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PurposeThe results indicate that land prices exert pressure on retail performance (RP) and that the enhancement of digital means has a positive effect on RP. Additionally, digital instruments (DI) play a significant moderating role in the relationship between land prices and RP.Design/methodology/approachThis paper empirically examines the impact of land prices on RP using panel data from 239 Chinese cities between 2011 and 2022.FindingsThe use of lagged land prices as instrumental variables effectively alleviates endogeneity issues. Both two-stage least squares (2SLS) and generalized method of moments (GMM) regression results suggest that higher land prices are associated with improved RP. Further analysis reveals that the increase in land prices leads to scale effects, structural effects and technological effects, contributing to the enhancement of RP. The impact of land prices on RP becomes more pronounced in larger cities and economically developed regions experience the pressure from land prices earlier.Originality/valueThe findings of this study have practical implications for discussions on retail industry development, site selection for retail businesses and the establishment of sustainable mechanisms for expanding domestic demand.

Black phosphorus is an infrared layered material. Its bandgap complements other widely studied two-dimensional materials: zero-gap graphene and visible/near-infrared gap transition metal dichalcogenides. Although highly desirable, a comprehensive infrared characterization is still lacking. Here we report a systematic infrared study of mechanically exfoliated few-layer black phosphorus, with thickness ranging from 2 to 15 layers and photon energy spanning from 0.25 to 1.36 eV. Each few-layer black phosphorus exhibits a thickness-dependent unique infrared spectrum with a series of absorption resonances, which reveals the underlying electronic structure evolution and serves as its infrared fingerprints. Surprisingly, unexpected absorption features, which are associated with the forbidden optical transitions, have been observed. Furthermore, we unambiguously demonstrate that controllable uniaxial strain can be used as a convenient and effective approach to tune the electronic structure of few-layer black phosphorus. Our study paves the way for black phosphorus applications in infrared photonics and optoelectronics. Few-layered black phosphorus offers an infrared bandgap, complementing that of graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides. Here, the authors investigate the thickness- and strain-dependent electronic structure of black phosphorus using polarised infrared spectroscopy.

This paper aims at exploring the tectonic characteristics of the South China Continent （SCC） and extracting the universal tec- tonic rules from these characteristics,to help enrich the plate tectonic theory and better understand the continental dynamic system. For this purpose, here we conduct a multi-disciplinary investigation and combine it with the previous studies to reas- sess the tectonics and evolution of SCC and propose that the tectonic framework of the continent comprises two blocks, three types of tectonic units, four deformation systems, and four evolutionary stages with distinctive mechanism and tectonic characteris- tics since the Neoproterozoic. The four evolutionary stages are： （1） The amalgamation and break-up of the Neoproterozoic plates, typically the intracontinental rifting. （2） The early Paleozoic and Mesozoic intracontinental orogeny confined by plate tectonics, forming two composite tectonic domains. （3） The parallel operation of the Yangtze cratonization and intracontinental orogeny, and multi-phase reactivation of the Yangtze craton. （4） The association and differentiation evolution of plate tectonics and intraconti- nental tectonics, and the dynamic characteristics under the Meso-Cenozoic modem global plate tectonic regime.

Plasmon in graphene possesses many unique properties. It originates from the collective motion of massless Dirac fermions, and the carrier density dependence is distinctively different from conventional plasmons. In addition, graphene plasmon is highly tunable and shows strong energy confinement capability. Most intriguingly, as an atom-thin layer, graphene and its plasmon are very sensitive to the immediate environment. Graphene plasmons strongly couple to polar phonons of the substrate, molecular vibrations of the adsorbates, and lattice vibrations of other atomically thin layers. In this review, we present the most important advances in graphene plasmonics field. The topics include terahertz plasmons, mid-infrared plasmons, plasmon-phonon interactions, and potential applications. Graphene plasmonics opens an avenue for reconfigurable metamaterials and metasurfaces; it is an exciting and promising new subject in the nanophotonics and plasmonics research field.

