Capital Normal University

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is thatthere is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure flux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the completeprocess including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defined as increasedautophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the field understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in manycases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as forreviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multipleassays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation, it is imperative to target by gene knockout or RNA interference more than one autophagyrelated protein. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways implying that not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field.

Abiotic stresses are one of the major constraints to crop production and food security worldwide. The situation has aggravated due to the drastic and rapid changes in global climate. Heat and drought are undoubtedly the two most important stresses having huge impact on growth and productivity of the crops. It is very important to understand the physiological, biochemical, and ecological interventions related to these stresses for better management. A wide range of plant responses to these stresses could be generalized into morphological, physiological, and biochemical responses. Interestingly, this review provides a detailed account of plant responses to heat and drought stresses with special focus on highlighting the commonalities and differences. Crop growth and yields are negatively affected by sub-optimal water supply and abnormal temperatures due to physical damages, physiological disruptions, and biochemical changes. Both these stresses have multi-lateral impacts and therefore, complex in mechanistic action. A better understanding of plant responses to these stresses has pragmatic implication for remedies and management. A comprehensive account of conventional as well as modern approaches to deal with heat and drought stresses have also been presented here. A side-by-side critical discussion on salient responses and management strategies for these two important abiotic stresses provides a unique insight into the phenomena. A holistic approach taking into account the different management options to deal with heat and drought stress simultaneously could be a win-win approach in future.

<b><i>Objective:</i></b> We explored whether medical health workers had more psychosocial problems than nonmedical health workers during the COVID-19 outbreak. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> An online survey was run from February 19 to March 6, 2020; a total of 2,182 Chinese subjects participated. Mental health variables were assessed via the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), the Symptom Check List-revised (SCL-90-R), and the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4), which included a 2-item anxiety scale and a 2-item depression scale (PHQ-2). <b><i>Results:</i></b> Compared with nonmedical health workers (<i>n</i> = 1,255), medical health workers (<i>n</i> = 927) had a higher prevalence of insomnia (38.4 vs. 30.5%, <i>p</i> < 0.01), anxiety (13.0 vs. 8.5%, <i>p</i> < 0.01), depression (12.2 vs. 9.5%; <i>p</i>< 0.04), somatization (1.6 vs. 0.4%; <i>p</i> < 0.01), and obsessive-compulsive symptoms (5.3 vs. 2.2%; <i>p</i> < 0.01). They also had higher total scores of ISI, GAD-2, PHQ-2, and SCL-90-R obsessive-compulsive symptoms (<i>p</i> ≤ 0.01). Among medical health workers, having organic disease was an independent factor for insomnia, anxiety, depression, somatization, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms (<i>p</i> < 0.05 or 0.01). Living in rural areas, being female, and being at risk of contact with COVID-19 patients were the most common risk factors for insomnia, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and depression (<i>p</i> < 0.01 or 0.05). Among nonmedical health workers, having organic disease was a risk factor for insomnia, depression, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms (<i>p</i> < 0.01 or 0.05). <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> During the COVID-19 outbreak, medical health workers had psychosocial problems and risk factors for developing them. They were in need of attention and recovery programs.

Abstract “Foundations of the theory of signs,” published by Charles W. Morris in 1938, deals with the relations between semiotics and science, and those between semiosis and semiotics, among others. Compared with previous research regarding the aspects of semiotics being meta-science, the three dimensions of semiosis, semiotic as organon of the sciences, etc., this article does push forward the development of linguistics and semiotics since the late 1930s. However, its discussions on semiotics being meta-science, the nature and classification of signs, the three dimensions of semiosis, organism in the sign relations, universals and universality of signs, and thing-language are either not logically rigid or inadequate in content and scope. For a piece of work discussing the theoretical foundations of signs, it does not consider sign transformation, a universal and ubiquitous sign activity, which is not consistent with the keyword “foundations” in its title. A critical analysis of these problems involving the aspects mentioned above may not only enrich the visions of triadic sign relations, semiotics, and translation semiotics, but also inspire future semiotic studies and even other new research related to signs.

