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Participating in the Australian democratic system is not straightforward for newcomers. New research finds Australia should invest more effort into ensuring new migrants understand the voting system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latency-sensitive applications for the Internet of Things often require performance guarantees that contemporary wireless networks fail to offer. The cause of this shortcoming lies in the inherent complexity and inefficiency of networking abstractions such as routing, medium access control, and store-and-forward packet switching, which coordinate multiple nodes across a wireless network. This research highlight describes a novel networking paradigm that aims to enable a new class of latency-sensitive applications by systematically breaking these abstractions. The paradigm, referred to as a symbol-synchronous bus, has nodes that concurrently transmit optical signals and thus delivers a wireless mesh network with a performance envelope resembling that of a wired bus in terms of deterministic latency and throughput. A physical prototype, called Zero-Wire, confirms that symbol-synchronous buses unlock a novel end-to-end performance envelope for wireless mesh networks: our 25-node test bed achieves 19kbps of contention-agnostic goodput, latency under 1 ms for two-byte frames across four hops, jitter on the order of 10s of ms, and a base reliability of 99%. These early results suggest a bright future for the under-explored area of optical wireless mesh networks in delivering ubiquitous connectivity through a low-complexity physical layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) is a burgeoning imaging modality that facilitates the reconstruction of position and concentration of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. Its potential in clinical applications is substantial, leading to an increasing demand for larger bore sizes in MPI systems. However, the challenge lies in maintaining high resolution, sensitivity, and real-time imaging advantages in larger systems. In this article, we present the design of a 3-D MPI system tailored for nonhuman primates (NHP-MPI) with a bore size of 190 mm. The application of a 3-D digital-scanned focus field is applied to obtain highly sensitive imaging, and the system operates cooling-free under low gradient conditions. In imaging experiments involving a macaque’s brain, our system demonstrated good quantitative performance. The 3-D MPI image yielded satisfactory results for fusion with other structural imaging modalities.

While Stimulator-of-interferon genes (STING) is an innate immune adapter cruicial for sensing cytosolic DNA and modulating immune microenvironment, its tumor-promoting role in tumor survival and immune evasion remains largely unknown. Here we reported that renal cancer cells are exceptionally dependent on STING for survival and evading immunosurveillance via suppressing ER stress-mediated pyroptosis. We found that STING is significantly amplified and upregulated in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), and its elevated expression is associated with worse clinical outcomes. Mechanically, STING depletion in RCC cells specifically triggers activation of the PERK/eIF2α/ATF4/CHOP pathway and activates cleavage of Caspase-8, thereby inducing GSDMD-mediated pyroptosis, which is independent of the innate immune pathway of STING. Moreover, animal study revealed that STING depletion promoted infiltration of CD4+and CD8+T cells, consequently boosting robust antitumor immunity via pyroptosis-induced inflammation. From the perspective of targeted therapy, we found that Compound SP23, a PROTAC STING degrader, demonstrated comparable efficacy to STING depletion both in vitro and in vivo for treatment of ccRCC. These findings collectively unveiled an unforeseen function of STING in regulating GSDMD-dependent pyroptosis, thus regulating immune response in RCC. Consequently, pharmacological degradation of STING by SP23 may become an attractive strategy for treatment of advanced RCC.

Previous studies have reported the formation of n+ regions in amorphous oxide semiconductor (AOS) thin-film transistors (TFTs) upon doping hydrogen (H) to the AOS channel layer from the deposition atmosphere of interlayer dielectrics (ILD) e.g. by hydrogenated plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. In this work, we applied bottom-gate oxide engineering wherein N2O plasma treatment on a bottom-gate oxide suppresses the hydrogen diffusion to the amorphous IGZO (a-IGZO), thus minimizing the short-channel effect. The lateral hydrogen diffusion length can be remarkably reduced results show that the use of bottom-gate oxide engineering improved the reliability of the IGZO TFTs.

