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Oil Price is important to countries and people. As Black Gold, Oil is considered the blood of the industry. People in modern cities are surrounded by crude oil and its derivatives, such as petrol for cars, plastic products for storing food, etc. Thus, the changing price of oil can have a profound effect on people and countries. The prediction of oil prices can lessen the impact. Once people and the government know the future price of oil, then people and government can adjust their behavior. This study leverages the Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) model to find the parameters of estimation and forecasts. The study uses Brent crude oil prices from May 1987 to July 2022. The study result shows that the price of oil is hard to predict based on the Brent crude oil prices. The study also discussed some protentional reasons why the SARIMA model cannot predict the price so accurately even if the method is correct.

As a novel teaching method, new media short videos have become one of the teaching methods of international Chinese education. By analyzing the advantages and feasibility of this teaching method, this paper demonstrates that teaching using short videos is a more suitable teaching method for teaching Chinese as a foreign language. At the same time, the material selection and problems in the process of using this method are also analyzed.

Taking China’s Qilian Mountains Nature Reserve as an example, entropy, hierarchical analysis and spatial autocorrelation analysis methods were combined with geographically and temporally weighted regression to construct an evaluation index system of a rural habitat environment. The spatiotemporal characteristics of the evolution of the rural habitat environment in the Qilian Mountains Nature Reserve from 2000 to 2020 were revealed, and the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of factors affecting the evolution of the rural habitat environment in the Qilian Mountains were analyzed. The results show that during the research period, the rural habitat environment of the Qilian Mountains Nature Reserve obviously improved. The advantaged areas, such as Liangzhou and Shandan, are located mainly on flat terrain, with perfect supporting resources and convenient transportation. The disadvantaged areas, such as Qilian and Menyuan, are concentrated in the mountainous areas with poor natural conditions and inconvenient transportation. The rural habitat in the Qilian Mountains Nature Reserve shows an obvious positive spatial correlation, and areas with similar habitat are adjacent to each other. From 2000 to 2015, the high–high agglomeration area was located in Liangzhou, and the low–low agglomeration area was located in Menyuan. The rural habitat environment in the Qilian Mountains Nature Reserve is influenced by the average temperature, investment in fixed assets, the proportion of secondary and tertiary industries, PM2.5 concentration and CO2 emissions. The influence of various factors on the rural habitat showed obvious spatial and temporal heterogeneity. In rural revitalization, it is necessary to allocate resources to local conditions to promote the continuous improvement of the rural habitat environment in nature reserves.

Objective To describe the rationale and application of triggered EMG (T‐EMG) in intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring, and to explore the efficacy and safety of posterior percutaneous endoscopic cervical discectomy (PPECD) in the treatment of cervical spondylotic radiculopathy (CSR) under multimodal intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IOM). Methods This study was a retrospective cohort control study. The clinical data of 74 patients with single‐segment CSR from June 2015 to August 2018 were analyzed retrospectively, of whom 35 underwent IOM‐assisted PPECD with triggered EMG (T‐EMG group), while 39 were subjected to IOM‐assisted PPECD alone (IOM group). Operation time, hospital stay, and complications were recorded for both groups. The curative effect was evaluated according to the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) of neck and arm pain, Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) score, and modified MacNab scale. Results Operations were successful and all patients were followed up for at least 24 (average 31.77 ± 9.51) months with no patient lost to follow‐up. No significant difference was found in preoperative baseline data between the T‐EMG and the IOM group (P > 0.05). Also, no significant difference was found in the operation time between the T‐EMG (108.29 ± 11.44 min) and the IOM (110.13 ± 12.70 min) (P > 0.05) group, but the difference in hospital stay (T‐EMG: 5.66 ± 0.99 days; IOM: 7.10 ± 1.43 days) was statistically significant (P 0.05). The 1‐month postoperative JOA scores for the two groups (12.69 ± 0.76; 12.59 ± 0.82) and those at the last follow‐up (14.60 ± 0.77; 14.36 ± 0.78) were significantly different from the preoperative scores (11.09 ± 0.98; 11.05 ± 0.89) (P 0.05). One patient in the T‐EMG group developed a transient aggravation of symptoms on the first day after surgery. In the IOM group, three patients had intraoperative cerebrospinal fluid leakage, and symptoms of C5 nerve root paralysis were presented in four patients following surgery. Compared with the IOM group, the T‐EMG group had fewer complications (1/35; 7/39, P

