bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Anomalous and Chern topological waves in hyperbolic networks
Authors: Chen Qiaolu , Zhang Zhe , Qin Haoye , Bossart Aleksi , Yang Yihao , Chen Hongsheng , Fleury Romain 
Published: March 2024

AbstractHyperbolic lattices are a new type of synthetic materials based on regular tessellations in non-Euclidean spaces with constant negative curvature. While so far, there has been several theoretical investigations of hyperbolic topological media, experimental work has been limited to time-reversal invariant systems made of coupled discrete resonances, leaving the more interesting case of robust, unidirectional edge wave transport completely unobserved. Here, we report a non-reciprocal hyperbolic network that exhibits both Chern and anomalous chiral edge modes, and implement it on a planar microwave platform. We experimentally evidence the unidirectional character of the topological edge modes by direct field mapping. We demonstrate the topological origin of these hyperbolic chiral edge modes by an explicit topological invariant measurement, performed from external probes. Our work extends the reach of topological wave physics by allowing for backscattering-immune transport in materials with synthetic non-Euclidean behavior.
Bacteria can compensate the fitness costs of amplified resistance genes via a bypass mechanism
Authors: Pal Ankita , Andersson Dan I. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractAntibiotic heteroresistance is a phenotype in which a susceptible bacterial population includes a small subpopulation of cells that are more resistant than the main population. Such resistance can arise by tandem amplification of DNA regions containing resistance genes that in single copy are not sufficient to confer resistance. However, tandem amplifications often carry fitness costs, manifested as reduced growth rates. Here, we investigated if and how these fitness costs can be genetically ameliorated. We evolved four clinical isolates of three bacterial species that show heteroresistance to tobramycin, gentamicin and tetracyclines at increasing antibiotic concentrations above the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the main susceptible population. This led to a rapid enrichment of resistant cells with up to an 80-fold increase in the resistance gene copy number, an increased MIC, and severely reduced growth rates. When further evolved in the presence of antibiotic, these strains acquired compensatory resistance mutations and showed a reduction in copy number while maintaining high-level resistance. A deterministic model indicated that the loss of amplified units was driven mainly by their fitness costs and that the compensatory mutations did not affect the loss rate of the gene amplifications. Our findings suggest that heteroresistance mediated by copy number changes can facilitate and precede the evolution towards stable resistance.
Trade-offs in land-based carbon removal measures under 1.5 °C and 2 °C futures
Authors: Zhao Xin , Mignone Bryan K. , Wise Marshall A. , McJeon Haewon C. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractLand-based carbon removals, specifically afforestation/reforestation and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), vary widely in 1.5 °C and 2 °C scenarios generated by integrated assessment models. Because underlying drivers are difficult to assess, we use a well-known integrated assessment model, GCAM, to demonstrate that land-based carbon removals are sensitive to the strength and scope of land-based mitigation policies. We find that while cumulative afforestation/reforestation and BECCS deployment are inversely related, they are both typically part of cost-effective mitigation pathways, with forestry options deployed earlier. While the CO2 removal intensity (removal per unit land) of BECCS is typically higher than afforestation/reforestation over long time horizons, the BECCS removal intensity is sensitive to feedstock and technology choices whereas the afforestation/reforestation removal intensity is sensitive to land policy choices. Finally, we find a generally positive relationship between agricultural prices and removal effectiveness of land-based mitigation, suggesting that some trade-offs may be difficult to avoid.
Electrothermally controlled origami fabricated by 4D printing of continuous fiber-reinforced composites
Authors: Wang Yaohui , Ye Haitao , He Jian , Ge Qi , Xiong Yi 
Published: March 2024