This article presents the first experimental demonstration of an energy-efficient electronic-photonic co-designed transceiver circuit heterogeneously 3D co-integrated with high-density, low-parasitic Direct Bond Interconnect (DBI) featuring 32-channel microdisk modulator/filter based optical transceivers for Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) scheme. The silicon photonic chip is fabricated in AIM Photonics' integrated photonic technology, and the optical transceiver chip is fabricated in GlobalFoundries 12 nm FinFET process. The optical transmitter consumes 2.823 mW at 18 Gb/s, with 1.2 Vppd electrical modulation differential swing, and achieves an extinction ratio of 7 dB. The optical receiver utilized quarter-rate sampling via Injection-Locked Oscillator (ILO) and forward clocking architecture, consumes 6.11 mW, and achieves the Optical Modulation Amplitude (OMA) sensitivity of −20.3 dBm at 12 Gb/s under the photodiode responsivity of 0.8 A/W. The receiver can further operate at 25 Gb/s with a sensitivity of −17.01 dBm and 191 fJ/bit. The transceiver pair at 18 Gb/s achieves 496 fJ/bit link efficiency.

Graphical Abstract:

AI chatbots are on the rise in China – but their abilities and purpose may be quite different from the products of US tech giants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fat mass and nutritional status play important roles in the onset and progression of cancer cachexia. The present study evaluated the joint prognostic value of the fat mass, as indicated by the triceps skinfold thickness (TSF), and the serum albumin level, for mortality in patients with cancer cachexia. We performed a multicentre cohort study including 5134 patients with cancer cachexia from January 2013 to April 2019. The sum of the TSF (mm) and serum albumin (g/L) was defined as the triceps skinfold–albumin index (TA). Harrell's Cindex, a time‐dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and the area under the curve (AUC) were used to evaluate the prognostic performance of the TA and other indices. Optimal stratification was used to identify the thresholds to define a low TA, and the association of the TA with all‐cause mortality was evaluated using Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard regression models. The study enrolled 2408 women and 2726 men with a median age of 58.6 years and a median follow‐up of 44 months. A total of 607 women (TA < 49.9) and 817 men (TA < 45.6) were classified as having a low TA. The TA showed better discrimination performance (Cindex = 0.621, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.607–0.636) to predict mortality in patients with cancer cachexia than the handgrip strength, the nutritional risk index, the prognostic nutritional index, the controlling nutritional status index, the systemic immune‐inflammation index, the modified Glasgow prognostic score, and the TSF or albumin alone in the study population (all P< 0.05). The 1‐, 3‐ and 5‐year time‐dependent ROC analyses (AUC = 0.647, 0.625 and 0.630, respectively) showed that the TA had the highest prognostic value among all indices investigated (all P< 0.05). Univariate analysis showed that a lower TA was associated with an increased death hazard (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.859, 95% CI = 1.677–2.062), regardless of the sex and cancer type. Multivariable survival analysis showed that a lower TA was independently associated with an increased death hazard (HR = 1.381, 95% CI = 1.223–1.560). This association was significantly strengthened in patients who did not receive curative chemotherapy (HR = 1.491, 95% CI = 1.298–1.713), those who had higher serum total protein levels (HR = 1.469, 95% CI = 1.284–1.681) and those with better physical performance (HR = 1.453, 95% CI = 1.271–1.662). This study defined and evaluated a new prognostic index, the TA, which may improve the selection of intervention strategies to optimize the survival of patients with cancer cachexia.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) play important roles in the malignant progression of tumours. Herein, we identified an unreported circRNA (hsa-circ-0072688, also named circADAMTS6) that is specifically upregulated in the hypoxic microenvironment of glioblastoma and closely correlated with poor prognosis of gliblastoma patients. We found that circADAMTS6 promotes the malignant progression of glioblastoma by promoting cell proliferation and inhibiting apoptosis. Mechanistically, the hypoxic tumour microenvironment upregulates circADAMTS6 expression through transcription factor activator protein 1 (AP-1) and RNA-binding protein TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP43). Moreover, circADAMTS6 accelerates glioblastoma progression by recruiting and stabilising annexin A2 (ANXA2) in a proteasomes-dependent manner. Furthermore, we found T-5224 (AP-1 inhibitor) treatment induces downregulation of circADAMTS6 and then inhibits tumour growth. In conclusion, our findings highlight the important role of the circADAMTS6/ANXA2 axis based on hypoxic microenvironment in glioblastoma progression, as well as its regulation in NF-κB pathway. Targeting circADAMTS6 is thus expected to become a novel therapeutic strategy for glioblastoma.

