Zhuhai Fudan Innovation Research Institute

Heavy monsoon rainfall ravaged a large swath of East Asia in summer 2020. Severe flooding of the Yangtze River displaced millions of residents in the midst of a historic public health crisis. This extreme rainy season was not anticipated from El Niño conditions. Using observations and model experiments, we show that the record strong Indian Ocean Dipole event in 2019 is an important contributor to the extreme Yangtze flooding of 2020. This Indian Ocean mode and a weak El Niño in the Pacific excite downwelling oceanic Rossby waves that propagate slowly westward south of the equator. At a mooring in the Southwest Indian Ocean, the thermocline deepens by a record 70 m in late 2019. The deepened thermocline helps sustain the Indian Ocean warming through the 2020 summer. The Indian Ocean warming forces an anomalous anticyclone in the lower troposphere over the Indo-Northwest Pacific region and intensifies the upper-level westerly jet over East Asia, leading to heavy summer rainfall in the Yangtze Basin. These coupled ocean-atmosphere processes beyond the equatorial Pacific provide predictability. Indeed, dynamic models initialized with observed ocean state predicted the heavy summer rainfall in the Yangtze Basin as early as April 2020.

Abstract The photocatalytic properties of TiO 2 have aroused a broad range of research interest since 1972 due to its abundance, chemical stability, and easily available nature. To increase its overall activity, in the past few decades, much effort has been devoted to the fabrication of advanced TiO 2 ‐based photocatalysts with visible‐light response and these photocatalysts have shown great potential in the field of solar energy utilization. Here, recent progress in the investigation of visible‐light responsive TiO 2 ‐based materials are reviewed. Notably, the fabrication strategies and corresponding chemical/physical properties of visible‐light responsive TiO 2 ‐based materials are described in detail, with a focus on bandgap engineering and junction engineering from the perspective of light absorption, charge transfer and separation, and surface reactions. Their applications in solar‐fuel production, organic synthesis, bacterial disinfection, pollutant degradation and nitrogen fixation are also discussed. Moreover, the new trends and ongoing challenges in this field are proposed and highlighted.

Ultrafast artificial skin enables unprecedented tactile internet applications in prosthetics, robotics, and human-machine interactions. However, current artificial skin systems that rely on front-end interface electronics typically perform redundant data transfer and analogue-to-digital conversions for decision-making, causing long latency (milliseconds). Here, a near-sensor analogue computing system based on a flexible memristor array for artificial skin applications is reported. This system, which seamlessly integrates a tactile sensor array with a flexible hafnium oxide memristor array, can simultaneously sense and compute raw multiple analogue pressure signals without interface electronics. As a proof-of-concept, the system is used for real-time noise reduction and edge detection of tactile stimuli. One sensing-computing operation of this system takes about 400 ns and consumes on average 1000 times less power than a conventional interface electronic system. The results demonstrate that near-sensor analogue computing offers an ultrafast and energy-efficient route to large-scale artificial skin systems.

Abstract The Arctic has experienced a warming rate higher than the global mean in the past decades, but previous studies show that there are large uncertainties associated with future Arctic temperature projections. In this study, near-surface mean temperatures in the Arctic are analyzed from 22 models participating in phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). Compared with the ERA5 reanalysis, most CMIP6 models underestimate the observed mean temperature in the Arctic during 1979–2014. The largest cold biases are found over the Greenland Sea the Barents Sea, and the Kara Sea. Under the SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5 scenarios, the multimodel ensemble mean of 22 CMIP6 models exhibits significant Arctic warming in the future and the warming rate is more than twice that of the global/Northern Hemisphere mean. Model spread is the largest contributor to the overall uncertainty in projections, which accounts for 55.4% of the total uncertainty at the start of projections in 2015 and remains at 32.9% at the end of projections in 2095. Internal variability uncertainty accounts for 39.3% of the total uncertainty at the start of projections but decreases to 6.5% at the end of the twenty-first century, while scenario uncertainty rapidly increases from 5.3% to 60.7% over the period from 2015 to 2095. It is found that the largest model uncertainties are consistent cold bias in the oceanic regions in the models, which is connected with excessive sea ice area caused by the weak Atlantic poleward heat transport. These results suggest that large intermodel spread and uncertainties exist in the CMIP6 models’ simulation and projection of the Arctic near-surface temperature and that there are different responses over the ocean and land in the Arctic to greenhouse gas forcing. Future research needs to pay more attention to the different characteristics and mechanisms of Arctic Ocean and land warming to reduce the spread.

