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In recent years, the detection of offshore pile foundations has received wide attention in engineering. Compared with traditional methods, the O-cell test has unique advantages in offshore pile foundation detection. To study the load transfer characteristics of the O-cell method for pile testing in coastal soft soil foundation, this paper established the pile–soil numerical model to simulate the O-cell and traditional testing processes. The finite element method and equal displacement method are combined to calculate the conversion coefficient and ultimate bearing capacity, and the distribution forms of axial force, side friction resistance, and tip resistance are discussed. The research results show that the O-cell test method and the traditional method have different load transfer forms. By introducing the equal displacement method into the O-cell pile–soil model, the error between the equivalent conversion ultimate bearing capacity and the calculation result of the surcharge method is less than 0.5%, and the O-cell conversion coefficient can be accurately calculated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A meta-surface-based arbitrary bandwidth filter realization method for terahertz (THz) future communications is presented. The approach involves integrating a meta-surface-based bandstop filter into an ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass filter and adjusting the operating frequency range of the meta-surface bandstop filter to realize the design of arbitrary bandwidth filters. It effectively addresses the complexity of designing traditional arbitrary bandwidth filters and the challenges in achieving impedance matching. To underscore its practicality, the paper employs silicon substrate integrated gap waveguide (SSIGW) and this method to craft a THz filter. To begin, design equations for electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structures were developed in accordance with the requirements of through-silicon via (TSV) and applied to the design of the SSIGW. Subsequently, this article employs equivalent transmission line models and equivalent circuits to conduct theoretical analyses for both the UWB passband and the meta-surface stopband portions. The proposed THz filter boasts a center frequency of 0.151 THz, a relative bandwidth of 6.9%, insertion loss below 0.68 dB, and stopbands exceeding 20 GHz in both upper and lower ranges. The in-band group delay is 0.119 ± 0.048 ns. Compared to reported THz filters, the SSIGW filter boasts advantages such as low loss and minimal delay, making it even more suitable for future wireless communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yb:CALYGLO crystals with a dopant concentration of 5 at.% were successfully grown using the Czochralski method. The crystal samples were extensively studied to analyze their structure, room temperature and low temperature spectra, and laser properties. The highest absorption cross-section at 977 nm was calculated to be 1.83 × 10−20 cm2 for σ polarization and 5.32 × 10−20 cm2 for π polarization. Similarly, the emission cross-section was determined to be 1.38 × 10−20 cm2 at 980 nm for σ polarization and 2.28 × 10−20 cm2 at 981 nm for π polarization, with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 50.3 nm and 89.5 nm, respectively. The fluorescence lifetime of the 5 at.% Yb:CALYGLO crystal at 2F5/2 was measured to be 1.10 ms. Additionally, gain cross-sections were calculated for different β values. In the continuous laser experiment, the crystal demonstrated a laser output of 20.15 W at 1057 nm, with a slope efficiency of 53.3%. These experimental findings indicate that the lattice of Y3+ in the crystal is partially replaced by Lu3+ and Gd3+, resulting in a broader spectrum. Consequently, this crystal shows promising potential as a gain medium for ultrashort pulse laser crystals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problem of researching the reliability of dynamic-pressure mechanical seals, this paper proposes a reliability evaluation method for dynamic-pressure mechanical seals based on the Monte Carlo method. Based on the influence of the mass transfer coefficient on vaporization phase transition, a liquid film vaporization model of a hydrodynamic mechanical seal's end face is established, and the working condition parameters and groove structure parameters are designed using the experimental design method. The vaporization characteristics of the liquid film under various parameters are analyzed, and the functional functions of the vaporization characteristics are obtained by fitting. Combined with the maximum vapor phase volume fraction when the dynamic-pressure mechanical seal changes from the liquid miscible phase to the vapor miscible phase, the limit state equation of the vapor phase volume fraction is obtained. Finally, based on the Monte Carlo simulation method, the sealing reliability under specific groove structure parameters is calculated. Our research shows that this method has practicability and effectiveness for the reliability evaluation of mechanical seals with different working conditions and different groove structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wide range of applications and continuous demand for plastics is causing serious global environmental problems. Massive discharges of expanded polystyrene (EPS) are thought to be primarily responsible for the increased white pollution. Waste EPS has received wide attention in the development of innovative products. White light-emitting diodes pumped by a near-UV chip (n-UV WLEDs) are regarded as a very promising solid-state lighting. The performance of the n-UV WLED is largely determined by the properties of the tricolor luminescence materials. In this work, a blue-emitting polymer film for n-UV WLED applications was developed from waste EPS. First, using waste EPS as a raw material, benzimidazole groups were bonded to PS benzene rings by chemical reactions to obtain modified PS (PS-PBI). Then, a film based on PS-PBI was prepared by a simple solution drop-casting method. The PS-PBI film can emit intense blue light when irradiated with 365 nm light. An n-UV WLED pumped by a 365 nm UV chip was fabricated using PS-PBI film as the blue-emitting layer. The fabricated n-UV WLED shows excellent luminescence properties, such as a bright white light with color coordinates of (0.337, 0.331), a relatively low color temperature (CCT, 5270 K), and an especially high color rendering index (CRI, 93.6). The results prove that the blue-emitting PS-PBI film prepared from waste EPS is a very promising candidate for n-UV WLED applications. The strategy of converting waste EPS into a high-value-added blue-emitting film in this work provides a convenient and feasible approach for upcycling waste EPS, achieving significant environmental and economic benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of joint source-channel coding (JSCC) schemes using deep learning has accelerated the development of semantic communication research. Existing JSCC schemes based on deep learning (DL) are trained on a fixed signal-to-noise ratio (SNR); however, these trained models are not designed for scenarios in which the SNR is dynamic. Therefore, a novel semantic adaptive model for semantic communication—called joint source-channel coding with adaptive models (AMJSCC)—that has a semantic adaptive model selection (SAMS) module is proposed. The joint source-channel encoding (JSCE) model and the joint source-channel decoding (JSCD) model adapt according to both real-time channel conditions and system available computational power resources. Furthermore, residual networks with different layers are investigated to further improve the accuracy of information recovery. Simulation results demonstrate that our model can achieve higher recovery similarity and is more robust and adaptive to the SNR and communication resources. Meanwhile, compared to the state-of-the-art deep JSCC methods, it reduces storage space and communication resource consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to derive sodium abundances and investigate the effects of non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) on the formation of H-band Na I lines, we update the sodium atomic model by incorporating collision rates with hydrogen from new quantum-mechanical calculations. The differential Na abundances for 13 sample stars are obtained by analyzing high-resolution H-band spectra from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) and optical spectra under both local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) and NLTE conditions. Consistent abundances from both bands suggest that our updated atomic model is valid for studying the formation of H-band Na I lines. Our calculations