The effect of hydrogen diffusion in the bilayer bottom gate insulator (BGI) in dual-gate InGaZnO (IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFT) is investigated. It is discovered that hydrogen diffuses from the first deposited GI, migrates toward the second one, and forms a weak chemical bond with a dangling bond at the interface between the GI and the active layer. The stress condition with a positive gate bias at various temperatures makes the weakly bonded hydrogen break, thereby forming defects that can induce electron trapping in the interface and bulk, causing the threshold voltage to increase. With the rising temperature of positive bias temperature stress (PBTS), more broken bonds appear at the interface, which results in more trapped electrons. Through a charge trapping model and data fitting, the parameter that indicates the quality of the film can be extracted and compared. The trend of degradation between threshold voltage, bond breaking, and defect generation is examined.

In order to study the influence of different factors on the electromagnetic rail temperature, under the condition of control variables, the variation of current density and temperature in the rail are simulated by COMSOL simulation software under different input current, current waveform, rail geometry, and material. The calculation results show that the peak value of input current has little effect on the distribution of rail current density and temperature, but has a significant effect on the maximum current density and maximum temperature rise on the rail. Shortening the rising time of the input current can quickly increase the armature speed and the rail temperature, but the change of current waveform has little effect on the maximum current density, maximum temperature, and friction heat. Rail conductivity, height, width, armature diameter, and length are negatively correlated with rail maximum current density and maximum temperature. The research conclusion has a certain guiding significance for optimizing the structure design of electromagnetic rail gun and controlling electromagnetic launch conditions.

A pixel circuit for micro‐LED display has been developed with IGZO TFT device. By using pulse width modulation method, the pixel circuit can operate at high peak current and low duty ratio to keep micro‐LED at high emission efficiency and stable color performance.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is recognized as the prodromal phase of dementia, a condition that can be either maintained or reversed through timely medical interventions to prevent cognitive decline. Considerable studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have indicated that altered activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) serves as an indicator of various cognitive stages of aging. However, the impacts of intrinsic functional connectivity in the mPFC as a mediator on cognitive performance in individuals with and without MCI have not been fully understood. In this study, we recruited 42 MCI patients and 57 healthy controls, assessing their cognitive abilities and functional brain connectivity patterns through neuropsychological evaluations and resting-state fMRI, respectively. The MCI patients exhibited poorer performance on multiple neuropsychological tests compared to the healthy controls. At the neural level, functional connectivity between the mPFC and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was significantly weaker in the MCI group and correlated with multiple neuropsychological test scores. The result of the mediation analysis further demonstrated that functional connectivity between the mPFC and ACC notably mediated the relationship between the MCI and semantic fluency performance. These findings suggest that altered mPFC-ACC connectivity may have a plausible causal influence on cognitive decline and provide implications for early identifications of neurodegenerative diseases and precise monitoring of disease progression.

Neurogenesis after brain injury not only leads to the replacement of damaged cells but might also contribute to functional recovery, suggesting the possibility of endogenous neural repair. We investigated the extent of hippocampal neural regeneration in a rat model of hypoglycemia. Two weeks after 30 min of insulin-induced isoelectric electroencephalogram, extensive neuronal loss was observed in the hippocampus, including area CA1 and dentate gyrus (DG). A transient increase in progenitor cell proliferation in the DG subgranular zone (SGZ) was detected, leading to an increase of immature neuroblasts 1-2 weeks after hypoglycemic insult. Most of the surviving newborn cells assumed a neuronal phenotype within 1 month in DG, a few cells near the site of granule-cell death becoming astroglia or microglia. No neuronal regeneration was observed in the CA1 after hypoglycemia, although dividing cells appeared to be astroglia or microglia in CA1 and dentate hilus. At 4 weeks after hypoglycemia, proliferative activity in the SGZ diminished below baseline in experimental versus control rats, with a subsequent reduction of neuroblasts. Morphological findings (doublecortin staining) suggest permanent progenitor cell loss in some areas of SGZ. Reduced neurogenesis in DG and lack of neuronal regeneration in CA1 may impede cognitive recovery after severe hypoglycemia injury., Neural stem cells have been implicated in processes that lead to neural regeneration following central nervous system diseases and injuries, raising the possibility that it might be feasible to ameliorate [...]

Apoptosis, also called programmed cell death, is a genetically controlled process against hyperproliferation and malignancy. The Fas-Fas ligand (FasL) system is considered a major pathway for apoptosis in cells and tissues. Thus, this study aimed to investigate whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in Fasand FasLgene may have effects on the recurrence and survival of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after curative hepatectomy.