Litter decomposition promotes soil carbon and nitrogen cycling and is driven by litter quality, the soil environment and enzyme activities. The relative importance of these factors may change during the litter decomposition, however, very few studies have emphasized the temporal dynamics of these factors across plantation ecosystem, which limits our understanding of litter decomposition. To evaluate the temporal dynamic of above-mentioned litter decomposition drivers, we collected leaf and fine root litters from four different years of restoration of Robinia pseudoacacia on the Loess plateau of China and placed them on soil from the corresponding sites to incubate for 210 days. We constructed successive litter decomposition stages according to litter mass-loss interval, and we also used partial least squares path modelling (PLSPM) to evaluate the relative importance of these drivers. Our results showed that the C and N losses in leaf litter were significantly higher than those in root litter regardless of stand age. Leaf litter C and N losses increased with restoration duration, while root litter C and N showed an opposing trend with restoration duration, with the lowest levels of losses occurring at older stand ages. The initial litter quality, litter quality and the soil environment regulated leaf and root litter C loss, and enzyme activity also determined root C loss. Litter quality, the soil environment and enzyme activity influence leaf litter N loss, while root N loss was controlled by initial litter quality and the soil environment. Overall, enzyme activities had a relatively weak influence on litter C and N losses, and they impacted litter C and N losses only during the early stages. Therefore, our results revealed substantial differences in different restoration durations and litter types at the different decomposition stages, which has important significance for understanding carbon and nitrogen cycling on the Loess Plateau of China.

The oxygen reduction reaction is essential for fuel cells and metal-air batteries in renewable energy technologies. Developing platinum-group-metal (PGM)-free catalysts with comparable catalytic performance is highly desired for cost efficiency. Here, we report a tin (Sn) nanocluster confined catalyst for the electrochemical oxygen reduction. The catalyst was fabricated by confining 1-1.5 nm sized Sn nanoclusters

To better understand the possible role of projected land use and cover change (LUCC) in future regional climate projections, we explored the regional climate change response from land use/cover change under different climate scenarios. To do so, we propose a research framework based on different SSP-RCPs to simulate and explore the impacts of future land use/cover changes on the future climate of Zhengzhou City, China, using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with land use/cover and meteorological data under different SSP-RCP scenarios based on CMIP6. Two scenarios, SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5, were compared and analyzed by simulating changes in future climate factors of temperature at 2 m height above ground(T2) and precipitation. The results show that T2 is higher for all 4 months by the year 2060 compared to that in the year 2030. Furthermore, a comparison of the abovementioned years showed that the mean temperatures of January and July were higher than those of SSP2-4.5 under the SSP5-8.5 scenario in both years, but in 2030, the mean T2 of April and October were lower than those of SSP2-4.5 under the SSP5-8.5 scenario. In terms of precipitation, both scenarios have no significant precipitation in July in 2030 and 2060, but there is an unusual increase in January and October.

Traditional face or body attribute recognition can solely train and understand the specific attributes marked according to the marked content of the dataset. Most recognition systems on the market integrate specific attribute recognition algorithms. The lack of corresponding attribute data fusion leads to the problem of high diversity but poor recognition accuracy. This paper designs a recognition system based on data fusion and attribute fusion of two-dimensional images, which can fuse subtle data during training, and fuse the recognition results of overlapping attributes, to achieve multi-directional recognition of human subtle attributes, make up for the shortcomings of single recognition algorithm, and obtain more comprehensive and accurate recognition results. The experimental results show that the recognition system. Firstly, the overall recognition accuracy is above 83.5%. Secondly, it can make up for the problems of high accuracy but poor diversity of single recognition algorithm and poor accuracy of multi-feature recognition algorithm.

Machine learning technology based on artificial neural network has been successfully applied to solve many scientific problems. One of the most interesting areas of machine learning is reinforcement learning, which has natural applicability to optimization problems in physics. In the quantum control task, it is necessary to find a set of optimal control functions to transfer a quantum system from the initial state to the target state with the highest fidelity possible, which is essentially an optimization task. In this paper, we use Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient algorithm (DDPG) to study the quantum control tasks. We use the algorithm to control the transfer of several quantum systems from one state to another. The results show that DDPG algorithm can find a control strategy to make the fidelity of the final state and the target state of the quantum system be maximum value 1. The results show the potential of DDPG in quantum control.