We develop an efficient fused-ring electron acceptor (ITIC-Th) based on indacenodithieno[3,2-b]thiophene core and thienyl side-chains for organic solar cells (OSCs). Relative to its counterpart with phenyl side-chains (ITIC), ITIC-Th shows lower energy levels (ITIC-Th: HOMO = -5.66 eV, LUMO = -3.93 eV; ITIC: HOMO = -5.48 eV, LUMO = -3.83 eV) due to the σ-inductive effect of thienyl side-chains, which can match with high-performance narrow-band-gap polymer donors and wide-band-gap polymer donors. ITIC-Th has higher electron mobility (6.1 × 10(-4) cm(2) V(-1) s(-1)) than ITIC (2.6 × 10(-4) cm(2) V(-1) s(-1)) due to enhanced intermolecular interaction induced by sulfur-sulfur interaction. We fabricate OSCs by blending ITIC-Th acceptor with two different low-band-gap and wide-band-gap polymer donors. In one case, a power conversion efficiency of 9.6% was observed, which rivals some of the highest efficiencies for single junction OSCs based on fullerene acceptors.

A planar fused-ring electron acceptor (IC-C6IDT-IC) based on indacenodithiophene is designed and synthesized. IC-C6IDT-IC shows strong absorption in 500-800 nm with extinction coefficient of up to 2.4 × 10(5) M(-1) cm(-1) and high electron mobility of 1.1 × 10(-3) cm(2) V(-1) s(-1). The as-cast polymer solar cells based on IC-C6IDT-IC without additional treatments exhibit power conversion efficiencies of up to 8.71%.

Clustering analysis method is one of the main analytical methods in data mining, the method of clustering algorithm will influence the clustering results directly. This paper discusses the standard k-means clustering algorithm and analyzes the shortcomings of standard k-means algorithm, such as the k-means clustering algorithm has to calculate the distance between each data object and all cluster centers in each iteration, which makes the efficiency of clustering is not high. This paper proposes an improved k-means algorithm in order to solve this question, requiring a simple data structure to store some information in every iteration, which is to be used in the next interation. The improved method avoids computing the distance of each data object to the cluster centers repeatly, saving the running time. Experimental results show that the improved method can effectively improve the speed of clustering and accuracy, reducing the computational complexity of the k-means.

While α-MnO 2 has been intensively studied for zinc batteries, δ-MnO 2 is usually believed to be more suitable for ion storage with its layered structure. Unfortunately, the extraordinary Zn ion storage performance that δ-MnO 2 should exhibit has not yet been achieved due to the frustrating structural degradation during charge–discharge cycles. Here, we found the Na ion and water molecules pre-intercalation can effectively activate stable Zn ion storage of δ-MnO 2 . Our results reveal that the resulted Zn//pre-intercalated δ-MnO 2 battery delivers an extraordinarily high-rate performance, with a high capacity of 278 mAh g –1 at 1 C and up to 20 C, and a high capacity of 106 mAh g –1 can still be measured. The capacity retention is as high as 98% after charged–discharged up to 10,000 cycles benefiting from smooth Zn ion diffusion in the pre-intercalated structure. Further in situ / ex situ characterization confirms the superfast Zn ion diffusion in the pre-intercalated structure at room temperature. In addition, utilizing the well-chosen electrode material and modified polyurethane shell, we fabricated a quasi-solid-state healable Zn-δ-MnO 2, which can be self-healed after multiple catastrophic damages, emphasizing the advanced features of aqueous Zn ion battery for wearable applications.

A novel high excited state energy transfer pathway to overcome the phonon quenching effect in rare-earth (RE) oxide upconversion (UC) materials is reported. In Er(Tm)-Yb oxide systems, an extraordinary enhancement of UC luminescence efficiency with four orders of magnitude is realized by Mo co-doping. The RE oxides with significant UC efficiency are successfully utilized for temperature sensing and in vivo imaging.

