Search

Background: Oxytropis coerulea is considered to be an exceptional forage. The salinization of soil is a prevalent ecological issue worldwide. In order to study the effects of saline solution on seed germination and embryo growth of O. coerulea. Methods: An experiment was carried out using the culture dish filter paper method. Three salt stresses, namely, Na2CO3, NaCl and double salt were set, each of which was set to 0%, 0.3%, 0.6% and 0.9% concentration. Result: The results indicated that as the concentration of salt increased, there was a decrease in the germination rate, germination index and embryo growth. The activities of SOD, POD and CAT, as well as soluble protein content, initially increased and then decreased with increasing salt stress. The toxic effects of the three salts ranged from strong to weak as Na2CO3 > double salt > NaCl. The salt resistance indexes of 0.3% Na2CO3, NaCl and double salt were 53.87, 57.00 and 38.73, respectively and the salt resistance index of 0.6% NaCl was 50.21, indicating a high salt-tolerant degree. It showed certain resistance to 0.3% Na2CO3, 0.6% NaCl and 0.3% double salt. In short, the various soluble mechanisms of O. coerulea in different stages of salt stress and different salt stress levels have different reaction mechanisms, which reflect the salt stress of O. coerulea seeds. O. coerulea seeds can be planted in a suitable concentration of saline-alkali land, which can utilize the feed value and medicinal value of O. coerulea to improve economic benefits and utilize saline soil to improve the ecological environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge graph link prediction is crucial for constructing triples in knowledge graphs, which aim to infer whether there is a relation between the entities. Recently, graph neural networks and contrastive learning have demonstrated superior performance compared with traditional translation-based models; they successfully extracted common features through explicit linking between entities. However, the implicit associations between entities without a linking relationship are ignored, which impedes the model from capturing distant but semantically rich entities. In addition, directly applying contrastive learning based on random node dropout to link prediction tasks, or limiting it to triplet-level, leads to constrained model performance. To address these challenges, we design an implicit feature extraction module that utilizes the clustering characteristics of latent vector space to find entities with potential associations and enrich entity representations by mining similar semantic features from the conceptual level. Meanwhile, the subgraph mechanism is introduced to preserve the structural information of explicitly connected entities. Implicit semantic features and explicit structural features serve as complementary information to provide high-quality self-supervised signals. Experiments are conducted on three benchmark knowledge graph datasets. The results validate that our model outperforms the state-of-the-art baselines in link prediction tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The neural mechanisms underlying differences in the performance of simulated arthroscopic skills across various skill levels remain unclear. Our primary objective is to investigate the learning mechanisms of simulated arthroscopic skills using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Methods: We recruited 27 participants, divided into three groups: novices (n = 9), intermediates (n = 9), and experts (n = 9). Participants completed seven arthroscopic tasks on a simulator, including diagnostic navigation, triangulation, grasping stars, diagnostic exploration, meniscectomy, synovial membrane cleaning, and loose body removal. All tasks were videotaped and assessed via the simulator system and the Arthroscopic Surgical Skill Evaluation Tool (ASSET), while cortical activation data were collected using fNIRS. Simulator scores and ASSET scores were analyzed to identify different level of performance of all participants. Brain region activation and functional connectivity (FC) of different types of participants were analyzed from fNIRS data. Results: Both the expert and intermediate groups scored significantly higher than the novice group (p < 0.001). There were significant differences in ASSET scores between experts and intermediates, experts and novices, and intermediates and novices (p = 0.0047, p < 0.0001, p < 0.0001), with the trend being experts > intermediates > novices. The intermediate group exhibited significantly greater activation in the left primary motor cortex (LPMC) and left prefrontal cortex (LPFC) compared to the novice group (p = 0.0152, p = 0.0021). Compared to experts, the intermediate group demonstrated significantly increased FC between the presupplementary motor area (preSMA) and the right prefrontal cortex (RPFC; p < 0.001). Additionally, the intermediate group showed significantly increased FC between the preSMA and LPFC, RPFC and LPFC, and LPMC and LPFC compared to novices (p = 0.0077, p = 0.0285, p = 0.0446). Conclusion: Cortical activation and functional connectivity reveal varying levels of activation intensity in the PFC, PMC, and preSMA among novices, intermediates, and experts. The intermediate group exhibited the highest activation intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrodeposition of cuprous oxide thin film is becoming a more and more important method, but higher content of Cu2+ and uneven grain size in cuprous oxide thin films fabricated by direct current (DC) electrodeposition lead to serious reduction of transmission and electron transport capacity of the films. To solve these problems, bidirectional pulse electrodeposition (BPD) was applied in this paper to prepare cuprous oxide thin films and the variety on the photo-electrical properties has been presented. The results indicated that grain uniformity of films fabricated by BPD was improved significantly, the grain size distribution range reduced from 5–50 nm to 10–30 nm, the roughness of the films decreased from 5.83 to 5.26 nm, and the proportion of Cu+ in the resulted films increased from 59.21 to 69.61%. The transmittance of films at 550 nm increased from 65.21 to 70.17%, and the surface resistances of the resulted films decreased from 15.7–18.1 to 10.9–11.7 Ω. This method provided a basis for the production of higher-purity and higher-performance thin Cu2O films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subwavelength gratings play a fundamental and pivotal role in numerous science and applications for wave manipulation, exhibiting distinctive features such as filtering, phase manipulation, and anti‐reflection. However, conventional fabrication methods for ultrasmall periodic structures are constrained by the fundamental optical diffraction limit, making it challenging to produce subwavelength