AbstractActive origami capable of precise deployment control, enabling on-demand modulation of its properties, is highly desirable in multi-scenario and multi-task applications. While 4D printing with shape memory composites holds great promise to realize such active origami, it still faces challenges such as low load-bearing capacity and limited transformable states. Here, we report a fabrication-design-actuation method of precisely controlled electrothermal origami with excellent mechanical performance and spatiotemporal controllability, utilizing 4D printing of continuous fiber-reinforced composites. The incorporation of continuous carbon fibers empowers electrothermal origami with a controllable actuation process via Joule heating, increased actuation force through improved heat conduction, and enhanced mechanical properties as a result of reinforcement. By modeling the multi-physical and highly nonlinear deploying process, we attain precise control over the active origami, allowing it to be reconfigured and locked into any desired configuration by manipulating activation parameters. Furthermore, we showcase the versatility of electrothermal origami by constructing reconfigurable robots, customizable architected materials, and programmable wings, which broadens the practical engineering applications of origami.
Excitonic Mott insulator in a Bose-Fermi-Hubbard system of moiré WS2/WSe2 heterobilayer
Authors: Gao Beini , Suárez-Forero Daniel G. , Sarkar Supratik , Huang Tsung-Sheng , Session Deric , Mehrabad Mahmoud Jalali , Ni Ruihao , Xie Ming , Upadhyay Pranshoo , Vannucci Jonathan , Mittal Sunil , Watanabe Kenji , Taniguchi Takashi , Imamoglu Atac , Zhou You , Hafezi Mohammad 
Published: March 2024

AbstractUnderstanding the Hubbard model is crucial for investigating various quantum many-body states and its fermionic and bosonic versions have been largely realized separately. Recently, transition metal dichalcogenides heterobilayers have emerged as a promising platform for simulating the rich physics of the Hubbard model. In this work, we explore the interplay between fermionic and bosonic populations, using a WS2/WSe2 heterobilayer device that hosts this hybrid particle density. We independently tune the fermionic and bosonic populations by electronic doping and optical injection of electron-hole pairs, respectively. This enables us to form strongly interacting excitons that are manifested in a large energy gap in the photoluminescence spectrum. The incompressibility of excitons is further corroborated by observing a suppression of exciton diffusion with increasing pump intensity, as opposed to the expected behavior of a weakly interacting gas of bosons, suggesting the formation of a bosonic Mott insulator. We explain our observations using a two-band model including phase space filling. Our system provides a controllable approach to the exploration of quantum many-body effects in the generalized Bose-Fermi-Hubbard model.
Observation of vortex-string chiral modes in metamaterials
Authors: Ma Jingwen , Jia Ding , Zhang Li , Guan Yi-jun , Ge Yong , Sun Hong-xiang , Yuan Shou-qi , Chen Hongsheng , Yang Yihao , Zhang Xiang 
Published: March 2024

AbstractAs hypothetical topological defects in the geometry of spacetime, vortex strings could have played many roles in cosmology, and their distinct features can provide observable clues about the early universe’s evolution. A key feature of vortex strings is that they can interact with Weyl fermionic modes and support massless chiral-anomaly states along strings. To date, despite many attempts to detect vortex strings in astrophysics or to emulate them in artificially created systems, observation of these vortex-string chiral modes remains experimentally elusive. Here we report experimental observations of vortex-string chiral modes using a metamaterial system. This is implemented by inhomogeneous perturbation of Yang-monopole phononic metamaterials. The measured linear dispersion and modal profiles confirm the existence of topological modes bound to and propagating along the string with the chiral anomaly. Our work provides a platform for studying diverse cosmic topological defects in astrophysics and offers applications as topological fibres in communication techniques.
Higher order gaps in the renormalized band structure of doubly aligned hBN/bilayer graphene moiré superlattice
Authors: Jat Mohit Kumar , Tiwari Priya , Bajaj Robin , Shitut Ishita , Mandal Shinjan , Watanabe Kenji , Taniguchi Takashi , Krishnamurthy H. R. , Jain Manish , Bid Aveek 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThis paper presents our findings on the recursive band gap engineering of chiral fermions in bilayer graphene doubly aligned with hBN. Using two interfering moiré potentials, we generate a supermoiré pattern that renormalizes the electronic bands of the pristine bilayer graphene, resulting in higher order fractal gaps even at very low energies. These Bragg gaps can be mapped using a unique linear combination of periodic areas within the system. To validate our findings, we use electronic transport measurements to identify the position of these gaps as a function of the carrier density. We establish their agreement with the predicted carrier densities and corresponding quantum numbers obtained using the continuum model. Our study provides strong evidence of the quantization of the momentum-space area of quasi-Brillouin zones in a minimally incommensurate lattice. It fills important gaps in the understanding of band structure engineering of Dirac fermions with a doubly periodic superlattice spinor potential.
Ultra-compact exciton polariton modulator based on van der Waals semiconductors
Authors: Lee Seong Won , Lee Jong Seok , Choi Woo Hun , Choi Daegwang , Gong Su-Hyun 
Published: March 2024

