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Layered crystalline materials that consist of transition metal atoms on a kagome network have emerged as a versatile platform for the study of unusual electronic phenomena. For example, in the vanadium-based kagome superconductors AV3Sb5 (where A can stand for K, Cs or Rb), there is a parent charge density wave phase that appears to simultaneously break both the translational and rotational symmetries of the lattice. Here we show a contrasting situation, where electronic nematic order—the breaking of rotational symmetry without the breaking of translational symmetry—can occur without a corresponding charge density wave. We use spectroscopic-imaging scanning tunnelling microscopy to study the kagome metal CsTi3Bi5 that is isostructural to AV3Sb5 but with a titanium atom kagome network. CsTi3Bi5 does not exhibit any detectable charge density wave state, but a comparison to density functional theory calculations reveals substantial electronic correlation effects at low energies. In comparing the amplitudes of scattering wave vectors along different directions, we discover an electronic anisotropy that breaks the sixfold symmetry of the lattice, arising from both in-plane and out-of-plane titanium-derived d orbitals. Our work uncovers the role of electronic orbitals in CsTi3Bi5, suggestive of a hexagonal analogue of the nematic bond order in Fe-based superconductors.Electronic nematic order as a distinct phase in kagome materials without any entanglement with charge density wave or charge stripe order has not been detected. Now, it is observed in a titanium-based kagome metal.

Flat bands are intriguing platforms for correlated and topological physics. Various methods have been developed to create flat bands utilizing lattice geometry, but the investigation of orbital symmetry in multiorbital materials is a new area of focus. Here, we introduce a site symmetry-based approach to emerging multiorbital 2D and 3D flat bands on the kagome and pyrochlore lattices. As a conceptual advance, the one-orbital flat bands are shown to originate as mutual eigenstates of isolated molecular motifs. Further developing the mutual eigenstate method for multiple orbitals transforming differently under the site symmetries, we derive interorbital hopping generated flat bands from the antisymmetric interorbital Hamiltonian and introduce group-theoretic descriptions of the flat band wavefunctions. Realizations of multiorbital flat bands in realistic materials are shown to be possible in the Slater-Koster formalism. Our findings provide new directions for exploring flat-band electronic structures for novel correlated and topological quantum states.

Patients with mass-forming pancreatitis (MFP) or pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) presented similar clinical symptoms, but required different treatment approaches and had different survival outcomes. This meta-analysis aimed to compare the diagnostic performance of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CECT) in differentiating MFP from PDAC. A literature search was performed in the PubMed, EMBASE (Ovid), Cochrane Library (CENTRAL), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Weipu (VIP), and WanFang databases to identify original studies published from inception to August 20, 2021. Studies reporting the diagnostic performances of CEUS and CECT for differentiating MFP from PDAC were included. The meta-analysis was performed with Stata 15.0 software. The outcomes included the pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (+LR), negative likelihood ratio (-LR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curves of CEUS and CECT. Meta-regression was conducted to investigate heterogeneity. Bayesian network meta-analysis was conducted to indirectly compare the overall diagnostic performance. Twenty-six studies with 2115 pancreatic masses were included. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of CEUS for MFP were 82% (95% confidence interval [CI], 73%-88%; I2  = 0.00%) and 95% (95% CI, 90%-97%; I2  = 63.44%), respectively; the overall +LR, -LR, and DOR values were 15.12 (95% CI, 7.61-30.01), 0.19 (95% CI, 0.13-0.29), and 78.91 (95% CI, 30.94-201.27), respectively; and the area under the SROC curve (AUC) was 0.90 (95% CI, 0.87-92). However, the overall sensitivity and specificity of CECT were 81% (95% CI, 75-85%; I2  = 66.37%) and 94% (95% CI, 90-96%; I2  = 74.87%); the overall +LR, -LR, and DOR values were 12.91 (95% CI, 7.86-21.20), 0.21 (95% CI, 0.16-0.27), and 62.53 (95% CI, 34.45-113.51), respectively; and, the SROC AUC was 0.92 (95% CI, 0.90-0.94). The overall diagnostic accuracy of CEUS was comparable to that of CECT for the differential diagnosis of MFP and PDAC (relative DOR 1.26, 95% CI [0.42-3.83], P  > 0.05). CEUS and CECT have comparable diagnostic performance for differentiating MFP from PDAC, and should be considered as mutually complementary diagnostic tools for suspected focal pancreatic lesions.

