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The increasing demand for high energy storage devices calls for concurrently enhanced dielectric constants and reduced dielectric losses of polymer dielectrics. In this work, we rationally design dielectric composites comprising aligned 2D nanofillers of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and boron nitride nanosheets (BNNS) in a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) matrix through a novel press-and-fold technique. Both nanofillers play different yet complementary roles: while rGO is designed to enhance the dielectric constant through charge accumulation at the interfaces with polymer, BNNS suppress the dielectric loss by preventing the mobility of free electrons. The microlaminate containing eight layers each of rGO/PVDF and BNNS/PVDF films exhibits remarkable dielectric performance with a dielectric constant of 147 and an ultralow dielectric loss of 0.075, due to the synergistic effect arising from the alternatingly electrically conductive and insulating films. Consequently, a maximum energy density of 3.5 J/cm3—about 18 times the bilayer composite counterpart—is realized. The high thermal conductivities of both nanofillers and their alignment endow the microlaminate with an excellent in-plane thermal conductivity of 6.53 Wm−1K−1, potentially useful for multifunctional applications. This work offers a simple but effective approach to fabricating a composite for high dielectric energy storage using two different 2D nanofillers.

Lower tropospheric thermal structure greatly affects atmospheric boundary-layer (ABL) stability and mixing processes with the free troposphere. In particular, in polluted urban zones, ABL stratification becomes a key variable in air quality research. This study focuses on generating a climatology (1990–2017) of the seasonal variability of ABL thermal structure in Mexico City by way of radiosonde analysis. Thermal inversion intensity and frequency are shown to be greater during winter and spring, a behaviour which coincides with greater pollutant concentrations. Higher concentrations are found during the dry season (November to May) than during the rainy months. In addition, significantly higher than normal surface pollutant concentrations are found on days with simple thermal inversion layers as well as during multilayer inversion days. Furthermore, stable layers, determined by potential temperature, are found throughout the year but more frequently during winter, whereas stable layers based on the virtual potential temperature prevail all year. In regions of complex terrain, such multiple stable layers have also been identified by previous authors. Additionally, the most unstable surface layers (in which the bulk Richardson number (RiB) is small) develop during the rainy season, whereas during winter there are more levels in the vertical column with higher RiB values. Although the Mexico City ABL and pollution episodes have been widely studied, this represents the first long-term investigation to consider the thermal stability of the ABL. Therefore, the present study provides a baseline for further research employing different observational techniques and high-resolution numerical models.

The retinal ganglion cells (RGC) may be considered an easily accessible pathophysiological site of degenerative processes in neurological diseases, such as the RGC damage detectable in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with (HON) and without a history of optic neuritis (NON). We aimed to assess and interrelate RGC functional and structural damage in different retinal layers and retinal sites. We included 12 NON patients, 11 HON patients and 14 healthy controls for cross-sectional multifocal pattern electroretinography (mfPERG) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) measurements. Amplitude and peak times of the mfPERG were assessed. Macula and disc OCT scans were acquired to determine macular retinal layer and peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (pRNFL) thickness. In both HON and NON patients the foveal N2 amplitude of the mfPERG was reduced compared to controls. The parafoveal P1 peak time was significantly reduced in HON only. For OCT, parafoveal (pfGCL) and perifoveal (pGCL) ganglion cell layer thicknesses were decreased in HON vs. controls, while pRNFL in the papillomacular bundle sector (PMB) showed reductions in both NON and HON. As the mfPERG derived N2 originates from RGC axons, these findings suggest foveal axonal dysfunction not only in HON, but also in NON patients.