In order to obtain the spatial-temporal distribution of fish resources together with its changes in sea ranching, and realize the acoustic monitoring and evaluation of fish resource proliferation in sea ranching, the acoustic evaluation technology of fish resources based on the echo statistics method is researched in this paper. Firstly, the simulation is conducted by constructing the fish school echo signal based on the Kirchhoff-ray model, and the simulation results show that the echo statistics method is suitable for acoustic monitoring of fish stocks in sea ranching. Then, the self-developed fish finder was used to survey the national sea ranching demonstration area in the western waters of Furong Island in Shandong Province by navigating in November 2020 and March 2021 respectively. The data obtained from the two voyages were post-processed using the echo statistics method, and the density changes and activities of the fish schools in different times and regions in the surveyed sea were obtained. The analysis results show that the echo statistics method is suitable for the monitoring and evaluation of fishery resources in the sea ranching area.

Extracts from plants used in Chinese medicine can be good sources of fungicides for agricultural applications. In this study, we separated and identified antifungal compounds from four traditional Chinese medicine extracts and evaluated their antifungal activities

Accurate determination of Sarcosine (SAR) in urine with high sensitivity and selectivity is important, because it was recently recommended as a prospective biomarker for prostate cancer (PCa) and significant for the early identification of PCa. In this study, an electrochemical sensor based on Fe3O4 incorporated metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) @molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was constructed for SAR detection. Magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles embedded zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) was used as the support of MIP. MIP provides specific recognition sites for template molecules SAR and MOFs increase the rate of mass transfer and adsorption capacity due to the porous structure. The synthesized super-magnetic Fe3O4@ZIF-8@MIP was self-assembled onto an Au electrode in magnetic field and used as the sensing unit of electrochemical sensor. Cyclic voltammetry was used to monitor the electrochemical behavior, and the binding of SAR resulted in a reduction in the measured current. The results revealed a wide linear range from 1 to 100 pM towards trace SAR determination, with extremely low limit of detection down to 0.4 pM. In conclusion, the Fe3O4@ZIF-8@MIP based sensor provides a selective, sensitive, and convenient method for SAR diagnosis and other cancer marker detection.

Objective To compare the efficacy and safety of percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic discectomy (PTED) and fenestration discectomy (FD) for posterior ring apophyseal fractures (PRAF). Methods This study was a retrospective cohort control study. A total of 96 patients with lumbar PRAF who underwent surgical treatment at the Henan Provincial People's Hospital of Henan University from September 2013 to December 2017 were retrospectively examined, of which 51 were treated by PTED and 45 by FD. The average age of those in the PTED group was 28.24 years, including 38 males and 13 females. The average age of those in the FD group was 28.07 years, with 33 males and 12 females. Operation time, total blood loss, hospitalization days, preoperative and postoperative visual analog scale (VAS), and Oswestry disability index (ODI) scores were evaluated. Modified MacNab criteria were used to evaluate the clinical effect at the last follow‐up. Results Both operations were successful and no serious complications occurred. All patients were followed up for 12–30 (average 16.7 ± 3.2) months, and no patients were lost to follow‐up. No statistically significant difference was found in the mean age and gender between the PTED group and the FD group (P 0.05). In the PTED group, 2 patients developed a transient nerve stimulation symptom within 1 day after surgery and 1 patient had recurrence at 3 months after surgery. In the FD group, 2 patients had severe dural ruptures due to adhesion during surgery, 1 patient developed infection complications, and 2 patients relapsed at 2 and 3 months after surgery. At the last follow‐up, the modified MacNab criteria for clinical effect were 93.3% and 94.1% in the FD and PTED groups, respectively. Conclusion While PTED has the same efficacy as FD for treating PRAF, it is associated with shorter operation time, less trauma, and quicker recovery.