AbstractBackground:Patients with mass-forming pancreatitis (MFP) or pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) presented similar clinical symptoms, but required different treatment approaches and had different survival outcomes. This meta-analysis aimed to compare the diagnostic performance of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CECT) in differentiating MFP from PDAC.Methods:A literature search was performed in the PubMed, EMBASE (Ovid), Cochrane Library (CENTRAL), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Weipu (VIP), and WanFang databases to identify original studies published from inception to August 20, 2021. Studies reporting the diagnostic performances of CEUS and CECT for differentiating MFP from PDAC were included. The meta-analysis was performed with Stata 15.0 software. The outcomes included the pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (+LR), negative likelihood ratio (−LR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curves of CEUS and CECT. Meta-regression was conducted to investigate heterogeneity. Bayesian network meta-analysis was conducted to indirectly compare the overall diagnostic performance.Results:Twenty-six studies with 2115 pancreatic masses were included. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of CEUS for MFP were 82% (95% confidence interval [CI], 73%-88%; I2 = 0.00%) and 95% (95% CI, 90%-97%; I2 = 63.44%), respectively; the overall +LR, −LR, and DOR values were 15.12 (95% CI, 7.61-30.01), 0.19 (95% CI, 0.13-0.29), and 78.91 (95% CI, 30.94-201.27), respectively; and the area under the SROC curve (AUC) was 0.90 (95% CI, 0.87-92). However, the overall sensitivity and specificity of CECT were 81% (95% CI, 75-85%; I2 = 66.37%) and 94% (95% CI, 90-96%; I2 = 74.87%); the overall +LR, −LR, and DOR values were 12.91 (95% CI, 7.86-21.20), 0.21 (95% CI, 0.16-0.27), and 62.53 (95% CI, 34.45-113.51), respectively; and, the SROC AUC was 0.92 (95% CI, 0.90-0.94). The overall diagnostic accuracy of CEUS was comparable to that of CECT for the differential diagnosis of MFP and PDAC (relative DOR 1.26, 95% CI [0.42-3.83], P > 0.05).Conclusions:CEUS and CECT have comparable diagnostic performance for differentiating MFP from PDAC, and should be considered as mutually complementary diagnostic tools for suspected focal pancreatic lesions.

Flat bands are intriguing platforms for correlated and topological physics. Various methods have been developed to create flat bands utilizing lattice geometry, but the investigation of orbital symmetry in multiorbital materials is a new area of focus. Here, we introduce a site symmetry based approach to emerging multiorbital 2D and 3D flat bands on the kagome and pyrochlore lattices. As a conceptual advance, the one-orbital flat bands are shown to originate as mutual eigenstates of isolated molecular motifs. Further developing the mutual eigenstate method for multiple orbitals transforming differently under the site symmetries, we derive interorbital hopping generated flat bands from the antisymmetric interorbital Hamiltonian and introduce group-theoretic descriptions of the flat band wavefunctions. Realizations of multiorbital flat bands in realistic materials are shown to be possible in the Slater-Koster formalism. Our findings provide new directions for exploring flat band electronic structures for novel correlated and topological quantum states.

Layered crystalline materials that consist of transition metal atoms on a kagome network have emerged as a versatile platform to study unusual electronic phenomena. For example, in the vanadium-based kagome superconductors AV3Sb5 (where A can stand for K, Cs, or Rb) there is a parent charge density wave phase that appears to simultaneously break both the translational and the rotational symmetry of the lattice. Here, we show a contrasting situation where electronic nematic order - the breaking of rotational symmetry without the breaking of translational symmetry - can occur without a corresponding charge density wave. We use spectroscopic-imaging scanning tunneling microscopy to study the kagome metal CsTi3Bi5 that is isostructural to AV3Sb5 but with a titanium atom kagome network. CsTi3Bi5 does not exhibit any detectable charge density wave state, but comparison to density functional theory calculations reveals substantial electronic correlation effects at low energies. Comparing the amplitudes of scattering wave vectors along different directions, we discover an electronic anisotropy that breaks the six-fold symmetry of the lattice, arising from both in-plane and out-of-plane titanium-derived d orbitals. Our work uncovers the role of electronic orbitals in CsTi3Bi5, suggestive of a hexagonal analogue of the nematic bond order in Fe-based superconductors.

HighlightsA comprehensive summary of the representative promising applications of metal halide perovskite materials, including traditional optoelectronic devices (solar cells, light-emitting diodes, photodetectors, lasers), and cutting-edge technologies in terms of neuromorphic devices (artificial synapses and memristors) and pressure-induced emission.For each application, the fundamentals of the field, the current progress and the remaining challenges are provided, based on the up-to-date works.Nowadays, the soar of photovoltaic performance of perovskite solar cells has set off a fever in the study of metal halide perovskite materials. The excellent optoelectronic properties and defect tolerance feature allow metal halide perovskite to be employed in a wide variety of applications. This article provides a holistic review over the current progress and future prospects of metal halide perovskite materials in representative promising applications, including traditional optoelectronic devices (solar cells, light-emitting diodes, photodetectors, lasers), and cutting-edge technologies in terms of neuromorphic devices (artificial synapses and memristors) and pressure-induced emission. This review highlights the fundamentals, the current progress and the remaining challenges for each application, aiming to provide a comprehensive overview of the development status and a navigation of future research for metal halide perovskite materials and devices.

