University of Oklahoma

Dilute atom alloys (DAAs) are an important class of heterogeneous catalysts due to their ability to precisely tune the activity and selectivity of reactions. DAA catalysts typically consist of a small quantity of metal solute in a metal host. Key considerations in the stability of DAA catalysts are the segregation and aggregation energy. In this work, we report a systematic theoretical study of segregation and aggregation energies of DAA catalysts composed of 3d, 4d, and 5d transition metals. To investigate the nature of DAAs, we analyzed both Bader charge and density of states, as well as formation energies, to identify the most stable DAA configuration for a given alloy. We further applied regression‐based, tree‐based, and neural network machine learning (ML) models to gain physics‐based insights in predicting segregation and aggregation energies based on readily available atomic and bulk features. We found that the d‐band filling of the solute and host, nearest neighbor distance of the host, and d‐band width of the solute determine the segregation energy, whereas the Pauling electronegativity of the host and solute, nearest neighbor distance of the host, and cohesive energy of host determine aggregation energy. Our findings provide crucial insights for DAA catalyst design.

Phototherapy—which includes photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT)—has evoked interest as a promising cancer treatment modality on account of its noninvasiveness, spatiotemporal precision, and minimal side effects. C. Wang et al. recently reported a near‐infrared‐activated charge transfer complex‐based nanoparticle which consists of a donor (D) and an acceptor (A). Experimental results have demonstrated a potent immunotherapeutic effect of integrating programmed cell death protein 1 antibody combination therapy in preclinical models. Incorporating D–A interactions into nanosystems for photoimmunotherapy (PIT) is still a novel approach. This approach offers a multifaceted strategy for synergistic cancer PIT which holds promising potential to transform cancer treatment paradigms.

Short intense laser pulses are routinely used to induce rotational wave packet dynamics of molecules. Ro-vibrational wave packet dynamics has been explored comparatively infrequently, focusing predominantly on extremely light and rigid molecules such as H 2+, H2 and D2. This work presents quantum mechanical calculations that account for the rotational and the vibrational degrees of freedom for a heavier and rather floppy diatomic molecule, namely the neon dimer. For pumping by a strong and short non-resonant pump pulse, we identify several phenomena that depend critically on the vibrational (i.e. radial) degree of freedom. Our calculations show (i) fingerprints of the radial dynamics in the alignment signal; (ii) laser-kick induced dissociative dynamics on very short time scales (ejection of highly structured ‘jets’); and (iii) tunneling dynamics that signifies the existence of resonance states, which are supported by the effective potential curves for selected finite relative angular momenta. Our theory predictions can be explored by existing state-of-the-art experiments.

Guided by the health information model and pathway model of health communication, this study investigates the relationship between different health information acquisition (seeking/scanning) and healthy lifestyle behaviors in a nationally representative, cross-sectional sample of cancer survivors (N = 567) in China. A moderated mediation model was employed to explore the mediating roles of patient-centered communication (PCC) and patient trust in physicians in the relationship between health information acquisition and healthy lifestyle behaviors. The study also examined the moderating role of system trust. Results indicate that health information seeking and scanning positively correlate with healthy lifestyle behaviors (i.e. fruit and vegetable consumption) via PCC and patient trust. Moreover, system trust positively moderates the relationship between health information seeking and PCC. These findings contribute to health communication and psychology literature and highlight the importance of patient-centered care in managing self-health, especially within the Chinese healthcare context.