As an essential part of intelligent monitoring, behavior recognition, automatic driving, and others, the challenge of multi-object tracking is still to ensure tracking accuracy and robustness, especially in complex occlusion environments. Aiming at the issues of the occlusion, background noise, and motion state violent change for multi-object in a complex scene, an improved DeepSORT algorithm based on YOLOv5 is proposed for multi-object tracking to enhance the speed and accuracy of tracking. Firstly, a general object motion model is devised, which is similar to the variable acceleration motion model, and a multi-object tracking framework with the general motion model is established. Then, the latest YOLOv5 algorithm, which has satisfactory detection accuracy, is utilized to obtain the object information as the input of multi-object tracking. An unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is proposed to estimate the motion state of multi-object to solve nonlinear errors. In addition, the adaptive factor is introduced to evaluate observation noise and detect abnormal observations so as to adaptively adjust the innovation covariance matrix. Finally, an improved DeepSORT algorithm for multi-object tracking is formed to promote robustness and accuracy. Extensive experiments are carried out on the MOT16 data set, and we compare the proposed algorithm with the DeepSORT algorithm. The results indicate that the speed and precision of the improved DeepSORT are increased by 4.75% and 2.30%, respectively. Especially in the MOT16 of the dynamic camera, the improved DeepSORT shows better performance.

Long noncoding RNA (lncRNAs) metastasis–associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) has been reported in diabetic nephropathy (DN) about its effect on podocyte function and cell heat shock induced by hyperglycemia. However, the biological mechanism of MALAT1 regulating DN fibrosis needs further study. In this study, SD rats were administrated with streptozotocin (STZ) to establish a diabetes model. In vitro , human renal tubular epithelial cells (HK-2 and 293T) were treated with high glucose (HG). Here, we found that MALAT1 was upregulated in renal tissues of diabetic rats and HG-treated cells, and HG treatment promoted cell proliferation and invasion. MALAT1 overexpression aggravated protein levels of collagen I (col I), collagen IV (col IV), fibronectin (FN), and laminin (LN) in HK-2 cells, while MALAT1 knockdown exerted the opposite effect. Moreover, the luciferase reporter gene and pull-down assays demonstrated that MALAT1 interacted with miR-2355-3p. The miR-2355-3p level was downregulated in diabetic rats and HG-treated cells, and MALAT1 overexpression inhibited the miR-2355-3p level. Bioinformatics prediction and luciferase reporter gene assay revealed that interleukin 6 signal transducer (IL6ST) was a target of miR-2355-3p. In addition, miR-2355-3p overexpression attenuated fibrosis-related gene levels in HG-treated cells by inhibiting IL6ST expression and inactivating the recombinant signal transducer and activator of the transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling pathway. Knockdown of miR-2355-3p reversed the inhibitory effect of MALAT1 knockdown on IL6ST, col I, col IV, FN, and LN protein levels in HG-induced cells. Overexpression of MALAT1 aggravated cell damage in HG-induced cells via the miR-2355-3p/IL6ST/STAT3 signaling pathway. Finally, enhanced renal fibrosis and kidney tissue damage were observed in diabetic rats. In conclusion, MALAT1 overexpression may enhance renal fibrosis in diabetic rats and cell damage in HG-induced HK-2 cells via the miR-2355-3p/IL6ST axis, which provides a new perspective of DN treatment.

Interlayer interactions in 2D materials, also known as van der Waals (vdWs) interactions, play a critical role in the physical properties of layered materials. It is fascinating to manipulate the vdWs interaction, and hence to “redefine” the material properties. Here, we demonstrate that in-plane biaxial strain can effectively tune the vdWs interaction of few-layer black phosphorus with thickness of 2-10 layers, using infrared spectroscopy. Surprisingly, our results reveal that in-plane tensile strain efficiently weakens the interlayer coupling, even though the sample shrinks in the vertical direction due to the Poisson effect, in sharp contrast to one’s intuition. Moreover, density functional theory (DFT) calculations further confirm our observations and indicate a dominant role of the puckered lattice structure. Our study highlights the important role played by vdWs interactions in 2D materials during external physical perturbations. Layered materials governed by van der Waals (vdW) interactions offer opportunities for interlayer tuning of the materials' properties. Here, the authors demonstrate that in-plane tensile strain can effectively tune the vdW interactions of few-layered black phosphorus and weaken its interlayer coupling even though the sample shrinks in the vertical direction.