Abstract Climate change is expected to result in more frequent and intense heat waves (HWs) in South Asia (SA). The simultaneous increases in temperature and population will exacerbate the population exposure to future HWs. Here we estimate the future population exposure to daytime and nighttime HWs in SA using the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) models under four Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) during 2061–2100, relative to 1975–2014. The results show that the projected frequency and spatial extent of the daytime (nighttime) HWs will be higher under scenario SSP5‐8.5, followed by SSP2‐4.5, SSP3‐7.0, and SSP1‐2.6 (SSP5‐8.5, followed by SSP3‐7.0, SSP2‐4.5, and SSP1‐2.6), relative to the historical period. The approach presented here allows decomposing the effects of climate change and future population on the overall exposure. The results reveal that the compounding effects of projected trends in population and HWs will significantly escalate the population exposure to HWs. Under the selected SSPs, the total population exposure to daytime and nighttime HWs ranges from 185 to 492 and 204–555 million people‐event, respectively, with the maximum exposure occurring in the Indo‐Gigantic Plain. The wide range of exposed populations highlights the sensitivity of the overall exposure to our future socioeconomic pathway decisions, emphasizing the importance of curbing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and adopting sustainable urban planning solutions to minimize the potential socioeconomic and health impacts of HWs.

Abstract Mimicking natural nitrogenase to create highly efficient single‐atom catalysts (SACs) for ambient N 2 fixation is highly desired, but still challenging. Herein, S‐coordinated Fe SACs on mesoporous TiO 2 have been constructed by a lattice‐confined strategy. The extended X‐ray absorption fine structure and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy spectra demonstrate that Fe atoms are anchored in TiO 2 lattice via the FeS 2 O 2 coordination configuration. Theoretical calculations reveal that FeS 2 O 2 sites are the active centers for electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR). Moreover, the finite element analysis shows that confinement of opened and ordered mesopores can facilitate the mass transport and offer an enlarged active surface area for NRR. As a result, this catalyst delivers a favorable NH 3 yield rate of 18.3 μg h −1 mg cat. −1 with a high Faradaic efficiency of 17.3 % at −0.20 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode. Most importantly, this lattice‐confined strategy is universal and can also be applied to Ni 1 S x @TiO 2 , Co 1 S x @TiO 2 , Mo 1 S x @TiO 2 , and Cu 1 S x @TiO 2 SACs. Our study provides new hints for the design and biomimetic synthesis of highly efficient NRR electrocatalysts.

In the post-Moore era, advanced packaging is becoming more critical to meet the everlasting demands of electronic products with smaller size, more powerful performance and lower cost. In this paper, developments in advanced packaging have been discussed, such as 3D IC packaging, fan-out packaging, and chiplet packaging. Insights on the major advantages and challenges have also been briefly introduced. Our prospects about the solutions to some fundamental issues in sustainable development of advanced packaging have also been elucidated. The critical aspects and opportunities lie in standardization, co-design tools, new handling technologies, as well as multi-scale modeling and simulation.

Twitter has become a major social media platform and has attracted considerable interest among researchers in sentiment analysis. Research into Twitter Sentiment Analysis (TSA) is an active subfield of text mining. TSA refers to the use of computers to process the subjective nature of Twitter data, including its opinions and sentiments. In this research, a thorough review of the most recent developments in this area, and a wide range of newly proposed algorithms and applications are explored. Each publication is arranged into a category based on its significance to a particular type of TSA method. The purpose of this survey is to provide a concise, nearly comprehensive overview of TSA techniques and related fields. The primary contributions of the survey are the detailed classifications of numerous recent articles and the depiction of the current direction of research in the field of TSA.

