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AbstractThe pay-what-you-want pricing scheme has been frequently employed by nonprofit and for-profit tourism organizations. While this voluntary payment format can foster inclusivity by making tourism accessible to a larger population, one urgent challenge these institutions face is how to increase consumer payment to sustain both social and economic sustainability. The present work proposes a novel solution, that is, leveraging consumers’ actual or vicarious experience of physical cleanliness. Through two questionnaires and three experiments, this work demonstrates that physical cleanliness significantly boosts payment magnitude under pay-what-you-want. Importantly, this research identifies consumers’ regulatory focus as a vital boundary condition. Specifically, the positive cleanliness effect occurs among promotion-focused people but disappears among prevention-focused individuals. Besides, this study reveals that moral self-regard is the underlying mechanism driving the positive cleanliness effect. Theoretically, the current study presents a new perspective to understanding determinants of tourists’ voluntary payment decisions by investigating their embodied experience of physical cleanliness. It adds new insights to the sustainable tourism literature by addressing both social and economic sustainability through increased payments under pay-what-you-want pricing. Practically, the research findings provide destination managers and tourism providers with valuable guidance on how to boost people’s voluntary payments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanomaterial phonon transport is crucial for miniaturized devices and superior thermophysical properties in condensed matter physics. Diamond nanosheets, applicable in nanoelectronics/optoelectronics, offer availability to explore dimensionality's impact on phonon transport. Raman spectroscopy is used to study the thermal conductivity (κ) of diamond nanosheets with a thickness below 100 nm. Results show a κ∼T−1$\kappa \sim {{T}^{ - 1}}$ law above 140 K, highlighting Umklapp phonon scattering. Despite the reduced thickness, κ (1100‐2000 W/mK) remains higher than metals and most semiconductors, showcasing diamonds' remarkable in‐plane heat transfer. Intriguingly, the research uncovers unique length‐dependent behavior κ∼log(L)$\kappa \sim {\mathrm{log}}( L )$, consistent with graphene, the two‐dimensional (2D) allotrope. This research offers insights into thermal transport in quasi‐2D nanosheets, with significant implications for nanoscale heat management and highly efficient thermal devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The purpose of this study is to compare the clinical efficacy of oral dydrogesterone and micronized vaginal progesterone (MVP) gel during the first HRT-FET cycle. Methods: A retrospective cohort study based on a total of 344 women undergoing their first HRT-FET cycles without Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone agonist (GnRH-a) pretreatment was conducted. All the cycles were allocated to two groups in the reproductive medical center at the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital. One group (n = 193) received oral dydrogesterone 30 mg/d before embryo transfer, while the other group (n = 151) received MVP gel 180 mg/d. Results: The demographics and baseline characteristics of two groups were comparable. We found no statistically significant difference in live birth rate (24.35% vs. 31.13%, P = 0.16), clinical pregnancy rate (34.72% vs. 36.42%, P = 0.74), embryo implantation rate (25.09% vs. 28.36%, P = 0.43), positive pregnancy rate (42.49% vs 38.41%, P = 0.45), miscarriage rate (9.33% vs 3.97%, P = 0.05), or ectopic pregnancy rate (0.52% vs. 0.66%, P = 0.86) between the oral dydrogesterone group and MVP gel group. In the multivariate logistic regression analysis for covariates, medication used for luteal support was not associated with live birth rate (OR = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.32–1.57, P = 0.45). And the different luteal support medication did not have a significant positive association with the live birth rate in the cycles with day 2 embryo transferred (OR = 1.39, 95% CI:0.66–2.39, P = 0.39) and blastocyst transferred (OR = 1.31 95% CI:0.64–2.69, P = 0.46). Conclusion: 30 mg/d oral dydrogesterone and 180 mg/d MVP gel revealed similar reproductive outcomes in HRT-FET cycles in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of scalar diversity refers to thewell-replicated finding that different scalar expressions give rise to scalar implicatures (SIs) at different rates. Previous work has shown that part of the scalar diversity effect can be explained by theoretically motivated factors. Although the effect has been established only in controlled experiments using manually constructed stimuli, there has been a tendency to assume that the marked differences in inference rates that have been observed reflect differences to be found in naturally occurring discourse. We explore whether this is the case by sampling actual language usage involving a wide range of scalar expressions. Adopting the approach in Degen (2015), we investigated the scalar diversity effect in a corpus of Twitter data we constructed. We find that the phenomenon of scalar diversity attenuates significantly when measured in a corpus-based paraphrase task. Although the degree of "scalar diversity" varies, we find that factors derived from theories of SI can explain nearly two-thirds of the variation. This remains the case whether the variation is observed in controlled experiments or in the context of natural language use. As for the remaining variation, we hypothesize that it may be due to a high level of uncertainty about whether adjectival scalar expressions should undergo scalar enrichment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Toxoplasmosis is a zoonosis caused by Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii). The current treatment for toxoplasmosis remains constrained due to the absence of pharmaceutical interventions. Thus, the pursuit of more efficient targets is of great importance. Lipid metabolism in T. gondii, including fatty acid metabolism, phospholipid metabolism, and neutral lipid metabolism, assumes a crucial function in T. gondii because those pathways are largely involved in the formation of the membranous structure and cellular processes such as division, invasion, egress, replication, and apoptosis. The inhibitors of T. gondii's lipid metabolism can directly lead to the disturbance of various lipid component levels and serious destruction of membrane structure, ultimately leading to the death of the parasites. In this review, the specific lipid metabolism pathways, correlative enzymes, and inhibitors of lipid metabolism of T. gondii are elaborated in detail to generate novel ideas for the development of anti-T. gondii drugs that target the parasites' lipid metabolism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spacecraft commonly dissipate heat into space through radiation. In the current development of spacecraft radiators, two major challenges are encountered: effective dissipation of heat in high-temperature environments and the heat waste by the thermal control system. Thermoacoustic heat pumps have emerged as a promising solution, capable of increasing the dissipating temperature of the radiators and reusing the waste heat. This paper presents a novel work-recovery thermoacoustic