gratings for optics. Here, a novel technique is demonstrated to build a reconfigurable subwavelength photorefractive grating (SPG) in a thin‐film lithium niobate on the platform of an optical microcavity. Such SPGs are optically induced through the photorefractive effect and the subwavelength features originate from the spatial phase modulations of the pump's standing wave. The resulting SPGs lead to the mode splitting of two counter‐propagating modes inside the microcavity, exhibiting an Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT)‐like transmission spectrum. Moreover, the unique subwavelength characteristic of SPGs enables first‐order quasi‐phase‐matching for backward second‐harmonic generation, a long‐standing problem in nonlinear optics. Also, free‐space‐to‐chip vertical nonlinear frequency conversion can be achieved in a similar manner. These results provide a flexible approach toward fabricating subwavelength gratings, which holds significant potential in various applications such as nonlinear frequency conversion, optical communication, sensing, and quantum technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ni3Si2O5(OH)4 rods (NS) were synthesized via a hydrothermal method, employing natural wollastonite as a template. The hierarchical Ni3Si2O5(OH)4 rods exhibited vertically oriented nanosheets, resulting in a substantial increase in the specific surface area (from 2.24 m2/g to 178.4 m2/g). Subsequently, a CdS/Ni3Si2O5(OH)4 composite photocatalyst (CdS/NS) was prepared using a chemical deposition method. CdS was uniformly loaded onto the surface of the Ni3Si2O5(OH)4 nanosheets, successfully forming a heterojunction with Ni3Si2O5(OH)4. The CdS/NS photocatalyst in the presence of lactic acid as a sacrificial agent demonstrated an impressive H2 production rate of 4.05 mmol h−1 g−1, around 40 times higher than pure CdS. The photocorrosion of CdS was effectively solved after loading. After four cycles, the performance of CdS/NS remained stable, showing the potential for sustainable applications. After photoexcitation, electrons moved from Ni3Si2O5(OH)4 to the valence band of CdS, where they interacted with the holes via an enhanced interface contact. Simultaneously, electrons in CdS transitioned to its conduction band, facilitating hydrogenation. The enhanced performance was attributed to the improved CdS dispersion by Ni3Si2O5(OH)4 loading and efficient photogenerated carrier separation through the heterojunction formation. This work provides new perspectives for broadening the applications of mineral materials and developing heterojunction photocatalysts with good dispersibility and recyclability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zr-containing silica residue (Zr-s-r) is waste residue discharged during the industrial production of ZrOCl2. Its purified product (Zr-s-r-P) can be used as an adsorbent whose main component is amorphous SiO2. Herein, Pb(NO3)2 solution was used as wastewater containing Pb 2 + . The adsorption of Pb 2 + in water by Zr-s-r-P and its mechanism were studied. The results showed that the adsorption effect was affected by the initial concentration of Pb 2 + in the solution, pH, and adsorption time. The adsorption capacity of Zr-s-r-P to Pb 2 + was 45.3 mg/g under the optimized conditions (25∘C, pH=6, Zr-s-r-P dosage of 2 g/L, and adsorption time of 25 min). The process of adsorption fits the pseudo-second-order model, and the isothermal adsorption fits the Langmuir adsorption model. Pb 2 + was adsorbed in the pores of Zr-s-r-P. Moreover, the adsorption of Pb 2 + by ZSR-P was achieved through the reaction between Si–OH on the surface of SiO2 and Pb 2 + hydroxyl compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of water transportation, ship safety supervision is facing more severe pressures and challenges. Precise and efficient detection of ship targets is becoming more and more important, which urgently requires intelligent detection methods to ultimately improves shipping management efficiency. However, the surveillance video of waterway transportation is often influenced by fog and rain, which can affect the performance of object detection and reduce the efficiency of management. The current traditional object approaches are hard to handle these problems. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-modal information fusion method to handle multi-object detection in waterway transportation, which introduces the LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) dataset to add spatial information and handle the interference of fog and rain. The target ROI (Region Of Interest) point cloud and image data are initially fused in the pre-fusion stage. This phase can efficiently direct the network's attention to the region with the highest target probability, increasing the target recall rate. The 3D bounding box in the point cloud and 2D bounding boxes in the image retrieved are then fused in the post-fusion stage to improve target precision and enrich target detection information. Finally, using time synchronization and a space transformation matrix, the detection result is transferred to the picture coordinate system to create a ship image target with 3D depth information. This technique overcomes the constraints of single-sensor environment perception, adapts to the detection of ship targets in a variety of situations, and is more precise and robust. The algorithm's superiority is also demonstrated by the experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The remarkable biological and evolutionary adaptations of insects to plants are largely attributed to the powerful chemosensory systems of insects. The tomato leaf miner (Tuta absoluta) is a destructive invasive pest with a global distribution that poses a serious threat to the production of nightshade crops, especially tomatoes. Functional plants can attract or repel insect pests by releasing volatiles that interact with the olfactory system of insects, thereby reducing the damage of insect pests to target crops. However, there is limited research on the interaction between T. absoluta olfactory genes and functional plants. In this study, 97 members of the putative odorant-binding protein (OBP) family have been identified in the whole genome of T. absoluta. Phylogenetic analysis involving various Lepidopteran and Dipteran species, including D. melanogaster, revealed that OBP gene families present conserved clustering patterns. Furthermore, the Plus-C subfamily of OBP showed extremely significant expansion. Moreover, the expression levels of the OBP genes varied significantly between different developmental stages; that is, the highest number of OBP genes were expressed in the adult stage, followed by the larval stage, and fewer genes were expressed in high abundance in the egg stage. On the other hand, through a Y-tube olfactometer, we identified a functional plant—Plectranthus