AbstractWith the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the exponential growth in data generation, there is an increasing demand for high-performance and highly integratable optical modulators. In this work, we present an ultra-compact exciton-polariton Mach–Zehnder (MZ) modulator based on WS2 multilayers. The guided exciton-polariton modes arise in an ultrathin WS2 waveguide due to the strong excitonic resonance. By locally exciting excitons using a modulation laser in one arm of the MZ modulator, we induce changes in the effective refractive index of the polariton mode, resulting in modulation of transmitted intensity. Remarkably, we achieve a maximum modulation of −6.20 dB with an ultra-short modulation length of 2 μm. Our MZ modulator boasts an ultra-compact footprint area of ~30 μm² and a thin thickness of 18 nm. Our findings present new opportunities for the advancement of highly integrated and efficient photonic devices utilizing van der Waals materials.
Tailoring d-band center of high-valent metal-oxo species for pollutant removal via complete polymerization
Authors: Liu Hong-Zhi , Shu Xiao-Xuan , Huang Mingjie , Wu Bing-Bing , Chen Jie-Jie , Wang Xi-Sheng , Li Hui-Lin , Yu Han-Qing 
Published: March 2024

AbstractPolymerization-driven removal of pollutants in advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) offers a sustainable way for the simultaneous achievement of contamination abatement and resource recovery, supporting a low-carbon water purification approach. However, regulating such a process remains a great challenge due to the insufficient microscopic understanding of electronic structure-dependent reaction mechanisms. Herein, this work probes the origin of catalytic pollutant polymerization using a series of transition metal (Cu, Ni, Co, and Fe) single-atom catalysts and identifies the d-band center of active site as the key driver for polymerization transfer of pollutants. The high-valent metal-oxo species, produced via peroxymonosulfate activation, are found to trigger the pollutant removal via polymerization transfer. Phenoxyl radicals, identified by the innovative spin-trapping and quenching approaches, act as the key intermediate in the polymerization reactions. More importantly, the oxidation capacity of high-valent metal-oxo species can be facilely tuned by regulating their binding strength for peroxymonosulfate through d-band center modulation. A 100% polymerization transfer ratio is achieved by lowering the d-band center. This work presents a paradigm to dynamically modulate the electronic structure of high-valent metal-oxo species and optimize pollutant removal from wastewater via polymerization.
Flexible and wearable battery-free backscatter wireless communication system for colour imaging
Authors: Zhan Jun-Lin , Lu Wei-Bing , Ding Cong , Sun Zhen , Yu Bu-Yun , Ju Lu , Liang Xin-Hua , Chen Zhao-Min , Chen Hao , Jia Yong-Hao , Liu Zhen-Guo , Cui Tie-Jun 
Published: March 2024

AbstractWireless imaging, equipped with ultralow power wireless communications and energy harvesting (EH) capabilities, have emerged as battery-free and sustainable solutions. However, the challenge of implementing wireless colour imaging in wearable applications remains, primarily due to high power demands and the need to balance energy harvesting efficiency with device compactness. To address these issues, we propose a flexible and wearable battery-free backscatter wireless communication system specially designed for colour imaging. The system features a hybrid RF-solar EH array that efficiently harvests energy from both ambient RF and visible light energy, ensuring continuous operation in diverse environments. Moreover, flexible materials allow the working system to conform to the human body, ensuring comfort, user-friendliness, and safety. Furthermore, a compact design utilizing a shared-aperture antenna array for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT), coupled with an optically transparent stacked structure. This design not only optimizes space but also maintains the performance of both communication and EH processes. The proposed flexible and wearable systems for colour imaging would have potentially applications in environmental monitoring, object detection, and law enforcement recording. This approach demonstrates a sustainable and practical solution for the next generation of wearable, power-demanding devices.
Deformable micro-supercapacitor fabricated via laser ablation patterning of Graphene/liquid metal
Authors: Kim Keon-Woo , Park Seong Ju , Park Su-Jeong , Kim Inae , Park Bomi , Kim Se Hyun , Jeong Unyong , Kim Jin Kon , Yang Chanwoo 
Published: March 2024