show that, in our stellar parameter space, NLTE effects are negative and can result in corrections larger than −0.4 dex on optical lines. The corrections on H-band Na I lines are typically small, within about 0.05 dex, but not negligible if accurate sodium abundance is desired. We note that the [Na/Fe] ratios favor the theoretical galactic chemical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The total radiated power (TRP) has been stipulated as the spurious emission limit for a mmWave terminal. Angular sampling is crucial for ensuring the accuracy of the measurement of the TRP of spurious emissions while improving measurement efficiency. In this study, we investigate the sampling requirements for different TRP measurement methods. A novel algorithm based on the statistical analysis of the measurement uncertainty caused by the sampling step is proposed. Specifically, the HPBW of the entire machine radiation pattern is considered instead of that of a simple antenna array. This study was conducted in strict compliance with regulatory requirements to ensure that the statistical algorithm was more closely aligned with practical testing. Based on this, the maximum sampling steps allowed by different terminal models while maintaining measurement accuracy were analyzed. The simulation results demonstrate that negligible measurement uncertainty was produced when the sampling step of the full spherical grid method was less than 6 ∘ . However, for the two-cut and the three-cut methods, a maximum of 2 dB of measurement uncertainty should be considered. These findings are valuable inputs for the ongoing work on electromagnetic compatibility testing and standardization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, the demand for accurate indoor positioning at a low cost is increasing. Based on the architecture of networking passive radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, research into passive location algorithms is important for finding a location solution with ultra-low cost, easy implementation, and no required maintenance. In this paper, TDACC (time difference of arrival with conic curves) based on signal propagation time is proposed, which breaks down the positioning problem into solving the intersection of an ellipse and a hyperbola. The results indicate that this method has a positioning error of 0 m in the absence of signal interference. When the time delay fluctuates to 1 ns and 2 ns, the average errors of TDACC are 0.19 m and 0.33 m, respectively. Different from other time-based localization methods, the proposed method only requires two distribution nodes without time synchronization, which reduces the system cost. These results will help to promote the deeper semantic communication level fusion of passive RFID. By improving the coordinate positioning in the semantic prior knowledge base, this method will lead to more efficient and accurate industry applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, based on the information entropy and spatio-temporal correlation of sensing nodes in the Internet of Things (IoT), a Spatio-temporal Scope Information Model (SSIM) is proposed to quantify the scope of the valuable information of sensor data. Specifically, the valuable information of sensor data decays with space and time, which can be used to guide the system to make efficient sensor activation scheduling decisions for regional sensing accuracy. A simple sensing and monitoring system with three sensor nodes is investigated in this paper, and a single-step scheduling decision mechanism is proposed for the optimization problem of maximizing valuable information acquisition and efficient sensor activation scheduling in the sensed region. Regarding the above mechanism, the scheduling results and approximate numerical bounds on the node layout between different scheduling results are obtained through theoretical analyses, which are consistent with simulation. In addition, a long-term decision mechanism is also proposed for the aforementioned optimization issues, where the scheduling results with different node layouts are derived by modeling as a Markov decision process and utilizing the Q-learning algorithm. Concerning the above two mechanisms, the performance of both is verified by conducting experiments using the relative humidity dataset; furthermore, the differences in performance and limitations of the model are discussed and summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spectral features (SFs) and texture features (TFs) extracted from optical remote sensing images can capture the structural composition and growth information of forests, and combining remote sensing variables with a few ground measurement samples is a common method for mapping forest stock volume (FSV). However, the accuracy of mapping FSV using optical images with a high spatial resolution (one meter or sub-meters) is often lower than medium resolutions (larger than 10 m) using the same types of features and approaches. To overcome the limitations of high spatial resolution images in mapping FSV, down-scaled images with spatial resolution ranging from 1 to 30 m were obtained by GF-2 image to interpret the relationships between spatial resolutions of features and the accuracy of mapping FSV, and combination strategies of variables with various spatial resolutions were proposed to improve the accuracy of mapping FSV. The results show that the spatial resolution of features significantly affects the performance of employed models in estimating FSV, the sensitivity between SFs and FSV gradually increases with the decreasing of spatial resolution, and the optimal spatial resolutions of two types of features (SFs and TFs) are not synchronized in mapping forest FSV. After using combination strategies of variables with various spatial resolutions, the accuracy of mapping FSV is significantly higher than those derived from variable sets with the same spatial resolutions. It is proved that TFs derived from GF-2 images have great potential to improve the accuracy of mapping FSV, and the contribution of features depends on the approaches of extracting and combination strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The clinical benefits of targeting programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) in various cancers represent a strategy for the treatment of immunosuppressive diseases. Here, it was demonstrated that the expression levels of PD-L1 in cells were greatly upregulated in response to H1N1 influenza A virus (IAV) infection. Overexpression of PD-L1 promoted viral replication and downregulated type-I and type-III interferons and interferon-stimulated genes. Moreover, the association between PD-L1 and Src homology region-2, containing protein tyrosine phosphatase (SHP2), during IAV/H1N1 infection was analyzed by employing the SHP2 inhibitor (SHP099), siSHP2, and pNL-SHP2. The results showed that the expressions of PD-L1 mRNA and protein were decreased under SHP099 or siSHP2 treatment, whereas the cells overexpressing SHP2 exhibited the opposite effects. Additionally, the effects of PD-L1 on the expression of p-ERK and p-SHP2 were investigated in PD-L1-overexpressed cells following WSN or PR8 infection, determining that the PD-L1 overexpression led to the decreased expression of p-SHP2 and p-ERK induced by WSN or PR8 infection. Taken together, these data reveal that PD-L1 could play an important role in immunosuppression during IAV/H1N1 infection; thus, it may serve as a promising therapeutic target for development of novel anti-IAV drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tree crown diameter (CD) values, relating to the rate of material exchange between the forest and the atmosphere, can be used to evaluate forest biomass and carbon stock. To map tree CD values using meter-level optical remote sensing images, we propose a novel method that interprets the relationships between the spectral reflectance of pixels and the CD. The approach employs the spectral reflectance of pixels in the tree crown to express the diversity of inclination angles of leaves based on the radiative transfer model and the spatial heterogeneity of these pixels. Then, simulated and acquired GF-2 images are applied to verify the relationships between spatial heterogeneity and the tree CD. Meanwhile, filter-based and object-based methods are also employed to extract three types of variables (spectral features, texture features, and spatial heterogeneity). Finally, the tree CD values are mapped by four models (random forest (RF), K-nearest neighbor (K-NN), support vector machine (SVM), and multiple linear regression (MLR)), using three single types of variables and combinations of variables with different strategies. The results imply that the spatial heterogeneity of spectral reflectance is significantly positively