

BET proteins, which influence gene expression and contribute to the development of cancer, are epigenetic interpreters. Thus, BET inhibitors represent a novel form of epigenetic anticancer treatment. Although preliminary clinical trials have shown the anticancer potential of BET inhibitors, it appears that these drugs have limited effectiveness when used alone. Therefore, given the limited monotherapeutic activity of BET inhibitors, their use in combination with other drugs warrants attention, including the meaningful variations in pharmacodynamic activity among chosen drug combinations. In this paper, we review the function of BET proteins, the preclinical justification for BET protein targeting in cancer, recent advances in small-molecule BET inhibitors, and preliminary clinical trial findings. We elucidate BET inhibitor resistance mechanisms, shed light on the associated adverse events, investigate the potential of combining these inhibitors with diverse therapeutic agents, present a comprehensive compilation of synergistic treatments involving BET inhibitors, and provide an outlook on their future prospects as potent antitumor agents. We conclude by suggesting that combining BET inhibitors with other anticancer drugs and innovative next-generation agents holds great potential for advancing the effective targeting of BET proteins as a promising anticancer strategy.

This paper investigates the design of the tenth-order allpass phase compensator with cascade structure. This cascade-type compensator consists of five biquadratic (biquad) allpass sections, and those biquad sections are cascade-connected. To design this cascade-type phase compensator, we first derive a phase error function called quintic fractional (QF) error function, and then employ this QF-error function as the cost function that is minimized for optimizing the coefficients of the tenth-order phase compensator. The compensator coefficients are optimized such that the compensator’s phase response fits a prescribed ideal phase response (phase specification) with the maximum of the QF-error function being minimized. The QF-error function is a rational function whose numerator and denominator are the quintics of the unknown compensator coefficients. Utilizing the QF-error function as a cost function in optimizing the compensator’s coefficients enables the nonlinear minimization to be carried out from a reasonably good starting point, which in turn leads to a convergent design solution. This is the key motivation for deriving the QF-error function and then employing it to design the tenth-order cascade-type phase compensator. Moreover, since the tenth-order compensator comprises exclusively the biquad allpass sections, and the stability of the biquad sections is considerably easy to check, one can confirm the stability of the designed tenth-order compensator by checking the stability of the five cascade-connected biquads. Two illustrative design examples are included for demonstrating the usefulness of the QF-error function in terms of starting the minimization from a good initial point and thus producing a convergent solution. The two examples also illustrate the simplicity of utilizing the cascade structure for the stability check.

The potential of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for applications in optoelectronics results from a unique combination of interesting photophysical properties and straightforward tunability of organic and inorganic units. Here, it is demonstrated that using MOF approach chromophores can be assembled into well‐ordered 1D arrays using metal‐oxo strands as lead structure, and the resulting porphyrinic rows exhibit unique photophysical properties and allow the realization of highly sensitive photodetectors. A porphyrinic MOF thin film, In‐TCPP surface‐coordinated MOF thin films with [021] orientation is fabricated using a layer‐by‐layer method, from In(NO3)3 and TCPP (5,10,15,20‐(4‐carboxyphenyl)porphyrin). Detailed experimental and theoretical analysis reveals that the assembly yields a structure where In‐oxo strands running parallel to the substrate fix the chromophoric linkers to yield 1D arrays of porphyrins. The frontier orbitals of this highly anisotropic arrangement are localized in these columnar arrangements of porphyrins and result in high photoactivity, which is exploited to fabricate a photodetector with record (as compared to other organic materials) responsivity in visible regime of 7.28 × 1014 Jones and short rise/fall times (0.07/0.04 s). This oriented MOF thin film‐based high‐sensitive photodetector provides a new avenue to use inorganic, stable lead structures to assemble organic semiconductors into regular arrays, thus creating a huge potential for the fabrication of optoelectronic devices. Highly photoactive, porphyrinic metal–organic framework (MOF) thin films are grown on substrates using layer‐by‐layer process. The unusual architecture of this particular MOF consists of In‐oxo chains acting as lead structure to obtain highly ordered 1D arrays of porphyrins. The MOF thin film is successfully integrated in a visible light photodetector with record sensitivity, 7.28 × 1014 Jones.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of RNA molecules with closed loops and high stability. CircRNAs are abundantly expressed in eukaryotic organisms and exhibit both location- and step-specificity. In recent years, circRNAs are attracting considerable research attention attributed to their possible contributions to gene regulation through a variety of actions, including sponging microRNAs, interacting with RNA-binding proteins, regulating transcription and splicing, and protein translation. Growing evidence has revealed that circRNAs play critical roles in the development and progression of diseases, especially in cancers. Without doubt, expanding our understanding of circRNAs will enrich knowledge of cancer and provide new opportunities for cancer therapy. In this review, we provide an overview of the characteristics, functions and functional mechanisms of circRNAs. In particular, we summarize current knowledge regarding the functions of circRNAs in the hallmarks, stemness, resistance of cancer, as well as the possibility of circRNAs as biomarkers in cancer.

This paper proposes a nonlinear optimization method for designing a high-order recursive allpass digital phase system that comprises several cascade-connected second-order (SO) allpass sections. This method first splits a given phase design specification (approximation target) into a set of equal sub-specifications, and then the equal sub-specification acts as the ideal phase for each of the SO sections. Since an SO section can be designed via employing a linear programming to minimize a linear fractional error function, this splitting process generates an excellent starting point (good initial values for the coefficients of the cascaded SO sections) for further minimizing the overall approximation error. This paper first derives a wide variety of fractional polynomial error functions for designing cascade-connected allpass phase systems of different high orders, and then shows that a high-order cascade-connected allpass phase system can be designed by utilizing a nonlinear solver to minimize the peak deviation of such a fractional polynomial error. Using the derived fractional polynomial error functions in the system design enables the system designer to find an excellent starting point for further minimizing the approximation error and thus reach a convergent design solution. This paper first derives a set of fractional polynomial errors, and then adopts the eighth-order cascade-connected phase system design to exemplify the effectiveness of the fractional-polynomial-error-based design tactic. Furthermore, the stability of the cascade-connected high-order allpass system can be readily checked via confirming that all of the cascaded SO sections have their poles inside the unit circle in the complex plane.

This paper describes a 2-stage tactic for achieving an odd-order variable-bandwidth (OO-VBW) filter with absolutely guaranteed stability. The design methodology aims to minimize the p-norm amplitude-response error while maintaining the OO-VBW-filter's stability. In order to tune OO-VBW filter's amplitude response, we utilize a kind of functions of the bandwidth (BW)-tuning parameter to express the filter's coefficients. Because those functions have changeable function values, the designed OO-VBW-filter's amplitude response possesses variability. Another important concern in this paper is the stability issue. When the filter coefficient values expressed as function values are changed, the OO-VBW filter that has feedback structures may become unstable. This necessitates that the OO-VBW-filter's stability must always be preserved during real-time tuning. In order to stabilize such an OO-VBW filter that has feedback structures, a coefficient-conversion (CC) algorithm is adopted, and it is incorporated into the 2-stage methodology for obtaining the OO-VBW filter. To illustrate both the stability and high approximation accuracy, the design of an OO-VBW bandpass filter is simulated. The simulation details verify that both stability and high accuracy can be successfully achieved.