The study of natural gas migration and accumulation of tight gas has become the focus of the energy industry in recent years. One of the priorities is the research of hydrocarbon migration carrier system of the formation. This study reveals two types of hydrocarbon carrier systems (micro-fractures and micro-coal lines) in the tight formation through a large amount of geological observations, data statistics, and simulations. This study also first put forward the view that the coal lines can be a type of hydrocarbon carrier system in tight sandstone formation. During the research process, an improved permeability testing method and apparatus are used to test the core permeability widely. Based on the real core, three models are established to describe the micro-fracture/micro-coal line characteristics. According to the three typical models, the Voronoi method is used to rebuild the network models. The migration and accumulation process in tight formation is simulated with the Multiple Relaxation Time lattice Boltzmann method in numerical simulation and with displacement apparatus in physical simulation. The results indicate that the micro-fracture/micro-coal line will significantly improve the percolation capacity of sandstone as the hydrocarbon migration carrier system in tight formation, the mechanism is revealed by numerical simulations. The micro-fractures/micro-coal lines are favorable for natural gas accumulation in tight formation. Unlike the conventional formation, in tight formation, micro-fractures/micro-coal lines tend to be the main migration carrier systems during the gas accumulation process.

The immunoproteasome subunit low molecular mass polypeptide 7 (LMP7) leads to brain injuries, such as autoimmune neuritis and ischemic stroke, by activating inflammation. However, the roles and mechanisms of LMP7 in hypoxic-ischemic brain damage (HIBD) remain unclear. This study explored these issues in a rat model of HIBD. Pathology was evaluated using hematoxylin-eosin staining. LMP7 expression was detected using western blot analysis, reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), and immunohistochemical staining. The presence of proinflammatory cytokines, including tumor necrosis factor-a, interleukin-6, and interleukin-1β, was tested using ELISA and RT-qPCR. Behavioral performance was evaluated using a short-term neurological function score and the Morris water maze test. Compared to those in the Sham group, the HIBD group exhibited obvious upregulated LMP7 and pro-inflammatory cytokine levels. HIBD rats exhibited severe pathological and behavioral damage. LMP7 inhibition with ONX-0914 reduced proinflammatory cytokine expression, attenuated pathological damage, and enhanced behavioral performance of rats with HIBD. Inhibition of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase B (PI3K/Akt) signaling with LY29400 increased LMP7 expression and abolished the protective effects of ONX-0914 in HIBD rats. Our findings indicate that LMP7 aggravates brain injury by triggering inflammatory responses in HIBD rats. LMP7 inhibition with ONX-0914 exerts protective effects on HIBD rats, possibly via PI3K/Akt signaling.

Mesa is a highly scalable analytic data warehousing system that stores critical measurement data related to Google's Internet advertising business. Mesa is designed to satisfy a complex and challenging set of user and systems requirements, including near real-time data ingestion and retrieval, as well as high availability, reliability, fault tolerance, and scalability for large data and query volumes. Specifically, Mesa handles petabytes of data, processes millions of row updates per second, and serves billions of queries that fetch trillions of rows per day. Mesa is geo-replicated across multiple datacenters and provides consistent and repeatable query answers at low latency, even when an entire datacenter fails. This paper presents the Mesa system and reports the performance and scale that it achieves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Malnutrition is prevalent that can impair multiple clinical outcomes in oncology populations. This study aimed to develop and utilize a tool to optimize the early identification of malnutrition in patients with cancer. Methods: We performed an observational cohort study including 3998 patients with cancer at two teaching hospitals in China. Hierarchical clustering was performed to classify the patients into well-nourished or malnourished clusters based on 17 features reflecting the phenotypic and etiologic dimensions of malnutrition. Associations between the identified clusters and patient characteristics were analyzed. A nomogram for predicting the malnutrition probability was constructed and independent validation was performed to explore its clinical significance. Results: The cluster analysis identified a well-nourished cluster (n= 2736, 68.4%) and a malnourished cluster (n= 1262, 31.6%) in the study population, which showed significant agreement with the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment and the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition criteria (both P&lt; 0.001). The malnourished cluster was negatively associated with the nutritional status, physical status, quality of life, short-term outcomes and was an independent risk factor for survival (HR = 1.38, 95%CI = 1.22–1.55, P&lt; 0.001). Sex, gastrointestinal symptoms, weight loss percentages (within and beyond 6 months), calf circumference, and body mass index were incorporated to develop the nomogram, which showed high performance to predict malnutrition (AUC = 0.972, 95%CI = 0.960–0.983). The decision curve analysis and independent external validation further demonstrated the effectiveness and clinical usefulness of the tool. Conclusions: Nutritional features-based clustering analysis is a feasible approach to define malnutrition. The derived nomogram shows effectiveness for the early identification of malnutrition in patients with cancer.