Remarkable progress has been made in developing high performance organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and the mobility of OFETs has been approaching the values of polycrystalline silicon, meeting the requirements of various electronic applications from electronic papers to integrated circuits. In this review, the key points for development of high mobility OFETs are highlighted from aspects of molecular engineering, process engineering and interface engineering. The importance of other factors, such as impurities and testing conditions is also addressed. Finally, the current challenges in this field for practical applications of OFETs are further discussed.

Phytohormones, including jasmonates (JAs), gibberellin, ethylene, abscisic acid, and auxin, integrate endogenous developmental cues with environmental signals to regulate plant growth, development, and defense. JAs are well- recognized lipid-derived stress hormones that regulate plant adaptations to biotic stresses, including herbivore attack and pathogen infection, as well as abiotic stresses, including wounding, ozone, and ultraviolet radiation. An increasing number of studies have shown that JAs also have functions in a remarkable number of plant developmental events, including primary root growth, reproductive development, and leaf senescence. Since the 1980s, details of the JA biosynthesis pathway, signaling pathway, and crosstalk during plant growth and development have been elucidated. Here, we summarize recent advances and give an updated overview of JA action and crosstalk in plant growth and development.

Abstract It is of great significance to develop highly efficient and superior stable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts for upcoming electrochemical conversion technologies and clean energy systems. Here, an assembled 3D electrode is synthesized by a one‐step solvothermal process using such an original OER electrocatalyst. During the solvothermal process, Ni ions released from Ni foam in acidic solution and Fe ions added exogenously act as metal centers and coordinate with terephthalic acid (TPA) organic molecules by robust coordinate bonds, and finally, NiFe‐based metal–organic framework (MOF) nanosheets in situ grown on Ni foam, i.e., MIL‐53(FeNi)/NF, are prepared. This binder‐free 3D electrode shows superior OER activity with high current density (50 mA cm −2 ) at an overpotential of 233 mV, a Tafel slope of 31.3 mV dec −1 , and excellent stability in alkaline aqueous solution (1 m KOH). It is discovered that introduction of Fe into MIL‐53 structure increases electrochemically‐active areas as well as reaction sites, accelerated electron transport capability, and modulated electronic structure to enhance catalytic performance. Besides, first principles calculations show that MIL‐53(FeNi) is more favorable for foreign atoms' adsorption and has increased 3d orbital electron density boosting intrinsic activity. This work elucidates a promising electrode for electrocatalysts and enriches direct application of MOF materials.