As one of the main driving forces for the change in surface energy balance, land use and cover change affects the ecological climate through different levels of biogeochemical and physical processes. However, many studies on the surface energy balance are conducted from the perspective of biogeochemistry, ignoring biogeochemical processes. By using core methods such as the surface energy balance algorithm and Mann-Kendall trend test, we analyzed the surface energy balance mechanism and ecological climate effects of five land use types in the Huang-Huai-Hai Basin in China. The results showed that: (1) the net radiation and latent heat flux in the five land use types increased significantly, and their highest values were located in cropland areas and urban expansion areas, respectively. (2) The influence of net radiation on surface energy absorption was greater than latent heat flux. This relationship was more obvious in land use types that were greatly influenced by human activities. (3) The net surface energy intake in the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin showed a decreasing trend and decreased with the increase in human influence intensity, indicating that human activities weakened the positive trend in net surface energy intake and increased the warming effect. This study reveals the difference in energy budgets of different land use types under the influence of human activities. It is helpful for understanding how to formulate sustainable land management strategies, and it also provides a theoretical basis for judging the climate change trends and urban heat island effects in the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin from a biogeophysical perspective.

Extracts from plants used in Chinese medicine can be good sources of fungicides for agricultural applications. In this study, we separated and identified antifungal compounds from four traditional Chinese medicine extracts and evaluated their antifungal activities in vitro and in vivo. In vitro, honokiol extracted from Artemisia argyi showed broad-spectrum antimicrobial and mycelial inhibitory activity with EC50 in the range 3.56 − 33.85 μg/mL against eight plant pathogens. q-PCR indicated that honokiol might induce cell cancerisation and inhibit cellular respiration, which provided significant insights into honokiol function in tobacco resistance to molecular mechanisms of the phytopathogenic fungus Phytophthora nicotianae. In vivo, honokiol significantly decreased the rate of fungal infection in eggplants, potatoes, grapes, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers, and enhanced disease resistance in tobacco. Overall, our results indicate that honokiol has the potential to control a variety of fungal and oomycete diseases, and A. argyi could be a source of honokiol.

The environmentally responsible behaviors of residents and tourists are great significance to the protection of natural resources and sustainable development of ecotourism. This paper takes China’s Qilian Mountains National Park as the case place. By constructing a theoretical model of perceived value on environmentally responsible behavior and studying the relationship between residents’ and tourists’ perceived value, satisfaction and environmentally responsible behavior from both subject and object perspectives, the study shows that. Educational level and occupational distribution have significant effects on residents’ and tourists’ perceptions of ecotourism environmentally responsible behaviors, but age only has a significant effect on residents’ perceptions of ecotourism environmentally responsible behaviors. Gender differences do not affect residents’ and tourists’ perceptions of ecotourism environmentally responsible behaviors. The theoretical model between residents’ perceptions of environmentally responsible behaviors, environmentally responsible behaviors, and satisfaction was basically confirmed. Perceived environmentally responsible behaviors of tourists does not affect satisfaction. Satisfaction has a positive effect on tourists’ environmentally responsible behaviors. Perceived environmental responsibility of tourists has a significant positive effect on tourists’ environmentally responsible behaviors. The overall level of residents’ perception of environmentally responsible behaviors in ecotourism is higher than tourists’ perception. Residents and tourists have a poor perception of ecological and environmental protection policies. This paper expects to strengthen residents’ and tourists’ perceptions of ecologically responsible behaviors. Establishing the sentiment of satisfaction and commitment to environmental protection motivates residents and tourists to implement environmentally responsible behaviors and contribute to the sustainable development of ecotourism.

This study analyzed an ozone pollution episode that occurred in the summer of 2020 in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan, China, and quantified the contribution of local and surrounding area anthropogenic emissions to this episode based on the Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry (WRF/Chem) model. Simulation results showed that the WRF/Chem model is well suited to simulate the ozone concentrations in this area. In addition, four simulation scenarios (removing the emissions from the northern Zhengzhou, southwestern Zhengzhou, Zhengzhou local and southeastern Zhengzhou) were conducted to explore the specific contributions of local emissions and emissions from surrounding areas within Henan to this ozone pollution episode. We found that contributions from the northern, local, southwestern, and southeastern regions were 6.1%, 5.9%, 1.7%, and 1.5%, respectively. The northern and local emissions of Zhengzhou (only emissions from Zhengzhou) were prominent contributors within the simulation areas. In other words, during this episode, most of the ozone pollution in Zhengzhou appeared to be transported in from regions outside Henan Province.