Severe air pollution plagues Arequipa, Peru, due to anthropogenic and natural emissions. Persistent volcano emission in the vicinity of Arequipa makes it among the largest SO2 sources in the world. Because volcano plumes mostly exist in the free troposphere and stratosphere where horizontal transport acts rather quickly, previous studies mostly focused on their global‐scale impacts. Whether these plumes can affect near‐surface air quality has not attracted much research attention. This study uses WRF‐Chem simulations to reveal that in the presence of northerly/northwesterly winds and favorable mountain meteorology, the plume from volcano Sabancaya (elevation 5,960 m, ∼80 km north of Arequipa) can be brought down to near the surface of Arequipa through two steps of transport and dispersion processes: (a) With northerly/northwesterly winds, the free troposphere plume from Sabancaya is transported southward and intercepted by Mountain Chachani located between Sabancaya and Arequipa and subsequently transported downward to Arequipa by nighttime downslope winds linked to large‐amplitude lee‐side mountain gravity waves. Often the plume reaches down to be close to the boundary layer over Arequipa. (b) In the following day, convective boundary layer growth brings the above boundary‐layer plume to near the surface through vertical mixing processes, thus exacerbating ambient air pollution in Arequipa. A mechanism on how volcano plumes above 6‐km height cause air pollution over the lower‐lying Arequipa city is therefore revealed for the first time. The mountain dynamic effect in inducing the large‐amplitude mountain lee waves is further illustrated by an idealized simulation excluding mountain's thermal effect.

Background Domestic violence (DV) encompasses a pattern of psychological, physical, sexual, financial, and/or emotional abuse, manifesting through assault, threats, and intimidation. Economic and social stressors in conjunction with the COVID‐19 pandemic escalated DV cases worldwide, including those in Albania. Socioeconomic vulnerabilities worsened the situation, with DV‐related complaints to non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) in Albania increasing by 60% between March and May 2020, compared to the same period in 2019. Despite government efforts through a comprehensive anti‐DV strategy, as the pandemic subsided, 2986 Albanian women still reported enduring DV. Methods Using the Contextual Influence in Acculturative Stress (CIAS) framework, this study identified key external and internal contextual factors contributing to DV in Albania. These factors were assessed to evaluate their integration into the national anti‐DV policy and their potential for improving the policy's impact. Results The Albanian government's response focused on four primary areas: legal protection, women's safety, economic well‐being, and community awareness. However, many vulnerable groups remained underserved. Furthermore, economic assistance provided was insufficient to address the increased financial strain faced by victims. Educational and awareness campaigns were implemented, but despite these efforts, DV rates persisted at high levels throughout the pandemic. Conclusion The findings underscore the need for more targeted, comprehensive, and context‐sensitive approaches to DV intervention. The Albanian government's anti‐DV strategy could be strengthened by addressing micro‐level needs, such as tailored counselling, culturally sensitive services, and more robust economic support measures. Incorporating these elements into future policies may better address the structural and cultural barriers that perpetuate DV, particularly among vulnerable populations.

A defining characteristic of social complexity in Homo sapiens is the diversity of our relationships. We build connections of various types in our families, workplaces, neighbourhoods and online communities. How do we make sense of such complex systems of human relationships? The basic organization of relationships has long been studied in the social sciences, but no consensus has been reached. Here, by using online surveys, laboratory cognitive tasks and natural language processing in diverse modern cultures across the world (n = 20,427) and ancient cultures spanning 3,000 years of history, we examined universality and cultural variability in the ways that people conceptualize relationships. We discovered a universal representational space for relationship concepts, comprising five principal dimensions (formality, activeness, valence, exchange and equality) and three core categories (hostile, public and private relationships). Our work reveals the fundamental cognitive constructs and cultural principles of human relationship knowledge and advances our understanding of human sociality.