AbstractDeformable and miniaturized energy storage devices are essential for powering soft electronics. Herein, we fabricate deformable micro supercapacitors (MSCs) based on eutectic gallium-indium liquid metal (EGaIn) current collectors with integrated graphene. The well-define interdigitated electrode patterning with controlled gap is successfully realized by using the laser ablation because of a strong laser absorption of graphene and EGaIn. By judicious control of gap size between neighboring interdigitated electrodes and mass loading of graphene, we achieve a high areal capacitance (1336 µF cm−2) with reliable rate performance. In addition, owing to the intrinsic liquid characteristics of EGaIn current collector, the areal capacitance of fabricated MSC retains 90% of original value even after repetitive folding and 20% stretching up to 1000 cycles. Finally, we successfully integrate deformable MSC with a commercial light-emitting diode to demonstrate the feasibility of MSC as a deformable power source. The fabricated MSCs operate stably under various mechanical deformations, including stretching, folding, twisting, and wrinkling.
Prebiotic inulin ameliorates SARS-CoV-2 infection in hamsters by modulating the gut microbiome
Authors: Song Isaiah , Yang Jiayue , Saito Misa , Hartanto Tenagy , Nakayama Yasunori , Ichinohe Takeshi , Fukuda Shinji 
Published: March 2024