Poverty is a chronic problem all over the world. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in 2012, the Chinese government has continuously increased its poverty alleviation efforts. In addition, absolute poverty in China was eliminated by the end of 2020. Tourism has played an important role in poverty alleviation. To explore the role of the tourism industry in reducing poverty, this paper takes the Liupan Mountain area of Gansu Province in western China, as a case site. An input–output evaluation index system was constructed, and a Super-SBM model was used to evaluate the tourism poverty alleviation efficiency in 40 districts and counties in the Liupan Mountain area from 2009 to 2018. The results show that the overall starting point of tourism poverty alleviation efficiency in the study area was high, which needed to be further optimized. The difference in tourism poverty alleviation efficiency among districts and counties tended to decrease in the time series. The restrictive factors were the lack of technological progress and lack of innovation. The spatial distribution of tourism poverty alleviation efficiency in the study area presented a pattern of high in the east and low in the west, high in the north and low in the south. In the future, the tourism poverty alleviation efficiency in the concentrated and contiguous destitute areas of the Liupan Mountain area in Gansu Province could be improved by cultivating the tourism industry, strengthening technological innovation, cultivating core growth poles, and exerting radiation effects.

Background: Arthritis with severe varus deformity remains a challenge in total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Until recently, surgeons aimed at a neutral lower limb alignment when performing a TKA. However, the impact of TKA on the ankle joint has been ignored. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review to assess the clinical and radiological changes in the ankle joint after TKA on knees with severe varus deformity.Methods: A systematic search was conducted in four English (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science) and four Chinese (CBM, VIP, CNKI, and Wan Fang Database) databases. Screening of literature and extraction of data were independently performed by two researchers. The modified methodological index for non-randomized studies (MINORS) was used to assess the quality.Results: A total of eight studies were eligible, namely, four prospective and four retrospective studies. TKA resulted in a negative clinical effect in the ankle joint in patients with ankle osteoarthritis. Seven studies reported changes in the mechanical tibiofemoral angle, and four studies reported radiological changes in the hindfoot. The mean score of the MINORS was 9.8 out of eight (9–11).Conclusion: As a result of the correction of the knee osteoarthritis with severe varus deformity following mechanically aligned TKA, the radiological malalignment of the ankle joint was improved. However, some patients experience increased ankle pain after undergoing TKA, especially, if there was a residual knee varus deformity, a stiff hindfoot with varus deformity, or ankle arthritis.

As the main driving force of global climate change, land use and land cover change (LUCC) can affect the surface energy balance and the interaction between the surface and atmosphere. This effect will cause further surface temperature changes. The Yellow River Basin is an important ecological security barrier in China. Therefore, exploring the impact of its LUCC on temperature changes can provide certain help for future land-use planning in the Yellow River Basin. Here, we conducted two numerical simulation experiments (Case2015 and Case1995) by using the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model to quantify the effect of LUCC in the Yellow River Basin on the summer 2 m air temperature (T2 m). The results showed that LUCC led to an overall warming trend in T2 m in the Yellow River Basin. Urban expansion caused T2 m to rise by approximately 0.3 °C to 0.6 °C. A warming effect was also identified in the areas where farmland and bare areas were converted to grassland, with T2 m increasing by around 0.4 °C.

Recently, the development of fluorescent probes has contributed to significant advances in cell biology and medical diagnostic imaging. In this work, we use biocompatible bovine hemoglobin (BHb) molecules to co-coat aggregation-induced emission (AIE) molecules amino tetraphenylethylene (TPE-NH2) and near-infrared emission molecules 2-(4-aminophenyl)-3-(4-(4-(diphenylamino)styryl)phenyl) fumaronitrile (TPAADFN), to get TPE-NH2/TPAADFN@BHb nanoparticles. Due to the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between the two fluorescent molecules, the prepared fluorescent nanoparticles have high fluorescence quantum efficiency. The prepared TPE-NH2/TPAADFN@BHb nanoparticles also have large Stokes shift, which helps to avoid the cross-talk between the absorption and emission of the particles themselves. This is beneficial to avoid the self-absorption of biological tissues and obtain very high detection sensitivity. Furthermore, due to the good biocompatibility of BHb, TPE-NH2/TPAADFN@BHb nanoparticles have good mono-dispersity, low toxicity and high brightness, which is very propitious in the application of bio-imaging.