Inspired by increasing demand of advanced pulsed power capacitors, the development of lead-free dielectric ceramic capacitors with high energy storage density and temperature-insensitive performance are extremely crucial. Herein, the lead-free relaxor ferroelectric ceramics based on (1-x) (Na0.5Bi0.5)0.6Sr0.4TiO3- xSr0.7La0.2ZrO3[abbreviated as (1-x)NBST-xSLZ] are prepared by the solid-state reaction route. The large recoverable energy density (Wrec) of 3.45 J/cm3and efficiency (η) of 90.1% are simultaneously realized in 0.86NBST-0.14SLZ ceramic due to increased breakdown strength. Furthermore, both the Wrecand ηof 0.86NBST-0.14SLZ ceramic display superior of thermal stability (20–180 °C), frequency stability (1–1000 Hz), and cycle stability (104) within a satisfactory range of variation. In addition, the 0.86NBST-0.14SLZ ceramic can also achieve a large current density (CD) of 625 A/cm2, an ultrahigh power density (PD) of 50 MW/cm3and a fast discharge rate (τ0.90) of 160.8 ns at 160 kV/cm. These results demonstrate that the 0.86NBST-0.14SLZ ceramic could be a highly competitive and eco-friendly relaxor ferroelectric material for next-generation pulsed power capacitors.

In a specific project, how to find a reasonable balance between a plurality of objectives and their optimal solutions has always been an important aspect for researchers. As a trade off between fast convergence and a rich diversity, a Many‐objective evolutionary algorithm based on a spatial division and angle‐culling strategy (MaOEA‐SDAC) is proposed. In the reorganization stage, a restricted matching selection can enhance the reproductivity. In the environment selection stage, a space division and angle‐based elimination strategy can effectively improve the convergence and diversity imbalance of its solution set. Through detailed experiments and a comparative analysis of the proposed MaOEA‐SDAC with five other state‐of‐the‐art algorithms on classical benchmark problems, the effectiveness of MaOEA‐SDAC in solving high‐dimensional optimization problems has been verified.

Here we investigated the ability of the human X-family DNA polymerases β and λ to bypass thymine glycol (Tg) in gapped DNA substrates with the damage located in a defined position of the template strand. Maximum velocities and the Michaelis constant values were determined to study DNA synthesis in the presence of either Mg2+or Mn2+. Additionally, the influence of hRPA (human replication protein A) and hPCNA (human proliferating cell nuclear antigen) on TLS (translesion synthesis) activity of DNA polymerases β and λ was examined. The results show that (i) DNA polymerase λ is able to catalyze DNA synthesis across Tg, (ii) the ability of DNA polymerase λ to elongate from a base paired to a Tg lesion is influenced by the size of the DNA gap, (iii) hPCNA increases the fidelity of Tg bypass and does not influence normal DNA synthesis catalyzed by DNA polymerase λ, (iv) DNA polymerase β catalyzes the incorporation of all four dNTPs opposite Tg, and (v) hPCNA as well as hRPA has no specific effect on TLS in comparison with the normal DNA synthesis catalyzed by DNA polymerase β. These results considerably extend our knowledge concerning the ability of specialized DNA polymerases to cope with a very common DNA lesion such as Tg.