correlated with tree CD values and is more sensitive to tree CD values than traditional spectral features and textural features. Furthermore, the ability of spatial heterogeneity to map tree CD values is significantly higher than traditional variable sets after obtaining stable features with appropriate filter window sizes. The results also demonstrate that the accuracy of mapped tree CD values is significantly improved using combined variable sets with different feature extraction methods. For example, in our experiments, the R2 and rRMSE values of the optimal results ranged from 0.60 to 0.66, and from 15.76% to 16.68%, respectively. It is confirmed that spatial heterogeneity with high sensitivity can effectively map tree CD values, and the accuracy of mapping tree CD values can be greatly improved using a combination of spectral features extracted by an object-based method and spatial heterogeneity extracted by a filter-based method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the efficiency of polycrystalline silicon solar cells, process optimization is a key technology in the photovoltaic industry. Despite the efficiency of this technique to be reproducible, economic, and simple, it presents a major inconvenience to have a heavily doped region near the surface which induces a high minority carrier recombination. To limit this effect, an optimization of diffused phosphorous profiles is required. A "low-high-low" temperature step of the POCl3 diffusion process was developed to improve the efficiency of industrial-type polycrystalline silicon solar cells. The low surface concentration of phosphorus doping of 4.54 × 1020 atoms/cm3 and junction depth of 0.31 μm at a dopant concentration of N = 1017 atoms/cm3 were obtained. The open-circuit voltage and fill factor of solar cells increased up to 1 mV and 0.30%, compared with the online low-temperature diffusion process, respectively. The efficiency of solar cells and the power of PV cells were increased by 0.1% and 1 W, respectively. This POCl3 diffusion process effectively improved the overall efficiency of industrial-type polycrystalline silicon solar cells in this solar field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Lymphatic vessels are low-pressure, blind-ended tubular structures essential in maintaining tissue fluid homeostasis, immune cell transport, and lipid transport. More and more evidence showed that lymphangiogenesis might be closely related to the development of many diseases, and the intervention of lymphangiogenesis may be a new direction of disease treatment. This review aims to discuss the molecular mechanisms of lymphangiogenesis, the effect of lymphangiogenesis on tumor immune tolerance, the emerging role of meningeal lymphatics and cardiac lymphatics, and the promising applications of lymphangiogenesis in immunotherapy and bioengineering materials. The lymphatic system is a channel for fluid transport and cell migration, but it has always been controversial in promoting and suppressing cancer. VEGFC/VEGFR3 signaling has long been recognized as a major molecular driver of lymphangiogenesis. However, many studies have shown that the neural network of lymphatic signaling is complex. Lymphatic vessels have been found to play an essential role in the immune regulation of tumor metastasis and cardiac repair. This review describes the effects of lipid metabolism, extracellular vesicles, and flow shear forces on lymphangiogenesis. Moreover, the pro-tumor immune tolerance function of lymphatic vessels is discussed, and the tasks of meningeal lymphatic vessels and cardiac lymphatic vessels in diseases are further discussed. Finally, the value of conversion therapy targeting the lymphatic system is introduced from the perspective of immunotherapy and pro-lymphatic biomaterials for lymphangiogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labeled as a fast-growing tree species, eucalyptus has outstanding carbon sequestration capacity. Forest stock volume (FSV) is regarded as an important parameter for evaluating the quality of planted eucalyptus forests. However, it is an intractable problem to map FSV of planted eucalyptus forests using optical images because of growth characteristics of the crown and low saturation levels. To improve the accuracy of FSV in planted eucalyptus forests, time series Landsat 8 OLI (LC8) images and ZY-3 stereo images were acquired in the study area. Additionally, then, three composite images were proposed using acquired Landsat 8 OLI images based on the size and shape of eucalyptus crowns, and several spectra variables were extracted from these composite images. Furthermore, corrected canopy height model (CCHM) was also extracted from ZY-3 stereo images. Meanwhile, four models (random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbor (KNN), and multiple linear regression (MLR)) were used to estimate the FSV with various variable sets using the importance of the alternative variables ranked by RF. The results show that the sensitivity between proposed spectral variables and FSV is significantly improved using proposed composed images based on the growth characteristics of the crown, especially for young eucalyptus forests. After adding CCHM and stand age to the optimal variable set, the average relative root mean square error (rRMSE) of estimated FSV decreased from 41.01% to 29.94% for single LC8 images and from 32.64% to 26.47% for proposed composite LC8 images, respectively. After using the variable set extracted from composite LC8 images, the number of samples with overestimated FSV was significantly decreased for the young forest. Furthermore, forest height plays an important role in improving the accuracy of mapping FSV, whether young or mature eucalyptus forest. It was also proved that composite images related to crown close and CCHM have great potential to delay the saturation phenomenon for mapping FSV in planted eucalyptus forest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a security defense technique to protect networks from attacks, a network intrusion detection model plays a crucial role in the security of computer systems and networks. Aiming at the shortcomings of a complex feature extraction process and insufficient information extraction of the existing intrusion detection models, an intrusion detection model named the FCNN-SE, which uses the fusion convolutional neural network (FCNN) for feature extraction and stacked ensemble (SE) for classification, is proposed in this paper. The proposed model mainly includes two parts, feature extraction and feature classification. Multi-dimensional features of traffic data are first extracted using convolutional neural networks of different dimensions and then fused into a network traffic dataset. The heterogeneous base learners are combined and used as a classifier, and the obtained network traffic dataset is fed to the classifier for final classification. The comprehensive performance of the proposed model is verified through experiments, and experimental results are evaluated using a comprehensive performance evaluation method based on the radar chart method. The comparison results on the NSL-KDD dataset show that the proposed FCNN-SE has the highest overall performance among all compared models, and a more balanced performance than the other models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A plasma jet-triggered gas switch (PJT-GS) has been developed as an important piece of equipment to operate in an ± 800 kV ultra-high voltage direct current transmission system (UHV DC) to achieve grid system protection and control. The crucial factors that would affect its operational performance, such as the current level the PJT-GS could withstand and the gas gap distance between the two rotating electrodes, are comparatively studied in the present work by analysing the arc dynamic characteristics. The rotating electrode used in the PJT-GS is designed with a helical-slotted structure, and the arc can be rotated circularly driven by the produced transverse magnetic field (TMF) along the electrode edge. The objective of such research is to provide a thorough study of the arc dynamic behaviour during the current flowing process of the PJT-GS and also to characterise the physical mechanism that affects the arc rotation and the PJT-GS operation performance. The magnetohydrodynamic-based (MHD) approach is applied by establishing a 3D arc model. Following such a study, the variation of arc characteristics under different operation conditions could be thoroughly determined and it also could provide the guidance for the PJT-GS optimum design reasonably to support its corresponding engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metallization of polyetherimide (PEI) is widely considered to enhance its surface properties and enhance its application in