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Wireless body area networks (WBANs) guarantee timely data processing and secure information preservation within the range of the wireless access network, which is in urgent need of a new type of security technology. However, with the speedy development of hardware, the existing security schemes can no longer meet the new requirements of anonymity and lightweight. New solutions that do not require complex calculations, such as certificateless cryptography, attract great attention from researchers. To resolve these difficulties, Wang et al. designed a new authentication architecture for the WBANs environment, which was claimed to be secure and efficient. However, in this paper, we will show that this scheme is prone to ephemeral key leakage attacks. Further, based on this authentication scheme, an anonymous certificateless scheme is proposed for lightweight devices. Meanwhile, user anonymity is fully protected. The proposed scheme is proved to be secure under a specific security model. In addition, we assess the security attributes our scheme meets through BAN logic and Scyther tool. The comparisons of time consumption and communication cost are given at the end of the paper, to demonstrate that our scheme performs prior to several previous schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the original RSEI model (including greenness index, humidity index, heat index and dryness index) and their contribution rate (%) are used to evaluate the change of ecological environment. To study how natural and anthropogenic changes in ecological environment affect ecosystem function and how these factors interact, CASA model was used to estimate the correlation between the net primary productivity of vegetation (NPP), population density and land use. This could reveal the influence factors of ecological environment change in the Wanjiang River Basin from 2000 to 2022. The results show that the combing RSEI and CASA models can effectively show the spatial-temporal variation and spatial distribution of NPP of vegetation in Wanjiang Basin. During this period, RSEI of the basin showed an overall upward trend, and the RSEI increased by about 0.1/ 10 a. The vegetation productivity in most areas was gradually improved, the ecological environment was restored, and the ecological environment quality was gradually improved. The average annual NPP simulated by CASA was 266.81 g C-m-2-a-1 The variation trend of NPP in vegetation showed a slight decrease, but the overall NPP level was basically unchanged. There is a significant correlation between NPP and population density, a negative correlation between NPP and population density areas such as city centers, and a positive correlation between NPP and population density in areas with frequent agricultural activities. From 2010 to 2020, there is a significant positive correlation between population density and land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting abnormal conditions in flotation processes is vital for safety, efficiency, and product quality. However, existing studies lack predictions of abnormal working conditions in flotation processes and neglect temporal information in data. To address this, this paper proposes a novel approach for predicting abnormal work conditions in flotation processes. It utilizes a dual attention mechanism and multivariate information fusion. Features are extracted from froth images using the Xception model, a pre‐trained convolutional neural network. These features are combined with flotation process monitoring variables, creating fused data. An encoder and decoder time feature seq2seq (EDTF‐seq2seq) model with time and feature attention modules enables end‐to‐end information fusion and work condition prediction. The attention modules assign weights to each feature point, capturing the time–feature relationship and improving prediction accuracy. Four sets of experiments using real flotation process data validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, achieving favourable prediction accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Link prediction is a network analysis model used to discover missing links or future relationships that may appear, which has been widely used in many real network systems to predict the potential relationship between two individuals. However, link prediction can also be used by attackers to identify sensitive links that users are unwilling to expose, which makes only removing sensitive links from the original network ineffective and leads to the disclosure of privacy. In this paper, we propose a target link protection mechanism via artificial bee colony algorithm based on random walk (RABC), which can defend the link prediction attacks based on resource allocation (RA) metric effectively. To enhance the local search ability of RABC, the random walk algorithm is combined with the original artificial bee colony algorithm. Then, we compare our method with other existing methods, which shows that RABC has higher efficiency while ensuring the effectiveness. Finally, extensive experiments on real social networks are conducted to demonstrate the good performance of RABC on protecting sensitive links from being detected successfully by link prediction model. Furthermore, the perturbed networks generated by RABC is transferable to defend against other link prediction attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Striga asiatica (L.) O. Kuntze is a traditional medicinal plant rich in flavonoids, which has various pharmacological effects such as anti-hepatitis and antioxidant activities. However, there is a scarcity of resources, and artificial cultivation has not yet been achieved. This study explored the association between flavonoid metabolites and soil physicochemical properties and trace elements in different habitats, with the aim of offering theoretical guidance for the high-quality artificial cultivation of S. asiatica. Results: The results showed that S. asiatica has low requirements for soil fertility and prefers to grow in acidic soil with high contents of potassium and available potassium, while low contents of phosphorus, nitrogen and alkali hydrolyzed nitrogen. Additionally, 1592 kinds of metabolites were identified from S. asiatica, including 78 flavonoids. Conclusions: The flavonoid metabolites were strongly related to soil factors. Reasonable application of nitrogen and potassium fertilizers as well as controlling the contents of sodium, manganese and boron in the soil, can promote the synthesis of flavonoid metabolites in the plant. Moreover, kaempferide, glycitein, luteolin, apigenin and genistein may be the metabolic markers for identifying different regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we passivated the interfacial defects of ZnO/CsPbBr3 by inserting a NaSCN layer between the ZnO electron transport layer and the CsPbBr3 layer to improve the photoelectric conversion efficiency of ZnO/CsPbBr3/Carbon structure solar cell. The addition of the NaSCN optimized the morphology of the ZnO surfaces to decrease effectively the roughness. Furthermore, The passivated ZnO electron transport layer improved the deposition quality of CsPbBr3 films, which reduced the defects at the interface between the ZnO electron transport layer and CsPbBr3 layer, suppressing non-radiative recombination to enhance device photovoltaic performance. Synergistic passivation of SCN− and Na+ ions plays an important role in obtaining high-quality CsPbBr3 films for boosting the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the device. Moreover, the passivated solar cells had longer stability than the pristine ones after being placed for 1000 h in the air and at room temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maize productivity in the central belt