Although High Performance Embedded Computing(HPEC) has been effectively analyzed on different platforms, there is still room for an in-depth analysis of thread level speculation (TLS), especially at the procedure level. This paper explores the potential parallelism of HPEC from procedure and loop level TLS techniques, and designs the corresponding analysis mechanism and data structures. Our aim is to show the improved performance of various applications used in HPEC. Results from our experiments demonstrate that: 1) the performance of all applications was relatively good, the best tdfir application achieves 221.8x speedup in procedure level speculation whilst a ct application gets a 13x speedup in loop level speculation; 2) HPEC programs can be accelerated by effectively utilizing the computing resources of 16 to 32 cores; 3) Applications, that contain multiple non-severe data-dependency procedure calls, are more suitable for developing parallelism using procedure level TLS technology.

Hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ) is an environment-friendly and efficient oxidant with a wide range of applications in different industries. Recently, the production of hydrogen peroxide through direct electrosynthesis has attracted widespread research attention, and has emerged as the most promising method to replace the traditional energy-intensive multi-step anthraquinone process. In ongoing efforts to achieve highly efficient large-scale electrosynthesis of H2 O2 , carbon-based materials have been developed as 2e- oxygen reduction reaction catalysts, with the benefits of low cost, abundant availability, and optimal performance. This review comprehensively introduces the strategies for optimizing carbon-based materials toward H2 O2 production, and the latest advances in carbon-based hybrid catalysts. The active sites of the carbon-based materials and the influence of coordination heteroatom doping on the selectivity of H2 O2 are extensively analyzed. In particular, the appropriate design of functional groups and understanding the effect of the electrolyte pH are expected to further improve the selective efficiency of producing H2 O2 via the oxygen reduction reaction. Methods for improving catalytic activity by interface engineering and reaction kinetics are summarized. Finally, the challenges carbon-based catalysts face before they can be employed for commercial-scale H2 O2 production are identified, and prospects for designing novel electrochemical reactors are proposed.

There is a close relationship between tourism efficiency and transport accessibility, but there is little research on the topic. This paper takes 17 administrative units in Hubei Province as the research object, evaluates their tourism efficiency from 2011 to 2017 and transportation accessibility in 2011 and 2017, and explores the temporal and spatial correlation between the two. The results showed that, from 2011 to 2017, tourism efficiency of Hubei province was high and steadily improving, space non-equilibrium gradually decreased, and differences shrank. In 2011 and 2017, the province had a good tourism transport accessibility, and the spatial distribution pattern was high in the east and low in the west. At the same time, tourism transport continued to improve, and spatial imbalance declined. In 2011 and 2017, the coupling and coordination of tourism efficiency and its decomposition efficiency and transport accessibility in Hubei Province were both good, indicative of the development of a tourism economy and the improvement of tourism transport facilities in all regions of the province. There is also a poor spatial matching of tourism efficiency and its decomposition efficiency with transport accessibility during the study period. This study suggested that the tourism efficiency and transport accessibility increased in Hubie province, but the coupling and spatial match remain not very good. Therefore, each region should improve the spatial match and coupling degree of tourism efficiency and transport accessibility, and enhance the sustainability of tourism development.

Attributes like texture, lobulation, malignancy, etc., are commonly used to describe the phenotype of a pulmonary nodule in computed tomography (CT) image, which can provide useful medical knowledge for the identification of early stage lung cancer. There may exist certain relations among these attributes, and some attributes may naturally imply or boost others that have been less comprehensively exploited in previous studies. In this paper, we explicitly model the relations among 11 attributes of nodules by way of transfer learning and extract a meta-structure that captures the transferabilities across deep features of these attributes. Specifically, a higher-order transfer learning scheme is proposed by involving three phases, i.e., semantic attribute-specific modeling, semantic attributes transfer modeling and pathologic attribute generalizing, to explore the strongest association across various attributes and to boost the nodule attribute predictions in chest CT images. The proposed approach has been evaluated on the 2632 nodules in the public Lung Image Database Consortium and Image Database Resource Initiative (LIDC-IDRI) dataset. The experimental results suggest that our higher-order transfer approach shows the superior predictive performance not only in the most of the semantic attributes compared with the schemes of learning from scratch and the first-order transfer but also for the pathologic attribute compared with the related studies. In addition, we demonstrate an attribute transfer graph to reveal which attributes combination can supply the most useful information to boost the predictive performance of target attributes.