•In DL, attention to the identical narratives enhanced RECN/SMN synchrony.•In DL, AudN processed auditory input, whereas in BR, LN/HVN processed visual input.•In BR, attention to character movies enhanced LN−HVN FC.•In BR, increased LN−HVN FC was correlated with longer PDD of character movies. Although selective attention similarly modulates bistable perception in auditory and visual domains, its neural mechanisms remain unclear. Using fMRI within a naturalistic paradigm—dichotic listening (DL) with narrative stimuli and binocular rivalry (BR) with movie clips—we combined multiscale ICA-based brain network analysis (inter-/intra-subject correlation and dynamic FC) to investigate attentional mechanisms in DL and BR. In DL, when participants attended to the same narrative, the inter-SC of both right executive control network (RECN) and sensorimotor network (SMN) increased compared to when they attended to different narratives, indicating that the RECN and SMN were involved in the attentional mechanism of DL. Regardless of attentional content consistency, the auditory network (AudN) showed significant synchrony in both inter-SC and intra-SC analyses, suggesting stimulus-driven processing in DL. For BR, significant inter- and intra-SC were only observed in networks related to stimulus-driven processing, namely the higher visual network (HVN) and language network (LN), while no selective attention-related cognitive networks were identified. Furthermore, no dFC effects in the DL task were found. However, in the BR condition, the FC between the HVN and LN was significantly enhanced when attending to characters versus architecture, and the difference was robustly positively correlated with the difference in perceptual dominance duration of character-related movies between the two conditions. In summary, our results demonstrate that the modulation mechanisms of selective attention differ substantially between DL and BR. The former involves executive control, whereas the latter relies on neural circuits supporting perceptual processing.

The recognition between disease resistance (R) genes in plants and their cognate avirulence (Avr) genes in pathogens can produce a hypersensitive response of localized programmed cell death. However, our knowledge of the early signaling events of the R gene-mediated hypersensitive response in plants remains limited. Here, we report the cloning and characterization of Xa10, a transcription activator-like (TAL) effector-dependent R gene for resistance to bacterial blight in rice (Oryza sativa). Xa10 contains a binding element for the TAL effector AvrXa10 (EBEAvrXa10) in its promoter, and AvrXa10 specifically induces Xa10 expression. Expression ofXa10 induces programmed cell death in rice, Nicotiana benthamiana, and mammalian HeLa cells. The Xa10 gene product XA10 localizes as hexamers in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and is associated with ER Ca²⁺ depletion in plant and HeLa cells. XA10 variants that abolish programmed cell death and ER Ca²⁺ depletion in N. benthamiana and HeLa cells also abolish disease resistance in rice. We propose that XA10 is an inducible, intrinsic terminator protein that triggers programmed cell death by a conserved mechanism involving disruption of the ER and cellular Ca²⁺ homeostasis.

Background and objectives Severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a potentially fatal pulmonary disease. Although studies have investigated the efficacy and safety of corticosteroids for severe CAP, the results remain inconsistent. Moreover, there is a lack of sufficient evidence to rank the effects of different types of corticosteroids. The aim of this study is to elucidate the effects of different corticosteroids in patients with severe CAP. Methods We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science comprehensively, encompassing all publications with a search deadline of March 31, 2024. Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving the treatment of severe CAP with corticosteroids were included. The primary efficacy outcome was all-cause mortality, secondary efficacy outcome was mechanical ventilation (MV), and safety outcome was the incidence of serious adverse events (SAEs). Results A total of 11 studies, involving 2042 participants, compared four corticosteroids (hydrocortisone, dexamethasone, prednisolone, methylprednisolone). The included trials were all corticosteroid versus placebo comparisons, resulting in a star-shaped network. Among the four corticosteroids, only hydrocortisone was significantly more effective at reducing mortality than placebo (RR, 0.35; 95% CrI, 0.14–0.64). Additionally, hydrocortisone reduced the need for MV (RR, 0.73; 95% CrI, 0.51–0.93). Furthermore, subgroup analysis indicated that low-to-moderate doses, short-course corticosteroids are associated with a reduction in both mortality and the need for MV. Conclusion In the evaluated corticosteroid regimen, hydrocortisone might be an effective measure to reduce all-cause mortality in patients with severe CAP. Clinical trial number The present study is a meta-analysis and literature review, therefore clinical trial number is not applicable.