plays a significant role in the food security of China. With good adaptability and disease resistance, landrace germplasm is important for maize improvement. A total of 246 landrace accessions were collected from the maize belts in central China and genotyped with the SLAF-seq (Specific-Locus Amplified Fragment Sequencing) method, and 144,650 SNPs were obtained for each accession. The results showed that the landrace accessions could be divided into three major groups. In the cluster results, Group I included 64 accessions, which mainly belonged to the landrace of White horse teeth; Group II had 71 accessions, which mainly belonged to the lantern red landraces; the rest of the 116 accessions were clustered as Group III, including a variety of types landraces and seven indicator inbred lines. In the results of structure and multidimensional scaling, the accessions' attribution differed with the clusters, the main reason for which is the attribution change in intermediate germplasms. Linkage disequilibrium decay distance was 0.98 kb, which was much lower than that of temperate and tropical maize inbred lines, indicated the much higher genetic diversity of landrace germplasms. The results can help us select suitable landrace germplasms and speed up the process of inbred line development and maize improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compared the radiologic and clinical outcomes of a new seven-axis robotic-assisted total hip arthroplasty (THA) and conventional THA. Hundred and four patients were randomly assigned to two groups—the robotic-assisted THA group (RAS group) and the conventional THA group (CON group). The preoperative and postoperative Harris Hip score (HHS), acetabular inclination, anteversion, femoral offset, and leg length discrepancy (LLD) were compared. During the follow-up, no patients had any complications that could be associated with the use of the robot. The proportion of acetabular cups in the safety zone was significantly higher in the RAS group than that in the CON group. The two groups had significantly different mean absolute difference of inclination and anteversion. There was no significant difference in the postoperative HHSs, changes in HHSs, femoral offset, and lower limb length between the two groups. The seven-axis robotic-assisted THA system is safe and effective, and leads to better acetabulum cup positioning compared to conventional THA. The improvements observed in the HHS, LLD, and femoral offset in the RAS group were similar to those in the CON group. Clinical trial registration time: 19/05/2022. Clinical trial registration number: ChiCTR2200060115. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mineral crude drug has revolutionized the treatment landscape in precision oncology niche that leads to the improvement in therapeutic efficiency on various tumor subtypes. Mangxiao (MX), a mineral crude drug in traditional Chinese medicine, has been used for treating gastrointestinal diseases for thousands of years. However, the action mechanisms are still ambiguous. Here, we attempt to explore inhibitory roles and associated pharmacological mechanisms of MX upon colorectal cancer (CRC) in APCMin/+ male mice by integrating metabolomics, 16S rDNA sequencing analyses, and metagenomic‐based microbiota analysis. We found that MX can significantly inhibit the occurrence of CRC through the regulation of the dysregulated gut microbe metabolism. Furthermore, the correlation analysis of metabolomes and 16S rDNA revealed that MX could restore the disorders of gut microbes by specifically enriching the abundance of Lactobacilli to improve bile acid metabolism, which further activated the farnesoid X receptor (FXR) in CRC mice, then the improvement of gut dysbiosis could inhibit the development of CRC. Collectively, our effort confirmed MX has the capacity to intervene the development of CRC and further discovered that it targets Lactobacillus–bile acid–intestinal FXR axis, which can be regarded as a candidate medicine for future drug discovery and development against CRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote sensing provides us with an approach for the rapid identification and monitoring of spatiotemporal changes in the urban ecological environment at different scales. This study aimed to construct a remote sensing assessment index for urban ecological livability with continuous fine spatiotemporal resolution data from Landsat and MODIS to overcome the dilemma of single image-based, single-factor analysis, due to the limitations of atmospheric conditions or the revisit period of satellite platforms. The proposed Ecological Livability Index (ELI) covers five primary ecological indicators – greenness, temperature, dryness, water-wetness, and atmospheric turbidity – which are geometrically aggregated by non-equal weights based on an entropy method. Considering multisource time-series data of each indicator, the ELI can quickly and comprehensively reflect the characteristics of the Ecological Livability Quality (ELQ) and is also comparable at different time scales. Based on the proposed ELI, the urban ecological livability in the central urban area of Wuhan, China, from 2002 to 2017, in the different seasons was analyzed every 5 years. The ELQ of Wuhan was found to be generally at the medium level (ELI ≈0.6) and showed an initial trend of degradation but then improved. Moreover, the ecological livability in spring and autumn and near rivers and lakes was found to be better, whereas urban expansion has led to the outward ecological degradation of Wuhan, but urban afforestation has enhanced the environment. In general, this paper demonstrates that the ELI has an exemplary embodiment in urban ecological research, which will support urban ecological protection planning and construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an effective way to ensure the economic benefits of enterprises, process operating performance assessment has attracted more and more attention from industry and academia in recent years. In this paper, a stacked performance‐relevant enhanced denoising autoencoder (SPEDAE) network is designed for the operating performance assessment of industrial processes. Compared to the original denoising auto‐encoder (DAE), each performance‐relevant enhanced denoising auto‐encoder (PEDAE) not only reconstructs the input features in the output layer, but also strives to reconstruct the original input data and the performance grade labels simultaneously. Then the SPEDAE is formed by stacking multiple PEDAEs layer by layer. Through this improved training strategy, SPEDAE can avoid accumulated information loss during the deep feature extraction process, improve the robustness of the network, and extract features closely related to the operating performance, thereby better completing the assessment task. The effectiveness of the proposed assessment method is validated on the case of gold cyanide leaching process. Compared with several methods, the proposed SPEDAE has the highest accuracy and reaches 99.85%, which demonstrates its superiority in operating performance assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of structural strength in undisturbed soil results in its distinct characteristics compared to remolded soil. Under the influence of freeze–thaw cycles, this difference may easily cause geotechnical disasters in cold regions. This study aimed to analyze and discuss the expression degree and influencing factors of the structural strength of expansive soil. The unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test, high-pressure consolidation test, and microscopic test were performed on expansive soil retrieved from a seasonally frozen region. Moreover, sensitivity parameters, including stress sensitivity (St.qu, St.σk) and strain sensitivity (St.