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It is of great technological importance in the field of plasmonic color generation to establish and understand the relationship between optical responses and the reflectance of metallic nanoparticles. Previously, a series of indium nanoparticle ensembles were fabricated using electron beam evaporation and inspected using spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). The multi-oscillator Lorentz–Drude model demonstrated the optical responses of indium nanoparticles with different sizes and size distributions. The reflectance spectra and colorimetry characteristics of indium nanoparticles with unimodal and bimodal size distributions were interpreted based on the SE analysis. The trends of reflectance spectra were explained by the transfer matrix method. The effects of optical constants n and k of indium on the reflectance were demonstrated by mapping the reflectance contour lines on the n-k plane. Using oscillator decomposition, the influence of different electron behaviors in various indium structures on the reflectance spectra was revealed intuitively. The contribution of each oscillator on the colorimetry characteristics, including hue, lightness and saturation, were determined and discussed from the reflectance spectral analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satellite image time series (SITS) classification is a challenging application concurrently driven by long-term, large-scale, and high spatial-resolution observations acquired by remote sensing satellites. The focus of current SITS classification research is to exploit the richness of temporal information in SITS data. In the literature, self-attention mechanism-based networks, which are capable of capturing global temporal attention, have achieved state-of-the-art results in SITS classification. However, these methods lack attention to local temporal information, which is also significant for SITS classification tasks. To explore the potential of different scales of temporal information in SITS data, a global–local temporal attention encoder (GL-TAE) is proposed in this paper. GL-TAE has two submodules set up in parallel, one of which is a lightweight temporal attention encoder (LTAE) for extracting global temporal attention and the other is lightweight convolution (LConv) for extracting local temporal attention. Compared with methods exploring global-only or local-only temporal features, the proposed GL-TAE can achieve better performance on two public SITS datasets, which proves the effectiveness of hybrid global–local temporal attention features. The experiments also demonstrate that GL-TAE is a lightweight model, which achieves the same performance as other models but with fewer parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the effect of virtual reality (VR) technology in children after surgery for concomitant strabismus. Methods: A total of 200 children with concomitant exotropia or concomitant esotropia were randomly divided into a training group and a control group according to the single even number random method (100 cases in each group). Patients in the training group received VR intervention training within 1 week after surgery. Patients in the control group did not receive any training. Results: Six months after the surgery, the orthophoria (the far or near strabismus degree was ≤8Δ) rate was significantly higher in the training group than in the control group (P = 0.001), while the eye position regression rate (compared to the strabismus degree within 1 week after the surgery, the amount of regression >10Δ) was significantly lower in the training group than in the control group (P = 0.001). Six months after the surgery, the number of children with simultaneous vision and remote stereovision was significantly higher in the training group than in the control group (P = 0.017 and 0.002, respectively). The differences in the number of patients with peripheral stereopsis, macular stereopsis, and stereopsis in macular fovea centralis at 1, 3, and 6 months after the surgery between the training and the control groups were not statistically significant (P = 0.916, 0.274, and 0.302, respectively). Conclusion: The intervention of VR technology after strabismus correction effectively improved children's visual function and maintained their eye position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, long aramid fiber (LAF) reinforced styrene‐butadiene rubber/carbon black composites was prepared via a high pressure and low shear rate extrusion process, and the average length of the remaining fiber exceeded 6 mm. With LAF as reinforcement phase, the bonding between the fiber coated with butadiene styrene vinyl‐pyridine rubber latex and rubber matrix was increased. The results showed that the addition of LAF improved the properties of the composites, particularly in terms of dynamic fatigue life of the notched samples, which was increased by 352.7%. The long fibers with good interfacial bonding were peeled off in fatigue process, which can significantly absorb strain energy; thus, the propagation of fatigue cracks was effectively inhibited. This study proposes a feasible strategy to significantly improve the service life of rubber products under alternating stress, such