Solar cells, a renewable, clean energy technology that efficiently converts sunlight into electricity, are a promising long-term solution for energy and environmental problems caused by a mass of production and the use of fossil fuels. Solution-processed organic solar cells (OSCs) have attracted much attention in the past few years because of several advantages, including easy fabrication, low cost, lightweight, and flexibility. Now, OSCs exhibit power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of over 10%. In the early stage of OSCs, vapor-deposited organic dye materials were first used in bilayer heterojunction devices in the 1980s, and then, solution-processed polymers were introduced in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) devices. Relative to polymers, vapor-deposited small molecules offer potential advantages, such as a defined molecular structure, definite molecular weight, easy purification, mass-scale production, and good batch-to-batch reproducibility. However, the limited solubility and high crystallinity of vapor-deposited small molecules are unfavorable for use in solution-processed BHJ OSCs. Conversely, polymers have good solution-processing and film-forming properties and are easily processed into flexible devices, whereas their polydispersity of molecular weights and difficulty in purification results in batch to batch variation, which may hamper performance reproducibility and commercialization. Oligomer molecules (OMs) are monodisperse big molecules with intermediate molecular weights (generally in the thousands), and their sizes are between those of small molecules (generally with molecular weights <1000) and polymers (generally with molecular weights >10000). OMs not only overcome shortcomings of both vapor-deposited small molecules and solution-processed polymers, but also combine their advantages, such as defined molecular structure, definite molecular weight, easy purification, mass-scale production, good batch-to-batch reproducibility, good solution processability, and film-forming properties. Therefore, OMs are a good choice for solution-processed reproducible OSCs toward scalable commercialized applications. Considerable efforts have been dedicated to developing new OM electron donors and electron acceptors for OSCs. So far, the highest PCEs of solution-processed OSCs based on OM donors and acceptors are 9-10% and 6-7%, respectively. OM materials have become promising alternatives to polymer and/or fullerene materials for efficient and stable OSCs. In this Account, we present a brief survey of the recent developments in solution-processable OM electron donors and acceptors and their application in OSCs. Rational design of OMs with star- and linear-shaped structures based on triphenylamine, benzodithiophene, and indacenodithiophene units and their impacts on device performance are discussed. Structure-property relationships are also proposed. Furthermore, the remaining challenges and the key research directions in the near future are also addressed. In the next years, an interdisciplinary approach involving novel OM materials, especially electron acceptor materials, accurate morphology optimization, and advanced device technologies will probably bring high-efficiency and stable OSCs to final commercialization.

Abstract Groundwater (GW) overexploitation is a critical issue in North China with large GW level declines resulting in urban water scarcity, unsustainable agricultural production, and adverse ecological impacts. One approach to addressing GW depletion was to transport water from the humid south. However, impacts of water diversion on GW remained largely unknown. Here, we show impacts of the central South-to-North Water Diversion on GW storage recovery in Beijing within the context of climate variability and other policies. Water diverted to Beijing reduces cumulative GW depletion by ~3.6 km 3 , accounting for 40% of total GW storage recovery during 2006–2018. Increased precipitation contributes similar volumes to GW storage recovery of ~2.7 km 3 (30%) along with policies on reduced irrigation (~2.8 km 3 , 30%). This recovery is projected to continue in the coming decade. Engineering approaches, such as water diversions, will increasingly be required to move towards sustainable water management.

The correct timing of flowering is essential for plants to maximize reproductive success and is controlled by environmental and endogenous signals. We report that nitric oxide (NO) repressed the floral transition in Arabidopsis thaliana. Plants treated with NO, as well as a mutant overproducing NO (nox1), flowered late, whereas a mutant producing less NO (nos1) flowered early. NO suppressed CONSTANS and GIGANTEA gene expression and enhanced FLOWERING LOCUS C expression, which indicated that NO regulates the photoperiod and autonomous pathways. Because NO is induced by environmental stimuli and constitutively produced, it may integrate both external and internal cues into the floral decision.

The lipid-derived phytohormone jasmonate (JA) regulates plant growth, development, secondary metabolism, defense against insect attack and pathogen infection, and tolerance to abiotic stresses such as wounding, UV light, salt, and drought. JA was first identified in 1962, and since the 1980s many studies have analyzed the physiological functions, biosynthesis, distribution, metabolism, perception, signaling, and crosstalk of JA, greatly expanding our knowledge of the hormone's action. In response to fluctuating environmental cues and transient endogenous signals, the occurrence of multilayered organization of biosynthesis and inactivation of JA, and activation and repression of the COI1-JAZ-based perception and signaling contributes to the fine-tuning of JA responses. This review describes the JA biosynthetic enzymes in terms of gene families, enzymatic activity, location and regulation, substrate specificity and products, the metabolic pathways in converting JA to activate or inactivate compounds, JA signaling in perception, and the co-existence of signaling activators and repressors.