ɛu, St.Cc), were applied to explore the expression degree and influencing factors of structural strength in a seasonally frozen region. The results reveal that the undisturbed samples have better structural connection and particle arrangement than the remolded samples. However, the primary fractures have a certain degrading effect on the strength of the undisturbed soil as influenced by a seasonally frozen region. With the increase in water content and the decrease in density, the expression degree of the structural strength in terms of compressive strength and the ability to resist deformation enhances under the unconfined condition. By contrast, the expression degree increases in strength and decreases in ability under the confined condition. Furthermore, the effect mechanisms of the basic property, particle composition, structural linkage, lateral confinement, and historical role on the structural expression were analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Change of land use have important impacts on ecosystem services (ESs) and human well-being (HWB), yet the trade-off/synergy among land use, ESs, and HWB has still not received sufficient attention at city regional scales level. Weinan City in the southern of the Loess Plateau of China was taken as the study area. Based on ArcGIS, InVEST model, and RUSLE model, the characteristics of spatial and temporal variations of land use and ESs from 2000 to 2020 were analyzed, and the trade-off/synergy relationship between land use, ESs, and HWB was quantified using correlation analysis. The results indicated that the area of cultivated land decreased significantly and the area of built-up land increased significantly from 2000 to 2020 in Weinan City. The grain production, soil conservation, and water yield functions showed an increasing trend, which was a synergistic relationship with HWB. Carbon storage and habitat quality functions showed a decreasing trend, which was a trade-off relationship with HWB. The index value of HWB has increased significantly, mainly in the added value of agricultural and rural per capita income. Land use intensity has a trade-off relationship with GP, WY functions, and HWB. There are many factors that affect this trade-off/synergy relationship, such as land use patterns, economic development, and population growth. The study can provide a theoretical basis for the sustainable development of regional economy and nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federated learning (FL) can push the limitation of "Data Island" while protecting data privacy has been a broad concern. However, the centralised FL is vulnerable to a single-point failure. While decentralised and tamper-proof blockchains can cope with the above issues, it is difficult to find a benign benchmark gradient and eliminate the poisoning attack in the later stage of global model aggregation. To address the above problems, we present a global to local based privacy-preserving federated consensus scheme against poisoning attacks (FedG2L). This scheme can effectively reduce the influence of poisoning attacks on model accuracy. In the global aggregation stage, a gradient-similarity-based secure consensus algorithm (SecPBFT) is designed to eliminate malicious gradients. During this procedure, the gradient of the data owner will not be leaked. Then, we propose an improved ACGAN algorithm to generate local data to further update the model without poisoning attacks. Finally, we theoretically prove the security and correctness of our scheme. Experimental results demonstrated that the model accuracy is improved by at least 55% than no defense scheme, and the attack success rate is reduced by more than 60%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have yielded some interesting insights into the impacts of a property's walking accessibility on housing affordability and equity from the potential property owner's perspective, and limited attention was paid from the renter's perspective. This study investigates the impacts of eight types of property walking accessibility and other variables on the second-hand residential property (SHP) price and residential rental property (RRP) rent. It uses a sample of 6,603 SHPs and 3,566 RRPs that were collected in Shanghai, China, in 2021. A modified floating catchment method is used to quantify walking accessibility to eight destinations. Geographically weighted regression models are estimated to study the similarities and dissimilarities of the impacts of a property's walking accessibilities, inherent attributes, and transit time to major transportation hubs on the SHP price and RRP rent. In addition, it factors the distinctive regional and political characteristics in China, which include massive internal immigration, rapid urbanization, and household registration and housing price control policies. These results provide a more comprehensive understanding of the spatially varying impacts of property walking accessibility on housing affordability and equity. In addition, these results highlight the intensifying jobs–housing imbalance, ever-increasing commuting time and cost, and decreasing overall quality of life in metropolises, particularly among migrants and future property owners. For property developers and investors, these results demonstrate that improving the property walking accessibility might yield spatially varying returns across regions. From the perspective of planners and policymakers, these results and insights could be used to design policies and strategies, such as cooperative governance and low-income rental housing, along with walking accessibility improvement development to address the urgent need for affordable housing and equity in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that different bonding networks could bring a wide variety of physical properties to the materials although they hold analogous element and structure features. In this paper, we present a first-principles calculation about the lattice dynamics and phonon transport properties of two-dimensional (2D) boron-rich material BxN (x = 2, 3, and 5). The calculations show that besides the obvious differences in electrical properties compared to h-BN, the special bonding environment in these boron-rich materials also results in quite different phonon behaviors, where their thermal conductivity is at least one order of magnitude smaller than that of h-BN. By performing bonding and lattice dynamics analysis, we reveal that such dramatic reduction of conductivity is attributed to the synergistic effect of weak bond strength (low phonon group velocity) and complex bonding network (strong phonon scattering). Relative regular residual analysis further indicates that the four-phonon process is limited in BxN, and the three-phonon scattering is sufficient to describe their anharmonicity. Starting from the basic physical mechanism, the present study sheds light on the thermal transport properties of 2D boron-rich BxN compounds, which could provide useful insight for their widespread applications in thermal management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photoreforming hydrogen evolution (Pr‐HE) of a water‐pollutant system could simultaneously achieve efficient hydrogen production and pollutant degradation. It provides a new way to solve energy and environmental issues, but the poor internal charge separation still limits its performance. This work designed hetero‐Janus nanofibers (HJNFs) with ordered electric field distribution and separated redox surfaces to promote Pr‐HE of the water‐pollutant system. Taking ZnO/NiO heterojunction as an example, the hetero‐Janus structures were prepared via "Dual‐channel" electrospinning and further confirmed by the element morphology analysis and asymmetric distribution of the XPS spectra. The theoretical simulation showed that