as tires, by using the reinforcement of long fiber. Highlights: The unique extrusion process ensures 70% of the fibers are over 5 mm in length in rubber.Long aramid fiber has a unique advantage in inhibiting fatigue crack propagation.This study proposes a strategy to gain the rubber products life under alternating stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introducing the prefabricated horizontal drains (PHDs) into the permeable geotextile tubes has been reckoned as an efficient and economical method of dewatering slurries with high water contents. However, its application is limited by the poor understanding of the fundamental consolidation mechanism, often resulting in overconservative designs. With the proposed two-dimensional plane-strain consolidation model, a semi-analytical solution calibrated by laboratory test results is obtained. Furthermore, parametric analyses, for example, PHD pave rate, and element aspect ratio, along with the soil anisotropy coefficient, are also conducted to achieve the optimum design requirement. A critical condition corresponding to the optimum effectiveness of this consolidation technique is found, beyond which the consolidation efficiency decreases gradually. The greater the abovementioned parameters are, the later and milder the efficiency reduction occurs. The consolidation efficiency can keep at a high level until the end of consolidation when the values of these parameters are great enough. In the end, design charts and design recommendations are provided with immediate benefits for practical engineers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this paper was to clarify the optimal minimum number of lymph node for CEA-elevated (≥ 5 ng/ml) colon cancer patients. Methods: Thirteen thousand two hundred thirty-nine patients from the SEER database and 238 patients from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University (External set) were identified. For cancer-specific survival (CSS), Kaplan-Meier curves were drawn and data were analyzed using log-rank test. Using X-tile software, the optimal cut-off lymph node count was calculated by the maximal Chi-square value method. Cox regression model was applied to perform survival analysis. Results: In CEA-elevated colon cancer, 18 nodes were defined as the optimal minimum node. The number of lymph node examined (< 12, 12-17 and ≥ 18) was an independent prognosticator in both SEER set (HR12-17 nodes = 1.329, P < 0.001; HR< 12 nodes = 1.985, P < 0.001) and External set (HR12-17 nodes = 1.774, P < 0.032; HR< 12 nodes = 2.741, P < 0.006). Moreover, the revised 18-node standard could identify more positive lymph nodes compared with the 12-node standard in this population. Conclusions: With the purpose of favorable long-term survival and accurate nodal stage for CEA-elevated colon cancer patients, the 18-node standard could be regarded as an alternative to the 12-node standard advocated by the ASCO and NCCN guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To reduce the aerodynamic load of super high-speed elevators, in this paper, the coefficient of drag C d and the coefficient of yawing moment C y m of the elevator are selected as optimization objectives for the optimization of the air rectification cover (ARC) shape. The elliptic curve method was used to build the parametric model of the ARCs, six design variables were selected, and the design space of the ARC was determined. With the optimal Latin hypercube design method, the training points were selected, and the computational fluid dynamics numerical simulation was conducted to calculate the corresponding responses. Then, the relationship between the design variables and the responses was analyzed. The radial basis function (RBF) surrogate model of the relationship between the design variables and responses was constructed. Finally, the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) was employed to optimize the shape of the ARC. The results show that the C d and C y m decrease by 16.51% and 60.92%, respectively, compared with the unoptimized ARC, indicating that the ARC designed in this paper is optimized and can effectively reduce the aerodynamic load. Furthermore, among all the design variables, the bluntness of the ARC in the X -direction has the most significant effect on the aerodynamic load, and the height of the ARC ( h 1 and h 2 ) has the second most significant effect on the aerodynamic load of elevators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overly restrictive eligibility criteria for clinical trials may limit the generalizability of the trial results to their target real-world patient populations. We developed a novel machine learning approach using large collections of real-world data (RWD) to better inform clinical trial eligibility criteria design. We extracted patients' clinical events from electronic health records (EHRs), which include demographics, diagnoses, and drugs, and assumed certain compositions of these clinical events within an individual's EHRs can determine the subphenotypes—homogeneous clusters of patients, where patients within each subgroup share similar clinical characteristics. We introduced an outcome-guided probabilistic model to identify those subphenotypes, such that the patients within the same