Over the past few decades, there have been major developments in transition metal-catalyzed asymmetric cyclization reactions, enabling the convenient access to a wide spectrum of structurally diverse chiral carbo- and hetero-cycles, common skeletons found in fine chemicals, natural products, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and materials. In particular, a plethora of enantioselective cyclization reactions have been promoted by chiral palladium catalysts owing to their outstanding features. This review aims to collect the latest advancements in enantioselective palladium-catalyzed cyclization reactions over the past eleven years, and it is organized into thirteen sections depending on the different types of transformations involved.

With economic growth, the demand for power systems is increasingly large. Short-term load forecasting (STLF) becomes an indispensable factor to enhance the application of a smart grid (SG). Other than forecasting aggregated residential loads in a large scale, it is still an urgent problem to improve the accuracy of power load forecasting for individual energy users due to high volatility and uncertainty. However, as an important variable that affects the power consumption pattern, the influence of weather factors on residential load prediction is rarely studied. In this paper, we review the related research of power load forecasting and introduce a short-term residential load forecasting model based on a long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network with weather features as an input.

Abstract Nitrogen (N 2 ) fixation under mild conditions is a promising approach for green production of ammonia (NH 3 ). In the past decades, various advanced catalysts have been fabricated to achieve this goal through electrocatalytic and photocatalytic processes. Among them, the TiO 2 ‐based catalysts have been recognized as promising candidates due to their high activity, low cost, chemical stability, and nontoxicity. In this review, recent advances in the fabrication of high‐performance TiO 2 ‐based materials for N 2 reduction reaction (NRR) under mild conditions are summarized, including electrocatalytic and photocatalytic NRR. The design principles, synthetic strategies, and corresponding chemical/physical properties of TiO 2 ‐based NRR catalysts are described in detail. Moreover, the key challenges and potential opportunities in this field are presented and discussed.

Abstract The effect of climate change on tropical cyclone intensity has been an important scientific issue for a few decades. Although theory and modeling suggest the intensification of tropical cyclones in a warming climate, there are uncertainties in the assessed and projected responses of tropical cyclone intensity to climate change. While a few comprehensive reviews have already provided an assessment of the effect of climate change on tropical cyclone activity including tropical cyclone intensity, this review focuses mainly on the understanding of the effect of climate change on basin-wide tropical cyclone intensity, including indices for basin-wide tropical cyclone intensity, historical datasets used for intensity trend detection, environmental control of tropical cyclone intensity, detection and simulation of tropical cyclone intensity change, and some issues on the assessment of the effect of climate change on tropical cyclone intensity. In addition to the uncertainty in the historical datasets, intertwined natural variabilities, the considerable model bias in the projected large-scale environment, and poorly simulated inner-core structures of tropical cyclones, it is suggested that factors controlling the basin-wide intensity can be different from individual tropical cyclones since the assessment of the effect of climate change treats tropical cyclones in a basin as a whole.

However, the genetic basis for majority of patients resulting from abnormalities in these phenotypes remains to be elucidated.

Localized administration of anti-inflammatory agents benefits patients after myocardial infarction (MI) by repressing/modulating inflammatory response of the MI region and thus accelerating repair of the impaired tissues. Colchicine (Col), an ancient natural drug, has excellent anti-inflammatory effects; however, its utilization is strictly limited due to its severe systemic toxicity and narrow therapeutic window. In this study, we developed an intramyocardial delivery system of Col using an injectable, thermosensitive poly(lactide-co-glycolide)-poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA-PEG-PLGA) polymer hydrogel as the vehicle for the treatment of MI while minimizing its systemic toxicity. The aqueous PLGA-PEG-PLGA solution loaded with Col (Col@Gel) underwent a sol-gel transition at 35 °C and maintained a gel state at body temperature. Col was released from the Col@Gel in an initial burst followed by a sustained release manner for over 8 days. The in vitro cell tests showed that the Col@Gel system significantly inhibited macrophage proliferation and migration. In a mouse model of MI, a single intramyocardial administration of the Col@Gel effectively alleviated cardiac inflammation, inhibited myocardial apoptosis and fibrosis, improved cardiac function and structure, and increased mouse survival without inducing severe systemic toxicity, which was observed following intraperitoneal administration of Col solution. These results suggested that the Col@Gel system is a reliable drug delivery system for the sustained local release of Col and has great potential as an anti-inflammatory therapy for the treat of MI.

