Property rights, resource reallocation and welfare effects: Evidence from a land certification programme

The paper finds that stronger property rights proxied by land certification reform result in resource reallocation and improve the welfare of rural households. Using the implementation of the land certification programme in China as a quasi-natural experiment, the study shows that households that obtained land certificates are 19 % more likely to rent out their agricultural land, 14 % more likely to allocate household workers to non-agricultural sectors and 13 % more likely to have migrant workers, which improves household income and consumption in rural China. In contrast, the study finds that the land reform did not affect household's land renting-in, and the average cultivated area of rural households declines after the reform. © 2025 Elsevier Lt

InstructMol: Multi-Modal Integration for Building a Versatile and Reliable Molecular Assistant in Drug Discovery

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence in drug discovery encounters challenges with generalization and extensive training, yet Large Language Models (LLMs) offer promise in reshaping interactions with complex molecular data. Our novel contribution, InstructMol, a multi-modal LLM, effectively aligns molecular structures with natural language via an instruction-tuning approach, utilizing a two-stage training strategy that adeptly combines limited domain-specific data with molecular and textual information. InstructMol showcases substantial performance improvements in drug discovery-related molecular tasks, surpassing leading LLMs and significantly reducing the gap with specialists, thereby establishing a robust foundation for a versatile and dependable drug discovery assistant

Tannic acid‑cerium nanoenzymes serve as broad-spectrum antioxidants to alleviate acute kidney injury by modulating macrophage polarization, mitophagy and endoplasmic reticulum stress

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a critical condition marked by a rapid decline in renal function, primarily driven by oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and inflammation. Despite extensive research, effective therapeutic strategies addressing the complex pathophysiology of AKI remain limited. In this study, we prepared a tannic acid‑cerium nanoenzyme (TA-Ce) and explored its potential for treating AKI. TA-Ce, synthesized via a one-pot method, demonstrated strong reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging, therapeutic efficacy, and biocompatibility in vitro and in vivo. TA-Ce, approximately 25.6 nm in size, was obtained by optimizing the molar ratios of TA to Ce and pH conditions, resulting in effective accumulation in the injured kidney. In addition, TA-Ce exhibited broad-spectrum antioxidant ability, capable of scavenging various ROS and alleviating oxidative stress. Notably, TA-Ce outperformed the conventional anti-inflammatory drug N-acetylcysteine (NAC) in both rhabdomyolysis-induced AKI (RM-AKI) and cisplatin-induced AKI (CP-AKI) mouse models. Mechanistic studies in RM-AKI revealed that TA-Ce disrupted the vicious cycle of oxidative stress, mitochondrial damage, endoplasmic reticulum stress, apoptosis, and inflammation. The nanoenzyme restored mitochondrial autophagic flux by inhibiting the P62-LC3 signaling pathway and alleviated endoplasmic reticulum stress by suppressing the IRE1-XBP1s pathway. Consequently, this prevented the downstream activation of the Bcl-2-Bax-Cyt-c-Cleaved Casp-3 apoptotic pathway and the NF-κB inflammatory pathway, ultimately ameliorating RM-AKI. This study lays a strong foundation for the development of metal-polyphenol nanomaterials as a therapeutic strategy for clinical AKI. © 2025 Elsevier B.V

When Does the Extended Code of an MDS Code Remain MDS?

For a given linear code C of length n over GF(q) and a nonzero vector u in _GF(q)n, Sun, Ding and Chen defined an extended linear code C(u) of C, which is a generalisation of the classical extended code C(−1) of C and called the second kind of an extended code of C (see Finite Fields Appl., vol. 96, 102401, 2024 and Discrete Math., vol. 347, no. 9, 114080, 2024). They developed some general theory of the extended codes C(u) and studied the extended codes C(u) of several families of linear codes, including cyclic codes, projective two-weight codes, nonbinary Hamming codes, and a family of reversible MDS cyclic codes. The objective of this paper is to investigate the extended codes C(u) of MDS codes C over finite _fields. The main result of this paper is that the extended code C(u) of an MDS [n, k] code C remains MDS if and only if the covering radius ρ(C̝) = k and the vector u is a deep hole of the dual code C̝. As applications of this main result, an equivalent statement of MDS Conjecture is presented, the extended codes of the GRS codes and extended GRS codes are investigated, and the covering radii and some deep holes of several families of MDS codes are also determined. © 1963-2012 IEEE

SteadySeg: Improving maritime trajectory staging by steadiness recognition

Identifying the maritime activities of vessels over time is crucial for enhancing maritime traffic management and marine ecosystem conservation, by facilitating informed decision-making among maritime authorities, shipping companies, and researchers. Current methods focusing on trajectory staging for maritime activity recognition, which include both trajectory segmentation and classification, often overlook the segmentation aspect, thereby analyzing whole vessel trajectories without recognizing the diverse stages these trajectories exhibit. To address this gap, we introduce SteadySeg (Steadiness Recognition for Maritime Trajectory Segmentation), a novel approach that segments a vessel’s trajectory into discernible pattern features, identifying distinct states and sequences of state boundaries, with a design that accounts for the infrequent state changes typical in real-world maritime trajectories. We construct two maritime activity datasets, i.e., one from the sea area near Denmark and the other from waters off the United States, to evaluate SteadySeg. Experimental results show that SteadySeg improves trajectory staging accuracy by at least 6% compared to existing time-series staging models, representing a significant advancement in maritime trajectory analysis