heat pump (WRTAHP) that incorporates a displacer, which serves the function of phase shifter and acoustic power recovery. One-dimensional numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the influence of the regenerator, thermal buffer tube, heat exchangers, and displacer on the system performance. The results reveal that WRTAHP can raise the temperature of waste heat sources from 50 °C up to 120 °C and obtain 511 W heating capacity with an overall relative Carnot efficiency of 56.4%. Furthermore, with the utilization of the heat pump, the surface area of the radiator is reduced to 60% of its original size. This work demonstrates the potential of WRTAHP for space applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors like molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) exhibit superior performance at nanometer-scale thickness compared to silicon. Notably, multilayers are more resistant to breakage during transfer and boast enhanced electrical properties over monolayers. In this study, we synthesized 4-in. multilayer MoS2 using a rapid thermal processing system through the ammonium tetrathiomolybdate precursor thermolysis. A 200 nm-scale space confinement on the sample surface was used to reduce sulfur loss during annealing and to facilitate vacancy healing by self-feeding sulfur atoms. Various characterizations confirmed good crystallinity, surface flatness, and continuity, including Raman spectroscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning transmission electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Moreover, these samples showed a significant enhancement in electron mobility. Our approach benefits efficiency, scalability, and procedural simplicity, paving a promising path toward large-scale production of multilayer 2D semiconductors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A shape and generalized topology optimization method based on the level set-based density method is proposed to design the curved grid stiffeners. The overall layout of the stiffeners is described by combining many single stiffeners, and each single stiffener is described by a level set function parameterized by using the compactly supported radial basis functions (CS-RBFs). The curvilinear path of each stiffener is described by the zero iso-contour of each level set function, and the width of each stiffener is described by applying an interval projection to each level set function. The combination operation that is similar to the Boolean operation "union" is achieved by using the p-norm method. The expansion coefficients of CS-RBFs are taken as part of the design variables of the optimization, and they are responsible for changing the shape of curved stiffeners. A topology design variable is assigned to each single stiffener, and it is responsible for changing the existence of single stiffeners. The proposed method is validated through several numerical examples, and the results demonstrate that the shape and topology of stiffeners can be effectively changed during the optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A long-standing debate is whether social influence improves the collective wisdom of a crowd or undermines it. This paper addresses the question based on a naïve learning setting in influence systems theory: in our models individuals evolve their estimates of an unknown truth according to the weighted-average opinion dynamics. A formal mathematization is provided with rigorous theoretical analysis. We obtain various conditions for improving, optimizing, and undermining the crowd accuracy, respectively. We prove that if the wisdom of a finite-size group is improved, then the collective estimate converges to the truth as the group size increases. We show that whether social influence improves or undermines the wisdom is determined by the social power allocations in the influence system: if the influence system allocates relatively larger social power to relatively more accurate individuals, it improves the wisdom; on the contrary, if the influence system assigns less social power to more accurate individuals, it undermines the wisdom. At a population level, individuals' susceptibilities to interpersonal influence and network centralities are both crucial. To improve the wisdom, more accurate individuals should be less susceptible and have larger network centralities. Particularly, in democratic influence networks, if relatively more accurate individuals are relatively less susceptible, the wisdom is improved; if more accurate individuals are more susceptible, the wisdom is undermined, which is consistent with the reported empirical evidence. Our investigation provides a theoretical framework for understanding the role social influence plays in the emergence of collective wisdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the condition of flight Mach number 7 (inlet Mach number of isolator is 3.0), it is very difficult for kerosene-fueled scramjet to achieve auto-ignition and flame stabilization. In order to solve this problem, air throttling is adopted as an auxiliary ignition measure, and the air throttling flux ratio (the ratio of air throttling flux rate to inflow flux rate) is 38%. The test was carried out in the direct-connected experiment platform of pulse combustion wind tunnel. The flow structure and flame development were studied by schlieren, flame self-illumination and wall pressure measurement. With air throttling, the non-reacting flow was stable without oscillation, and upper wall pressure near the throttling position was about two times of that without air throttling. In the results of room temperature kerosene reacting flow, the kerosene equivalent ratio was 0.37. Kerosene could not achieve auto-ignition without air throttling, while kerosene auto-ignition and flame stabilization were achieved successfully when air throttling on. However, the combustion had a short period of oscillation when air throttling off, and the oscillation period is 3.0 ms. • A variety of non-contact, optical-measurement methods are used in experimental research. • Kerosene ignition delay time is shortened by reverse injection of fuel through struts. • Experimental results show that kerosene maintains stable combustion after removing pilot hydrogen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal nitride complexes have recently been proposed as an efficient noble‐metal‐free catalyst for ammonia synthesis utilizing a dual active site concept. However, their high sensitivity to air and moisture has restricted potential applications. We report that their chemical sensitivity can be improved by introducing Al into the LaN lattice, thereby forming La−Al metallic bonds (La−Al−N). The catalytic activity and mechanism of the resulting TM/La−Al−N (TM=Ni, Co) are comparable to the previously reported TM/LaN catalyst. Notably, the catalytic activity did not degrade after exposure to air and moisture. Kinetic analysis and isotopic experiment showed that La−Al−N is responsible for N2 absorption and activation despite substantial Al being introduced into its lattice because the local coordination of the lattice N remained largely unchanged. These findings show the effectiveness of metallic bond formation, which can support the chemical stability of rare‐earth nitrides with retention of catalytic functionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal nitride complexes have recently been proposed as an efficient noble‐metal‐free catalyst for ammonia synthesis utilizing