The Mn-based polyanion compound Na3MnTi(PO4)3(NMTP) with a Na superionic conductor (NASICON) structure has attracted incremental attention as a potential cathode material for sodium-ion batteries. However, the occupation of Mn2+on Na+vacancies usually leads to severe voltage hysteresis, which in turn results in significant capacity loss, slow Na+diffusion kinetics, and poor cycling stability. Herein, anion-substituted compounds Na3MnTi(PO4)3–x(SiO4)x(x= 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3) are synthesized. It reveals that the SiO44–substitution could induce partial oxidation of Mn2+to Mn3+, and the latter has a lower occupancy preference on Na+vacancies. By the proposed charge compensation strategy, the Mn2+occupation on Na+vacancies can be significantly suppressed. As a result, the voltage hysteresis is substantially inhibited, and greatly improved electrochemical performance is achieved. This study offers an alternative strategy to address the voltage hysteresis associated with NMTP and other Mn-based NASICON cathode materials.

The metal-to-core charge transfer (MCCT) transition in sensitized titanium-oxo clusters is an important process for photoinduced electron injection in photovoltaic conversion. This process resembles most closely the Type II photoinjection in dye-sensitized solar cells. Herein we report the synthesis and photophysical and photoelectrochemical (PEC) properties of the phosphonate-stabilized titanium-oxo clusters containing the ferrocenecarboxylate ligands. These ferrocene-containing clusters exhibit intense visible absorption extended up to 600 nm along with low optical band gaps of ∼2.2 eV. The low-energy transitions of these clusters were systematically investigated by UV–vis spectroscopy and DFT/TDDFT calculations. The combined experimental and computational studies suggest that the ferrocenecarboxylate-substituted titanium-oxo clusters form a donor–acceptor (D–A) system. The low-energy transition of these clusters primarily involves the MCCT from the iron center to TiO cluster core. The TiO core structure and phosphonate ligands both have great influence on the PEC properties of the clusters. This work provides valuable examples for the sensitized titanium-oxo clusters in which electron injection takes place via MCCT transition.

Sepsis trains stressed granulocytes to boost nonspecific response and trigger a new wave of inflammation when facing secondary infection. Here, we present a protocol for a murine model of sepsis with secondary infection. We describe steps for cecal ligation and puncture operation and rechallenging with lipopolysaccharide or Pseudomonas aeruginosaduring the recovery phase. We also detail steps to characterize the stressed granulocytes by assessing their functional phenotypes and effect on the mortality of rechallenged mice.

Electrochemical ion exchange has recently been demonstrated to be a unique method for the preparation of novel cathode materials, which cannot be accessible by traditional direct synthesis routes. In this study, the vanadium borophosphate compound K1.33Na0.67[VO(B2O)(PO4)2(HPO4)]·1.63H2O (KNVBP) with zeolitic framework exhibits fast electrochemical Na+/K+ion exchange when used as cathode material in sodium-ion batteries (SIBs). Ex situ structural analyses and electrochemical measurements confirm that most of the K+ions in the parent KNVBP can be extracted and exchanged by Na+ions after the first charge/discharge cycle. The in situ-generated Na-rich phase shows reversible electrochemical activity at approximately 3.9 V versus Na+/Na with a specific capacity of 52.9 mAh g–1, comparable to 96.2% of the theoretical capacity. Moreover, enhanced ionic diffusion kinetics can be achieved after the Na+/K+exchange. This study provides a valuable insight into the electrochemical ion exchange in polyanion compounds toward application in metal-ion batteries.

A series of geminal diethynylethene (gem-DEE) bridged diferrocenyl compounds with varying pendant substituents at the side chain, including xanthene, thioxanthene, dibenzo[a,d]cycloheptene, and fluorene, is reported with the aim of exploring electronic interactions in the cross-conjugated system. The compounds 9-[bis(ferrocenylethynyl)methylene]-9H-xanthene (1), 9-[bis(ferrocenylethynyl)methylene]-9H-thioxanthene (2), 5-[bis(ferrocenylethynyl)methylene]-5H-dibenzo[a,d]cycloheptene (3), and 9-[bis(ferrocenylethynyl)methylene]-9H-fluorene (4) were synthesized and characterized by using spectroscopic methods and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses. Electrochemical measurements using the weakly coordinating electrolyte Na[B{C6H3(3,5-CF3)2}4] reveal the moderate electronic coupling between the ferrocenyl (Fc) termini. Hush analysis of the intervalence charge-transfer (IVCT) bands for the monocation species is suggestive of the weakly coupled Robin–Day class II mixed-valence compounds. DFT and TDDFT calculations suggest that the low-energy transitions of these compounds mainly involve a metal to ligand charge transfer (MLCT) transition from the iron center of ferrocenyl termini to the pendant substituent.