High-temperature ultraviolet photodetector and amplifying integrated circuits based on AlGaN/GaN heterostructure

In this work, an ultraviolet (UV) photodetection and amplifying integrated circuit (IC) based on an AlGaN/gallium nitride (GaN) heterostructure is demonstrated. The IC consists of a metal-heterostructure-metal photodetector (MHM-PD) and a high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT)-based amplifier. The photoresponse of the MHM-PD increases at elevated temperatures due to the spatial separation of the photocarriers under the polarization electric field at the AlGaN/GaN heterointerface, as well as the photo-enhanced leakage current through the metal-heterostructure junction. At 250 °C, MHM-PD achieves a peak photoresponsivity of 14.5 A W−1 and a UV-to-visible rejection ratio of 104. As the thermal chuck temperature increases from 25 °C to 250 °C, the performance of the HEMT-based amplifier shows good thermal stability. Finally, the IC achieves a photoresponse of over 106 V W−1 and a switching frequency of 50 kHz at 250 °C with rise and decay time constants of 3.95 μs and 2.8 μs, respectively. These results show that the IC has a high-sensitivity and high-speed UV detection capability. © 2024 IOP Publishing Ltd. All rights, including for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies, are reserved

Optimally Selected Cycle Based ILC for System With Randomly Varying Initial State

Iterative learning control (ILC) is a widely used method for controlling repetitive processes. However, its superior learning capability from cycle to cycle is mostly predicated on the assumption that the initial state for all cycles is identical and at the desired point. In engineering practice, this assumption can be overly strict. A more common scenario involves the initial state varying randomly from cycle to cycle. In this article, we propose an optimally selected cycle-based ILC scheme to address the issue of randomly varying initial states. Our approach involves selecting an optimal cycle for iterative learning by evaluating both the potential impact of initial state variations and the tracking performance of historical cycles. By extending the learning mechanism of ILC from learning from the previous cycle to learning from the past optimally selected cycle, our scheme ensures improvement after each iteration of learning. In addition, our scheme has been adapted to accommodate uncertain systems with greater generality. The feasibility and convergence properties of our scheme are investigated through theoretical analysis. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness and other properties of the proposed method through a benchmark numerical example. © 1963-2012 IEEE

Piezoelectric gauge transformation for inverse design of polar Willis transducers

Piezoelectric lattices with delicately designed microscopic geometry are powerful building blocks to construct integrated sensors and actuators with versatile, yet unconventional, responses absent from bulk materials. However, the inverse design of the microscopic geometry to achieve a sought-after electromechanical response remains elusive. Here, we suggest an analytical approach, called piezoelectric gauge transformation, to design piezoelectric lattice transducers that can deform to an arbitrary desired displacement field when a voltage is applied. We first develop continuum piezoelectric gauge transformation and find that the transformed piezoelectric material displays piezoelectric polarity and Willis coupling in the sense that the applied electric field generates asymmetric stress and body force, and both rigid body rotation and translation induce electric charges. To design this polar and Willis-type piezoelectric material, we develop discrete piezoelectric gauge transformation and propose feasible lattice design guidelines. Numerical simulations are performed to validate the piezoelectric gauge transformation and demonstrate a range of appealing displacement control functions. The study presents a complete theoretical framework for the inverse design of lattice transducers to achieve arbitrary desired actuated displacement fields, beneficial to the development of soft actuators, robotics, and other piezoelectric devices

Aggregate Science: from Molecules, beyond Molecules

Over the past centuries, molecular science has played a dominant role in the advancement of physical science by exploring the structure-property relationships at a single molecular level. However, when molecules form aggregates, a dilemma arises as the structures and properties often differ significantly from those of molecular constituents. To address this, the concept of aggregate science emphasizes a holistic approach to understanding the structures-properties relationship of substances. Despite the recognition of holism in aggregate research, there are still challenges in investigating the complex operations and interplays, particularly in understanding the newly emergent structures and properties in the macroscopic world. Therefore, there is a need to further advance the concept and methodology. In this regard, this perspective highlights three types of influences that aggregation exerts on substance properties: activation, transformation, and emergence. Furthermore, examples from aggregation-induced emission research and related fields are provided to illustrate how aggregate science can be studied. This perspective emphasizes that the molecule is of significance and the structures and properties are also dramatically influenced by aggregation. Additionally, potential research methodologies, such as focusing on intra- and intermolecular interactions, adjusting aggregates morphology, and regulating the constituents, along with directions, and implications are offered for future studies