Abstract Degradability of biomaterials brings many opportunities as well as great challenges to their clinical applications. However, reports of systematic in vivo biodegradation are rather limited due to lack of adequate methodology for real‐time observations. Herein, a tri‐modal bioimaging technique is developed, enabling real time monitoring of biodegradation of synthetic polymers in vivo. The demonstrated material is a successful preclinical poly(lactic acid‐ co ‐glycolic acid)‐ b ‐poly(ethylene glycol)‐ b ‐poly(lactic acid‐ co ‐glycolic acid) thermosensitive hydrogel that undergoes a spontaneous sol–gel transition upon heating. A macromolecular fluorescence probe and a contrast agent of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are designed and synthesized. After subcutaneous injection of the hydrogel containing the two probes into mice, the degradation behaviors of the material are longitudinally and noninvasively tracked via the collaborative application of ultrasound, fluorescence, and MRI. Integrating the noninvasive imaging with the traditional anatomic observations, a three‐stage degradation mechanism of such a hydrogel is proposed for the first time. Also, the dissolved polymers and degradation products in the body are mainly eliminated via liver, gallbladder, and spleen. This work has great value for promoting the future clinical application of these kind of promising hydrogels. Meanwhile, this technological platform provides beneficial inspiration and methodology to investigate in vivo fate of biomaterials.

This study aims to investigate the effect of the stepwise marine fuel oil regulations on the concentrations of vanadium (V) and nickel (Ni) in ambient air based on a 4-y (2017-2020) online measurement in Shanghai, a coastal city in China. The annual concentration of V was reduced by 58% due to the switch from Domestic Emission Control Area (DECA) 1.0 to DECA 2.0 and further by 74% after the implementation of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) 2020 regulation, while the reduction rate for Ni was only 27% and then 18% respectively. Consistently, a reduction of 84% in V content and a negligible change in Ni content were measured in 180cst ship oil samples from 2010 to 2020. The similar increasing trend of Ni/V ratios (from <0.4 to >2.0) in both ambient measurement and heavy fuel oil samples suggests that the DECA and IMO 2020 regulations effectively reduced the ambient V. However, nickel content is still enriched in the in-use desulfurized residual oils and ship-emitted particles in coastal China. Meanwhile, the previous ratio between V and Ni cannot be used as a tracer for identifying ship-emitted particles due to its large variation in oils. Further updating of the source profile of ship traffic emissions in coastal cities is necessary in the future.

Abstract Sodium‐ion batteries (SIBs) are a promising candidate for grid‐scale energy storage, however, the sluggish ion‐diffusion kinetics brought by the large radius of Na + seriously limits the performance of SIBs, let alone at low temperatures. Herein, a confined acid–base pair self‐assembly strategy to synthesize unusual Ti 0.88 Nb 0.88 O 4− x @C for high‐performance SIBs operating at room and low temperatures is proposed. The confinement self‐assembly of the acid–base pair around the micelles and confined crystallization by the carbon layer realize the formation of ordered and stoichiometric mesoporous frameworks with opened ion channels. Thus, the mesoporous Ti 0.88 Nb 0.88 O 4− x @C exhibits rapid Na + diffusion kinetics at 25 and −40 °C, which are one order higher than that of the nonporous one. A high reversible capacity of 233 mAh g −1 , excellent rate (a specific capacity of 103 mAh g −1 at 50 C), and cycling performances (&lt;0.03% fading per cycle) can be observed at 25 °C. More importantly, even at −40 °C, the mesoporous Ti 0.88 Nb 0.88 O 4– x @C can still deliver the 161 mAh g −1 capacity, a high initial Coulombic efficiency of 60% and outstanding cycling stability (99 mAh g −1 at 0.5 C after 500 cycles). It is believed this strategy opens a new avenue for constructing novel mesoporous electrode materials for low‐temperature energy storage.