a dual active site concept. However, their high sensitivity to air and moisture has restricted potential applications. We report that their chemical sensitivity can be improved by introducing Al into the LaN lattice, thereby forming La−Al metallic bonds (La−Al−N). The catalytic activity and mechanism of the resulting TM/La−Al−N (TM=Ni, Co) are comparable to the previously reported TM/LaN catalyst. Notably, the catalytic activity did not degrade after exposure to air and moisture. Kinetic analysis and isotopic experiment showed that La−Al−N is responsible for N2 absorption and activation despite substantial Al being introduced into its lattice because the local coordination of the lattice N remained largely unchanged. These findings show the effectiveness of metallic bond formation, which can support the chemical stability of rare‐earth nitrides with retention of catalytic functionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) have shown promising performance in solving various optimization problems, but their performance may deteriorate drastically when tackling problems containing a large number of decision variables. In recent years, much effort been devoted to addressing the challenges brought by large-scale multi-objective optimization problems. This article presents a comprehensive survey of stat-of-the-art MOEAs for solving large-scale multi-objective optimization problems.We start with a categorization of these MOEAs into decision variable grouping based, decision space reduction based, and novel search strategy based MOEAs, discussing their strengths and weaknesses. Then, we review the benchmark problems for performance assessment and a few important and emerging applications of MOEAs for largescalemulti- objective optimization. Last, we discuss some remaining challenges and future research directions of evolutionary large-scale multi-objective optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioethanol to butadiene is currently the most promising non-oil-based butadiene production route. Here, copper is introduced into the conventional bimetallic zeolite catalyst to partially substitute for zinc; the isolated tetracoordinated Cu(II) species are formed, with weak and strong basic sites transformed into medium acid sites in trimetallic CuZnY/SiBEA catalyst. A partial substitution of zinc by copper increases the dispersion of metal, reduces the formation of ZnO clusters, decreases the pore blockage, and enhances the total pore volume of catalyst. The Cu1Zn2Y5/SiBEA catalyst with an appropriate 0.33 Cu/(Cu + Zn) mass ratio, a highest medium acid sites/(weak + strong) basic sites value of 6.17, and largest total pore volume of 0.251 cm3/g in all samples presents excellent catalytic performance in the ethanol to butadiene reaction: 99.01% ethanol conversion and 73.36% butadiene selectivity, higher than most reported ethanol to butadiene catalysts. The isolated tetracoordinated Cu(II) structure is stable, which is beneficial to the stability of trimetallic catalyst; when the reaction time is 60 h, the butadiene selectivity is 45.95%, 14% higher than corresponding bimetallic catalyst. The butadiene productivity of Cu1Zn2Y5/SiBEA catalyst reaches up to 1.68 gBD·gcat−1·h−1 at WHSV = 6 h−1 and time-on-stream = 8 h. Increasing reaction temperature could linearly increase the ethanol conversion, while the butadiene selectivity increases first and then decreases, the suitable temperature is 375 ℃ for the highest butadiene yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a lightweight three-user secure quantum summation protocol is put forward by using single-particle states, which can accomplish the goal that three users cooperate together to calculate the modulo 2 addition of their private messages without the help of a third party. This protocol only requires single-particle states rather than quantum entangled states as the initial quantum resource and only needs single-particle measurements and Bell basis measurements. This protocol needs none of quantum entanglement swapping, the Pauli operations, the controlled-not (CNOT) operation, the Hadamard gate or a pre-shared private key sequence. Security analysis proves that this protocol is secure against both the outside attacks and the participant attacks. Compared with the existing two-dimensional three-user quantum summation protocols, this protocol more or less takes advantage over them on the aspects of the initial quantum resource, users' quantum measurement, the usage of quantum entanglement swapping, the usage of Pauli operations, the usage of CNOT operation or the usage of Hadamard gate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To study the efficacy of the enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) program on postoperative recovery and complications in patients with gastric cancer. Methods: Eighty patients in the perioperative period with radical gastrectomy were enrolled and randomly divided into 2 groups, the ERAS group and the non-ERAS group. The differences between the 2 groups in terms of postoperative recoveries and complications rate were determined. According to the body mass index (BMI) level, the ERAS group was divided into 2 subgroups, namely group A (BMI < 28 kg/m², n = 16) and group B (BMI ≥ 28 kg/m², n = 24). The non-ERAS group was also divided into group C (BMI < 28 kg/m², n = 18) and group D (BMI ≥ 28 kg/m2, n = 22). The recovery and complications of each group were then determined. Results: The postoperative length of stay and visual analogue scale pain score were less in the ERAS group than the non-ERAS group (P < 0.05). Time to first postoperative exhaustion, first postoperative defecation, returning leukocyte count to normal, and stopping intravenous nutrition were significantly shorter in the ERAS group (n = 40), compared to the non-ERAS group (n = 40, all P < 0.05). The incidence of postoperative lower extremity intramuscular venous thrombosis was significantly higher in group D than in group B (Χ² = 4.800, P = 0.028). In addition, the incidence of lower extremity intermuscular venous thrombosis and lung infection in group D was higher than those in other groups. Conclusions: The perioperative ERAS program was associated with faster recovery in patients undergoing radical gastrectomy. For patients with higher BMI (BMI ≥ 28 kg/m²), the use of the perioperative ERAS program was more advantageous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of hydrated proton on solid surfaces is of vital importance in electrochemistry, proton channels, and hydrogen fuel cells but remains unclear because of the lack of atomic-scale characterization. We directly visualized Eigen- and Zundel-type hydrated protons within the hydrogen bonding water network on Au(111) and Pt(111) surfaces, using cryogenic qPlus-based atomic force microscopy under ultrahigh vacuum. We found that the Eigen cations self-assembled into monolayer structures with local order, and the Zundel cations formed long-range ordered structures stabilized by nuclear quantum effects. Two Eigen cations could combine into one Zundel cation accompanied with a simultaneous proton transfer to the surface. Moreover, we revealed that the Zundel configuration was preferred over the Eigen on Pt(111), and such a preference was absent on Au(111). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bone remodelling is generally a dynamic process orchestrated by bone-resorbing osteoclasts and bone-forming osteoblasts. Osteoclasts are the only cell type capable of bone resorption to maintain bone homeostasis in the human body. However, excessive osteoclastogenesis can lead to osteolytic diseases. The receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) ligand (RANKL) has been widely considered to be an important modulator of osteoclastogenesis thereby participating in the pathogenesis of osteolytic diseases. Transforming growth factor β-activated kinase 1 (TAK1), a member of the mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase family, is an important intracellular molecule that regulates multiple signalling pathways, such as NF-κB and mitogen-activated protein kinase to mediate multiple physiological processes, including cell survival, inflammation, and tumourigenesis. Furthermore, increasing evidence has demonstrated that TAK1 is intimately involved in RANKL-induced osteoclastogenesis. Moreover, several detailed mechanisms by which TAK1 regulates RANKL-induced osteoclastogenesis have been clarified, and some potential approaches targeting TAK1 for the treatment of osteolytic diseases have emerged. In this review, we discuss how TAK1 functions in RANKL-mediated signalling pathways and highlight the significant role of TAK1 in RANKL-induced osteoclastogenesis. In addition, we discuss the potential clinical implications of TAK1 inhibitors for the treatment of osteolytic diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direction of arrival (DOA) estimation of coherent sources with a uniform circular array (UCA) is an intractable problem. The method-of-direction-estimation (MODE) algorithm has strong superiority in handling coherent sources compared with the classical MUSIC, and ESPRIT algorithms. However, MODE is sensitive to source numbers and does not work well in the UCA scenario. In order to improve the performance of MODE, a robust DOA estimation method named UCA-PUMA (principal-eigenvector-utilization for- modal-analysis) is proposed. The complicated non-Vandermonde structured steering vector of UCA is transformed into a virtual Vandermonde structured steering vector in mode space. The proposed method gives a closed-form solution compared with the original UCA-MODE algorithm. The performance of the UCA-PUMA method is evaluated by simulations. Simulation results demonstrate that the UCA-PUMA is more robust to source numbers than the UCA-MODE, and coherent sources can be handled without spatial smoothing. In addition, the UCA-PUMA fully takes advantage of the UCA, which is able to discriminate sources coming from a 360° azimuthal field of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a three-party secure semiquantum summation protocol, which can calculate the modulo 2 addition of the private bits from one quantum participant and two classical participants, is constructed by only using single qubits as the initial quantum resource. This protocol needs none of quantum entanglement swapping, the unitary operation or a pre-shared private key. This protocol only requires the quantum participant to perform the 0 , 1 basis measurements, the + , - basis measurements and the Bell basis measurements. Compared with the existing only semiquantum summation protocol (Int J Theor Phys, 60 (2021) 3478), this protocol has better performance in quantum measurements for quantum participant; moreover, it may also have higher qubit efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an efficient semiquantum key distribution (SQKD) protocol which is based on single photons in both polarization and spatial-mode degrees of freedom. This protocol is feasible for a quantum communicant distributing a random private key to a classical communicant. This protocol need not require the classical communicant to use any quantum memory or unitary operation equipment. We validate the complete robustness of the transmissions of single photons between two communicants. It turns out that during these transmissions, if Eve wants not to be detected by two communicants, she will obtain nothing useful about the final shared key bits. Compared with Boyer et al.'s famous pioneering SQKD protocol (Phys Rev Lett 99:140501, 2007), this protocol has double quantum communication capacity, as one single photon with two degrees of freedom for generating the key bits can carry two private bits; and this protocol has higher quantum communication efficiency, as it consumes less qubits for establishing a private key of the same length. Compared with the only existing SQKD protocol with single photons in two degrees of freedom (Int J Theoret Phys 59:2807, 2020), this protocol has higher quantum communication efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a two-party semiquantum summation protocol, where two classical users can accomplish the summation of their private binary sequences with the assistance of a quantum semi-honest third party (TP). The term 'semi-honest' implies that TP cannot conspire with others but is able to implement all kinds of attacks. This protocol employs logical qubits as traveling particles to overcome the negative influence of collective–dephasing noise and need not make any two parties pre-share a random secret key. The security analysis turns out that this protocol can effectively prevent the outside attacks from Eve and the participant attacks from TP. Moreover, TP has no knowledge about the summation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The role of the right white matter pathways in the recovery from post-stroke aphasia is rarely understood. • The involvement of the right hemispheric neural tracts in recovery from post-stroke aphasia may be mediated by multiple factors. • Stroke stage and aphasia severity might be important factors influencing the involvement of right hemispheric homologous language pathways in the recovery from PSA, this should be comprehensively considered when analyzing the contribution of the right homologous language pathways to recovery from PSA. • Taking into account of stroke stage and aphasia severity is of great guiding significance for the clinical practice of language therapy options such as non-invasive brain stimulation techniques. The involvement of the right hemisphere, mainly the activation of the right cerebral regions, in recovery from post-stroke aphasia has been widely recognized. In contrast, the role of the right white matter pathways in the recovery from post-stroke aphasia is rarely understood. In this study, we aimed to provide a primary overview of the correlation between the structural integrity of the right hemispheric neural tracts based on the dual-stream model of language organization and recovery from post-stroke aphasia by systematically reviewing prior longitudinal interventional studies. By searching electronic databases for relevant studies according to a standard protocol, a total of 10 records (seven group studies and three case studies) including 79 participants were finally included. After comprehensively analyzing these studies and reviewing the literature, although no definite correlation was found between the right hemispheric neural tracts and recovery from post-stroke aphasia, our review provideds a new perspective for investigating the linguistic role of the right hemispheric neural tracts. This suggests that the involvement of the right hemispheric neural tracts in recovery from post-stroke aphasia may be mediated by multiple factors; thus, this topic should be comprehensively investigated in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thermal conductivity of vitreous