Background Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in various biological and pathological processes. Discovery of lncRNA–protein interactions (LPIs) contributes to understand the biological functions and mechanisms of lncRNAs. Although wet experiments find a few interactions between lncRNAs and proteins, experimental techniques are costly and time-consuming. Therefore, computational methods are increasingly exploited to uncover the possible associations. However, existing computational methods have several limitations. First, majority of them were measured based on one simple dataset, which may result in the prediction bias. Second, few of them are applied to identify relevant data for new lncRNAs (or proteins). Finally, they failed to utilize diverse biological information of lncRNAs and proteins. Results Under the feed-forward deep architecture based on gradient boosting decision trees (LPI-deepGBDT), this work focuses on classify unobserved LPIs. First, three human LPI datasets and two plant LPI datasets are arranged. Second, the biological features of lncRNAs and proteins are extracted by Pyfeat and BioProt, respectively. Thirdly, the features are dimensionally reduced and concatenated as a vector to represent an lncRNA–protein pair. Finally, a deep architecture composed of forward mappings and inverse mappings is developed to predict underlying linkages between lncRNAs and proteins. LPI-deepGBDT is compared with five classical LPI prediction models (LPI-BLS, LPI-CatBoost, PLIPCOM, LPI-SKF, and LPI-HNM) under three cross validations on lncRNAs, proteins, lncRNA–protein pairs, respectively. It obtains the best average AUC and AUPR values under the majority of situations, significantly outperforming other five LPI identification methods. That is, AUCs computed by LPI-deepGBDT are 0.8321, 0.6815, and 0.9073, respectively and AUPRs are 0.8095, 0.6771, and 0.8849, respectively. The results demonstrate the powerful classification ability of LPI-deepGBDT. Case study analyses show that there may be interactions between GAS5 and Q15717, RAB30-AS1 and O00425, and LINC-01572 and P35637. Conclusions Integrating ensemble learning and hierarchical distributed representations and building a multiple-layered deep architecture, this work improves LPI prediction performance as well as effectively probes interaction data for new lncRNAs/proteins.

Although ultrablack surfaces are urgently needed in wide applications owing to their extremely low reflectance over a broadband wavelength, obtaining simultaneously the ultrablackness and mechanical robustness by simple process technique is still a great challenge. Herein, by decoupling different light extinction effects to different layers of coating, we design an ultrablack coating that is all-sprayable in whole process. This coating presents low reflectance over visible-mid-infrared (VIS-MIR) wavelength (av. R ≈ 1% in VIS), low multi-angle scattering (bidirectional reflection distribution function (BRDF) = 10 −2 −10 −3 sr −1 ), together with good substrate adhesion grade and self-cleaning ability, which are superior to most reported sprayable ultrablack surfaces. The light extinction effects of each layer are discussed. This method is also applicable in other material systems.

This study investigates the dynamic response and failure mechanism of the polyline-shaped large-span double-layer grid space structures subjected to progressive collapse. A grid model was designed and fabricated to represent a typical area of a large-span double-layer grid space structure from a specific engineering project. Three representative locations were selected to simulate failure of the test model, and dynamic collapse tests were conducted. In the tests, four conditions were considered: D1 (120 kg, failure at A), D2 (120 kg, failure at B), D3 (120 kg, failure at C), and D4 (200 kg, failure at C). The dynamic response of the structure under various conditions was studied by comparing strain, displacement, and failure patterns derived from the test analysis. Furthermore, the collapse process and mechanism of the structure were analyzed. The results indicate that the upper chord rods are key components in collapse resistance design. Under test conditions D4, significant vertical displacement occurred, and out-of-plane deformation increased markedly after the lateral constraints were removed, causing the structure to tilt towards the side without a failure device. The strain and displacement changes were most significant under test conditions D3 and D4, especially near the failure locations. Under condition D3, the strain change is 1109 microstrain larger than that before the failure, with the maximum vertical displacement increase being 59.109 mm. Under condition D4, the strain change is -1126 microstrain larger than that before the failure, with the maximum vertical displacement increase being 74.795 mm. Through multi-condition testing, the collapse mechanisms at different failure locations in the structure were clarified. The failure of web members and lower chord rods led to a redistribution of internal forces, but the effect on the double-layer grid structure was minimal. After the failure of the upper chord rods, significant displacements occurred near the failure location, and buckling of surrounding members was observed.

Alginate hydrogels can be used to develop a three-dimensional environment in which various cell types can be grown. Cross-linking the alginate chains using reversible ionic bonds opens up great possibilities for the encapsulation and subsequent release of cells or drugs. However, alginate also has a drawback in that its structure is not very stable in a culture medium with cellular activity. This work explored the stability of alginate microspheres functionalised by grafting specific biomolecules onto their surface to form microgels in which biomimetic microspheres surrounded the cells in the culture, reproducing the natural microenvironment. A study was made of the stability of the microgel in different typical culture media and the formation of polyelectrolyte multilayers containing polylysine and heparin. Multiple myeloma cell proliferation in the culture was tested in a bioreactor under gentle agitation.