Current global multi-source merged precipitation datasets can facilitate better utilization of the complementary nature of gauge-, satellite-, and reanalysis-based precipitation estimates, particularly for capturing precipitation variability. However, merging these datasets at high resolutions of 1-hourly and 0.1° on a full global scale remains a substantial challenge for the scientific community owing to high spatiotemporal heterogeneities. This study proposed a merging-and-calibration framework to optimally integrate the advantages of gauge-, satellite-, and model-based precipitation estimates, focusing on precipitation occurrences and providing a new fully Global multi-source Merging-and-Calibration Precipitation dataset (GMCP: 1-hourly, 0.1°, global, 2000–Present). The main conclusions included: (1) GMCP generally outperformed the input datasets, ERA5-Land, GSMaP-MVK, and IMERG-Late, across various spatiotemporal scales, both in regional statistics and extreme precipitation systems; (2) GMCP significantly outperformed IMERG-Final, calibrated by gauge analysis at the monthly scale, with the improvements in correlation coefficient (CC), root mean square error (RMSE), and Heidke skill score (HSS) by approximately 66.67%, 39.25%, and 26.83%, respectively, from 2016 to 2020 over the Continental United States (CONUS); (3) compared to the state-of-the-art multi-source merged product with a daily gauge correction scheme, MSWEP V2 (3-hourly and 0.1°), GMCP demonstrated the notable improvements with an approximately 20% enhancement in accurately capturing the precipitation occurrences against approximately 67, 000 rain gauges over Mainland China in 2016; (4) in comparison to another well-known multi source merged quasi-global daily and 0.05° precipitation product, CHIPRS integrating the gauge-, satellite-, and reanalysis-based precipitation estimates, GMCP also demonstrated the notable improvements at the daily scale, achieving the increases in CC, RMSE, and HSS by around 57.45%, 38.18%, and 75.76%, respectively, against approximately 67, 000 rain gauges over Mainland China in 2016; and (5) this framework was suitable for generating the fully global precipitation datasets at 1-hourly and 0.1° scales, significantly mitigating the inherent shortcomings of each input dataset, with GMCP demonstrating the great potential as a valuable resource for worldwide scientific research and societal applications.

Using data from the second National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW II), we use a latent class analysis (LCA) to describe subpopulations of families investigated for child maltreatment, distinguished by sets of risk factors. We do this separately for families above and below the federal poverty line for comparison purposes. We also examine characteristics that predict membership in these subgroups. We find both similarities and differences in risk combinations and predictors by poverty status. Results from these analyses shed light on the significant proportion of families who become involved with the child welfare system through a child maltreatment investigation but who do not live in poverty-an understudied group. Findings inform service needs for different types of families, as well as suggesting a need for new sociological theories less reliant on economic hardship and poverty as the predominant driver of child welfare involvement.

Antiperovskite manganese nitrides have intriguing magnetic and electronic properties that are not well understood. Just as their perovskite oxide counterparts, they are expected to display properties tunable through epitaxial strain engineering, which has barely been explored yet. Here, three notable contributions are made to the understanding and tuning of these fascinating materials, focusing on Mn3NiN. First, combining X‐ray spectroscopy measurements and first‐principles calculations, an unusually large negative oxidation state of Ni³⁻is reported. Second, a substantial shift of the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature by 116 K, from 266 to 150 K, is reported by growing Mn3NiN films on different substrates. This shift is due to the mixed contributions of ferrimagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases. Third, a plasmonic signature with a high optical extinction coefficient in the infrared to visible range is exhibited, tunable by different substrates. The findings suggest that Mn3NiN has significant potential in antiferromagnetic spintronics, and plasmonics, expanding the scope of new materials for electromagnetic field‐controlled plasmonics, piezo spintronics, and multicaloric applications.