silica is computed using the direct method in molecular dynamics simulations with three sets of empirical force fields, including the BKS, Teter, and ReaxFF, to investigate their performance in thermal characterization. Various heat flux and system sizes are used in the simulations to evaluate the statistical uncertainty and the finite-size effect. While all these potentials can reproduce realistic silica structures, the ReaxFF provides better agreement with experiments at 300 K than the BKS and Teter, which is due to its improved description of low-frequency vibrations. Increasing the heat flux and cross-sectional area tends to reduce the calculated standard deviation induced by thermal fluctuations, thus contributing to more accurate thermal conductivity predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel quantum dialogue (QD) protocol is proposed based on single photons in both polarization and spatial-mode degrees of freedom. In the proposed QD protocol, the initial states of single photons in both polarization and spatial-mode degrees of freedom used for encoding are privately shared between two communicants through the direct transmissions of their auxiliary counterparts from one communicant to another. As a result, the information leakage problem is avoided. Moreover, the detailed security analysis also shows that the proposed QD protocol can resist Eve's several famous active attacks, such as the Trojan horse attack, the intercept-resend attack, the measure-resend attack and the entangle-measure attack. The proposed QD protocol only needs single photons in both polarization and spatial-mode degrees of freedom as quantum resource and adopts single-photon measurements. As a result, it is feasible in practice as the preparation and the measurement of a single photon in both polarization and spatial-mode degrees of freedom can be accomplished with current experimental techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a busy space, people encounter many other people with different viewpoints, but classic studies of perspective-taking examine only one agent at a time. This paper explores the issue of selectivity in visual perspective-taking (VPT) when different people are available to interact with. We consider the hypothesis that humanization impacts on VPT in four studies using virtual reality methods. Experiments 1 and 2 use the director task to show that for more humanized agents (an in-group member or a virtual human agent), participants were more likely to use VPT to achieve lower error rate. Experiments 3 and 4 used a two-agent social mental rotation task to show that participants are faster and more accurate to recognize items which are oriented towards a more humanized agent (an in-group member or a naturally moving agent). All results support the claim that humanization alters the propensity to engage in VPT in rich social contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a multi-party quantum private comparison (MQPC) scheme is suggested based on entanglement swapping of Bell entangled states within d-level quantum system, which can accomplish the equality comparison of secret binary sequences from n users via one execution of scheme. Detailed security analysis shows that both the outside attack and the participant attack are ineffective. The suggested scheme needn't establish a private key among n users beforehand through the quantum key distribution (QKD) method to encrypt the secret binary sequences. Compared with previous MQPC scheme based on d-level Cat states and d-level Bell entangled states, the suggested scheme has distinct advantages on quantum resource, quantum measurement of third party (TP) and qubit efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quantum secure multiparty summation protocol is constructed based on the phase shifting operation of d-level quantum system which utilizes the integer-by-integer technique to calculate the modulo d addition. The semi-honest third party prepares d-level two-particle entangled states and transmits the particle sequence composed by all second particles to n secrecy owners. n secrecy owners in turn encode their respective secrecy on this particle sequence through the phase shifting operation. Detailed security analysis turns out that both the outside attack and the participant attack are ineffective towards this protocol. Compared with the quantum secure summation protocols with bit-by-bit calculations, its calculation efficiency is higher; and compared with the protocols with smaller modulo, its applications are more extensive. Especailly, this protocol has extensive applications in the realm of quantum secure multiparty computation, such as quantum multiparty private comparison, quantum multiparty anonymous ranking, quantum multiparty anonymous voting, quantum multiparty key agreement, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retaining gaze in working memory (WM) is essential for successfully navigating through the social world. In the current study, we investigated how WM stores gaze direction by focusing on the role of face context in gaze WM. To address this question, we propose two competing hypotheses. The independence hypothesis predicts that eye gaze is stored independently and is not susceptible to the influence of the surrounding face context. Conversely, the embedding hypothesis claims that gaze WM involves face context and that disruption of holistic face processing would also impair memory for embedded gaze. In three experiments, we adopted different manipulations to disrupt holistic face processing and compared WM performance for gaze within and without face context. In Experiments 1 and 2, we tested WM for gaze direction with schematic upright or inverted faces. We found better performance for gaze within upright faces (vs. inverted faces) by increasing the probability of being remembered. In Experiment 3, we replaced schematic faces with photographic faces, and disrupted holistic processing by using scrambled faces. Results replicated our previous findings, showing that photographic gaze within intact faces was better remembered than gaze presented alone or gaze within scrambled faces. These findings indicate that gaze memory is face-dependent and support the embedding hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a flexible ensemble classication framework, Random Subspace Ensemble (RaSE), for sparse classication. In the RaSE algorithm, we aggregate many weak learners, where each weak learner is a base classifier trained in a subspace optimally selected from a collection of random subspaces. To conduct subspace selection, we propose a new criterion, ratio information criterion (RIC), based on weighted Kullback-Leibler divergence. The theoretical analysis includes the risk and Monte-Carlo variance of the RaSE classifier, establishing the screening consistency and weak consistency of RIC, and providing an upper bound for the misclassification rate of the RaSE classifier. In addition, we show that in a high-dimensional framework, the number of random subspaces needs to be very large to guarantee that a subspace covering signals is selected. Therefore, we propose an iterative version of the RaSE algorithm and prove that under some specifi conditions, a smaller number of generated random subspaces are needed to find a desirable subspace through iteration. An array of simulations under various models and real-data applications demonstrate the eectiveness and robustness of the RaSE