Background Crop diversification is considered as an imperative approach for synchronizing the plant nutrient demands and soil nutrient availability. Taking two or more crops from the same field in one year is considered as multiple cropping. It improves the diversity and abundance of soil microbes, thereby improving the growth and yield of crops. Therefore, the present study was conducted to explore the effects of different multiple winter cropping on soil microbial communities in paddy fields. In this study, eight rice cropping patterns from two multiple cropping systems with three different winter crops, including Chinese milk vetch (CMV), rape, and wheat were selected. The effects of different multiple winter cropping on soil microbial abundance, community structure, and diversity in paddy fields were studied by 16 S rRNA high-throughput sequencing and real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results The results showed that different multiple winter cropping increased the operational taxonomic units (OTUs), species richness, and community richness index of the bacterial community in 0 ~ 20 cm soil layer. Moreover, soil physical and chemical properties of different multiple cropping patterns also affected the diversity and abundance of microbial bacterial communities. The multiple cropping increased soil potassium and nitrogen content, which significantly affected the diversity and abundance of bacterial communities, and it also increased the overall paddy yield. Moreover, different winter cropping changed the population distribution of microorganisms, and Proteobacteria , Acidobacteria , Nitrospira , and Chloroflexi were identified as the most dominant groups. Multiple winter cropping, especially rape-early rice-late rice (TR) andChinese milk vetch- early rice-late rice (TC) enhanced the abundance of Proteobacteria , Acidobacteria , and Actinobacteria and decreased the relative abundance of Verrucomicrobia and Euryarchaeota . Conclusion In conclusion, winter cropping of Chinese milk vetch and rape were beneficial to improve the soil fertility, bacteria diversity, abundance and rice yield.

Currently, little is understood about the role of different anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) pathways and their relative contributions in reducing CH4 emissions from rice fields. The potential rates of AOM caused by nitrate-, iron-, and sulfate-reduction, as well as the anaerobic methanotrophic (ANME-2d) archaeal absolute abundance and community composition were investigated across varying rice growth periods (tillering, jointing, flowering, and maturing) and soil layers (0–10, 10–20, 20–30, and 30–40 cm). The average potential rate of nitrate-AOM (2.73 nmol 13CO2 g-1 d-1) was significantly higher than those of iron- (1.15 nmol 13CO2 g-1 d-1) and sulfate-AOM (0.42 nmol 13CO2 g-1 d-1) across growth periods and soil layers. The AOM rates in surface soils (0–20 cm) and earlier periods (tillering and jointing) were significantly higher than those in deep soils (20–40 cm) and later periods (flowering and maturing), respectively. Differently, ANME-2d archaeal absolute abundance and community compositions were only significantly affected by soil layers, with the highest absolute abundance in the 10–20 cm layer. The organic carbon content and availability of electron acceptor were the primary factors governing the rates of different AOM pathways and community of ANME-2d archaea. Overall, this study provided the variation in AOM rates driven via multiple electron acceptors and ANME-2d archaeal community across rice growth periods and soil layers, and provided an important scientific basis for precise quantification of AOM as a potential CH4 sink in rice fields.

The phenomenon of structural destabilization damage to asphalt pavement is becoming increasingly serious as a result of high temperatures and heavy traffic. Considering the advantages of Qingchuan rock asphalt (QRA) in its durability, high-temperature rutting resistance, and good compatibility with asphalt, it was proposed to compound rock asphalt with SBS to ameliorate the high-temperature performance of asphalt. In this study, DSR and BBR were used to determine the rheological properties of Qingchuan rock-modified asphalt (QRMA) and Qingchuan rock–SBS-modified asphalt (QRA-SBSMA), and the optimum blending amount of rock asphalt was determined based on the PG classification results. Secondly, four different structures of ‘30 mm AC-10 upper layer (70-A, QRMA, SBSMA, QRA-SBSMA) + 50 mm AC-16 lower layer (70-A)’ double-layer composite specimens were prepared. Multiple high-temperature performance evaluation indexes (G*/sinδ, Ds, rutting depth, micro-strain, Fn, modulus) were used to assess the improvement effect of QRA. Finally, using a 1/3 scale accelerated loading testing machine, we simulated high-temperature, water, and high-temperature coupled environments to assess the impact of high temperature and water on the performance of QRMA and QRA-SBSMA, respectively. The findings demonstrated that QRA can increase the PG classification of 70-A and SBSMA as well as its resistance to high-temperature deformation. Multi-index comprehensive evaluation methods were used to consummate the asphalt high-temperature evaluation system. The QRA-SBSMA had the smallest rutting depth and creep rate and the largest dynamic modulus, characterizing its ability to optimally resist high-temperature rutting and deformation.