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is closely connected to aberrant lipid metabolism. However, how early AD-like pathology synchronously influences brain and plasma lipidome in AD mice remains unclear. The study of dynamic change of lipidome in early-stage AD mice could be of great interest for the discovery of lipid biomarkers for diagnosis and monitoring of early-stage AD. For the purpose, an untargeted lipidomic strategy was developed for the characterization of lipids (≤ 1,200 Da) perturbation occurring in plasma and brain in early-stage AD mice (2, 3 and 7 months) by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Significant changes were detected in the levels of several lipid species including lysophospholipids, phosphatidylcholines (PCs), phosphatidylethanolamines (PEs) and Ceramides (Cers), as well as other related lipid compounds such as fatty acids (FAs), diacylglycerols (DGs) and triacylglycerols (TGs) in AD mice. In this sense, disorders of lipid metabolism appear to involve in multiple factors including overactivation of phospholipases and diacylglycerol lipases, decreased anabolism of lysophospholipids in plasma and PEs in plasma and brain, and imbalances in the levels of PCs, FAs and glycerides at different ages. We revealed the changing panels of potential lipid biomarkers with the development of early AD. The study raises the possibility of developing lipid biomarkers for diagnosis of early-stage AD.

Background Abnormal pronuclear formation during fertilisation and subsequent early embryonic arrest results in female infertility. In recent years, with the prevalence of assisted reproductive technology, a few genes have been identified that are involved in female infertility caused by abnormalities in oocyte development, fertilisation and embryonic development. However, the genetic factors responsible for multiple pronuclei formation during fertilisation and early embryonic arrest remain largely unknown. Objective We aim to identify genetic factors responsible for multiple pronuclei formation during fertilisation or early embryonic arrest. Methods Whole-exome sequencing was performed in a cohort of 580 patients with abnormal fertilisation and early embryonic arrest. Effects of mutations were investigated in HEK293T cells by western blotting and immunoprecipitation, as well as minigene assay. Results We identified a novel homozygous missense mutation (c.397T&gt;G, p.C133G) and a novel homozygous donor splice-site mutation (c.546+5G&gt;A) in the meiotic gene REC114 . REC114 is involved in the formation of double strand breaks (DSBs), which initiate homologous chromosome recombination. We demonstrated that the splice-site mutation affected the normal alternative splicing of REC114 , while the missense mutation reduced the protein level of REC114 in vitro and resulted in the loss of its function to protect its partner protein MEI4 from degradation. Conclusions Our study has identified mutations in REC114 responsible for human multiple pronuclei formation and early embryonic arrest, and these findings expand our knowledge of genetic factors that are responsible for normal human female meiosis and fertility.

The application of sulfinamides has been witnessed in medicinal and agrochemistry with employment in asymmetric transformations. However, methods for their asymmetric catalytic synthesis have rarely been explored. Herein, the catalytic enantioselective addition of aryl boroxines to sulfinylamines via Cu catalyst and the newly developed Xuphos ligand were reported. A series of chiral aryl sulfinamides can be readily accessed in one step. This protocol enables the stereospecific transformation of sulfinamides to sulfonimidoyl fluorides, sulfonimidamides, and sulfonimidate esters. DFT calculations have revealed the reaction pathway, and the migratory insertion is the enantio-determining step. The noncovalent interaction between the oxygen atom of sulfinylamines and the C-H bonds in the ligand is crucial for enantioselectivity control.