AbstractCurrent treatment options for COVID-19 are limited, with many antivirals and immunomodulators restricted to the most severe cases and preventative care limited to vaccination. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its increasing variants threaten to become a permanent fixture of our lives, this new reality necessitates the development of cost-effective and accessible treatment options for COVID-19. Studies have shown that there are correlations between the gut microbiome and severity of COVID-19, especially with regards to production of physiologically beneficial short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) by gut microbes. In this study, we used a Syrian hamster model to study how dietary consumption of the prebiotic inulin affected morbidity and mortality resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection. After two weeks of observation, we discovered that inulin supplementation attenuated morbid weight loss and increased survival rate in hamster subjects. An analysis of microbiome community structure showed significant alterations in 15 genera. Notably, there were also small increases in fecal DCA and a significant increase in serum DCA, perhaps highlighting a role for this secondary bile acid in conferring protection against SARS-CoV-2. In light of these results, inulin and other prebiotics are promising targets for future investigation as preventative treatment options for COVID-19.
Strategies for mitigating challenges associated with trace organic compound removal by high-retention membrane bioreactors (HR-MBRs)
Authors: Mahlangu Oranso T. , Nkambule Thabo I. , Mamba Bhekie B. , Hai Faisal I. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractDue to the limitations of conventional ultrafiltration/microfiltration-based membrane bioreactors (UF/MF-MBRs) in removing trace organic compounds (TrOCs), the concept of high-retention membrane bioreactors (HR-MBRs) was introduced. Despite the benefits, HR-MBRs still suffer several drawbacks. Therefore, this paper critically reviews the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed strategies to alleviate fouling, salinity build-up and incomplete biodegradation of TrOCs during wastewater treatment by HR-MBRs. The severity of each challenge is compared amongst the various configurations together with the associated capital and operational expenditure to determine the most cost-effective set-up. Guidance is provided on strategies and/or lessons that could be adopted from well-established processes used at municipal scale. Chemical cleaning as mitigation for fouling degrades membranes leading to poor TrOCs removal, while pre-treatment and membrane surface modification increase operational expenditure (OpEX). However, there are other environmentally-friendly pretreatment and cleaning options which hold great potential for future application. These options such as advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are critically discussed in this work. Further, in-depth discussion is made on the pros and cons of the various approaches (such as frequent sludge withdrawal, intermittent UF/MF filtration and using organic salts) to alleviate salt build-up. Finally, incomplete biodegradation of rejected TrOCs in the bioreactor transfers problems of toxic pollutants from wastewater treatment to sludge management. Herein mitigation strategies including using stronger biological agents and coupling HR-MBRs with other techniques are debated. Despite the challenges, HR-MBRs are a promising solution for clean water production from TrOCs impaired wastewater. Therefore, more research is needed to improve the performance of HR-MBRs.
Ion solvation kinetics in bipolar membranes and at electrolyte–metal interfaces
Authors: Rodellar Carlos G. , Gisbert-Gonzalez José M. , Sarabia Francisco , Roldan Cuenya Beatriz , Oener Sebastian Z. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractIon (de)solvation at solid–electrolyte interfaces is pivotal for energy and chemical conversion technology, such as (electro)catalysis, batteries and bipolar membranes. For example, during the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline media, water needs to be dissociated and hydroxide ions solvated—a process that is not well understood. Here we study water dissociation and ion solvation kinetics in isolation at polymeric bipolar membrane and electrolyte–metal interfaces. We discover bias-dependent relationships between the activation entropy and enthalpy, which we link to a bias-dependent dispersion of interfacial capacitance. Furthermore, our results indicate that OH− solvation is kinetically slower than H+ solvation and that the solvation kinetics display characteristics that are independent of the catalyst structure. We attribute this to a universal amount of excess charge needed to induce electric fields that alter the interfacial entropy of water. Of fundamental interest, these results are critical to enable knowledge-driven bipolar membrane and electrocatalyst design.
Design, synthesis and in vitro anticancer activity of some new lomefloxacin derivatives
Authors: Adly Mina E. , Gedawy Ehab M. , El-Malah Afaf A. , Khalil Omneya M. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractOur main goal was to design and synthesize novel lomefloxacin derivatives that inhibit the topoisomerase II enzyme, leading to potent anticancer activity. Lomefloxacin derivatives substituted at position 3 and 7 were synthesized and screened for cytotoxic activity utilizing 60 different human cancer cell lines. Furthermore, compounds 3a,b,c,e that revealed potent broad-spectrum anticancer activity (with mean percent GI more than 47%) were further evaluated using five dose concentrations and calculating the GI50. Compound 3e was then evaluated for cell cycle analysis and demonstrated cell cycle arrest at the G2-M phase. Moreover, the mechanism of action was determined by determining the topoisomerase inhibitory activity and the molecular modeling study. Compounds 3a,b,c,e showed broad spectrum anticancer activity. Lomefloxacin derivative 5f showed selective cytotoxic activity against melanoma SK-MEL-5 cell line. Compound 3e demonstrated comparable topoisomerase II inhibition to doxorubicin with IC50 of 0.98 µM.
DIEANet: an attention model for histopathological image grading of lung adenocarcinoma based on dimensional information embedding
Authors: Wang Zexin , Gao Jing , Li Min , Zuo Enguang , Chen Chen , Chen Cheng , Liang Fei , Lv Xiaoyi , Ma Yuhua 
Published: March 2024

AbstractEfficient and rapid auxiliary diagnosis of different grades of lung adenocarcinoma is conducive to helping doctors accelerate individualized diagnosis and treatment processes, thus improving patient prognosis. Currently, there is often a problem of large intra-class differences and small inter-class differences between pathological images of lung adenocarcinoma tissues under different grades. If attention mechanisms such as Coordinate Attention (CA) are directly used for lung adenocarcinoma grading tasks, it is prone to excessive compression of feature information and overlooking the issue of information dependency within the same dimension. Therefore, we propose a Dimension Information Embedding Attention Network (DIEANet) for the task of lung adenocarcinoma grading. Specifically, we combine different pooling methods to automatically select local regions of key growth patterns such as lung adenocarcinoma cells, enhancing the model's focus on local information. Additionally, we employ an interactive fusion approach to concentrate feature information within the same dimension and across dimensions, thereby improving model performance. Extensive experiments have shown that under the condition of maintaining equal computational expenses, the accuracy of DIEANet with ResNet34 as the backbone reaches 88.19%, with an AUC of 96.61%, MCC of 81.71%, and Kappa of 81.16%. Compared to seven other attention mechanisms, it achieves state-of-the-art objective metrics. Additionally, it aligns more closely with the visual attention of pathology experts under subjective visual assessment.