engineering fields; however, adhesion is a key factor in determining the reliability of PEI metallization. A Ni/Cu/Ni multilayer coating was successfully manufactured on a batch of PEI resin reinforced with glass fibers by a two-step metallization process, including sandblasting and activation/acceleration. The microstructure and morphology of the top-surface and cross-section of the coatings were observed by scanning electron microscopy. The chemical state and composition of the deposits were characterized by both X-ray photoelectron and energy-dispersive spectroscopy. The adhesion state was qualitatively evaluated by cross-cut tests with 3M tape. The surface roughness of the substrate significantly increased after the sandblasting process, which could improve the adhesion between the multilayer coating and the PEI substrate. After the standard activation process, the acceleration made an effect on the deposition of the initial Ni layer for electroless plating. The influence of acceleration on the appearance quality of metallization on the PEI substrate was studied and, at the same time, the mechanism of acceleration was investigated and addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herpes simplex virus type I (HSV-1) infection is a potential risk factor involved in the Amyloid β (Aβ) associated neuropathology. However, further understanding of the neuropathological effects of the HSV-1 infection is hampered by the limitations of existing infection models due to the distinct differences between human brains and other mammalians' brains. Here we generated cerebral organoid models derived from pluripotent stem cells to investigate the HSV-induced Aβ associated neuropathology and the role of antiviral drugs in the phenotypic rescue. Our results identified that the HSV-1-infected cerebral organoids recapitulated Aβ associated neuropathology including the multicellular Aβ deposition, dysregulated endogenous AD mediators, reactive gliosis, neuroinflammation, and neural loss, indicating that cerebral organoids offer an opportunity for modeling the interaction of HSV-1 with the complex phenotypes across the genetic, cellular, and tissue levels of the human Alzheimer's disease (AD). Furthermore, we identified that two antiviral drugs, namely Ribavirin (RBV) and Valacyclovir (VCV), inhibited HSV-1 replication and rescued the neuropathological phenotypes associated with AD in the HSV-1-infected cerebral organoids, implying their therapeutic potential to slow down the progression of AD. Our study provides a high-fidelity human-relevant in-vitro HSV-1 infection model to reconstitute the multiscale neuropathological features associated with AD and discover therapeutic drug candidates relevant to the AD viral hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a method for use in estimating the state of charge (SOC) of lithium-ion batteries which is based on an electrochemical impedance equivalent circuit model with a controlled source. Considering that the open-circuit voltage of a battery varies with the SOC, an equivalent circuit model with a controlled source is proposed which the voltage source and current source interact with each other. On this basis, the radial basis function (RBF) neural network is adopted to estimate the uncertainty in the battery model online, and a non-linear observer based on the radial basis function of the RBF neural network is designed to estimate the SOC of batteries. It is proved that the SOC estimation error is ultimately bounded by Lyapunov stability analysis, and the error bound can be arbitrarily small. The high accuracy and validity of the non-linear observer based on the RBF neural network in SOC estimation are verified with experimental simulation results. The SOC estimation results of the extended Kalman filter (EKF) are compared with the proposed method. It improves convergence speed and accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal connectives play a crucial role in marking the sequence of events during language comprehension. Although existing studies have shown that sentence comprehension can be modulated by temporal connectives, they have mainly focused on languages with grammatical tense such as English. It thus remains unclear how temporal information is processed in tenseless languages. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine how world knowledge is retrieved and integrated in sentences linked by zhiqian (before) and zhihou (after) in Mandarin Chinese (e.g., After/Before going to the countryside, Grandpa went to the city because the air there was fresh and pure). The critical words (e.g., fresh) were either congruent or incongruent with world knowledge. Relative to the after-congruent sentences, the after-incongruent sentences evoked a P600 on critical words and a negativity on sentence-final words, whereas relative to before-congruent sentences, before-incongruent sentences showed no significant difference on critical words but a sustained negativity on sentence-final words. Additionally, before-congruent sentences elicited a larger sustained positivity (P600) than after-congruent sentences. The results suggest that before is more difficult to process than after in Mandarin Chinese, supporting the iconicity account of temporal relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pseudorabies virus (PRV) infection could cause severe histopathological damage via releasing multiple factors, including cytokines, peptides, etc. Here, peptidomic results showed that 129 peptides were identified in PRV-infected mouse lungs and were highly involved in the process of PRV infection. The role of one down-regulated biological peptide (designated as AGDP) during PRV infection was investigated. To verify the expression profiles of AGDP in response to PRV infection, the expression level of the precursor protein of AGDP mRNA was significantly decreased in PRV-infected mouse lungs and cells. The synthesized AGDP-treating cells were less susceptible to PRV challenges than the controls, as demonstrated by the decreased virus production and gE expression. AGDP not only inhibited the expression of TNF-α and IL-8 but also appeared to suppress the extracellular release of high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) by inhibiting the output of nuclear HMGB1 in cells. AGDP could also inhibit the degradation of IκBα and the phosphorylation levels of P65 after PRV infection. In total, our results revealed many meaningful peptides involved in PRV infection, thereby enhancing the current understanding of the host response to PRV infection, and how AGDP may serve as a promising candidate for developing novel anti-PRV drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a spiral groove liquid film vaporization model based on the viscosity–temperature equation, fluid internal friction, saturation temperature, and pressure relationship equation was established. Using a multiphase flow model based on the finite volume method, the influence of the change in the mass transfer coefficient on the vaporization of the liquid film was studied. Moreover, the influence law of structural parameter changes in liquid film vaporization characteristics and sealing performance was analyzed. The results indicate that, with an increase in the mass transfer coefficient, the average vapor phase volume fraction first increases and then gradually stabilizes. When calculating the average vapor phase volume fraction, it is necessary to consider the influence of the mass transfer coefficient, whereas its effect on the opening force and leakage can usually be neglected. Under the optimal mass transfer coefficient conditions, the average vapor phase volume fraction increases with an increase in the helix angle, groove-weir ratio, and groove depth. By comparison, with an increase in the groove-diameter ratio, the average vapor phase volume fraction first increases and then decreases. The opening force decreases with an increase in the helix angle, groove-to-weir ratio, and groove depth. On the other hand, it first decreases and then increases with an increase in the groove-diameter ratio. The leakage rate increases first and then stabilizes with an increase in the helix angle. Moreover, it increases continuously with an increase in the groove-diameter ratio, groove-weir ratio, and groove depth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cold roll forming is a continuous metal forming process used to produce a large variety of profiles. A significant product of cold roll forming is asymmetric profiles, whose application is expanding in the construction of cars, houses, bridges, etc. Torsion is one of the common defects in the cold roll forming process of asymmetric section steel and sometimes seriously affects cold roll forming products. With the development of the economy and technology, many