tomentosa—that significantly repels adult and larval T. absoluta. Finally, we screened the OBP genes in response to tomato and P. tomentosa volatiles at the genomic level of T. absoluta using RT-qPCR. These results laid a good foundation for controlling T. absoluta with functional plants and further studying olfactory genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of factors that drive enterprise carbon efficiency and the assessment of current emission reduction policies from the perspective of enterprise heterogeneity are essential for designing more effective emission reduction policies that optimize the allocation of inter-enterprise resources. Using a panel of 602,470 observations of Chinese industrial enterprises over multiple years, we quantified the factors driving carbon efficiency and their contributions. We also examined the heterogeneity of these effects at the industry and regional levels. This was done by constructing multiple fixed effect models and the Shapley value decomposition model. Additionally, we evaluated carbon reduction policies related to the key driving factors, taking into account the heterogeneity of the enterprise. The study discovered significant variations in inter-enterprise carbon efficiency, with a trend of local leadership and overall trailing. Based on the results of Shapley value decomposition, industry differences, enterprise scale, and regional differences are the most critical factors affecting enterprise carbon efficiency. Based on the results of the t-test and robustness test, enterprise scale has a significant inverted "U"-shaped impact on that. The degree of impact is greater in the eastern region and related industries in China with higher levels of market development, environmental regulation, and carbon market penetration. Previous policies have overlooked the heterogeneity of carbon efficiency among enterprises, resulting in firms and regions with large production scales and high carbon efficiency shouldering a greater burden of emission reduction tasks. It is likely to encourage the flow of output away from enterprises or areas with high carbon efficiency and towards those with low carbon emissions, which hinders the improvement of overall carbon efficiency. The conclusions have valuable policy implications. These include the recommendation to reduce direct control of total emission reduction targets in carbon reduction policies. Instead, based on the inter-enterprise heterogeneity of carbon efficiency, the policies should focus on strengthening economic measures and developing specific carbon emission reduction policies at the provincial, industry, and enterprise levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, temporal knowledge graph reasoning has been a critical task in natural language processing. Temporal knowledge graphs store temporal facts that model dynamic relationships or interactions between entities along the timeline. Most existing temporal knowledge graph reasoning methods need a large number of training instances (i.e. support entity facts) for each relation. However, the same as traditional knowledge graphs, temporal knowledge graphs also exhibit long-tailed relational frequency distribution, in which most relationships often do not have many support entity pairs for training. To address this problem, in this paper, we propose a one-shot learning framework (OSLT) applied to temporal knowledge graph link prediction, which aims to predict new relational facts with only one support instance. Specifically, OSLT employs an fact encoder based on Temporal Convolutional Network to encode historical information and model connection of facts at the same timestamp by the aggregator with an attention mechanism. After that, a matching network is employed to compute the similarity score between support fact and query fact. Experiments show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art baselines on two benchmark datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report the kinetics, nucleation, and growth mechanism of copper oxide electrodeposited on ITO from copper sulfate and lactic acid solutions at different pH values, using cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry (CA), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). According to the cyclic voltammetry, the cathodic peak potential increases with increasing scan rate, indicating that the deposition of Cu2O is an irreversible process influenced by diffusion control. To further investigate the type of Cu2O nucleation, it was found that Cu2O followed diffusion-controlled three-dimensional transient nucleation by comparing the timing current curves with the Scharifker-Hills three-dimensional nucleation model. Furthermore, the three-dimensional transient nucleation was still followed regardless of the deposition potential and pH variation; this result was also confirmed from field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). According to the EIS profile, the charge transfer resistance of Cu2O decreased with the increase in deposition potential; the charge transfer resistance was the smallest at pH = 9. In the timing current curve D (diffusion coefficient) showed a decreasing trend with increasing pH values. The nucleation pattern and growth process of nuclei at the early stage of electrodeposition are the basis for the formation of thin films, which is a guideline for obtaining films with better performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Zhejiang University: Science B is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The goal of this paper is to improve the technical level of preparing composite photocatalysts with SiO2-supported nano-TiO2, expand the selection range of SiO2 carriers, reduce expenses and understand the influence of SiO2 crystallization behavior. Natural quartz (Q/SiO2) powder was used as a carrier to prepare a Q/SiO2-TiO2 composite photocatalyst by hydrolyzing a butyl titanate solution and performing high-temperature calcination of the hydrolysate. The performance, morphology, structure and mechanism were tested and characterized. In addition, the as-prepared photocatalyst was compared with other amorphous SiO2 carrier composite photocatalysts. The results showed that the Q/SiO2 surface of Q/SiO2-TiO2 contained a uniform load of TiO2 with a 26.98% proportion. Anatase-type TiO2 was mainly present, and the size was 5–10 nm. Moreover, Q/SiO2 and TiO2 were firmly combined in the form of Si–O–Ti bonds between the interfaces. The degradation rate of Q/SiO2-TiO2 to methyl orange solution was 99.59% under UV irradiation for 60 min, which was equivalent to that of pure nano-TiO2. The degradation performance remained stable after four cycles. Compared with other amorphous SiO2 carriers, Q/SiO2 exhibited a higher load of TiO2. Furthermore, Q/SiO2 played a more significant role in inhibiting the phase transition of TiO2 