Patterns of migratory connectivity are increasingly used to understand and manage threats throughout the annual cycle of migratory species. Strong migratory connectivity refers to when individuals from different populations remain spatially separated across the annual cycle, which may expose populations to unique sets of threats and conditions that cause differential population trends. However, the populations or groups used for species' management are often defined a priori based on expert knowledge and/or management units, which may mask important population segregation and obscure differential population trends and their drivers. We compared three approaches to defining management groups of a declining shorebird, the long‐billed curlew (Numenius americanus), for annual cycle management: by expert‐opinion, according to management flyways, and with unsupervised clustering of satellite tracking data that maximizes the strength of migratory connectivity. Despite the curlews having a continuous breeding range and a pattern of parallel migration, all three approaches identified groups with different population trends, movement behaviours and habitat selection across the annual cycle, suggesting these are meaningful ecological groups. The expert and clustering approaches resulted in similar group structure, strong estimates of migratory connectivity (measured as MC = 0.64 across seasons), movement behaviour and habitat selection; however, the expert approach identified an additional divide between the easternmost grouping, which revealed strongly negative population trends in the group occupying the Chihuahuan desert during the stationary nonbreeding season. In contrast, the flyway delineation resulted in weaker estimates of migratory connectivity, marginal differences in population trends and less between‐group differences in movement behaviour and habitat selection. Synthesis and applications. Using measurements of migratory connectivity in concert with expert opinion can define ecologically distinct groups for wildlife management that differ in the environmental conditions they experience across seasons of the annual cycle, which is a key component for understanding and reversing declines of migratory species.

The metazoan lifespan is determined in part by a complex signaling network that regulates energy metabolism and stress responses. Key signaling hubs in this network include insulin/IGF‐1, AMPK, mTOR, and sirtuins. The Hippo/Mammalian Ste20‐like Kinase1 (MST1) pathway has been reported to maintain lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans, but its role has not been studied in higher metazoans. In this study, we report that overexpression of Hpo, the MST1 homolog in Drosophila melanogaster, decreased lifespan with concomitant changes in lipid metabolism and aging‐associated gene expression, while RNAi Hpo depletion increased lifespan. These effects were mediated primarily by Hpo‐induced transcriptional activation of the RNA‐binding protein maternal expression at 31B (Me31b)/RCK, resulting in stabilization of mRNA‐encoding a lipolytic hormone, Akh. In mouse adipocytes, Hpo/Mst1 mediated adipocyte differentiation, phosphorylation of RNA‐binding proteins such as Rck, decapping MRNA 2 (Dcp2), enhancer Of MRNA decapping 3 (Edc3), nucleolin (NCL), and glucagon mRNA stability by interacting with Rck. Decreased lifespan in Hpo‐overexpressing Drosophila lines required expression of Me31b, but not DCP2, which was potentially mediated by recovering expression of lipid metabolic genes and formation of lipid droplets. Taken together, our findings suggest that Hpo/Mst1 plays a conserved role in longevity by regulating adipogenesis and fatty acid metabolism.

Many policy issues, such as nuclear waste management, are complex and require expertise to address. In many such policy areas, decisions are made by elected officials with input largely from experts and not the public or other stakeholders. However, such top‐down approaches can create mistrust and political opposition. In the case of nuclear waste management in the United States, the selection of a single waste repository (Yucca Mountain in Nevada) by Congress led to strong opposition, stagnation, and an eventual call for a participatory, consent‐based siting approach to determine the location for a nuclear waste repository. While consent‐based siting is appealing, it is not clear if the public, broadly speaking, would support a participatory approach or an expert‐driven approach regarding nuclear waste management. In this paper, we examine public trust and public preferences for policy influence among elected officials, experts, and citizens. Specifically, we develop and test a theoretical framework that posits that the various cultural worldviews—hierarchy, egalitarianism, individualism, and fatalism—shape trust in policy actors and that cultural worldviews and trust shape which policy actors the public believes should influence nuclear waste policymaking. Overall, we find the public trusts citizens and experts more than the government and elected officials. Additionally, we find that the public thinks experts should have more influence on nuclear waste policy than citizens or elected officials. Finally, regarding cultural worldviews, hierarchs tended to trust experts and elected officials and support their influence, whereas egalitarians tended to trust citizens and support their influence.