subgroup not only share similar clinical characteristics but also at similar risk levels of encountering severe adverse events (SAEs). We evaluated our algorithm on two previously conducted clinical trials with EHRs from the OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Consortium. Our model can clearly identify the patient subgroups who are more likely to suffer or not suffer from SAEs as subphenotypes in a transparent and interpretable way. Our approach identified a set of clinical topics and derived novel patient representations based on them. Each clinical topic represents a certain clinical event composition pattern learned from the patient EHRs. Tested on both trials, patient subgroup (#SAE=0) and patient subgroup (#SAE>0) can be well-separated by k-means clustering using the inferred topics. The inferred topics characterized as likely to align with the patient subgroup (#SAE>0) revealed meaningful combinations of clinical features and can provide data-driven recommendations for refining the exclusion criteria of clinical trials. The proposed supervised topic modeling approach can infer the clinical topics from the subphenotypes with or without SAEs. The potential rules for describing the patient subgroups with SAEs can be further derived to inform the design of clinical trial eligibility criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concise concept and good optimization performance are the advantages of particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO), which makes it widely used in many fields. However, when solving complex multimodal optimization problems, it is easy to fall into early convergence. The rapid loss of population diversity is one of the important reasons why the PSO algorithm falls into early convergence. For this reason, this paper attempts to combine the PSO algorithm with wavelet theory and levy flight theory to propose a new hybrid algorithm called PSOLFWM. It applies the random wandering of levy flight and the mutation operation of wavelet theory to enhance the population diversity and seeking performance of the PSO to make it search more efficiently in the solution space to obtain higher quality solutions. A series of classical test functions and 19 optimization algorithms proposed in recent years are used to evaluate the optimization performance accuracy of the proposed method. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is superior to the comparison method in terms of convergence speed and convergence accuracy. The success of the high-dimensional function test and dynamic shift performance test further verifies that the proposed algorithm has higher search stability and anti-interference performance than the comparison algorithm. More importantly, both t-Test and Wilcoxon's rank sum test statistical analyses were carried out. The results show that there are significant differences between the proposed algorithm and other comparison algorithms at the significance level α = 0.05, and the performance is better than other comparison algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydraulic fracturing is a necessary measurement to realize the commercial exploitation of oil and gas, but its application in multilayered thin tight sandstone gas reservoirs is still not perfect, which usually have thin gas layers mixed with complex intervals, and shows a dramatic variation in geological and geomechanical properties in the vertical direction. When conventional hydraulic fracturing methods are applied to this kind of reservoir, it is hard to get proper fracture propagation, especially for fracture height control. Facing this situation, this paper proposes a numerical study of the hydraulic fracturing mechanism and analyzes its influencing factors in the multilayered thin tight sandstone gas reservoir. Relying on a real reservoir in the Ordos Basin in China, relevant geological and geomechanical parameters of major gas layers and interlayers are obtained. According to these parameters, the hydraulic fracturing simulation in the multilayered thin tight gas reservoir model is carried out, based on which, the sensitivity analysis of different geological and fracturing parameters which affect the fracture propagation is performed. Furthermore, a real low-production well after fracturing in this kind of reservoir is selected as an example, and based on the analysis, an optimized fracturing scheme is proposed to adapt to the characteristics of the reservoir. According to the comparison of fracturing and production simulations, the optimized fracturing scheme can prevent hydraulic fractures from breaking through thin interlayers, control the fracture height, and prevent fractures from communicating strata with a high water-bearing layer. At the same time, with the same amount of proppant and fracturing fluid, longer fracture length and better fracture conductivity are created, so that the productivity of the optimized fracture has been greatly improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the hybrid-scale bifurcation evolutionary phenomena in one-cycle controlled (OCC) single-inductor dual-output (SIDO) Buck DC–DC converter are investigated thoroughly. First, the single-cycle and crossing-cycle iterative mapping models of the OCC SIDO converter in four