to rutile and improving the photocatalytic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the statistics of ship traffic accidents on inland waterways, potential safety hazards such as stranding, hitting rocks, and suspending navigation are on the increase because of the sudden rise and fall of the water level, which may result in fatalities, environmental devastation, and massive economic losses. In view of this situation, the purpose of this paper is to propose a high-accuracy water-level-prediction model based on the combination of the spatial-reduction attention and bidirectional gate recurrent unit (SRA-BiGRU), which provides support for ensuring the safe navigation of ships, guiding the reasonable stowage of ships, and flood prevention. The first contribution of this model is that it makes use of its strong fitting ability to capture nonlinear characteristics, and it fully considers the time series of water-level data. Secondly, the bidirectional recurrent neural network structure makes full use of past and future water-level information in the mapping process between input and output sequences. Thirdly, and most importantly, the introduction of spatial-reduction attention on the basis of BiGRU can not only automatically capture the correlations between the hidden vectors generated by BiGRU to address the issue of precision degradation due to the extended time span in water-level-forecasting tasks but can also make full use of the spatial information between water-level stations by emphasizing the influence of significant features on the prediction results. It is noteworthy that comparative experiments gradually prove the superiority of GRU, bidirectional recurrent neural network structure, and spatial-reduction attention, demonstrating that SRA-BiGRU is a water-level-prediction model with high availability, high accuracy, and high robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To describe the clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes of secondary ocular adnexal lymphoma (OAL), and emphasise the impact of timely biopsy and systemic evaluation on the diagnosis and treatment. Methods: The data of patients with secondary OAL in our hospital from January 2010 to June 2021 were retrospectively reviewed. Results: A total of 54 patients (30 men and 24 women) were included in the study. The mean age at presentation was 60 years (median 62 years; range 37–83 years). The main symptoms included ocular mass (74%), periorbital swelling (43%), and proptosis (39%). The main histopathological types were mucosa‐associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma (30%), diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma (28%), and natural killer/T‐cell lymphoma (18%). In particular, three patients exhibited different pathological types of ocular lymphoma compared to previously diagnosed systemic lymphoma. The most common site of ocular and systemic involvement was the orbit (85%) and lymph nodes (56%), respectively, and 25 (46%) patients had occult extraocular lesions. Additionally, the 5‐year overall survival rate of the entire cohort was 56%, and significant differences were observed between the three main pathological types and stages of the disease (all p < 0.001). Conclusions: Secondary OAL is a rare disease with a poor prognosis. That the disease is associated with a more aggressive pathological type is well established, indolent lymphoma is not uncommon. Furthermore, OAL and previously diagnosed systemic lymphoma may be pathologically distinct in some patients. Therefore, we recommend a prompt excision biopsy and a thorough systemic evaluation of patients with suspected OAL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solvent extraction with 4-tert-butyl-2-(α-methylbenzyl) phenol (t-BAMBP) is an effective method for the separation and purification of rubidium and cesium. A solution containing a high K+ concentration (exceeding 80 g/L), which was ultra-salty, with about 200 g/L alkali metal ions, was used to extract Rb+ and Cs+. The effects of the process parameters on the separation of cesium and rubidium were systematically studied. The optimum conditions were as follows: NaOH concentration of 0.5 mol/L, t-BAMBP concentration of 1 mol/L (in sulfonated kerosene), organic/aqueous volume ratio (O/A ratio) of 3:1, and contact time of 1 min. The extraction rates of cesium and rubidium were 99.81 and 98.09%, respectively, and 19.31% of potassium was co-extracted in the organic phase after five-stage countercurrent extraction. About 99.32% of K+ in the organic phase could be removed after five-stage countercurrent scrubbing with deionized water at an O/A ratio of 2:1 for 2 min. When 0.5 mol/L hydrochloric acid solution was used as detergent, almost all of the cesium and rubidium (>99%) could be recovered by two-stage countercurrent stripping at an O/A ratio of 3:1 for 2 min. A solid compound was found and collected from the organic phase during multi-stage solvent extraction. Its composition and structure were determined by XRD, infrared Fourier-transform, and ICP-MS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Zhejiang University: Science B is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Video-based ship object detection has long been a popular research issue that has received attention in the water transportation industry. However, in low-illumination environments, such as at night or in fog, the water environment has a complex variety of light sources, video surveillance images are often accompanied by noise, and information on the details of objects in images is worsened. These problems cause high rates of false detection and missed detection when performing object detection for ships in low-illumination environments. Thus, this paper takes the detection of ship objects in low-illumination environments at night as the research object. The technical difficulties faced by object detection algorithms in low-illumination environments are analyzed, and a dataset of ship images is constructed by collecting images of ships (in the Nanjing section of Yangtze River in China) in low-illumination environments. In view of the outstanding performance of the RetinaNet model in general object detection, a new multiscale feature fusion network structure for a feature extraction module is proposed based on the same network architecture, in such a way that the extraction of more potential feature information from low-illumination images can be realized. In line with the feature detection network, the regression and classification detection network for anchor boxes is improved by means of the attention mechanism, guiding the network structure in the detection of object features. Moreover, the design and optimization of the augmentation of multiple random images and prior bounding boxes in the training process are also carried out. Finally, on the basis of experimental