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This study investigated the strength behaviors of dredged clays treated with metakaolin (MK) and fly ash (FA). A series of laboratory tests including direct shear and unconfined compressive strength tests were performed on MK and FA-treated dredged clay at various MK contents and different curing times. The direct shear test results showed that the shear stress and displacement curves for all specimens tested are strain-softening types and influenced by MK content and curing time. The variation curve at a higher MK content or higher curing time is always higher than that at a lower one. The shear strength from the direct shear test at a given vertical stress consistently increases linearly with the increase of MK content while increasing parabolically with curing time. This indicates both curing time and MK content contribute to the development of the shear strength. Both strength parameters c and φ grow with increasing MK content and curing time. Unconfined compressive strength test results show the strain-softening behavior for all tested specimens. Compared with adding FA alone or MK alone, adding both fly ash and MK exhibited a better treatment effect in the unconfined compressive strength, which increases with increasing MK content and curing time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis study investigated the strength characteristics of dredged marine clays treated with fly ash with varying porewater salinities. A series of laboratory tests were conducted on fly ash-treated dredged marine clay specimens with various salinities and curing times. In the direct shear tests, observed patterns revealed a consistent initial rapid increase in shear stress with the increase of horizontal displacement, followed by either a gradual decline or stabilization after reaching the peak shear stress. The variation curve consistently positioned the lower salinity or longer curing time above the higher salinity or shorter curing time. Furthermore, the shear strength at a given vertical stress consistently decreases with increasing salinity while ascending with increasing curing time. This indicated that curing time positively influences shear strength development, while the presence of salt negatively affects it. Both strength parameters cohesion and friction angle exhibited growth trends with increased curing time but displayed a decline as salinity increased from 0% to 6%. Unconfined compressive strength test results showed a strain-softening behavior for all tested specimens. The compressive strength demonstrated a declining trend with rising salinity, with a more pronounced decrease observed within the initial 7d compared to the less significant change between 7d and 28d. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

N6-methyladenosine (m6A), the most abundant modification in mRNAs, affects the fate of the modified RNAs at the post-transcriptional level and participants in various biological and pathological processes. Increasing evidence shows that m6A modification plays a role in the progression of many malignancies, including colorectal cancer (CRC). As the only catalytic subunit in methyltransferase complex, methyltransferase-like 3 (METTL3) is essential to the performance of m6A modification. It has been found that METTL3 is associated with the prognosis of CRC and significantly influences various aspects of CRC, such as cell proliferation, invasion, migration, metastasis, metabolism, tumor microcirculation, tumor microenvironment, and drug resistance. The relationship between METTL3 and gut-microbiota is also involved into the progression of CRC. Furthermore, METTL3 might be a viable target for CRC treatment to prolong survival. In this review, we comprehensively summarize the function of METTL3 in CRC and the underlying molecular mechanisms. We aim to deepen understanding and offer new ideas for diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for colorectal cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study experimentally investigated the strength characteristics of metakaolin (MK) and sodium silicate (SS) treated dredged clay at high water content for use as construction fills. A series of laboratory tests including direct shear tests, unconfined compression tests, SEM and XRD tests were carried out to systematically evaluate the effects of water content, sodium silicate modulus, curing agent content, and curing time on the strength behavior of MK and SS treated dredged clay samples. The direct shear test results showed that the shear strength at a given vertical stress consistently increases with the increase of curing agent content and curing time while decreasing with the modulus of SS. Both cohesion and friction angle increase with increasing curing agent content and curing time, while reducing with the increasing modulus of SS. Unconfined compression test results showed that all samples tested exhibit a strain-softening behavior. The value of unconfined compressive strength increases with the increase of curing agent content and curing time but decreases with the increase of water content and modulus of SS. The optimal dosage combination is a sodium silicate modulus of 0.9, curing agent content of 12%, and curing time of 28d. SEM test confirmed the formation of gels in the treated soil sample, the dredged clay showed a more uniform and denser microstructure after treatment. Through XRD analysis, it is not easy to generate direct chemical reactions with no new mineral components generated in the sample. For high-water content dredged clay, it is recommended to use an optimum dosage combination of MK and SS to achieve a better treatment effect for use as construction fills. [Display omitted] • The strength properties of MK and SS treated dredged clay sample were optimized. • The UCS of treated clay samples at different initial water contents were compared. • The microscopic mechanism of MK and SS treated dredged clay sample was revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As globalization accelerates, the linguistic diversity and semantic complexity of in-vehicle communication is increasing. In order to meet the needs of different language speakers, this paper proposes an interactive attention-based contrastive learning framework (IABCL) for the field of in-vehicle dialogue, aiming to effectively enhance cross-lingual natural language understanding (NLU). The proposed framework aims to address the challenges of cross-lingual interaction in in-vehicle dialogue systems and provide an effective solution. IABCL is based on a contrastive learning and attention mechanism. First, contrastive learning is applied in the encoder stage. Positive and negative samples are used to allow the model to learn different linguistic expressions of similar meanings. Its main role is to improve the cross-lingual learning ability of the model. Second, the attention mechanism is applied in the decoder stage. By articulating slots and intents with each other, it allows the model to learn the relationship between the two, thus improving the ability of natural language understanding in languages of the same language family. In addition, this paper constructed a multilingual in-vehicle dialogue (MIvD) dataset for experimental evaluation to demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the IABCL framework in cross-lingual dialogue. With the framework studied in this paper, IABCL improves by 2.42% in intent, 1.43% in slot, and 2.67% in overall when compared with the latest model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]