Two yeast strains with better overall flavor quality were isolated and screened from traditional fermented milk in western Sichuan, identified as Kluyveromyces marxianusand Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and their role as adjunct cultures in fermented milk was studied. Fermented milk (LS, LSK, LSS and LSKS) were respectively inoculated with Lactobacillus bulgaricus + Streptococcus thermophiles(LS), LS + K. marxianus, LS + S. cerevisiae, and LS + K. marxianus + S. cerevisiae. The obtained LSKS has the best overall quality with moderate ethanol and ester aroma, rich in fermentation aroma, delicate taste, and the highest acidity (87.52 ± 0.44 °T), viscosity (418.18 ± 18.73 mPa·s), and organic acid content (449.736 mg/100 g), as well as the abundant ethyl esters (ethyl ocanoate, ethyl caprate, ethyl hexanoate). Non-targeted metabolomics revealed the metabolites differences for LSKS versus LS. Sixty-five metabolites upregulated and seventy-two metabolites downregulated, which were significantly enriched in arginine biosynthesis and glycerophospholipid metabolism pathway. A large number of short peptides were upregulated, and calenduloside G methyl ester has the potential to be used as a differential biomarker. This study provides a theoretical basis for the application potential of K. marxianusSY11 and S. cerevisiaeSY32 to stimulate fermentation with LS as adjunct flavor cultures in commercial fermented milk.

Topic page refers to a kind of manifold we-media publishing platform, in order to realize rapid and high-precision public opinion information monitoring, this paper proposes a message passing topic page evaluation method under the perspective of topic culture creativity in topic page. Firstly, it conducts research on the network topic page model in the topic page to know its service ontology and definitions of AM and MM, establishes the topic database in topic page by the means of network exploration and takes it as the research object; secondly, it relies on the message passing framework to design the distributed page evaluation algorithm of the topic page evaluation factor model to realize the completely distributed parallel management between different nodes in the network and enhance the capability of the algorithm in processing large scale of topic page evaluation; finally, it conducts experiment comparison on the standard test net and topic database of network exploration topic page and gets the conclusion that the algorithm has better evaluation result.

Background: Anthropometric measurements (AMs) are cost-effective surrogates for evaluating body size. This study aimed to identify the optimal prognostic AMs, their thresholds, and their joint associations with cancer mortality. Methods: We performed an observational cohort study including 12138 patients with cancer at five institutions in China. Information on demographics, disease, nutritional status, and AMs, including the body mass index, mid-arm muscle circumference, mid-arm circumference, handgrip strength, calf circumference (CC), and triceps-skinfold thickness (TSF), was collected and screened as mortality predictors. The optimal stratification was used to determine the thresholds to categorize those prognostic AMs, and their associations with mortality were estimated independently and jointly by calculating multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs). Results: The study included 5744 females and 6394 males with a mean age of 56.9 years. The CC and TSF were identified as better mortality predictors than other AMs. The optimal thresholds were women 30 cm and men 32.8 cm for the CC, and women 21.8 mm and men 13.6 mm for the TSF. Patients in the low CC or low TSF group had a 13% (HR = 1.13, 95% CI = 1.03–1.23) and 22% (HR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.12–1.32) greater mortality risk compared with their normal CC/TSF counterparties, respectively. Concurrent low CC and low TSF showed potential joint effect on mortality risk (HR = 1.39, 95% CI = 1.25–1.55). Conclusions: These findings support the importance of assessing the CC and TSF simultaneously in hospitalized cancer patients to guide interventions to optimize their long-term outcomes.

The article discusses a new method controlling pressure drop across chokes has been successfully applied to a high-pressure sour gas well in Sichuan basin, China. It mentions that controlling pressure drop across the valve with respect to choking temperatures and hydrate formation prediction can simplify choking.