classifier and its iterative version in terms of low misclassification rate and accurate feature ranking. The RaSE algorithm is implemented in the R package RaSEn on CRAN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust is a crucial foundation of human society, dynamically changing along with interpersonal interactions. Previous research suggested that both gaze behaviors and affective states might influence our trust evaluation. Here, we created an uncertain decision-making environment to investigate how these two aspects change interpersonal trust during social interactions. Specifically, participants made a forced choice between two price-matched goods to determine which one was more expensive. After participants made a choice, the face in the center of the screen would gaze towards or away from the participants' choice, and then participants would receive timely feedback informing whether their choice was correct or not. In Experiment 1 (N = 34), we found people increased their trust ratings for gaze-followers but reduced them for gaze-unfollowers when they received positive feedback, but stayed with their initial judgments when receiving negative feedback. Experiment 2 (N = 20) and Experiment S1 (N = 20) further revealed the same change patterns on participants' trust investments in different conditions. These results suggest that gaze-following behavior can change people's trust evaluations as well as trust behaviors, while affective states induced by different feedback modulate this process in a flexible manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Oral implants transmit biting forces to peri-implant bone. In turn, those forces subject peri-implant bone to mechanical stresses and strains. Here, our objective was to understand how peri-implant bone responded to conditions of normal versus hyper-loading in a mouse model. Material and Methods: Sixty-six mice were randomly assigned to 2 groups; both groups underwent bilateral maxillary first molar extraction followed by complete healing. Titanium alloy implants were placed in healed sites and positioned below the occlusal plane. After osseointegration, a composite crown was affixed to the implant so masticatory loading would ensue. In controls, the remaining dentition was left intact but in the hyper-loaded (test) group, the remaining molars were extracted. 3D finite element analysis (FEA) calculated peri-implant strains resulting from normal and hyper-loading. Peri-implant tissues were analyzed at multiple time points using micro-computed tomography (µCT) imaging, histology, enzymatic assays of bone remodeling, and vital dye labeling to evaluate bone accrual. Results: Compared to controls, hyper-loaded implants experienced a 3.6-fold increase in occlusal force, producing higher peri-implant strains. Bone formation and resorption were both significantly elevated around hyper-loaded implants, eventually culminating in a significant increase in peri-implant bone volume/total volume (BV/ TV). In our mouse model, masticatory hyper-loading of an osseointegrated implant was associated with increased peri-implant strain, increased peri-implant bone remodeling, and a net gain in bone deposition. Conclusion: Hyper-loading results in bone strain with catabolic and anabolic bone responses, leading to a net gain in bone deposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of an experimental and numerical study on the combustion characteristics of a supersonic combustor operation enhanced by pilot hydrogen and air throttling, including ignition and combustion. Wall pressure measurements, schlieren images, and hydroxyl-radical planar-laser-induced-fluorescence (OH-PLIF) are used to obtain information on the flowfield and flame development. With the aid of air throttling, the kerosene is ignited by the pilot flame; and the kerosene flame remains stable even after the pilot hydrogen is switched off. The speed of the shock train generated by the throttling air and combustion is about 52 m/s in the expansion section but only about 3.7 m/s in the cavity region. The stable flame and flame blowout cases can be separated by a curve in a plot of the coexistence time of pilot hydrogen and throttling air versus the air throttling flux ratio. There is a special case lying on this curve for which the flame is unstable and will be blown out before the throttling air is switched off. It is also found that the position of the thermal throat is the same for all the subsonic combustion cases: about 595 mm downstream of the scramjet entrance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study Design: Meta-analysis.Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of total disc replacement (TDR) and anterior cervical discectomy and fusion for treating cervical degenerative diseases.Summary Of Background Data: Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) has been the traditional gold standard surgery for cervical degenerative diseases.Methods: Clinical databases including PubMed, MEDLINE, Cochrane and Clinical Trials.gov were searched. Review Manager 5.1 software and Stata 11.1 were used to analyze clinical data. Dichotomous pooled results were reported as relative risk (RR) and its 95% confidence interval (CI). Endpoints included clinical success rate, NDI success rate, neurological success rate, incidence of adverse event, reoperation rate and patient satisfaction.Results: Eight clinical trials and fifteen papers with 1440 TDR patients and 1237 ACDF patients were included in this meta-analysis. The TDR group had a higher clinical success rate (RR, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.13-1.41; P < 0.001; I = 79%), NDI success rate (RR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.06-1.26; P = 0.001; I = 77%), neurological success rate (RR, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.03-1.10; P = 0.0004; I = 58%), and secondary surgery rate p (RR, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.03-1.09; P < 0.001; I = 0%) but lower secondary surgery rate (RR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.31-0.63; P < 0.00001; I = 43%) compared with the ACDF group. There was no significant difference in the adverse event rate between the TDR group and Athe CDF group (RR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.31-0.63; P < 0.001; I = 43%).Conclusion: From the meta-analysis, we conclude that the efficacy and safety of TDA are equivalent or superior to ACDF. TDR is associated with a higher overall success rate, NDI success rate, neurological success rate, reoperation rate and satisfaction rate compared with ACDF group. No differences exist in the risk of adverse event between the two groups.Level Of Evidence: 3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oxalis shibeishanensis Huan C. Wang & Y. Tian (Oxalidaceae), belonging to O. subsect. Oxalis, is described and illustrated as a new species endemic to Yunnan, Southwest China. It is most similar to O. obtriangulata, but clearly differs from the latter by its 1.5-3 cm long, 3-9 cm wide leaflets with broadly cuneate base and not emarginate apex, 2-flowered inflorescences, narrowly ovate to broadly lanceolate sepals, and the petals being bifid at the apex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Gao et al. suggested a flexible quantum private query (QPQ) protocol (Opt Express, 2012, 20(16):17411) through Jakobi et al.'s quantum-key-distribution based QPQ protocol (Phys Rev A, 2011, 83:022301). Inspired by Gao et al.'s QPQ protocol, we design