Piezoelectric ceramics are of importance to the field of aerospace, electric and electronic. However, crack often happens on the surface of piezoelectric ceramics due to harsh working environment. The purpose of this article is to study the impacts of crack on the electro-mechanical response of a piezoelectric beam. Firstly, a finite element model of the piezoelectric cantilever beam was set up by using the software of ABAQUS. And subsequently, the mechanic and electric induced response of the cantilever beam was discussed. Thereafter, a cracked piezoelectric cantilever beam was developed. The effects of crack on the electro-mechanical response of a cantilever beam were studied. Results indicate that the electro-mechanical response is proportional to the input force and the input voltage. As crack propagates, the variation rule of the electro-mechanical response depends on the crack size. This conclusion is helpful to the prediction of crack size, and to provide a new idea for the prediction of the piezoelectrical structure life.

The efficient utilization of photocatalytic technology is essential for clean energy. Bismuth-based multimetal oxides (Bi2WO6, Bi2MoO6, BiVO4 and Bi4Ti3O12) have aroused widespread attention as a visible light responsive photocatalyst for hydrogen evolution due to their low cost, nontoxicity, modifiable morphology, and outstanding optical and chemical properties. Nevertheless, the photocatalytic activities of pure materials are unsatisfactory because of their relative small specific surface area, poor quantum yield, and the rapid recombination of photogenerated carriers. Therefore, some modification strategies, including morphological control, semiconductor combination, doping, and defect engineering, have been systematically studied to enhance photocatalytic H2 evolution activity in the past few years. Herein, we summarize the recent research progress on bismuth-based photocatalysts, pointing out the prospects, opportunities and challenges of bismuth-based photocatalysts. Eventually, we aims to put forward valuable suggestions for designing of bismuth-based photocatalysts applied in hydrogen production on the premise of consolidating the existing theoretical basis of photocatalysis.

The effective utilization of the abundant computation resources provided by Chip Multi-Processor (CMP? to speedup serial programs, has been received with various methods by many researchers making it a major research hotspot. However, embedded applications have not yet been thoroughly examined in thread level speculation (TLS), as compared to how researchers have focused and addressed other areas. In this paper, we propose kernel data structures of loop and procedure level speculation to accelerate serial programs. To verify the hypothesis, we choose some applications from Mibench, discuss codes and the impact of TLS technology features on the speedup such as coverage parallelism, dependence features, threads size, and core numbers. The experiment results prove that firstly, speculative thread level parallelism is better than instruction level parallel technology. Secondly, the best dijkstra application has a result 13.3x speedup in loop level speculation and a 29.7x speedup in procedure level. Thirdly, in the field of embedded applications, the TLS technology can effectively utilize resources of 4 to 8 core computing and procedure level speculation is better than loop level speculation.

Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is a biomarker for prostate cancer (PCa), and a specific and reliable detection technique of PSMA is urgently required for PCa early diagnosis. A Love wave sensor has been widely studied for real-time sensing and highly sensitive applications, but the sensing unit needs special handling for selective detection purpose. In this study, we prepared a versatile Love wave sensor functionalized with molecularly-imprinted polymers (MIP), PSMA as the template molecule. To enhance the specific template bindings of MIP in pure aqueous solutions, facile reversible addition/fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) precipitation polymerization (RAFTPP) was used to produce surface hydrophilic polymer brushes on MIP. The presence of hydrophilic polymer brushes on MIP improved its surface hydrophilicity and significantly reduced their hydrophobic interactions with template molecules in pure aqueous media. In detection process, the acoustic delay-line is confederative to a microfluidic chip and inserted in an oscillation loop. The real-time resonance frequency of the MIP-based Love wave sensor to different concentrations of PSMA was investigated. The limit of detection (LOD) for this Love SAW sensor was 0.013 ng mL−1, which demonstrates that this sensor has outstanding performance in terms of the level of detection.

General purpose computing applications have not yet been thoroughly explored in procedure level speculation, especially in the light-weighted profiling way. This paper proposes a light-weighted profiling mechanism to analyze speculative parallelism characterization in several classic general purpose computing applications from SPEC CPU2000 benchmark. By comparing the key performance factors in loop and procedure-level speculation, it includes new findings on the behaviors of loop and procedure-level parallelism under these applications. The experimental results are as follows. The best gzip application can only achieve a 2.4X speedup in loop level speculation, while the best mcf application can achieve almost 3.5X speedup in procedure level. It proves that our light-weighted profiling method is also effective. It is found that between the loop-level and procedure-level TLS, the latter is better on several cases, which is against the conventional perception. It is especially shown in the applications where their ‘hot’ procedure body is concluded as ‘hot’ loops. Category: Embedded computing