asymmetric cold roll-formed parts are being gradually applied to automobiles. Three-dimensional finite element analysis models of 12 stands with 700L sheet material were carried out using the professional COPRA RF and MSC MARC software, taking the lower beam of an automobile as the research object. Five geometric factors of the lower side beam were researched, and the influence rules of different geometric elements on the forming torsion were analyzed. We found that with the increase of web width, flange width, and vertical edge height and the decrease of the corner radius and strip thickness, the torsion defects of cold roll forming were improved to different degrees. The results also showed that the width of the flange has the most significant effect on torsion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, 3D printing has received increasing attention from researchers. This technology overcomes the limitations of traditional technologies by printing precise and personalized scaffold with arbitrary shapes, pore structures, and porosities for the applications in various tissues. The cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) is extracted from Humulus Japonicus (HJS) and mixed with poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) to prepare a series of CNC/PCL composites for printing. Based on the analysis of the physical and chemical properties of the series of the CNC/PCL composites, an optimal mass ratio of CNC to PCL was obtained. The Solidworks was used to simulate the stretching and compression process of the scaffolds with three different patterns under an external force. The flow of nutrient solution in the scaffolds with different patterns was simulated by ANSYS FLUENT, and then a new optimization scaffold pattern with a concave hexagon shape was advised based on the simulation results. Collectively, the mechanical test results of the material and scaffold confirmed that the optimal filling amount of the CNC was 5%, and the scaffold pattern with concave hexagon shape exhibited better mechanical properties and suitable for the transport of cells and nutrients, which is expected to be more widely used in 3D printing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal cutting speeds are getting faster with the development of high-speed cutting technology, and with the increase in cutting speed, the strain rate will become larger, which makes the study of the metal cutting process more inconvenient. At the same time, with the increase in strain rate, the dislocation movement controlling the plastic deformation mechanism of metal will change from thermal activation to a damping mechanism, which makes the metal deformation behave more like a fluid. Therefore, it is necessary to explore new ways of studying machining from the perspective of fluid flow. Based on this, a fluid model of the metal cutting process is established, and a method for calculating the strain rate is proposed from the point of view of flow. The results of the simulation and measurements are compared and analyzed. The results show that the strain rate on the rake face will be affected by the friction between the chip and tool; the nearer the distance between the chip layer and tool rake face, the bigger the strain rate will be. The strain rate in the central shear plane is much larger than in other areas along the shear plane direction, and in which two ends are the biggest. It can achieve rougher, quantitative research. This shows it is feasible to study machining from the viewpoint of fluid flow, though it still needs a lot of theoretical support and experimental confirmation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A performance-driven sustainable urban design is an important step in adapting to local climates and improving outdoor comfort level. This study proposed investigating an urban layout optimization method, validated in an urban area in Shenyang City, a cold region, that comprises nine urban blocks. This study selected an urban block type and street width as optimization input indices and defined the percentage of acceptable universal thermal comfort index (UTCI) range as the objective. The genetic algorithm is applied to optimize and generate an urban block to maximize the percentage of acceptable UTCI range at urban block level and street level. When the comfort level is set as −17–20 °C, optimization can achieve 87.7% of acceptable UTCI in the urban block level and 90.3% at urban street level. To attain an urban layout with higher than 85% acceptable UTCI range, results found, in a cold region, multistory blocks are more suitable than high-rise blocks and open spaces; it would be better to place multistory blocks with high building enclosures on the north side to block cold wind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-precision disk resonator gyroscope has a high quality factor in order to improve the performance of the gyroscope, as the high quality factor can lead to a long starting time. In this paper, a control system of the driving loop of the disk MEMS resonant gyroscope with the quick start is designed. The control system has functions of quick frequency locking and fast step response. Coarse-precision mode transition system is designed for quick frequency locking. A large-small mode transition system is designed for fast step response. The correctness of the design is verified by circuit test. The test results show that the start-up time is reduced by over 80% compared with the traditional control loop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote sensing technology is becoming mainstream for mapping the growing stem volume (GSV) and overcoming the shortage of traditional labor-consumed approaches. Naturally, the GSV estimation accuracy utilizing remote sensing imagery is highly related to the variable selection methods and algorithms. Thus, to reduce the uncertainty caused by variables and models, this paper proposes a combined strategy involving improved variable selection with the collinearity test and the secondary ensemble algorithm to obtain the optimally combined variables and extract a reliable GSV from several base models. Our study extracted four types of alternative variables from the Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-2A image datasets, including vegetation indices, spectral reflectance variables, backscattering coefficients, and texture features. Then, an improved variable selection criterion with the collinearity test was developed and evaluated based on machine learning algorithms (classification and regression trees (CART), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), support vector regression (SVR), and artificial neural network (ANN)) considering the correlation between variables and GSV (with random forest (RF), distance correlation coefficient (DC), maximal information coefficient (MIC), and Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) as evaluation metrics), and the collinearity among the variables. Additionally, we proposed a secondary ensemble with an improved weighted average approach (IWA) to estimate the reliable forest GSV using the first ensemble models constructed by Bagging and AdaBoost. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed variable selection criterion efficiently obtained the optimal combined variable set without affecting the forest GSV mapping accuracy. Specifically, considering the first ensemble, the relative root mean square error (rRMSE) values ranged from 21.91% to 30.28% for Bagging and 23.33% to 31.49% for AdaBoost, respectively. After the secondary ensemble involving the IWA, the rRMSE values ranged from 18.89% to 21.34%. Furthermore, the variance of the GSV mapped by the secondary ensemble with various ranking methods was significantly reduced. The results prove that the proposed combined strategy has great potential to reduce the GSV mapping uncertainty imposed by current variable selection approaches and algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible resource scheduling and network forecast are crucial functions to enhance mobile vehicular network performances. However, BaseStations (BSs) and their computing unit which undertake the functions cannot meet the delay requirement because of limited computation capability. Offloading the time-sensitive functions to User Equipment (UE) is believed to be an effective method to tackle this challenge. The disadvantage of the method is offloading occupies communication resources, which deteriorate the system capability. To better coordinate offloading and communication, a multi-connectivity enhanced joint scheduling scheme for distributed computation offloading and communication resources allocation in vehicular networks is proposed in this article. Computation tasks are divided into many slices and distributed