a multi-user QPQ protocol by using the product states of single-photon states. Its database privacy and user privacy should be compromised by choosing an suitable value for θ. Due to the honesty check process for the database owner, an smaller θ can be priorly chosen to guarantee better database privacy. Moreover, it naturally inherits some good characteristics of Gao et al.'s QPQ protocol so that it is also loss-tolerant, practical to huge-database condition, robust against quantum memory attack and flexible. It differs from Gao et al.'s QPQ protocol on three aspects: firstly, it adds the process of checking the presence of an illegal eavesdropper; secondly, it adds the process of checking the database owner's honesty; and finally, it is feasible for n users to query the items of database simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel semi-quantum key distribution (SQKD) protocol is designed based on single photons in both polarization and spatial-mode degrees of freedom, which allows to establish a raw key between one quantum communicant and one classical communicant. The proposed SQKD protocol only adopts one kind of quantum state as the initial quantum resource. The detailed security analysis shows that it can resist Eve's active attacks, such as the intercept-resend attack, the measure-resend attack, the Trojan horse attack and the entangle-measure attack. The proposed SQKD protocol only needs single photons in both polarization and spatial-mode degrees of freedom as quantum resource and employs single-photon measurements. Thus, it has excellent feasibility, since the preparation and the measurement of a single photon in both polarization and spatial-mode degrees of freedom can be easily acheived with present quantum technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we design the first semiquantum private comparison (SQPC) protocol which is realized via cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) by making use of the evolution law of atom. With the help of a semi-honest third party (TP), the proposed protocol can compare the equality of private inputs from two semiquantum parties who only have limited quantum capabilities. The proposed protocol uses product states as initial quantum resource and employs none of unitary operations, quantum entanglement swapping operation or delay lines. Security proof turns out that it can defeat both the external attack and the internal attack. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Yang et al. suggested a semi-quantum private query (SQPQ) protocol (Quantum Inf Process (2015)14:1017) using one quantum state. Later, Yu et al. (Quantum Inf Process (2015)14:4201) pointed out that Yang et al.'s SQPQ protocol runs the risk of user privacy being invaded, i.e., the database owner can manipulate the conclusiveness of bits definitely by launching a special kind of fake initial state attack, and then constructed an improved quantum private query (QPQ) protocol to avoid this risk. However, Yu et al.'s QPQ protocol is not semi-quantum. In this paper, we successfully design the SQPQ protocol without running the risk of user privacy being invaded. The proposed SQPQ protocol has the following features: (1) it only employs one kind of quantum state as the initial quantum state; (2) it doesn't require the classical user to perform the measurement operation; and (3) it is cheat-sensitive, which means that if the database privacy or the user privacy is invaded, the attack behavior can be detected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding other people have beliefs different from ours or different from reality is critical to social interaction. Previous studies suggest that healthy adults possess an implicit mentalising system, but alternative explanations for data from reaction time false belief tasks have also been given. In this study, we combined signal detection theory (SDT) with a false belief task. As application of SDT allows us to separate perceptual sensitivity from criteria, we are able to investigate how another person's beliefs change the participant's perception of near-threshold stimuli. Participants (n = 55) watched four different videos in which an actor saw (or did not see) a Gabor cube hidden (or not hidden) behind an occluder. At the end of each video, the occluder vanished revealing a cube either with or without Gabor pattern, and participants needed to report whether they saw the Gabor pattern or not. A pre-registered analysis with classical statistics weakly suggests an effect of the actor's belief on participant's perceptions. An exploratory Bayesian analysis supports the idea that when the actor believed the cube was present, participants made slower and more liberal judgements. Although these data are not definitive, these current results indicate the value of new measures for understanding implicit false belief processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explore the feasibility and safety of ambulatory mPCNL (mini percutaneous nephrolithotomy) on upper urinary tract calculi.Methods: Clinical data of 18 patients received ambulatory mPCNL during Aug. 2017 to Jan. 2018 and 23 patients treated with routine inpatient mPCNL of the corresponding period were collected. All the patients included received 16Fr channel PCNL under the guidance of Doppler ultrasound. A 6Fr double J stent was placed in the ureter for internal drainage, and either an indwelling 14Fr open nephrostomy tube was placed or the puncture channel was filled with absorbable hemostatic materials alone, depends on the bleeding condition of the puncture channel and the intraoperative conditions. Preoperative parameters and surgery time, complications, total hospitalization costs and hospital stay time between the two groups were compared.Results: Preoperative parameters regarding age (P=0.057), sex distribution (P=0.380), ASA score (P=0.388), Calculi CT value (P=0.697), and the S.T.O.N.E. score (P=0.122) were comparable between the two groups. Maximum diameter of calculi (cm) of the conventional hospitalization group, however, was larger than the ambulatory surgery group (P=0.041). There were no significant differences in the mean surgery time (P=0.146), postoperative hemoglobin drop (P=0.865), Calculi-free rate on the next day after surgery (P=0.083) and postoperative fever rate (P=0.200) between the two groups. With regard to tubeless rate (P<0.001), total hospitalization costs (P=0.003) and hospital stay time (P<0.001), there were significant advantage favored ambulatory mPCNL.Conclusions: For patients with simple upper urinary tract calculi and relatively good performance status, ambulatory mPCNL is feasible as it's equally safe and efficient as compared with routine inpatient mPCNL. Moreover, ambulatory mPCNL decreases hospitalization costs and hospital stay time. Nevertheless, perioperative management should be carefully conducted, and well-designed studies are warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterogeneity broadly exists in various cell types both during development and at homeostasis. Investigating heterogeneity is crucial for comprehensively understanding the complexity of ontogeny, dynamics, and function of specific cell types. Traditional bulk-labeling techniques are incompetent to dissect heterogeneity within cell population, while the new singlecell lineage tracing methodologies invented in the last decade can hardly achieve high-fidelity single-cell labeling and long-term in-vivo observation simultaneously. In