operation modes are derived to describe the dynamical information under different topology switching sequences. Second, the evolutionary trend of hybrid-scale bifurcation behaviors is identified by numerical simulation. Third, bifurcation analysis based on the proposed models is performed by the trajectories of the eigenvalues, and significantly, the occurrence mechanism of hybrid-scale bifurcations in the evolutionary phenomena is explained in detail. And then, the participation factor is used to analyze the relationship between the variables and the eigenvalues. Especially, the relative parameter sensitivity of the iterative mapping model is proposed to evaluate the influence of such key parameters as load resistors on the eigenvalues so that plenty of design-oriented information will be provided to avoid the hybrid-scale bifurcation behaviors. Finally, PSpice circuit simulation and hardware experiments are carried out to verify the analysis results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unexpected subharmonic oscillation with an evident asymmetric feature is one of the most salient dynamical behaviors in the grid-connected inverter, which will bring disaster to normal system operation. In view of time-varying equilibrium points and complex dynamical response of the system, this asymmetrical subharmonic oscillation is difficult to predict through traditional analysis methods. In this paper, a ripple-based current model is proposed to describe the special subharmonic oscillation of single-phase grid-connected DC–AC inverter with the One-Cycle Compensation (OCC) method. Based on the proposed model, the influence of dynamic response and the time-varying equilibrium points on the stability of the system are comprehensively analyzed, and the internal mechanism of asymmetric subharmonic oscillation is revealed. Furthermore, the critical points of the subharmonic oscillation at the beginning and the end of the whole circuit cycle are predicted. Particularly, a global stable operation boundary is identified from the ripple-based analysis to optimize circuit design. Finally, circuit experiments are performed to verify these numerical and theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the microhardness and wear resistance of Mo 2 FeB 2 coatings, composite coatings were prepared by laser cladding using in situ synthesized NbC, WC, and TaC. The influence of different carbides on the morphology, microstructure, microhardness, residual stress, and tribological properties of the composite coatings was investigated. The results showed various microstructural morphologies in different composite coatings. Apparent herringbone structures were observed in most coatings except for the Mo 2 FeB 2 /TaC composite coating and a eutectic structure was formed in the Mo 2 FeB 2 /WC composite coating. In addition, the heat-affected zone was typically composed of acicular martensite and lath martensite. The microhardness of the Mo 2 FeB 2 /WC composite coating increased to 1543.6 HV 0.5 compared with 985.7 HV 0.5 observed for the Mo 2 FeB 2 coating. Tensile stress existed in the coating, bonding zone, and heat-affected zone, whereas the substrate exhibited compressive stress. The Mo 2 FeB 2 /WC composite coating exhibited the lowest tensile stress (298 MPa). The Mo 2 FeB 2 /WC composite coating containing WC and the W 2 C phase had the lowest coefficient of friction (0.38) and wear rate (3.90 × 10−5 mm3/Nm), indicating its excellent tribological properties. Moreover, the wear mechanism of the Mo 2 FeB 2 coating is severe adhesive and abrasive wear. The adhesive wear mechanism was mitigated by the formation of in situ synthesized NbC, WC, and TaC. The wear mechanism of the Mo 2 FeB 2 /WC composite coating was only a slight abrasive wear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sepsis is a persistent systemic inflammatory condition involving multiple organ failures resulting from a dysregulated immune response to infection, and one of the hallmarks of sepsis is endothelial dysfunction. During its progression, neutrophils are the first line of innate immune defence against infection. Aside from traditional mechanisms, such as phagocytosis or the release of inflammatory cytokines, reactive oxygen species and other antibacterial substances, activated neutrophils also release web‐like structures composed of tangled decondensed DNA, histone, myeloperoxidase and other granules called neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), which can efficiently ensnare bacteria in the circulation. In contrast, excessive neutrophil activation and NET release may induce endothelial cells to shift toward a pro‐inflammatory and pro‐coagulant phenotype. Furthermore, neutrophils and NETs can degrade glycocalyx on the endothelial cell surface and increase endothelium permeability. Consequently, the endothelial barrier collapses, contributing to impaired microcirculatory blood flow, tissue hypoperfusion and life‐threatening organ failure in the late phase of sepsis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) provides an unprecedented opportunity to explore gene expression profiles at the single-cell level. However, gene expression values vary over time and under different conditions even within the same cell. There is an urgent