The evolution of Video-on-Demand (VOD) technologies have revolutionized the way watching TV changed from passive reception to user-empowering. Nowadays, with the high market-penetration level of Smart TV achieved in the globe, VOD has become one of the main online applications on TV. Nevertheless, as the number of users and media files grows rapidly on demand, the load balance and storage capacity of servers become the bottlenecks, and it is necessary to rebalance the load and mass storages to improve system performances and user experiences. In this paper, with cloud computing techniques integrated, we present reliable and scalable services for VOD system, which involves content service, streaming service and cloud storage service based on Hadoop Distribute File System (HDFS). These services are evaluated by LoadRunner that is a tool of behavior predication and performance load test. Through experiment performance test in the smart TV application, the concurrency and scalability of the proposed services methods and strategies are verified and analyzed.

© 2017 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This author accepted manuscript is made available following 24 month embargo from date of publication (July 2017) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policy, Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) are highly toxic to humans. The search for novel and effective methods and materials for detecting or removing these gas pollutants is becoming more important and urgent. With its high specific surface area, abundance, and variety of potential applications, phosphorene has attracted much research interest. In this study, density functional theory was used to study the interactions between a doped phosphorene sheet and a tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) molecule. The initial configurations of the TCDD and metallic (Ca or Ti) or nonmetallic (S and Se) dopants were investigated during the TCDD–phosphorene interaction study. Adsorption energy, isosurface of electron density difference, and density of states analysis were utilized to explore the interactions between TCDD and phosphorene. The results indicated that Ca dopant effectively improved the interaction between TCDD and phosphorene. Se dopant reduced the interaction between TCDD and phosphorene. Combining interactions between TCDD and the pristine, Ca-doped, and Se-doped phosphorenes, phosphorene could be a promising candidate for TCDD sensing and removal.

Good ecological Environment and Atmospheric Environment is an important part of human healthy growth and survival. With the acceleration of the urbanization process, bringing people a lot of material and spiritual enjoyment, but also increased water, soil and atmospheric environment and other serious pollution problems. Under the influence of greenhouse effect, global warming further aggravates the harm to people’s physical and mental health. In this paper, based on ZigBee and GIS technology, the content of real-time dynamic monitoring of urban atmospheric environment is deeply analyzed, and the positioning and targeted warning of pollution sources of solid pollution particles and pollution gases in the city are carried out to further prevent the spread of pollution accidents.

Applications typically exhibit extremely different performance characteristics depending on the accelerator. Back propagation neural network (BPNN) has been parallelized into different platforms. However, it has not yet been explored on speculative multicore architecture thoroughly. This paper presents a study of parallelizing BPNN on a speculative multicore architecture, including its speculative execution model, hardware design and programming model. The implementation was analyzed with seven well-known benchmark data sets. Furthermore, it trades off several important design factors in coming speculative multicore architecture. The experimental results show that: (1) the BPNN performs well on speculative multicore platform. It can achieve similar speedup (17.7x to 57.4x) compared with graphics processors (GPU) while provides a more friendly programmability. (2) 64 cores' computing resources can be used efficiently and 4k is the proper speculative buffer capacity in the model.

The cycle performance of spinel LiMn 2 O 4 at 25 and 55 °C is improved by LaF 3 modification via a chemical deposition method. The physical and electrochemical performances of pristine and LaF 3 -coated LiMn 2 O 4 cathode materials are investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and electrochemical measurements. The coated LiMn 2 O 4 with 2.92 wt% LaF 3 (LaF 3 -3-LMO) displays capacity retentions of 90.1% and 84.2% at 25 and 55 °C, respectively, after 100 cycles, much higher than those of pristine LiMn 2 O 4 , 72.7% and 54.8%. The concentration of manganese dissolved from LaF 3 -3-LMO in electrolyte is much lower than that from pristine LiMn 2 O 4 . The analysis of AC impedance indicates that the charge transfer resistance ( R ct ) and the increase of R ct for LaF 3 -3-LMO during cycling are much lower than those for pristine LiMn 2 O 4 . The significantly improved electrochemical performance of the LaF 3 -coated LiMn 2 O 4 can be attributed to the reduction of manganese dissolution in electrolyte and charge transfer resistance with the help of LaF 3 coating.