this work, we developed a high-precision infrared laser-evoked gene operator heat-shock system, which uses laser-induced CreERT2 combined with loxP-DsRedx-loxP-GFP reporter to achieve precise single-cell labeling and tracing. In vivo study indicated that this system can precisely label single cell in brain, muscle and hematopoietic system in zebrafish embryo. Using this system, we traced the hematopoietic potential of hemogenic endothelium (HE) in the posterior blood island (PBI) of zebrafish embryo and found that HEs in the PBI are heterogeneous, which contains at least myeloid unipotent and myeloid-lymphoid bipotent subtypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Idiopathic ventricular arrhythmias originating from the aortic sinus of Valsalva often show preferential conduction to the right‐ventricular outflow tract, which may render radiofrequency ablation more difficult. We describe a patient with symptomatic premature ventricular contractions of left‐ventricular outflow tract origin presenting with a variation of QRS morphology during ablation. The correlation between the characteristics of local voltage potentials and the real origin site of the ventricular arrhythmia is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two kinds of thermoresponsive 2-hydroxy-3-alkoxypropyl hydroxyethyl celluloses (HAPEC) were prepared by grafting butyl and isopropyl glycidyl ethers onto hydroxyethyl celluloses (HEC). The HAPEC was characterized by 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and 2D HSQC NMR. The lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of HAPEC can be tuned by changing the molar substitution (MS). The LCST decreased with the increasing MS of the alkyl chains. The HAPEC concentration, salt concentration, and organic solvent concentration had a marked influence on LCST. In addition, the differences of thermoresponsive properties between the two kinds of HAPECs were investigated. 2-Hydroxy-3-butoxypropyl hydroxyethyl cellulose (HBPEC), which has longer hydrophobic side chains, demonstrated a lower LCST when both HBPEC and 2-hydroxy-3-isopropoxypropyl hydroxyethyl cellulose (HIPEC) possessed similar MS values. HBPEC, which has longer hydrophobic side chains, exhibited thermoresponsive flocculation behavior, and the critical flocculation temperature (CFT) was adjusted in the range from 27.3 to 51.2 °C by changing the molar substitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomous harvesting and evaluation of apples reduce the labour cost. Segmentation of apple point clouds from consumer-grade RGB-D camera is the most important and challenging step in the harvesting process due to the complex structure of apple trees. This paper put forward a segmentation method of apple point clouds based on regions of interest (ROI) in RGB images. Firstly, an annotated RGB dataset of apple trees was built and applied to train the optimized Faster R-CNN to locate ROI containing apples in RGB images. Secondly, the relationship between RGB images and depth images was built to roughly segment the apple point clouds by ROI. Finally, the quality control procedure (QCP) was proposed to improve the quality of segmented apple point clouds. Images for training mainly included two lighting condition, two colours and three apple varieties in orchard, making this method more suitable for practical applications. QCP performed well in filtering noise points and achieved Purity as 96.7% and 96.2% for red and green apples, respectively. Through the comparison method, experimental results indicated that the segmentation method based on ROI is more effective and accurate for red and green apples in orchard. The segmentation method of point clouds based on ROI has great potential for segmentation of point clouds in unstructured scenes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polarized holographic properties play an important role in the holographic data storage of traditional organic recording materials. In this study, reduced graphene oxide (RGO) was introduced into a phenanthraquinone-doped polymethylmethacrylate (PQ/PMMA) photopolymer to effectively improve the orthogonal polarization holographic properties of the material. Importantly, the lateral size of RGO nanosheets has an important influence on the polymerization of MMA monomers. To some extent, a larger RGO diameter is more conducive to promoting the polymerization of MMA monomers and can induce more PMMA polymers to be grafted on its surface, thus obtaining a higher PMMA molecular weight. However, too large of a RGO will lead to too much grafting of the PMMA chain to shorten the length of a single PMMA chain, which will lead to the degradation of PQ/PMMA holographic performance. Compared with the original PQ/PMMA, the diffraction efficiency of the RGO-doped PQ/PMMA photopolymer can reach more than 11.4% (more than 3.5 times higher than the original PQ/PMMA), and its photosensitivity is significantly improved by 4.6 times. This study successfully synthesized RGO-doped PQ/PMMA high-performance photopolymer functional materials for multi-dimensional holographic storage by introducing RGO nanoparticles. Furthermore, the polarization holographic properties of PQ/PMMA photopolymer materials can be further accurately improved to a new level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a three-dimensional (3-D) B-spline wavelet finite element method (WFEM) is proposed by combining the wavelet theory and 3-D finite element method (FEM). Owing to the semi-orthogonality and multi-resolution analysis of spline wavelet over the solution domain, a cuboid with uniform distribution nodes is established for the 3-D B-spline wavelet on the interval (BSWI) element. The governing equations of vibration for the elastic structures are derived by introducing the 3-D B-spline wavelet theory into the displacement components of each node. A procedure for assembling the BSWI elements is presented by redefining the index element node functions. Numerical studies including the vibration analysis of solid and hollow beams and plates under different boundary conditions are performed to show the performance of the present method. A comprehensive comparison of the predicted vibration characteristics obtained by the present method, traditional FEM, and reference data is presented to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the 3-D B-spline WFEM. The core of the present method is involving the 3-D B-spline wavelet to replace the polynomial interpolation functions in the traditional FEM, which enhances computational accuracy during the vibration analysis of the elastic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the use of a lifting line model in order to determine the optimum loading on a marine turbine's blades. The influence of the wake and its geometry is represented though the use of a full wake alignment model. The effects of viscous drag are included through a drag-to-lift ratio. Results for different number of blades and tip speed ratios are presented. Various types of constraints are imposed in the optimization method in order to avoid abrupt changes in the designed blade shape. The effect of the constraints on the power coefficients of the turbines is studied. Once the optimum loading has been determined, the blade geometry is generated for a given chord and camber distributions. Finally, a vortex-lattice method is used to verify the power coefficient of the designed turbines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]