The prevention and management of coal mine roof accidents remain challenging issues because it is difficult to evaluate and quantify the interaction effects of the disaster hazard factors objectively. This paper proposes a novel approach: combining information entropy and the surrogate model—and applies Sobol’s method, aiming to solve it and to obtain the hazard factors’ 1th and the global sensitivity value without human intervention. The results show that: (1) The complex logical relationships and interactions of roof hazard factors can be transformed into quantifiable numerical values by building a co-occurrence matrix of disaster factors and calculating its information entropy. (2) The sensitivity levels of roof hazard factors can be successfully distinguished and categorized into priority management and prevention or general management and prevention using the surrogate model and Sobol’s sensitivity method. The novel sensitivity analysis approach suggested in this study considers both the individual impacts of hazard factors and their interactions, offering a more thorough framework for risk assessment as well as a fresh perspective and tool for coal mine safety research.

In many noise scenarios, ventilation is necessary. The practical realization of noise attenuation under the premise of ensuring ventilation is an urgent problem to be solved. In this paper, a ventilated acoustic metamaterial labyrinth (VAML) is proposed, and the corresponding analytical and numerical computational models are developed considering the thermal viscous effect (TVE). The loss in sound transmission of the VAML is quantitatively obtained and experimentally verified. The theoretical results are compared with the experimental results with an error of 0.6%. By comparing the transmission coefficient and the impedance at the entrance of the side branches, the mechanism of the TVE on the performance of VAML is analyzed, and it is clarified that the TVE is responsible for the sound absorption coefficient. The effects of structure parameters on the transmission coefficient of the VAML are analyzed individually. The results show that the resonant frequency of the system decreases as the length of channel 1 l 1 , the length of channel 2 l 2 , and the width of channel d increase. By adjusting the magnitude of these three parameters, the control of the resonant frequency can be realized. Meanwhile, as l 1 , l 2 and ventilation radius R decrease the valley of transmission coefficient decreases which means better noise reduction. Finally, the effect of flow velocity on the transmission coefficient is analyzed, revealing the mechanism of fluid action on macroscopic acoustic properties.

Based on panel data from 210 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2021, this study employs the Time-Varying Differences-in-Differences (Time-Varying DID) approach to systematically examine the impact of smart city construction on pollution emissions and its underlying mechanisms. Additionally, the Propensity Score Matching–Differences-in-Differences method is employed for further validation. The research findings indicate that Smart City Construction (SCC) significantly reduces urban Volume of Sewage Discharge (VSD), sulfur dioxide emissions (SO 2 ), and Emissions of Fumes and Dust (EFD), thereby mitigating pollution emissions (PE) and enhancing environmental quality. Mechanism analysis reveals that SCC achieves these effects through scale effects, structural effects, and technological effects. City heterogeneity analysis shows that provincial capital cities exhibit a stronger suppression effect on pollution emissions compared to non-provincial capital cities. Moreover, cities with lower levels of education attainment demonstrate a stronger ability to curb pollution emissions, while larger cities exhibit a more pronounced impact on mitigating pollution emissions. The marginal contributions of this study mainly consist of three aspects: Firstly, it enriches the literature on environmental impact factors by assessing, for the first time, the influence of SCC on PE. Secondly, a comprehensive approach is employed, integrating VSD, EFD, SO 2 data, and economic and pollution data at the city level. Time-Varying DID is used to evaluate the policy effects of SCC. Finally, the study analyzes the impact mechanisms of SCC policy on environmental emissions from various perspectives.