Impacts of Surface Depletion on the Plasmonic Properties of Doped Semiconductor Nanocrystals

Degenerately doped semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) exhibit a localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Unlike metals, semiconductor NCs offer tunable LSPR characteristics enabled by doping, or via electrochemical or photochemical charging. Tuning plasmonic properties through carrier density modulation suggests potential applications in smart optoelectronics, catalysis, and sensing. Here, we elucidate fundamental aspects of LSPR modulation through dynamic carrier density tuning in Sn-doped Indium Oxide NCs. Monodisperse Sn-doped Indium Oxide NCs with various doping level and sizes were synthesized and assembled in uniform films. NC films were then charged in an in situ electrochemical cell and the LSPR modulation spectra were monitored. Based on spectral shifts and intensity modulation of the LSPR, combined with optical modeling, it was found that often-neglected semiconductor properties, specifically band structure modification due to doping and surface states, strongly affect LSPR modulation. Fermi level pinning by surface defect states creates a surface depletion layer that alters the LSPR properties; it determines the extent of LSPR frequency modulation, diminishes the expected near field enhancement, and strongly reduces sensitivity of the LSPR to the surroundings

Moderated mediation effect of team level power distance.

Moderated mediation effect of team level power distance.</p

Descriptive statistics and correlations.

Descriptive statistics and correlations.</p

Direct effect and indirect effect analyses.

Direct effect and indirect effect analyses.</p

The theoretical model.

The theoretical model.</p

S1 File -

(DOCX)</p

Table_1_Causal effects of immune cells in glioblastoma: a Bayesian Mendelian Randomization study.xlsx

BackgroundGlioblastoma (GBM) is a highly malignant brain tumor, and immune cells play a crucial role in its initiation and progression. The immune system's cellular components, including various types of lymphocytes, macrophages, and dendritic cells, among others, engage in intricate interactions with GBM. However, the precise nature of these interactions remains to be conclusively determined.MethodIn this study, a comprehensive two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR) analysis was conducted to elucidate the causal relationship between immune cell features and the incidence of GBM. Utilizing publicly available genetic data, we investigated the causal associations between 731 immune cell signatures and the risk of GBM. Subsequently, we conducted a reverse Mendelian randomization analysis to rule out reverse causation. Finally, it was concluded that there is a unidirectional causal relationship between three subtypes of immune cells and GBM. Comprehensive sensitivity analyses were employed to validate the results robustness, heterogeneity, and presence of horizontal pleiotropy. To enhance the accuracy of our results, we concurrently subjected them to Bayesian analysis.ResultsAfter conducting MR analyses, we identified 10 immune phenotypes that counteract glioblastoma, with the most protective being FSC-A on Natural Killer T cells (OR = 0.688, CI = 0.515–0.918, P = 0.011). Additionally, we found 11 immune cell subtypes that promote GBM incidence, including CD62L– HLA DR++ monocyte % monocyte (OR = 1.522, CI = 1.004–2.307, P = 0.048), CD4+CD8+ T cell % leukocyte (OR = 1.387, CI = 1.031–1.866, P = 0.031). Following the implementation of reverse MR analysis, where glioblastoma served as the exposure variable and the outcomes included 21 target immune cell subtypes, we discerned that only three cell subtypes (CD45 on CD33+ HLA DR+ CD14dim, CD33+ HLA DR+ Absolute Count, and IgD+ CD24+ B cell Absolute Count) exhibited a unidirectional causal association with glioblastoma.ConclusionOur study has genetically demonstrated the close relationship between immune cells and GBM, guiding future clinical research.</p

Effect of Heterogeneous Investments on the Evolution of Cooperation in Spatial Public Goods Game

<div><p>Understanding the emergence of cooperation in spatial public goods game remains a grand challenge across disciplines. In most previous studies, it is assumed that the investments of all the cooperators are identical, and often equal to 1. However, it is worth mentioning that players are diverse and heterogeneous when choosing actions in the rapidly developing modern society and researchers have shown more interest to the heterogeneity of players recently. For modeling the heterogeneous players without loss of generality, it is assumed in this work that the investment of a cooperator is a random variable with uniform distribution, the mean value of which is equal to 1. The results of extensive numerical simulations convincingly indicate that heterogeneous investments can promote cooperation. Specifically, a large value of the variance of the random variable can decrease the two critical values for the result of behavioral evolution effectively. Moreover, the larger the variance is, the better the promotion effect will be. In addition, this article has discussed the impact of heterogeneous investments when the coevolution of both strategy and investment is taken into account. Comparing the promotion effect of coevolution of strategy and investment with that of strategy imitation only, we can conclude that the coevolution of strategy and investment decreases the asymptotic fraction of cooperators by weakening the heterogeneity of investments, which further demonstrates that heterogeneous investments can promote cooperation in spatial public goods game.</p></div

The steady distribution of investment corresponding to strategy evolution only (Left panel) and that corresponding to coevolution of strategy and investment (Right panel), when <i>σ</i> = 0.8, <i>r</i> = 5.2.

<p>From the figure, it can be found that when only strategy is updated, the distribution of the investment in steady state is still a uniform distribution [0.2,1.8], however, when the coevolution of strategy and investment is taken into account, the previous uniform distribution is severely distorted, and the steady investment satisfies a discrete distribution valued [1.786,1.790,1.792,1.793,1.795,1.797,1.798,1.799]. In conclusion, compared to the former case, as the heterogeneity of investment is weakened, the asymptotic fraction of cooperators <i>ρ</i>_<i>C</i> decreases in the case of coevolution.</p

Typical snapshots of strategy distributions on the square lattice when <i>σ</i> = 0.5 and <i>r</i> = 5.

<p>Cooperators and defectors are colored red and blue, and the MCS of (a)-(d) is 1, 10, 100, 50000 respectively. The figure shows that the fraction of cooperators decreases at the beginning of the evolution, but as the evolution proceeds, the cooperators form into clusters to restrain the invasion of the defectors, and spread to the defectors reversely. At the end of the evolution all the players in the population hold the cooperation strategy.</p