Blockage effect caused by the rim seal flow is one of the most important sources of loss in the interaction between the turbine rim seal flow and mainstream and has not been investigated in detail. To research the blockage effect, numerical simulations were presented for different rim seal flow rates. The pressure distribution was investigated and losses resulting from the blockage effect were analyzed. In addition, the influences of swirl ratio, inclination angle, and width were revealed. Results show that the blockage effect originates from the pushing and compression of egress flow to the mainstream and results in local pressure increase. The egress flow mainly blocks the mainstream downstream of the stator suction side and above the egress flow. Furthermore, the blockage effect strengthens with the increase of rim seal flow rate and weakens with the increase of swirl ratio. The effect of inclination angle and width on the blockage effect could be neglected. With the increase of rim seal flow rate, the blockage on the stator suction side causes the secondary losses to be reduced and the increasing expansion in the rotor passage leads to more losses at the tip and surface. A loss isolation method that defines the space region of loss in the rotor domain is established and proven to be effective. On an average, relative to the design condition, the overall loss introduced by the blockage effect increases by about 89.44% per 1% increase in the rim seal flow rate.

In clinical practice, objective basis for the choice between laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (LPN) and robot-assisted partial nephrectomy (RAPN) is scarce. To evaluate surgical outcomes, assess the individual benefit from LPN to RAPN, which can guide clinical decision-making.

Pursuing efficient approaches to promote the extracellular electron transfer (EET) of extracellular respiratory bacteria is essential to their application in environmental remediation and waste treatment. Here, we report a new strategy of tuning electron flux by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-ddAsCpf1-based rediverting (namely STAR) to enhance the EET capacity of Shewanella oneidensisMR-1, a model extracellular respiratory bacterium widely present in the environment. The developed CRISPR-ddAsCpf1 system enabled approximately 100% gene repression with the green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a reporter. Using a WO3probe, 10 representative genes encoding for putative competitive electron transfer proteins were screened, among which 7 genes were identified as valid targets for EET enhancement. Repressing the valid genes not only increased the transcription level of the l-lactate metabolism genes but also affected the genes involved in direct and indirect EET. Increased riboflavin production was also observed. The feasibility of this strategy to enhance the bioreduction of methyl orange, an organic pollutant, and chromium, a typical heavy metal, was demonstrated. This work implies a great potential of the STAR strategy with the CIRPSR-ddAsCpf1 system for enhancing bacterial EET to favor more efficient environmental remediation applications.

An organo-templated titanium-oxo sulfate of the formulation (H2nep)[TiO(SO4)2] (denoted as TiOS, nep = N-ethylpiperazine) was synthesized under solvent-free conditions. The framework of TiOS is assembled from the [TiO(SO4)2]n2n–infinite chains interconnected by the H2nep cations through H-bond networks. After thermal treatment under vacuum conditions, the organic template H2nep was partially decomposed and converted into N-doped carbon dots (N-CDs), resulting in the N-CDs@TiOS composite material with retained crystallinity of the parent TiOS. The thermolysis of organic templates generates meso-cavities in the framework, rendering N-CDs@TiOS with a mesoporous structure. Photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic experiments show that the presence of N-CDs substantially improved visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity of N-CDs@TiOS compared to that of TiOS. The template thermolysis strategy gives an effective approach to construct the CDs-sensitized Ti-based mesoporous open-framework materials for visible-light photocatalytic applications.

Neural architecture search (NAS) has played important roles in the evolution of neural architectures. However, no much attention has been paid to improve neural machine translation (NMT) through NAS approaches. In this work, we propose a gradient-based NAS algorithm for NMT, which automatically discovers architectures with better performances. Compared with previous NAS work, we jointly search the network operations (e.g., LSTM, CNN, self-attention etc) as well as dropout rates to ensure better results. We show that with reasonable resources it is possible to discover novel neural network architectures for NMT, which achieve consistently better performances than Transformer [1], the state-of-the-art NMT model, across different tasks. On WMT’14 English-to-German translation, IWSLT’14 German-to-English translation and WMT’18 Finnish-to-English translation tasks, our discovered architectures could obtain 30.1, 36.1 and 26.4 BLEU scores, which are great improvement over Transformer baselines. We also empirically verify that the discovered model on one task can be transferred to other tasks.

This paper proposes a series of language-independent domain name abuse detection features, including domain name string features, domain name registration features, domain name resolution features and domain name service features, and trains six pattern recognition algorithms in the corresponding feature space. To validate the effectiveness of extracted features and learning algorithms, a practical data set is constructed, and the performance of related features and learning algorithms are compared and analysed. The experimental results show that the multi-scale features extracted in this paper have good recognition ability. The Random Forest algorithm achieves the best comprehensive effect when only 8-dimensional fusion features are used, where F1-Measure and ROC Area reach 0.965 and 0.978, respectively.