Janus structures could effectively inhibit the electron trap and hole trap generation, then accelerate the directional carrier migration to the surface. Experimental investigations also confirmed that Janus structures could effectively suppress internal exciton luminescence and accelerate surface charge transfer. The Pr‐HE amount and the corresponding propranolol (PRO) degradation rate of HJNFs were 7.9 and 1.5 times higher than hetero‐mixed nanofibers (HMNFs). The enhancement factor of Pr‐HE in water‐PRO to pure water was about 3.1, but nearly zero for HMNFs. This prominent synergistic effect was due to the enhancement of charge separation and the inhibition of cascade side reaction from hetero‐Janus structures. Furthermore, the synchronous Pr‐HE and degradation reactions were significantly promoted by selective introducing Ag nanoparticles in one side of the HJNFs for enlarging the interfacial Fermi energy level difference. The hetero‐Janus strategy offers a new perspective on designing efficient photoreforming photocatalysts for energy and environment applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To solve the problems of small measurement range and poor accuracy of the spectral confocal non-contact probes, a four-piece lens group with a large measurement range is designed. Furthermore, a peak wavelength extraction algorithm based on the Adam algorithm and a piecewise fitting curve calibration method are also proposed. The lens group has a displacement measurement range of 4 500 μm in 470 nm-730 nm band. After the probe system is built using the lens group, it is experimentally verified that the displacement average measurement error using the Adam algorithm is 0.3 μm, which is 68.3% less than that of the centroid algorithm, 26.0% less than that of the traditional Gaussian fitting algorithm, and 24.3% less than that of the parabolic fitting algorithm, and at the same time, the displacement average measurement error using the piecewise fitting method is 92.4% less than that using the conventional polynomial fitting method. The experimental results show that the proposed probe system can achieve high-precision non-contact displacement measurement over a large range, which provides a theoretical and experimental basis for further research on high-precision displacement sensors based on spectral confocal technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, convolutional neural network (CNN) and vision transformer (ViT) are gradually becoming the mainstream for hyperspectral image (HSI) classification. Although CNN and ViT can extract local and global features better respectively, they both have difficulties in expressing the context information of irregular objects. Conversely, the superpixel features can accurately represent the object context information. However, the current algorithms still generally recover superpixel features as pixel features, which ignores the significance of superpixel features as global information. To address these limitations, a bi-branch global+ multiscale hybrid network (GMHN) is proposed. In the first branch, the multiscale global features are extracted and then fed into transformer encoder to enhance their relation. In the second branch, Inception-ResNet is used as the backbone to extract the basic local features. The global and local information is integrated by our association module. Finally, a linear layer is used to convert the fused features into sample labels. Experimental results on the recent WHU-Hi-LongKou dataset and one widely-used Salinas dataset show the superiority of GMHN compared to state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Eggshell speckle phenotype is an important trait in poultry production because they affect eggshell quality. However, the genetic architecture of speckled eggshells remains unclear. In this study, we determined the heritability of eggshell speckles and conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on purebred Rhode Island Red (RIR) hens at 28 weeks to detect potential genomic loci and candidate genes associated with eggshell speckles. Results: The heritability of eggshell speckles was 0.35 at 28 weeks, and the speckle level is not related to other eggshell quality traits in terms of phenotypic correlation. We detected 311 SNPs (6 significantly, and 305 suggestively associated) and 39 candidate genes associated with eggshell speckles. Based on the pathway analysis, the 39 candidate genes were mainly involved in alpha-linolenic acid metabolism, linoleic acid metabolism, ether lipid metabolism, GnRH signaling pathway, vascular smooth muscle contraction, and MAPK signaling pathway. Ultimately, ten genes, LOC423226, SPTBN5, EHD4, LOC77155, TYRO3, ITPKA, DLL4, PLA2G4B, PLA2G4EL5, and PLA2G4EL6 were considered the most promising genes associated with eggshell speckles that were implicated in immunoregulation, calcium transport, and phospholipid metabolism, while its function in laying hens requires further studies. Conclusions: This study provides new insights into understanding the genetic basis of eggshell speckles and has practical application value for the genetic improvement of eggshell quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The joint landscape ecological risk as well as ecological corridors for ecological restoration area identification is of great significance to the past evolution and future development of landscapes. Ecological risks were assessed based on the landscape pattern and functional changes in Pengyang County in 2000, 2010, and 2020; ecological restoration areas were divided based on ecological risks and security pattern. Results showed that the ecological risk types in Pengyang County were mainly low risk from 2000 to 2010 and distributed in the central region, while the high-risk areas increased from 2010 to 2020 and were concentrated in the southern residential area. According to a comprehensive assessment of the landscape ecological risks, an ecological security pattern consisting of 17 ecological source points and 34 potential ecological corridors with an average length of 6.57 km was identified. Three ecological restoration areas were eventually identified: mining restoration areas, mountain restoration area, and urban restoration area. Our results would provide an important perspective for the sustainable development of regional natural landscape resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we design a technologically intelligent wheelchair with eye-movement control for patients with ALS in a natural environment. The system consists of an electric wheelchair, a vision system, a two-dimensional robotic arm, and a main control system. The smart wheelchair obtains the eye image of the controller through a monocular camera and uses deep learning and an attention mechanism to calculate the eye-movement direction. In addition, starting from the relationship between the trajectory of the joystick and the wheelchair speed, we establish a motion acceleration model of the smart wheelchair, which reduces the sudden acceleration of the smart wheelchair during rapid motion and improves the smoothness of the motion of the smart wheelchair. The lightweight eye-movement recognition model is transplanted into an embedded AI controller. The test results show that the accuracy of eye-movement direction recognition is 98.49%, the wheelchair movement speed is up to 1 m/s, and the movement trajectory is smooth, without sudden changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seamline detection is one of the most important issues in mosaicking high-resolution remote sensing images (HRRSIs). However, it is difficult to make a balance between efficiency and accuracy. On that account, a shortest matrix path-based dynamic programming (SMP-DP) algorithm is proposed to find the optimal seamline for HRRSI mosaicking. First, a pixel cost matrix defined by intensity difference, gradient similarity, and geometric difference is constructed in the overlapping area. Second, the least average path cost from the starting pixel to each pixel is calculated and the SMP-DP algorithm is applied to find the optimal path. Experimental results on HRRSI prove that the proposed method detects high-quality seamline and crosses much fewer objects with the highest computational efficiency, compared with the state-of-the-art method and commercial software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incidence of inappropriate and excessive empirical antibiotic therapy is unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of different empirical antibiotic therapy prescriptions, related factors, and outcomes in hospitalized patients with bacterial infection.Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed and patients with bacterial infection who were admitted between October 1, 2019, and September 30, 2020, were included. Multivariable analysis was performed by the logistic regression model.Results: A total of 536 (42.6%) of the 1257 included patients received inappropriate empirical antibiotic therapy (IEAT), and 368 (29.3%) patients received appropriate but unnecessarily broad-spectrum empirical antibiotic therapy (AUEAT). MDRO (adjusted OR 2.932 [95% CI 2.201~3.905]; p < 0.001) and fever on admission (adjusted OR 0.592 [95% CI 0.415~0.844]; p = 0.004) were correlates of IEAT; sepsis (adjusted OR 2.342 [95% CI 1.371~3.999]; p = 0.002), age (adjusted OR 1.019 [95% CI 1.008~1.030]; p < 0.001), MDRO (adjusted OR 0.664 [95% CI 0.469~0.941]; p = 0.021), and urinary tract infection (adjusted OR 0.352 [95% CI 0.203~0.611]; p < 0.001) were correlates of AUEAT. Patients who received AUEAT were more likely to have a poor prognosis (63 [17.8%] vs 101 [27.4%]; p = 0.002). Both IEAT (median [IQR], 24,971 [13,135– 70,155] vs 31,489 [14,894– 101,082] CNY; p = 0.007) and AUEAT (median [IQR], 24,971 [13,135– 70,155] vs 30,960 [16,475– 90,881] CNY; p = 0.002) increased hospital costs. 45.3% (570/1257) of patients were infected with MDRO and 62.9% of them received IEAT.Conclusion: Inappropriate and excessive empirical antibiotic use was widely prevalent among hospitalized patients. Either inappropriate or excessive use of antibiotics may increase the burden of healthcare costs, the latter of which may be associated with poor prognosis. Clinicians need to be more judicious in choosing antibiotic(s). The MDRO epidemic was severe, especially in patients who received IEAT. It is imperative to take effective measures to improve the current situation of antibiotic abuse and antimicrobial resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with the traditional power grid, smart grid involves many advanced technologies and applications. However, due to the rapid development of various network technologies, smart grid is facing the challenges of balancing privacy, security, efficiency, and functionality. In the proposed scheme, we design a privacy protection scheme for outsourcing smart grid aided by fog computing, which supports fine-grained privacy-protected data aggregation based on user characteristics. The fog server matches the encrypted characteristics in the received message with the encrypted aggregation rules issued by the service provider. Therefore, the service provider can get more fine-grained analysis data based on user characteristics. Different from the existing outsourcing smart grid schemes, the proposed scheme can achieve real-time pricing on the premise of protecting user privacy and achieving system fault tolerance. Finally, experiment analyses demonstrate that the proposed scheme has less computation overhead and lower transmission delay than existing schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the influencing factors that impact ridesourcing service usage frequency and explore the potential similarities and differences among groups of population based on their primary usage purposes. A revealed-preference survey developed for this study was conducted among 783 ridesourcing service users from Shanghai, China in September 2020. Separate random parameters ordered probit models were estimated for users with different primary purposes of usage to capture unobserved heterogeneity. The identified influencing factors include travelers' sociodemographic characteristics, reasons to choose ridesourcing services, and other behavioral characteristics. In addition, the impacts of these contributing factors were different based on their primary usage purpose. The model estimation and descriptive statistics findings suggest that groups of ridesourcing service users may respond differently to various types of promotional strategies. The study insights may be used to design future strategies that can potentially improve the service usage frequency of existing users and attract new users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing reusable visible-light photocatalysts and understanding the catalytic mechanism are of great significance in environmental remediation. Herein, ZnFe2O4/g-C3N4 heterojunctions were constructed by decorating g-C3N4 nanosheets with tiny ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles, and their photocatalytic activity, recyclability and degradation mechanism were investigated. Compared to the onefold g-C3N4 or ZnFe2O4, the ZnFe2O4/g-C3N4 heterojunction shows boosted photocatalytic activities for degradation of three different dyes. The heterojunction construction can greatly improve the visible-light absorption capacity and photo-induced electron–hole separation, resulting in boosted photocatalytic activities. The ultrathin layered g-C3N4 nanosheets and tiny ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles in heterojunction can sufficiently contact with each other, which can improve the specific surface area, provide abundant active sites and enhance the photocatalytic efficiency. The degradation efficiencies of ZnFe2O4/g-C3N4 heterojunction are 96.27% for Methylene Blue (MB), 73.17% for Methyl Orange (MO) and 92.4% for Rhodamine B (RhB). The corresponding kinetic constant of ZnFe2O4/g-C3N4 are 0.019, 0.007 and 0.015 min−1, which are nearly 2.4, 3.5 and 1.7 times higher than that of the single g-C3N4, respectively. The capacity of MB by ZnFe2O4/g-C3N4 remains 88.09% after four cycles. Free radical trapping experiment demonstrates that the ZnFe2O4/g-C3N4 heterojunction is a photo-self-Fenton system, which can spontaneously produce H2O2, resulting in the formation of · OH radicals during the photocatalytic process. The synergistic effect of · OH and · O 2 - radicals is responsible for degradation organic pollutants. In addition, the ZnFe2O4/g-C3N4 heterojunction photocatalysts can be easily separated by an applied magnet, behaving reused capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3,4,5,4'-Trans-tetramethoxystilbene (Synonyms: DMU-212) is a resveratrol analogue with stronger antiproliferative activity and more bioavailability. However, the metabolite characterization of this component remains insufficient. An efficient strategy was proposed for the comprehensive in vivo metabolite profiling of DMU-212 after oral administration in ApcMin/+ mice based on the effectiveness of the medicine. Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole/orbitrap/linear ion trap mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q/Orbitrap/LTQ MS) in the AcquireXTM intelligent data acquisition mode, combining the exact mass and structural information, was established for the profiling and identification of the metabolites of DMU-212 in vivo, and the possible metabolic pathways were subsequently proposed after the oral dose of 240mg/kg for 3 weeks in the colorectal adenoma (CRA) spontaneous model ApcMin/+ mice. A total of 63 metabolites of DMU-212 were tentatively identified, including 48, 48, 34 and 28 metabolites in the ApcMin/+ mice's intestinal contents, liver, serum, and colorectal tissues, respectively. The metabolic pathways, including demethylation, oxidation, desaturation, methylation, acetylation, glucuronide and cysteine conjugation were involved in the metabolism. Additionally, further verification of the representative active metabolites was employed using molecular docking analysis. This study provides important information for the further investigation of the active constituents of DMU-212 and its action mechanisms for CRA prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although research on time–cost tradeoff (TCT) problems has been extensively conducted, there are still few applications of TCT optimization methods in the scheduling of projects with practical size and complexity. As a good attempt, a streamlined optimization algorithm has recently been developed for solving TCT problems with a continuous curvilinear activity time–cost relationship. However, the algorithm encounters the difficulties of high memory requirements and computational demand when it is implemented in complex large-scale projects whose networks may involve tens of millions of paths and hundreds of activities. To overcome such difficulties, this study presents a modified version of the streamlined optimization algorithm. Particularly, a new method for identifying critical paths is proposed in the modified algorithm. Also, a modeling problem has been addressed in order to consolidate the theoretical foundation of the algorithm. As illustrated by the experimental examples, the modified streamlined algorithm outperforms the original algorithm and the commonly used genetic algorithm in terms of optimality, robustness, and computational efficiency. This study thus contributes to the development of commercial scheduling software capable of tackling practical TCT problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A low-profile, wideband, and high-gain antenna array, based on a novel double-H-shaped slot microstrip patch radiating element and robust against high temperature variations, is proposed in this work. The antenna element was designed to operate in the frequency range between 12 GHz and 18.25 GHz, with a 41.3% fractional bandwidth (FBW) and an obtained peak gain equal to 10.2 dBi. The planar array, characterized by a feed network with a flexible 1 to 16 power divider, comprised 4 × 4 antenna elements and generated a pattern with a peak gain of 19.1 dBi at 15.5 GHz. An antenna array prototype was fabricated, and the measurements showed good agreement with the numerical simulations as the manufactured antenna operated in the range of 11.4–17 GHz, with a 39.4% FBW, and the peak gain at 15.5 GHz was 18.7 dBi. The high-temperature simulated and experimental results, performed in a temperature chamber, demonstrated that the array performance was stable in a wide temperature range, from −50 °C to 150 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing number of vehicles has caused traffic conditions to become increasingly complicated in terms of safety. Emerging autonomous vehicles (AVs) have the potential to significantly reduce crashes. The advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) has received widespread attention. Lane keeping and lane changing are two basic driving maneuvers on highways. It is very important for ADAS technology to identify them effectively. The lane changing maneuver recognition has been used to study traffic safety for many years. Different models have been proposed. With the development of technology, machine learning has been introduced in this field with effective results. However, models which require a lot of physical data as input and unaffordable sensors lead to the high cost of AV platforms. This impedes the development of AVs. This study proposes a model of lane changing maneuver recognition based on a distinct set of physical data. The driving scenario from the natural vehicle trajectory dataset (i.e., HighD) is used for machine learning. Acceleration and velocity are extracted and labeled as physical data. The normalized features are then input into the k-nearest neighbor (KNN) classification model. The trained model was applied to another set of data and received good results. The results show that based on the acceleration features, the classification accuracy of lane keeping (LK), lane changing to the left (LCL) and lane changing to the right (LCR) is 100%, 97.89% and 96.19%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federated learning (FL) can push the limitation of "Data Island" while protecting data privacy has been a broad concern. However, the centralised FL is vulnerable to a single-point failure. While decentralised and tamper-proof blockchains can cope with the above issues, it is difficult to find a benign benchmark gradient and eliminate the poisoning attack in the later stage of global model aggregation. To address the above problems, we present a global to local based privacy-preserving federated consensus scheme against poisoning attacks (FedG2L). This scheme can effectively reduce the influence of poisoning attacks on model accuracy. In the global aggregation stage, a gradient-similarity-based secure consensus algorithm (SecPBFT) is designed to eliminate malicious gradients. During this procedure, the gradient of the data owner will not be leaked. Then, we propose an improved ACGAN algorithm to generate local data to further update the model without poisoning attacks. Finally, we theoretically prove the security and correctness of our scheme. Experimental results demonstrated that the model accuracy is improved by at least 55% than no defense scheme, and the attack success rate is reduced by more than 60%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle trajectory data play an important role in autonomous driving and intelligent traffic control. With the widespread deployment of roadside sensors, such as cameras and millimeter-wave radar, it is possible to obtain full-sample vehicle trajectories for a whole area. This paper proposes a general framework for reconstructing continuous vehicle trajectories using roadside visual sensing data. The framework includes three modules: single-region vehicle trajectory extraction, multi-camera cross-region vehicle trajectory splicing, and missing trajectory completion. Firstly, the vehicle trajectory is extracted from each video by YOLOv5 and DeepSORT multi-target tracking algorithms. The vehicle trajectories in different videos are then spliced by the vehicle re-identification algorithm fused with lane features. Finally, the bidirectional long-short-time memory model (LSTM) based on graph attention is applied to complete the missing trajectory to obtain the continuous vehicle trajectory. Measured data from Donghai Bridge in Shanghai are applied to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the framework. The results indicate that the vehicle re-identification algorithm with the lane features outperforms the vehicle re-identification algorithm that only considers the visual feature by 1.5% in mAP (mean average precision). Additionally, the bidirectional LSTM based on graph attention performs better than the model that does not consider the interaction between vehicles. The experiment demonstrates that our framework can effectively reconstruct the continuous vehicle trajectories on the expressway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porous carbon-based materials are promised to be lightweight dielectric microwave absorbents. Deeply understanding the influence of graphitization grade and porous structure on the dielectric parameters is urgently required. Herein, utilizing the low boiling point of