validation analysis, the optimized detection model was able to improve ship detection accuracy by 3.7% with a limited decrease in FPS (frames per second), and has better results in application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A knowledge graph is introduced into the personalized recommendation algorithm due to its strong ability to express structural information and exploit side information. However, there is a long tail phenomenon and data sparsity in real knowledge graphs, and most items are related to only a few triples. This results in a significant reduction in the amount of data available for training, and makes it difficult to make accurate recommendations. Motivated by these limitations, the Knowledge Graph Extrapolation Network with Transductive Learning for Recommendation (KGET) is proposed to improve recommendation quality. To be specific, the method first learns the embedding of users and items by knowledge propagation combined with collaborative signal to obtain high-order structural information, and the attention mechanism is used to distinguish the contributions of different neighbor nodes in propagation. In order to better solve with data sparsity and long tail phenomenon, transductive learning is designed to model links between unknown items to enrich feature representation to further extrapolate the knowledge graph. We conduct experiments with two datasets about music and books, the experiment results reveal that our proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art recommendation methods. KGET also achieves strong and stable performance in sparse data scenarios where items have merely a few triples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few-shot knowledge graph reasoning is a research focus in the field of knowledge graph reasoning. At present, in order to expand the application scope of knowledge graphs, a large number of researchers are devoted to the study of the multi-shot knowledge graph model. However, as far as we know, the knowledge graph contains a large number of missing relations and entities, and there are not many reference examples at the time of training. In this paper, our goal is to be able to infer the correct entity given a few training instances, or even only one training instance is available. Therefore, we propose an adaptive attentional network for few-shot relational learning of knowledge graphs, extracting knowledge based on traditional embedding methods, using the Transformer mechanism and hierarchical attention mechanism to obtain hidden attributes of entities, and then using a noise checker to filter out unreasonable candidate entities. Our model produces large performance improvements on the NELL-One dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few‐shot knowledge graph (KG) reasoning is the main focus in the field of knowledge graph reasoning. In order to expand the application fields of the knowledge graph, a large number of studies are based on a large number of training samples. However, we have learnt that there are actually many missing relationships or entities in the knowledge graph, and in most cases, there are not many training instances when implementing new relationships. To tackle it, in this study, the authors aim to predict a new entity given few reference instances, even only one training instance. A few‐shot learning framework based on a hybrid attention mechanism is proposed. The framework employs traditional embedding models to extract knowledge, and uses an attenuated attention network and a self‐attention mechanism to obtain the hidden attributes of entities. Thus, it can learn a matching metric by considering both the learnt embeddings and one‐hop graph structures. The experimental results present that the model has achieved significant performance improvements on the NELL‐One and Wiki‐One datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The objectives of this study were to analyze the distribution of dual oxidase (DUOX) system genes (containing DUOX2, DUOX1, DUOXA2, and DUOXA1) variants in children with congenital hypothyroidism (CH) and their phenotypes. Methods Target region sequencing technology was performed on DUOX system genes among 606 CH subjects covering all the exon and intron regions. Detailed clinical data were collected for statistical analysis. Results A total of 95 suspected pathogenic variants were detected in the DUOX system genes, showing a 39.11% rate in variant carrying (237/606). DUOX2 had the highest rate in this study. There were statistical differences in maximum adjusted dose and current dose of levothyroxine between the DUOX system genes nonmutated group with the mutated group (both P s < 0.001). The cases in the DUOX system genes mutated group were more likely to develop into transient CH (χ 2 = 23.155, P  < 0.001) and more likely to manifested as goiter or gland-in-situ (χ 2 = 66.139, P  < 0.001). In addition, there was no significant difference in clinical characteristics between DUOX system genes monoallelic and non-monoallelic. Although 20% of the variants affected the functional domain regions (EF hand, flavin adenine dinucleotide and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide binding sites), there was no significant effect on the phenotype severity whether the variation is located in the functional domain regions. Conclusions Our results showed the high variation rate of DUOX2 in the DUOX system genes among Chinese CH patients. The complex genotype-phenotype relationship of DUOX system genes broadened the understanding of CH phenotype spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among a series of 3D printing techniques, stereolithography provides a new route to produce ceramic architectures with the advantages of high-precision and short cycle time. However, up to now the stereolithography of non-oxide ceramics still face complex and difficult problems. This work focused on the analysis of rheological and curing ability of Si3N4 photocurable slurries. The effects of monomer type, coarse silicon powder, solid loading and ambient temperature on the rheological behavior were intensively studied. The relationships between powder characteristic (involving refractive index, absorbance and the introduce of coarse silicon powder), monomer type and curing ability were discussed in detail. It is expected that this study may benefit the development of Si3N4 or other non-oxide ceramic slurries for stereolithography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interfacial modification of the perovskite surface with octocrylene (2-ethylhexyl-2-cyano-3,3-diphenyl-2-propenoate, OCT) is capable of enhancing humidity stability and passivating the defects of perovskite films. In this study, octocrylene can be attached to the surface of the perovskite, and the carbonyl group (C＝O) in octocrylene achieved excellent passivation through the Lewis base