The study of metallogeny includes origin, development, modification, and preservation of mineralisation. The understanding of temporal evolution, and post-mineralisation modification and preservation of mineralisation are vital for building metallogenic theory and mineral prospecting, but they remain poorly understood and controversial. The Zaozigou deposit is the largest Au deposit in the West Qinling Orogen of central China with a resource of 142 t Au, and offers an excellent opportunity for deciphering the post-mineralisation exhumation and preservation of Au deposit in orogens. Here, we present integrated results from zircon U-Pb (ZUPb), apatite U-Pb (AUPb), apatite fission-track (AFT) and apatite (U-Th-Sm)/He (AHe) dating, thermal history modelling, biotite thermobarometer, and pyrite thermoelectricity of the deposit. The aims of the study are to decipher the temporal history, and post-mineralisation tectonic evolution and exhumation, and to evaluate the degree of exhumation and preservation potential of the deposit. Integrating the newly determined ZUPb (ca. 242–238 and 218–201 Ma), AUPb (ca. 247–235 Ma), AFT (ca. 237–186 Ma), and AHe (ca. 131–52 Ma) ages with multiple geo-thermochronological dates published from the Zaozigou deposit, major magmatic and hydrothermal events are recognised during ca. 250–233 and 230–203 Ma, with two Au mineralisation being deposited at ca. 230 and 211 Ma. The Zaozigou area underwent rapid post-magma cooling during ca. 250–228 Ma, rapid hydrothermal cooling at ca. 219–211 Ma, and episodic post-Triassic cooling pulses. Thermal history modelling indicates rapid cooling at ca. 210–170 Ma, slow reheating at ca. 170–60 Ma, and enhanced cooling during ca. 60–35 and 20–9 Ma at the Zaozigou deposit. In conjunction with the Triassic to Cenozoic tectonic evolution of the West Qinling Orogen, the ca. 250–233 Ma magmatism, ca. 230 Ma Au mineralisation, and ca. 250–228 Ma rapid postmagma cooling are related to the northward subduction of the Mianlue Ocean (Paleo-Tethys Ocean). The ca. 211 Ma Au mineralisation and rapid hydrothermal cooling during ca. 210–170 Ma are correlated with the collision between the South Qinling Belt and South China Block during ca. 220–210 Ma and the post-collisional gravitational collapse during the Jurassic. Prolonged reheating during ca. 170–60 Ma is associated with the unconformable deposition of coeval sedimentary sequences. The ca. 60–35 and 20–9 Ma enhanced cooling relates to the India-Eurasia collision, the northward growth of Tibetan Plateau, and the intensive East Asian summer monsoon during the Cenozoic. ∼28%–68% amounts of the Au orebodies in the Zaozigou deposit have been eroded away. In contrast with the estimated post-mineralisation exhumation depth of ∼4.8 km and reported ore-forming depth of 2–6 km, local portions of the deposit are indicated to be preserved to a depth of over 1 km for Au exploration. Timely supply of post-mineralisation sediments and regional peneplanation during the Jurassic to Cenozoic are important factors for preservation of the deposit. During rapid uplift and exhumation of orogens, sediment-hosted Au mineralisation has highly prospective for prospecting. The study also highlights that multidisciplinary approaches of geo-thermochronology, thermobarometer, and thermoelectricity are effective tools in determining post-mineralisation modification and preservation of orebodies.

Due to their quantum nature, single-photon emitters (SPE) generate individual photons in bursts or streams. They are paramount in emerging quantum technologies such as quantum key distribution, quantum repeaters, and measurement-based quantum computing. Many such systems have been reported in the last three decades, from rubidium atoms coupled to cavities to semiconductor quantum dots and color centers implanted in waveguides. This review article highlights different solid-state and atomic systems with on-demand and controlled single-photon generation. We discuss and compare the performance metrics, such as purity and indistinguishability, for these sources and evaluate their potential for different applications. Finally, a new potential single-photon source, based on the Rydberg exciton in solid-state metal oxide thin films, is introduced, where we discuss its promising features and unique advantages in fabricating quantum chips for quantum photonic applications.