Zn, porous N-doped carbon was fabricated by carbonization of ZIF-8 (Zn) at different temperature, and the microwave absorption performance was investigated. The porous N-doped carbon inherits the high porosity of ZIF-8 precursor. By increasing the carbonization temperature, the contents of Zn and N elements are decreased; the graphitization degree is improved; however, the specific surface area and porosity are increased first and then decreased. When the carbonization temperature is 1000°C, the porous N-doped carbon behaves enhanced microwave absorption. With an ultrathin thickness of 1.29 mm, the ideal RL reaches −50.57 dB at 16.95 GHz and the effective absorption bandwidth is 4.17 GHz. The mechanism of boosted microwave absorption is ascribed to the competition of graphitization and porosity as well as N dopants, resulting in high dielectric loss capacity and good impedance matching. The porous structure can prolong the pathways and raise the contact opportunity between microwaves and porous carbon, causing multiple scattering, interface polarization, and improved impedance matching. Besides, the N dopants can induce electron polarization and defect polarization. These results give a new insight to construct lightweight carbon-based microwave absorbents by regulating the graphitization and porosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the polypeptide powder of Aronia melanocarpa was taken as the research object for investigating its in vitro antioxidant function and its effect on the immune function of mice. By measuring the transformation of spleen lymphocytes, delayed-type hypersensitivity, serum hemolysin and other indicators of mice, it was found that compared with the negative control group, the high-dose group had significantly increased delayed-type hypersensitivity (P=0.009), antibody-producing ability (P=0.046), serum hemolysin level (P=0.040), carbon clearance ability (P=0.001) and NK cell activity (P=0.018); the medium-dose significantly enhanced the proliferation ability of spleen lymphocytes in mice (P=0.038); the low-dose could enhance the carbon clearance ability in mice (P=0.042); Secondly, through the analyses using the DPPH free radical assay, and hydroxyl radical and superoxide anion radical kits, it was found that the half-scavenging concentrations, IC50 values were 0.07 mg/mL, 13.91 mg/mL, and 10.00 mg/mL, respectively, and the total antioxidant capacity was 72.76 U/mL. The scavenging rates for DPPH free radicals, hydroxyl radicals, and superoxide anion free radicals were all dose-dependent with the concentration of berry polypeptide. The research results showed that the polypeptide powder of Aronia melanocarpa not only can enhance the immune function of mice, but also exhibits certain antioxidant function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the presence of clouds, the available information in optical remote sensing images is greatly reduced. These temporal-based methods are widely used for cloud removal. However, the temporal differences in multitemporal images have consistently been a challenge for these types of methods. Towards this end, a bishift network (BSN) model is proposed to remove thick clouds from optical remote sensing images. As its name implies, BSN is combined of two dependent shifts. Moment matching (MM) and deep style transfer (DST) are the first shift to preliminarily eliminate temporal differences in multitemporal images. In the second shift, an improved shift net is proposed to reconstruct missing information under cloud covers. It introduces multiscale feature connectivity with shift connections and depthwise separable convolution (DSC), which can capture local details and global semantics effectively. Through experiments with Sentinel-2 images, it has been demonstrated that the proposed BSN has great advantages over traditional methods and state-of-the-art methods in cloud removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stress–strain constitutive model under uniaxial compression is a basic element and important characterization method for determining physical and mechanical properties in cement-based materials research. In this study, a stress–strain constitutive model under uniaxial compression was established, which was based on a new nano-stabilized soil (NSS) through typical mechanical tests and constitutive relationship research. The results indicate that the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of the nano-stabilized soil was enhanced with the increase in curing period and nano-stabilizer dosage, and that the strength growth rate reaches the maximum at a 12% dosage in the tested samples. The UCS of NSS under a 12% dosage is about 10~15% higher than that of ordinary stabilized soil (SS) without nano doping, and 25~40% higher compared with grade 42.5 cement-soil. The established constitutive model could accurately describe the linear-elastic and elastic-plastic deformation characteristics of NSS under uniaxial compression, which will be conducive to revealing the curve variation law of the stress–strain process. The research results could provide scientific support for the theoretical innovation and engineering application of green environmental protection materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Geese are among the most important poultry species in the world. The current generally accepted hypothesis is that the European domestic geese originated from greylag geese (Anser anser), and Chinese domestic geese have two origins, most of which originated from swan geese (Anser cygnoides), and the Yili goose originated from greylag geese. To explain the origin and demographic history of geese, we selected 14 goose breeds from Europe and China and wild populations of swan and greylag geese, and whole genome sequencing data were obtained for 74 samples. Results: Population structure analysis and phylogenetic trees showed that the wild ancestor of Chinese domestic geese, except for Yili, is the swan geese, and the wild ancestor of Chinese Yili and European domestic geese is greylag geese. Analysis of the demographic history suggests that the domestication of Chinese geese occurred ~ 3499 years ago and that of the European geese occurred ~ 7552 years ago. Furthermore, gene flow was observed between domestic geese and their wild ancestors. Analysis of introgression showed that Yili geese had been introgressed by Chinese domestic geese, and the body size of Yili geese may be influenced by introgression events of some growth-related genes, including IGF-1. Conclusions: Our study provides evidence for the origin of geese at the genome-wide level and advances the understanding of the history of goose domestication and the traits affected by introgression events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The quality of poultry eggshells is closely related to the profitability of egg production. Eggshell speckles reflect an important quality trait that influences egg appearance and customer preference. However, the mechanism of speckle formation remains poorly understood. In this study, we systematically compared serum immune and antioxidant indices of hens laying speckled and normal eggs. Transcriptome and methylome analyses were used to elucidate the mechanism of eggshell speckle formation. Results: The results showed that seven differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified between the normal and speckle groups. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) revealed that the expressed genes were mainly enriched in the calcium signaling pathway, focal adhesion, and MAPK signaling pathway. Additionally, 282 differentially methylated genes (DMGs) were detected, of which 15 genes were associated with aging, including ARNTL, CAV1, and GCLC. Pathway analysis showed that the DMGs were associated with T cell-mediated immunity, response to oxidative stress, and cellular response to DNA damage stimulus. Integrative analysis of transcriptome and DNA methylation data identified BFSP2 as the only overlapping gene, which was expressed at low levels and hypomethylated in the speckle group. Conclusions: Overall, these results indicate that aging- and immune-related genes and pathways play a crucial role in the formation of speckled eggshells, providing useful information for improving eggshell quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malignant tumor has always been a complex disease that endangers human health. Traditional treatment methods include surgical resection, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. However, solid tumors are prone to recur. Herein, we developed a hydrogel-based drug-carrying system to prevent postoperative tumor recurrence. Sodium carboxymethyl cellulose was modified with dopamine via the N-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS) and 1-ethyl-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbanyl diimide (EDC)-mediated coupling chemistry. The CMC-DA-MnO2/MnO (CDM) hydrogel was prepared by oxidative cross-linking, using KMnO4 as the oxidizing agent. In the hydrogel, the KMnO4 can not only be used as an oxidant to trigger the polymerization and gelation of CMC-DA but also transformed into MnO2 and MnO to afford the T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The fluorescent dye IR808 as a photosensitizer was introduced into the hydrogel system by simply soaking the CDM hydrogel in the IR808 solution. Under the 808 nm laser irradiation, IR808 and PDA endowed the hydrogel with tumor photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT) capacities, respectively. With the proven hemo- and cyto-compatibilities, the CDM hydrogel was successfully used for the PDT and PTT prevention of postoperative tumor recurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the development of composite materials composed of magnetic materials and MXene has attracted significant attention. However, the thickness and microwave absorption performance of the composite is still barely satisfactory. In this work, the C-N@NiFe2O4@MXene/Ni nanocomposites were successfully synthesized in situ by hydrothermal and calcination methods. Benefiting from the introduction of the carbon-nitrogen(C-N) network structure, the overall dielectric properties are improved effectively, consequently reducing the thickness of the composite while maintaining excellent absorption performance. As a result, the minimum reflection loss of C-N@NiFe2O4@MXene/Ni can reach −50.51 dB at 17.3 GHz at an ultralow thickness of 1.5 mm, with an effective absorption bandwidth of 4.95 GHz (13.02–18 GHz). This research provides a novel strategy for materials to maintain good absorption performance at an ultralow thickness level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the widespread development of intelligent systems, a considerable number of mobile devices are connected together, and continuously generate huge amounts of data. Although cloud storage provides perfect solution for effectively storing these massive data, how to ensure the integrity of the outsourced data becomes challenging. For this reason, the primitive of verifiable data streaming (VDS) protocol was introduced, and enables a data owner to continuously outsource streaming data to an untrusted cloud server, while capturing the integrity of the outsourced data. That is, when a data user retrieves some data item via its index from the server, he/she can publicly verify its integrity with the proof generated and returned by the server. Supporting data update is one of the major features of VDS, and allows the data owner to replace an old data item with a new one. Although many VDS protocols have been proposed to enhance the functionality and efficiency of the original VDS protocol, they all ignore the issue of preserving those updated data items. In fact, in various application scenarios of VDS, preserving and storing previously updated data items is actually necessary. For example, in the setting of DNA sequencing, there might be multiple versions of DNA fragments at the same location due to the genetic mutation. Obviously, for more precise treatment, all these DNA fragments need to be preserved. To this end, in this paper, we propose a VDS protocol that features of enabling the query of the update history of each data item. Specifically, we first put forward a new chameleon authentication tree with update history (UCAT), which consists of two CATs (the basic tree and the update history tree). In more detail, the basic tree is used to store the data item appended to the corresponding location for the first time, and the update history tree is utilized to preserve each updated version of the corresponding data item. Furthermore, based on UCAT, we propose a VDS protocol supporting update history queries, which allows a data user to retrieve any version of the data item. The theoretical analysis and performance evaluation indicate that our protocol outperforms previous ones in the field of functionality, and its computation/communication costs are acceptable. We also prove its security in the standard model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a robust discrete-time open-closed-loop proportion integral differential (PID) -type iteration learning control (ILC) algorithm is developed for the high-precision trajectory tracking control of tracked mobile robots (TMRs) with external disturbances and noises. The proposed ILC algorithm adopts the past, current, and predictive learning error items of the former and current iterations to correct the current control input variables, which finally converges to the desired trajectory through continuous iterative learning. The convergence characterization of the algorithm for TMRs under both external disturbances and noises is carried on rigorous mathematical proof. Numerical simulations and physical experiments are provided to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm. The comparative results of two ILC algorithms indicate that the tracking performance of the proposed ILC algorithm is superior to the traditional PID-type ILC algorithm in terms of tracking accuracy and convergence rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rare earth doped phosphors have been extensively used as self-calibrated ratiometric thermometers for their contactless, noninvasive and high precision properties. However, the drawbacks of low relative sensitivity and signal discernability in conventional thermally coupled energy level (TCL)-based temperature sensing need to be circumvented. Herein, we report a novel ratiometric optical thermometer, a Dy3+, Eu3+ co-doped GdAl3(BO3)4 phosphor, based on the significantly different thermal sensitivities of emissions from Dy3+ and Eu3+. The micron-sized phosphor in the pure hexagonal phase was prepared via a high-temperature solid state method. Dy3+ and Eu3+ can be well sensitized by Gd3+ in the matrix under 311 nm excitation and produce well-separated emission bands. The energy transfer from Dy3+ to Eu3+ was verified by the photoluminescence spectra and decay curves, and it greatly alleviated the thermal quenching of emission from Eu3+. By using the emission of Eu3+ at 613 nm as the reference signal and Dy3+ at 574 nm as the detection signal, ratiometric optical thermometry was realized at 300–475 K. The maximum relative sensitivity is 1.37% K−1 at 475 K. It is superior to those of the Dy3+ single-doped GdAl3(BO3)4 phosphor (0.71% K−1 at 400 K) and many other recently reported phosphors based on the TCLs. This work provides a new candidate optical thermometer with superior relative sensitivity and good signal discriminability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]