to UEs to aggregate the computation capability. A communication-incentive mechanism is provided for involving UEs to compensate the loss of UEs, while multi-connectivity is adopted to enhance the system throughput. We also defined offloading failure ratio as a conclusive condition for offloading size by analyzing the movement of UEs. By a two-step optimization, the co-scheduling of offloading size and throughput is solved. The system-level simulation results show that the offloading size and throughput of the proposed scheme are larger than comparisons when the time constraint is tight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dy3+-doped CaF2-SrF2 crystals with various Dy3+ dopant concentrations were synthesized by multicrucible temperature gradient technology (MC-TGT). Dy:CaF2-SrF2 crystals were fluorite structured and crystallized in cubic F m 3 ¯ m space group, as characterized by X-ray diffraction. The crystallographic site concentration was calculated from the measured density by Archimedes' hydrostatic weighing principle. The optical transmission reached over 90% with a sample thickness of 1.0 mm. The Sellmeier dispersion formula was obtained following the measured refractive index in a mid-IR range of 1.7–11 μm. Absorption coefficients of 6.06 cm−1 and 12.71 cm−1 were obtained at 804 nm and 1094 nm in 15% Dy:CaF2-SrF2 crystal. The fluorescence spectra of 15 at.% Dy:CaF2-SrF2 showed the strongest wavelength peak at 2919 nm with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 267 nm under an excitation wavelength of 808 nm. The fluorescence lifetimes were illustrated for different Dy3+ dopant levels of 5%, 10% and 15%. The results indicate that the Dy:CaF2-SrF2 crystal is a promising candidate for compact mid-IR lasers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single crystals fiber (SCF) of LuAG doped with 2.0 at.% thulium has been grown by using micro-pulling down (µ-PD) technique. A continuous-wave output power of 2.44 W was achieved with a slope efficiency of 11.7% using a 783-nm diode laser as pump source. The beam quality factors M2 were 1.14 and 1.67 in the x and y directions, respectively. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first report on the Tm:LuAG SCF laser. Using ray tracing analysis, the influence of laser performance by the pump intensity distribution in the SCF was also studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new adaptive fault estimation scheme is proposed for a class of hyperbolic partial differential equations in this paper. The multiplicative actuator and sensor faults are considered. There are two cases that require special consideration: (1). only one type of fault (actuator or sensor) occurs; (2). two types of faults occurred simultaneously. To solve the problem of fault estimation, three challenges need to be solved: (1). No prior information of fault type is known; (2). Unknown faults are always coupled with state and input; (3). Only one boundary measurement is available. The original plant is converted to Observer canonical form. Two filters are proposed and novel adaptive laws are developed to estimate unknown fault parameters. With the help of the proposed update laws, the true state of the faulty plant can be estimated by the proposed observers composed of two filters. By selecting a suitable Lyapunov function, it is proved that under unknown external disturbance, the estimation errors of state parameters and fault parameters decay to arbitrarily small value. Finally, the validity of the proposed observer and adaptive laws is verified by numerical simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate measurement of forest growing stem volume (GSV) is important for forest resource management and ecosystem dynamics monitoring. Optical remote sensing imagery has great application prospects in forest GSV estimation on regional and global scales as it is easily accessible, has a wide coverage, and mature technology. However, their application is limited by cloud coverage, data stripes, atmospheric effects, and satellite sensor errors. Combining multi-sensor data can reduce such limitations as it increases the data availability, but also causes the multi-dimensional problem that increases the difficulty of feature selection. In this study, GaoFen-2 (GF-2) and Sentinel-2 images were integrated, and feature variables and data scenarios were derived by a proposed adaptive feature variable combination optimization (AFCO) program for estimating the GSV of coniferous plantations. The AFCO algorithm was compared to four traditional feature variable selection methods, namely, random forest (RF), stepwise random forest (SRF), fast iterative feature selection method for k-nearest neighbors (KNN-FIFS), and the feature variable screening and combination optimization procedure based on the distance correlation coefficient and k-nearest neighbors (DC-FSCK). The comparison indicated that the AFCO program not only considered the combination effect of feature variables, but also optimized the selection of the first feature variable, error threshold, and selection of the estimation model. Furthermore, we selected feature variables from three datasets (GF-2, Sentinel-2, and the integrated data) following the AFCO and four other feature selection methods and used the k-nearest neighbors (KNN) and random forest regression (RFR) to estimate the GSV of coniferous plantations in northern China. The results indicated that the integrated data improved the GSV estimation accuracy of coniferous plantations, with relative root mean square errors (RMSErs) of 15.0% and 19.6%, which were lower than those of GF-2 and Sentinel-2 data, respectively. In particular, the texture feature variables derived from GF-2 red band image have a significant impact on GSV estimation performance of the integrated dataset. For most data scenarios, the AFCO algorithm gained more accurate GSV estimates, as the RMSErs were 30.0%, 23.7%, 17.7%, and 17.5% lower than those of RF, SRF, KNN-FIFS, and DC-FSCK, respectively. The GSV distribution map obtained by the AFCO method and RFR model matched the field observations well. This study provides some insight into the application of optical images, optimization of the feature variable combination, and modeling algorithm selection for estimating the GSV of coniferous plantations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long, robust hypocotyls are important for facilitating greenhouse transplant production. The use of far-red light at the end of the day (end-of-day far-red, EOD-FR) is known to prompt hypocotyl elongation, but the mechanism of EOD-FR-mediated hypocotyl elongation in pumpkin remains unclear. Here, we found that hypocotyl length, parenchymal cell size in hypocotyls, and plant IAA levels were significantly greater in pumpkin after EOD-FR treatment. This effect was counteracted by the application of the polar auxin transport inhibitor 1-N-naphthylphthalamic acid. Integrated transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis of pumpkin hypocotyls revealed that the expression of auxin-related genes changed significantly after EOD-FR treatment, and the contents of the auxin biosynthetic precursors tryptophan and indole were also significantly higher. Our results show that auxin plays an essential role in EOD-FR-mediated hypocotyl elongation, shed light on the mechanisms of EOD-FR mediated hypocotyl elongation, and provide a theoretical basis for the use of EOD-FR in facility cultivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"United in Science" is the recent slogan of the United Nations climate summit in 2020. A collective effort of institutional governance, energy resources utilization, foreign inclusion, and regional collaboration is required for the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) of achieving a clean environment. In reaching this objective, this study investigates the sustainably of Regulatory Quality (RQ), Energy Consumption per capita (ECpc), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and their interaction in reducing the Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) Emissions. This study considered 27 Asian economies, covering the more extensively undertaken regional investigation, in the time period from 2001 to 2018. The results of the two-step system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) show that RQ has a strong positive significant impact on GHGs emissions reduction. It further indicates that FDI inflows support the institutions to enhance their institutional capacities. Simultaneously, ECpc has negative impacts on GHGs emissions. Furthermore, RQ interaction with ECpc and FDI also have a strong significant positive impact on GHGs emissions reduction in Asia. The study concludes that the Asia region has been implementing aggressive and prudent policies towards environmental up-gradation to achieve sustainability. However, FDI inflows should be more allocated to environmental quality and energy efficacy to clean the climate and promote regional collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: To reduce feed costs, the exploration of feed resources is currently the main research direction. In the past, fiber feed was generally regarded as anti-nutritional factors. Recently, fiber has received special attention due to its many beneficial effects. Therefore, this study selected five common household and production wastes as fiber sources and added them to the diet of pregnant sows to explore the impact on sows and piglets. The results of this study indicated that adding corn gluten feed (CG) significantly improved the digestibility of sows and body weight (BW) of piglets, which provide evidence and insight for the application of corn gluten feed in gestation sow diets. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of increasing dietary neutral detergent fiber (NDF) levels on pregnant sows, and to select the best feed ingredients based on reproductive performance, plasma biochemistry parameters, colostrum and milk composition, and nutrient digestibility. Seventy-two multiparous sows were randomly allotted to six dietary treatment groups (n = 12). The feeding of chicory meal (CM), wheat bran (WB), corn gluten, and rice bran meal (RBM) increased the average weaning weight of piglets compared with the control (CON) group (p < 0.05). Supplementation with CG diet increased the sow BW, weight gain, and back fat thickness compared with WB and RBM on day 107 of gestation (p < 0.05). Furthermore, Supplementation with CG diet resulted in lower plasma urea nitrogen (PUN) and higher total protein (TP) concentrations in plasma (p < 0.05). Feeding CM diet and soybean curd residue (SCR) diet reduced the total protein and globulin, and supplementation with CM diet significantly increased the PUN (p < 0.05). The apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of crude protein (CP), crude fat (EE), calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), and acid detergent fiber (ADF) were decreased following the addition of CM, WB, or SCR to the diets (p < 0.05). The ATTD of NDF and ADF were significantly increased in the CG group (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the feeding of CG diet to sows have an excellent effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To create an intelligent surface region of interests (ROI) 3D quantitative inspection strategy a reality in the continuous casting (CC) production line, an improved 3D laser image scanning system (3D-LDS) was established based on binocular imaging and deep-learning techniques. In 3D-LDS, firstly, to meet the requirements of the industrial application, the CCD laser image scanning method was optimized in high-temperature experiments and secondly, we proposed a novel region proposal method based on 3D ROI initial depth location for effectively suppressing redundant candidate bounding boxes generated by pseudo-defects in a real-time inspection process. Thirdly, a novel two-step defects inspection strategy was presented by devising a fusion deep CNN model which combined fully connected networks (for defects classification/recognition) and fully convolutional networks (for defects delineation). The 3D-LDS' dichotomous inspection method of defects classification and delineation processes are helpful in understanding and addressing challenges for defects inspection in CC product surfaces. The applicability of the presented methods is mainly tied to the surface quality inspection for slab, strip and billet products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power amplifier (PA) nonlinearity is typically unique at the radio frequency (RF) front-end for particular emitters. It can play a crucial role in the application of specific emitter identification (SEI). In this paper, under the Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) multipath communication scenario, two data-aided approaches are proposed to identify multi-antenna emitters using PA nonlinearity. Built upon a memoryless polynomial model, the first approach formulates a linear least square (LLS) problem and presents the closed-form solution of nonlinear coefficients in a MIMO system by means of singular value decomposition (SVD) operation. Another alternative approach estimates nonlinear coefficients of each individual PA through nonlinear least square (NLS) solved by the regularized Gauss–Newton iterative scheme. Moreover, there are some practical discussions of our proposed approaches about the mismatch of the order of PA model and the rank-deficient condition. Finally, the average misclassification rate is derived based on the minimum error probability (MEP) criterion, and the proposed approaches are validated to be effective through extensively numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For positive integers s and t, the Ramsey number R (s , t) is the smallest positive integer n such that every graph of order n contains either a clique of order s or an independent set of order t. The triangle-free process begins with an empty graph of order n, and iteratively adds edges chosen uniformly at random subject to the constraint that no triangle is formed. It has been an important tool in studying the asymptotic lower bound for R (3 , t) . Cyclic graphs are vertex-transitive. The symmetry of cyclic graphs makes it easier to compute their independent numbers than related general graphs. In this paper, the cyclic triangle-free process is studied. The sizes of the parameter sets and the independence numbers of the graphs obtained by the cyclic triangle-free process are studied. Lower bounds on R (3 , t) for small t's are computed, and R (3 , 35) ≥ 237 , R (3 , 36) ≥ 244 , R (3 , 37) ≥ 255 , R (3 , 38) ≥ 267 , etc. are obtained based on the graphs obtained by the cyclic triangle-free process. Finally, some problems on the cyclic triangle-free process and R (3 , t) are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In areas with a dry and hot climate, factors such as strong solar radiation, high temperature, low humidity, dazzling light, and dust storms can tremendously reduce people's thermal comfort. Therefore, researchers are paying more attention to outdoor thermal comfort in urban environments as part of urban design. This study proposed an automatic workflow to optimize urban spatial forms with the aim of improvement of outdoor thermal comfort conditions, characterized by the universal thermal climate index (UTCI). A city with a dry and hot climate—Kashgar, China—is further selected as an actual case study of an urban block and Rhino & Grasshopper is the platform used to conduct simulation and optimization process with the genetic algorithm. Results showed that in summer, the proposed method can reduce the averaged UTCI from 31.17 to 27.43 °C, a decrease of about 3.74 °C, and reduce mean radiation temperature (MRT) from 43.94 to 41.29 °C, a decrease of about 2.65 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most promising micro-machining methods, electrochemical micro-machining is widely used in the field of metal micro-structures. The electrochemical micro-milling on Nickel-base superalloy by using high-speed spiral electrode was studied in detail. Firstly, the electric field and flow field models of micro-electrochemical milling are established and analyzed by the finite element method. Then, the milling profile was predicted and the effect of high-speed rotation of electrodes on electrolyte promotion and secondary electrolysis prevention were analyzed. Secondly, the influence of the main machining parameters, such as rotating speed, electrical parameters, and feed rate on machining precision and efficiency was analyzed experimentally. Finally, by optimizing the machining parameters, a series of micro-graphic structures with a width of about 150 μm were obtained on Nickel-base superalloy 718 by using the spiral electrode with a diameter of 100 μm. The experimental and simulation results show that the high-speed rotation of electrodes can greatly improve the machining efficiency and stability. It was proved that micro-electrochemical milling with the high-speed rotating electrode technique is an effective method for machining micro-metal parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remaining useful life (RUL) prediction has great importance in prognostics and health management (PHM). Relaxation effect refers to the capacity regeneration phenomenon of lithium-ion batteries during a long rest time, which can lead to a regenerated useful time (RUT). This paper mainly studies the influence of the relaxation effect on the degradation law of lithium-ion batteries, and proposes a novel