electron passivation of Pb2+ ions. By increasing the concentration of the octocrylene/IPA solution, the modified device exhibited an optimal PCE of 20.54% and a steady state output PCE of 19.75%. This study shows that the introduction of octocrylene in the preparation of perovskite could effectively enhance the performance of perovskite solar cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electron transport layer (ETL) between the perovskite material and cathode plays an important role in planar perovskite solar cells. In this study, an alkali metal salt solution was be used to modify the surface of the SnO2 electron transport layer to optimize electron transport. The I–V characteristic measurements and UV-Vis spectroscopy were used to investigate whether introducing the interface modification can increase the electron coupling and effectively extract the energy lever of electrons. The results indicated that the interfacial modification could reduce the trap density of states and increase the mobility of the SnO2 thin films. The efficient defect passivation significantly suppressed the recombination at the SnO2/perovskite interface. This method aims at passivation using simple and low-cost inorganic material poles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that the different proportions of CuO and Cu2O in CuOx hole transfer materials have a great influence on the hole transport property as well as the device performances of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). In this paper, we changed the content of Cu2O in the film by controlling the deposition voltage during electrodeposition, and the effects of different contents of Cu2O in the films on the device were investigated for the first time. It was found that the content of Cu2O in the film reached the highest point with the deposition voltage 0.5 V, such films have the highest transmittance and carrier mobility. After assembling the device, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the champion device reached 13.48% under a one-sun AM 1.5 G (100 mW/cm 2) illumination. Furthermore, the unpackaged device based on CuOx still retained over 75% PCE after being placed in the ambient condition (30–40% humidity, 20–30 ∘ C) for 500 h. The content of Cu+ in the deposited film was controlled by changing the electrodeposition voltage. The content of Cu+ in the film reached the highest at a deposition voltage of 0.5 V. At the same time, the properties such as transmittance, carrier mobility and electrical conductivity of the film were optimized, and the PCE of the device was the highest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hypertension is a major cause of death and morbidity worldwide and is increasing in prevalence. The Renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is the most common mechanism involved in the pathophysiology of hypertension. Understanding the mechanism of the pathophysiologic processes will help direct potential therapeutic strategies to treat hypertension and improve cardiac function. Recently, a novel drug LCZ696 containing both an angiotensin receptor blocker valsartan and a neprilysin inhibitor (AHU377) has shown a promising effect on the treatment of hypertension. However, the effects of LCZ696 on the expression of main components of RAS, namely, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1 R), angiotensin II type 2 receptor (AT2 R), and angiotensin (1-7) receptor/Mas receptor (MasR) remain unclear. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of LCZ696 on the protective arms of RAS in the cardiac tissue when compared with valsartan under the equal inhibition of AT1 R. We hypothesized that the superior effects of LCZ696 may contribute to its greater effect on the RAS than valsartan.Materials and Methods: Sixteen-week-old female spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) were used in this study. Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats were used as controls. All rats were randomly divided into LCZ696 (n = 10), valsartan (n = 10), SHR (n = 10), and WKY (n = 10) groups under a 12-hour dark and 12-hour light cycle and provided with regular chow diet and water. The tail-cuff method was performed to measure blood pressure. Cardiac function was assessed by echocardiography.Results: The blood pressure value was lower in LCZ696 than valsartan in SHR after 12 weeks of treatment. Further, LCZ696 inhibits the ACE and AT1 R protein expression in the cardiac of SHR and significantly upregulate the protective axis of RAS components, including ACE2, MasR, and AT2 R. Left ventricular AT2 R messenger RNA (mRNA) expression was higher in the LCZ696+SHR group compared with valsartan. In addition, real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis revealed that LCZ696 enhanced the mRNA expression of antihypertensive components AT2 R, ACE2, and MasR and decreased the expression of AT1 R. However, only AT2 R and ACE2 mRNA expressions have a statistical difference between the LCZ696 and valsartan groups. No difference was observed in the mRNA expression of ACE and MasR. The stronger positive signal of transforming growth factor β in the left ventricle was inhibited in each administrated group compared with SHR groups.Conclusions: LCZ696 ameliorates the vasoconstrictor axis of the RAS AT1 R and stimulate the protective arm effectors, ACE2 and AT2 R, as well as reverses the compensatory upregulation of neuronal nitric oxide synthase and endothelial nitric oxide synthase in SHR. These findings suggest the mechanistic insight of the cardiac-protective and greater hypotensive effects of LCZ696. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have attracted more attention. TiO2 as the most common electron transfer material in PSCs has been improved by a serious of methods. In this study, a simple method was used to improve the traditional compact TiO2 properties by doping with Sn4+. It demonstrated that the conductivity of the TiO2 film could be well improved and the band-gap shifted from 3.65 to 3.55 eV with the introduction of Sn ions. The Sn–O–Ti bond was observed in the Sn:TiO2 film according to the results of XPS. The mesostructured PSCs based on Sn:TiO2 exhibited negligible J-V hysteresis behavior, and the Jsc of the device increased distinctly. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the Sn:TiO2 device was improved from 14.86 to 17.11%, compared with the reference device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have realized a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 23.7%. However, defects and a high moisture sensitivity limit the further development of perovskite device performance. This study shows that cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), a multifunctional ammonium salt, plays dual roles in passivating the perovskite defects and improving the moisture stability. Attaching a long carbon chain to the perovskite surface improves the humidity stability. The ammonium group in the CTA+ cation can anchor to the surface of the MAPbI3 film to passivate defects without the formation of a secondary phase, and Br− is uniformly distributed on the surface and has a gradient distribution in the vertical direction. Furthermore, by optimizing the CTAB solution concentration, the MAPbI3 device with CTAB demonstrated an optimum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.95% with a steady-state output PCE of 18.11%. Finally, the MAPbI3 device treated with CTAB exhibited better moisture resistance, with no obvious decline observed during the storage stability test for 1600 h under dry conditions in the dark. Furthermore, the device treated with CTAB showed better operational stability under 1 sun illumination at the maximum power point (retaining over 60% of its initial PCE for 1800 min) compared with that of the MAPbI3 device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SnO2 as an ideal electron transfer material for planar halide perovskite solar cells has recently attracted much attention. However, the planar structure device shows significant hysteresis behavior and low optical stability due to numerous trap states and high UV transmittance. Here, carbon nanodots (CNDs) obtained by hydrothermal synthesis were firstly introduced into SnO2 ETLs through a simple solution process. Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, electronic impedance spectroscopy and UV-vis spectroscopy were used to investigate whether the introduction of CNDs increases the electronic coupling as well as energy levers which contribute to efficient electron extraction. The results showed that the introduction of CNDs could reduce the trap-state density and increase the mobility in SnO2 films. Finally, the device based on the SnO2:CNDs ETLs reached a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of over 20% and steady-state PCE of 19.83% with negligible hysteresis. The SnO2:CNDs device retained over 90% of the initial PCE after storage in dry conditions for 1200 h and exhibited better UV stability after exposure to UV illumination. These results verify the simple method for producing highly efficient and UV stable perovskite solar cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of CNNs is accompanied by deep models and heavy storage costs. For compressing CNNs, we propose an efficient and robust pruning approach, cross-entropy pruning (CEP). Given a trained CNN model, connections were divided into groups in a group-wise way according to their corresponding output neurons. All connections with their cross-entropy errors below a grouping threshold were then removed. A sparse model was obtained and the number of parameters in the baseline model significantly reduced. This letter also presents a highest cross-entropy pruning (HCEP) method that keeps a small portion of weights with the highest CEP. This method further improves the accuracy of CEP. To validate CEP, we conducted the experiments on low redundant networks that are hard to compress. For the MNIST data set, CEP achieves an 0.08% accuracy drop required by LeNet-5 benchmark with only 16% of original parameters. Our proposed CEP also reduces approximately 75% of the storage cost of AlexNet on the ILSVRC 2012 data set, increasing the top-1 errorby only 0.4% and top-5 error by only 0.2%. Compared with three existing methods on LeNet-5, our proposed CEP and HCEP perform significantly better than the existing methods in terms of the accuracy and stability. Some computer vision tasks on CNNs such as object detection and style transfer can be computed in a high-performance way using our CEP and HCEP strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To estimate the cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/P) prevalence among births between 2006 and 2012 in Fangshan district of Beijing, China. Design: Surveillance data analysis. Setting: All hospitals that provide obstetric services in the district. Patients: The CL/P cases presented for this report were from 13 weeks’ gestation to 7 days postpartum. Main Outcome Measures: The CL/P prevalence was defined as the number of cases per 10 000 births, including live births and stillbirths at 28 weeks’ gestation or beyond. Results: The overall CL/P prevalence was 18.9 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 15.1-22.7) per 10 000 births. From 2006 to 2012, the CL/P prevalence was 19.3, 20.2, 10.9, 16.1, 17.5, 25.4, and 22.3 per 10 000 births; annually, no significant change was noted (Pfor trend = .311). The prevalence of cleft palate, cleft lip, and cleft lip and palate were 3.4 (95% CI: 2.0-5.4), 6.2 (95% CI: 4.2-8.8), and 9.4 (95% CI: 6.9-12.4) per 10 000 births, respectively. The CL/P prevalence among the nonpermanent residents (31.4 per 10 000 births) was 2.31 times that of permanent residents (13.6 per 10 000 births). Among nonpermanent residents, the CL/P prevalence showed an upward trend over the study period (Pfor trend = .036), that increased from 38.8 (95% CI: 16.5-76.6) per 10 000 births in 2006 to 54.6 (95% CI: 25.7-100.4) per 10 000 births in 2012. Conclusions: The overall CL/P prevalence was stable in the Fangshan district. However, the CL/P prevalence of the nonpermanent residents increased significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LCZ696, a first-in-class angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor, has been demonstrated to have greater advantages in the treatment of heart failure compared with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, enalapril, or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs). However, studies that compared the efficacy and safety of LCZ696 against valsartan in patients with hypertension are limited. To provide further evidence for the benefits of LCZ696 and to make this assessment, a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) was performed. The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), EMBASE, MEDLINE, PubMed, and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched for RCTs. Twelve studies involving 3816 patients were eligible for inclusion. Seven studies compared LCZ696 with valsartan, and 5 studies compared LCZ696 with olmesartan. LCZ696 showed a significantly greater reduction in systolic blood pressure (BP; mean difference [MD] = -5.43 mm Hg; 95% confidence interval [CI]: -6.36 to -4.49 mm Hg; P < .001), diastolic BP (MD = -2.34 mm Hg; 95% CI: -2.67 to -2.01 mm Hg; P < .001), 24-hour ambulatory systolic BP (MD = -3.57 mm Hg, 95% CI: -4.29 to -2.85 mm Hg; P < .001), and 24-hour ambulatory diastolic BP (MD = -1.32 mm Hg, 95% CI: -1.77 to -0.78 mm Hg; P < .001) from the baseline than ARBs. LCZ696 was more effective in reducing BP (odds ratio [OR] = 5.34; 95% CI: 4.49-6.36; P < .01) and had a higher rate of BP control compared with ARBs (OR = 1.52; 95% CI: 1.37-1.69; P < .01). LCZ696 had no difference in the incidence of adverse events (OR = 1.05; 95% CI: 0.94-1.18; P = .38) or serious adverse events (OR = 0.80; 95% CI: 0.51-1.24; P = .31) compared to ARBs. This meta-analysis revealed that LCZ696 has a greater antihypertensive efficacy and an equal tolerability profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The photoluminescence (PL) properties of the Cu:Zn–In–S core quantum dots (QDs) and core–shell QDs were systematically investigated by using steady-state and time-resolved PL spectra at temperatures ranging from 80 to 400 K. The effects of the shell structure and the host bandgap on the thermal stability of Cu dopant emissions were studied by measuring the change in the PL intensity and the lifetime. It was found that the PL intensities and lifetimes of the core and core/shell QDs with green, yellow, and red emissions almost decrease with increasing temperatures while their PL was quenched at 300 K and 400 K, respectively, indicating the shell-enhanced thermal stability of the PL. The emission wavelength of the QDs as a function of temperature was also provided. The mechanisms of Cu dopant emission and thermal quenching were discussed. Finally, the green, yellow, red, and white light emitting light emitting diodes (LEDs) were fabricated based on Cu:Zn–In–S QDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel series of 3- O-arylalkylbenzamide and 3- O-arylalkyl-2,6-difluorobenzamide derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for their on-target activity and antibacterial activity. The results indicated that the 3- O-arylalkyl-2,6-difluorobenzamide derivatives possessed much better on-target activity and antibacterial activity than the 3- O-arylalkylbenzamide derivatives. Among them, 3- O-chlorobenzyl derivative 36 was the most effective in antibacterial activity (0.5, 4, and 8 μg/mL) against Bacillus subtilis ATCC9372, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ATCC29213, and penicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus PR, while 3- O-methylbenzyl derivative 41 only exhibited the most potent activity (2 μg/mL) against Staphylococcus aureus ATCC25923. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular docking method plays an important role on the quest of potential drug candidates, which has been proven to be a valuable tool for virtual screening. Molecular docking is commonly referred to as a parameter optimization problem. During the last decade, some optimization algorithms have been introduced, such as Lamarckian genetic algorithm (LGA) and SODOCK embedded in the AutoDock program. On the basis of the latest docking software AutoDock4.2, we present a novel docking program ABCDock, which incorporates mutual artificial bee colony (MutualABC) into AutoDock. Computer simulation results demonstrate that ABCDock takes precedence over AutoDock and SODOCK, in terms of convergence performance, accuracy, and the lowest energy, especially for highly flexible ligands. It is noteworthy that ABCDock yields a higher success rate. Also, in comparison with the other state-of-the-art docking methods, namely GOLD, DOCK and FlexX, ABCDock provides the smallest RMSD in 27 of 37 cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider a selfish bin packing problem, where each item is a selfish player and wants to minimize its cost. In our new model, if there are k items packed in the same bin, then each item pays a cost 1/ k, where k ≥ 1. First we find a Nash Equilibrium (NE) in time O( n log n) within a social cost at most 1.69103 OPT + 3, where OPT is the social cost of an optimal packing; where n is the number of items or players; then we give tight bounds for the worst NE on the social cost; finally we show that any feasible packing can be converged to a Nash Equilibrium in O( n) steps without increasing the social cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study aimed to determine whether combining a calcium channel blocker with either an angiotensin II receptor blocker or a β-blocker would have similar effects on sexual function in men with hypertension. Methods: This prospective, randomized study (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01 238705) included 218 male participants with untreated hypertension. Patients were randomized to treatment with felodipine combined with irbesartan or metoprolol for 48 weeks. Sexual function was evaluated at baseline and after 48 weeks of therapy. The levels of serum sex hormones and markers of oxidative stress were measured at the same time. Results: There was no significant difference in the prevalence of erectile dysfunction before and after treatment in either group (p > 0.05). There were also no differences in the levels of serum testosterone, sex hormone-binding globulin or 4-hydroxynonenal before and after treatment in either group (p > 0.05). In the felodipine-irbesartan group, sexual desire scores rose after treatment (p = 0.022) and the concentrations of serum 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine and malondialdehyde declined (p < 0.001 and p = 0.002, respectively). The between-group differences for 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine and malondialdehyde were not significant (p > 0.05, respectively). Conclusion: The results suggest that felodipine-irbesartan may be more beneficial to the sexual desire of hypertensive male patients than felodipine-metoprolol. This effect was possibly relevant to irbesartan, which prevents oxidative stress to some extent. Copyright © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular docking is an important tool in screening large libraries of compounds to determine the interactions between potential drugs and the target proteins. The molecular docking problem is how to locate a good conformation to dock a ligand to the large molecule. It can be formulated as a parameter optimization problem consisting of a scoring function and a global optimization method. Many docking methods have been developed with primarily these two parts varying. In this paper, a variety of particle swarm optimization (PSO) variants were introduced to cooperate with the semiempirical free energy force field in AutoDock 4.05. The search ability and the docking accuracy of these methods were evaluated by multiple redocking experiments. The results demonstrate that PSOs were more suitable than Lamarckian genetic algorithm (LGA). Among all of the PSO variants, FIPS takes precedence over others. Compared with the four state-of-art docking methods-GOLD, DOCK, FlexX and AutoDock with LGA, AutoDock cooperated with FIPS is more accurate. Thus, FIPS is an efficient PSO variant which has promising prospects that can be expected in the application to virtual screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to our negligence, we made mistakes in several figures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]