Efforts to identify meaningful functional imaging-based biomarkers are limited by the ability to reliably characterize inter-individual differences in human brain function. Although a growing number of connectomics-based measures are reported to have moderate to high test-retest reliability, the variability in data acquisition, experimental designs, and analytic methods precludes the ability to generalize results. The Consortium for Reliability and Reproducibility (CoRR) is working to address this challenge and establish test-retest reliability as a minimum standard for methods development in functional connectomics. Specifically, CoRR has aggregated 1,629 typical individuals' resting state fMRI (rfMRI) data (5,093 rfMRI scans) from 18 international sites, and is openly sharing them via the International Data-sharing Neuroimaging Initiative (INDI). To allow researchers to generate various estimates of reliability and reproducibility, a variety of data acquisition procedures and experimental designs are included. Similarly, to enable users to assess the impact of commonly encountered artifacts (for example, motion) on characterizations of inter-individual variation, datasets of varying quality are included.

Two kinds of conjugated C3-symmetric perylene dyes, namely, triperylene hexaimides (TPH) and selenium-annulated triperylene hexaimides (TPH-Se), are efficiently synthesized. Both TPH and TPH-Se have broad and strong absorption in the region 300-600 nm together with suitable LUMO levels of about -3.8 eV. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies show that TPH displays an extremely twisted three-bladed propeller configuration and a unique 3D network assembly in which three PBI subunits in one TPH molecule have strong π-π intermolecular interactions with PBI subunits in neighboring molecules. The integration of selenophene to TPH endows TPH-Se with a more distorted propeller configuration and a more compact 3D network assembly due to the Se···O interactions. A single-crystal transistor confirms that both TPH and TPH-Se possess good electron-transport ability. TPH and TPH-Se acceptor-based solar cells show high power conversion efficiency of 8.28% and 9.28%, respectively, which mainly results from the combined properties of broad and strong absorption ability, appropriate LUMO level, desirable aggregation, high electron mobility, and good film morphology with the polymer donor.

Photocatalytic nitrogen fixation represents a green alternative to the conventional Haber–Bosch process in the conversion of nitrogen to ammonia. In this study, a series of Bi 5 O 7 Br nanostructures were synthesized via a facile, low-temperature thermal treatment procedure, and their photocatalytic activity toward nitrogen fixation was evaluated and compared. Spectroscopic measurements showed that the tubular Bi 5 O 7 Br sample prepared at 40 °C (Bi 5 O 7 Br-40) exhibited the highest electron-transfer rate among the series, producing a large number of O 2 .– radicals and oxygen vacancies under visible-light photoirradiation and reaching a rate of photocatalytic nitrogen fixation of 12.72 mM·g –1 ·h –1 after 30 min of photoirradiation. The reaction dynamics was also monitored by in situ infrared measurements with a synchrotron radiation light source, where the transient difference between signals in the dark and under photoirradiation was analyzed and the reaction pathway of nitrogen fixation was identified. This was further supported by results from density functional theory calculations. The reaction energy of nitrogen fixation was quantitatively estimated and compared by building oxygen-enriched and anoxic models, where the change in the oxygen vacancy concentration was found to play a critical role in determining the nitrogen fixation performance. Results from this study suggest that Bi 5 O 7 Br with rich oxygen vacancies can be used as a high-performance photocatalyst for nitrogen fixation.

Microblog has been a popular media platform for reporting and propagating news. However, fake news spreading on microblogs would severely jeopardize its public credibility. To identify the truthfulness of news on microblogs, images are very crucial content. In this paper, we explore the key role of image content in the task of automatic news verification on microblogs. Existing approaches to news verification depend on features extracted mainly from the text content of news tweets, while image features for news verification are often ignored. According to our study, however, images are very popular and have a great influence on microblogs news propagation. In addition, fake and real news events have different image distribution patterns. Therefore, we propose several visual and statistical features to characterize these patterns visually and statistically for detecting fake news. Experiments on a real-world multimedia dataset collected from Sina Weibo validate the effectiveness of our proposed image features. The news verification performance of our method outperforms baseline methods. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt that systematically explores image features on news verification task.