RUL prediction method based on Wiener processes. This method can simplify the modeling complexity by using the RUT to model the recovery process. First, the life cycle of a lithium-ion battery is divided into the degradation processes that eliminate the relaxation effect and the recovery processes caused by relaxation effect. Next, the degradation model, after eliminating the relaxation effect, is established based on linear Wiener processes, and the model for RUT is established by using normal distribution. Then, the prior parameters estimation method based on maximum likelihood estimation and online updating method under the Bayesian framework are proposed. Finally, the experiments are carried out according to the degradation data of lithium-ion batteries published by NASA. The results show that the method proposed in this paper can effectively improve the accuracy of RUL prediction and has a strong engineering application value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two types of braised pork were prepared from self-made braised sauce added to Maillard reaction intermediate (MRI) and white granulated sugar, respectively. Descriptive sensory analysis and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) were conducted to investigate their differences in sensory and aroma compounds. The results showed that the effect of self-made braised sauce in braised pork was comparable to white granulated sugar. One-hundred-and-nine volatile flavor compounds were identified by GC-MS using headspace-solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and simultaneous distillation and extraction (SDE). Thirty-six odor active compounds with retention indexes ranging from 935–2465 were identified by aroma extract dilution analysis (AEDA). Additionally, their odor activity values (OAV) were calculated. It was found that 17 aroma compounds showed an OAV greater than 1. Among them, pentanal (almond, pungent), nonanal (fat, green), (E, E)-2,4-decadienal (fat, roast), phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorn, honey, sweet), dodecanal (lily, fat, citrus) and linalool (floral, lavender) reached the highest OAV values (>200), indicating a significant contribution to the aroma of two types of braised pork. These results indicated that the self-made braised sauce added with MRI could be used for cooking braised pork with good sensory characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analyses of texture evolution of cold rolled interstitial free (IF) steel sheets during annealing and recrystallization are presented, in which the dispersion curves of surface acoustic waves (SAW) excited by laser-induced transient thermal grating method are measured. The results show that the angular anisotropy of the SAW velocity changes due to the texture changes at different stages of recrystallization. The theoretically simulated angular dispersion of SAW velocity within individual crystal revealed that the change of SAW velocity is closely related to recrystallization texture evolution. A model for the angular dependence of the SAW velocity in textured polycrystalline IF steel with different oriented crystals is presented and the simulations are yielded, which show that the results agree with those of experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A courtyard is a traditional and popular construction feature found in China's urban buildings. This case study evaluates the performance of the traditional courtyard design of the Jiangnan Museum, located in Jiangsu Province. In the evaluation, the spatial layout of courtyards is adjusted, the aspect ratio is changed, and an ecological buffer space is created. To model and evaluate the performance of the courtyard design, this study applied the Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, Parabolic Hyperbolic Or Elliptic Numerical Integration Code Series (PHOENICS), for wind environment simulation, and the EnergyPlus-based software, DesignBuilder, for energy simulation. Results show that a good combination of courtyard layout and aspect ratio can improve the use of natural ventilation by increasing free cooling during hot summers and reducing cold wind in winters. The results also show that ecological buffer areas of a courtyard can reduce cooling loads in summer by approximately 19.6% and heating loads in winter by approximately 22.3%. The study provides insights into the optimal design of a courtyard to maximize its benefit in regulating the microclimate during both winter and summer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The layout relationship between the public space system and the natural system of cities determines the trend of urban spatial forms. From the perspective of the integration of landscape architecture and urban design discipline, this paper generalizes three restriction/dependence relationship modes between urban public space and natural landscape layout: (1) overlapping mode, (2) separation mode, and (3) the mode of edge combination. Using Zurich, Switzerland, as a case study, this paper quantitatively explores the layout relationship between public space and natural landscape using the location quotient method. The research findings reveal an obvious layer distribution trend of Zurich urban public space and natural factors: the public space and mountain layout have a clear separation relationship. The regressive equation is PQ = −0.188lnMQ + 0.660, forming the mutually supplementary mechanism of the advantageous resources of public activities. The Zurich model shows that when a proper relationship is established among the natural system and the urban public space, human activities, and the public activity centers of the city, the new system provides significant ecological and social benefits. This finding provides an exemplary reference for urban construction in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work reports the modification of egg shell (ES) particles by using stearic acid (SA) and their reinforcement in the epoxy matrix. The ES treatment via SA was optimized, the optimum conditions for concentration, temperature, and time were found to be 2.5%, 85 °C, and 50 min, respectively. The untreated ES (UES) and treated ES (TES) particles were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), particle size distribution, and contact angle. FTIR confirmed the chemical modification of SA on ES surface and DSC reflects an endothermic peak at 240 °C. XRD reveal a decrease in crystal size and crystallinity, while contact angle increases to 169° from 42°. The SEM observations clearly reflect a distinct decrease and separation of small domains of ES particles thus improving an increased surface area. Afterwards, the UES and TES particles were reinforced in epoxy at 15 and 20 weight (wt.) % loading. The tensile tests confirmed a 22% increase in elongation as compared to pure epoxy due to the hydrogen bonding between TES particles and matrix. The lowest brittleness was recorded for TES/epoxy composites on 20 wt % loading. The TGA confirmed the improved thermal stabilities at 20 wt % loading of TES particles in matrix, the improvements in T5%, T10%, and T20% values were recorded as 33, 26, and 21 °C higher than the corresponding values for neat matrix. The TES/epoxy composites on 20 wt % showed 41% increase in storage modulus as compared to the pristine epoxy, and cross-link density reaches to 2.71 × 10−3 from 1.29 × 10−3 mol/cm3 for neat matrix. The decline in tan δ height and improvement in Tg were also observed. The best adhesion effectiveness was recorded for TES/epoxy composites. This simple and economical modification technique can enhance the application of ES particles in various polymeric coating and composites applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we demonstrate the broadband spectra and efficient laser performance of a disordered Nd:Sr0.7La0.3Mg0.3Al11.7O19 (Nd:ASL) crystal. The polarized absorption and emission spectra were characterized and calculated with the Judd–Ofelt (J–O) theory, and the results show that this crystal has relatively large σ polarized absorption and emission cross sections, with peak emission cross sections of 4.5 × 10−20 cm2 at 1051 nm and an emission width of 30 nm at 1074 nm, which are favorable for pulsed lasers. The laser-diode-pumped continuous-wave (CW) and passively Q-switched lasers at 1051 nm were realized for the first time to our best knowledge. For CW laser, the maximum output power was 1.95 W with the slope efficiency of 42.6%, and for the passive Q-switching, the maximum output power was 0.73 W with the pulse width of 7.96 ns and peak power of 5.64 W. The results demonstrate that Nd:ASL crystal is a potential candidate for lasers, especially high-peak pulsed lasers such as Q-switching and mode-locking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]