need for more stable and reliable feature variables at the single-cell level to depict cell heterogeneity. Thus, we construct a new feature matrix called the delta rank matrix (DRM) from scRNA-seq data by integrating an a priori gene interaction network, which transforms the unreliable gene expression value into a stable gene interaction/edge value on a single-cell basis. This is the first time that a gene-level feature has been transformed into an interaction/edge-level for scRNA-seq data analysis based on relative expression orderings. Experiments on various scRNA-seq datasets have demonstrated that DRM performs better than the original gene expression matrix in cell clustering, cell identification and pseudo-trajectory reconstruction. More importantly, the DRM really achieves the fusion of gene expressions and gene interactions and provides a method of measuring gene interactions at the single-cell level. Thus, the DRM can be used to find changes in gene interactions among different cell types, which may open up a new way to analyze scRNA-seq data from an interaction perspective. In addition, DRM provides a new method to construct a cell-specific network for each single cell instead of a group of cells as in traditional network construction methods. DRM's exceptional performance is due to its extraction of rich gene-association information on biological systems and stable characterization of cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the mechanisms that generate genetic variation, and thus contribute to the process of adaptation, is a major goal of evolutionary biology. Mutation and genetic exchange have been well studied as mechanisms to generate genetic variation. However, there are additional factors, such as genome architecture, that may also impact the amount of genetic variation in some populations, and the extent to which these variation generating mechanisms are themselves shaped by natural selection is still an open question. To test the effect of genome architecture on the generation of genetic variation, and hence evolvability, we studied Tetrahymena thermophila , a ciliate with an unusual genome structure and mechanism of nuclear division, called amitosis, whereby homologous chromosomes are randomly distributed to daughter cells. Amitosis leads to genetic variation among the asexual descendants of a newly produced sexual progeny because different progeny cells will contain different combinations of parental alleles. We hypothesize that amitosis thus increases the evolvability of newly produced sexual progeny relative to their unmated parents and species that undergo mitosis. To test this hypothesis, we used experimental evolution and simulations to compare the rate of adaptation in T. thermophila populations founded by a single sexual progeny to parental populations that had not had sex in many generations. The populations founded by a sexual progeny adapted more quickly than parental populations in both laboratory populations and simulated populations. This suggests that the additional genetic variation generated by amitosis of a heterozygote can increase the rate of adaptation following sex and may help explain the evolutionary success of the unusual genetic architecture of Tetrahymena and ciliates more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shape is one of the core features of the buildings which are the main elements of the map. The building shape recognition is widely used in many spatial applications. Due to the irregularity of the building contour, it is still challenging for building shape recognition. Inspired by graph signal processing theory, we propose a deep graph filter neural network (DGFN) for the shape recognition of buildings in maps. First, we regard shape recognition as a combination of subjective and objective graph signal filtering process. Second, we construct a shape features extraction framework from the perspective of shape details, shape structure and shape local information. Third, DGFN model can fulfil the tasks of shape classification and shape embedding of building at the same time. Finally, multi angle experiments verify our viewpoint of shape recognition mechanism, and the comparison with similar algorithms proves the high accuracy and availability of DGFN model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AKI (acute kidney injury) with maladaptive repair plays exacerbated role in renal fibrosis characterized by tubulointerstitial fibrosis. Previously, we reported that IKKα contributed to kidney regeneration and inhibited inflammation. Here, we first identified the role and mechanism of IKKα on TGF‐β1‐induced fibrosis in human tubular epithelial cells and fibrotic kidneys. IKKα was up‐regulated in kidney tubular epithelium in unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) and unilateral ischemic reperfusion injury (UIRI) mice. Immunohistochemical staining showed that IKKα was positively correlated with the extent of kidney fibrosis in tissue biopsies from chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. Compared with wild‐type controls, Ksp‐IKKα−/− mice exhibited inactivated Wnt/β‐catenin pathway, decreased serum creatinine and interstitial fibrosis in the kidney after IRI. In TGF‐β1‐stimulated human tubular epithelial cells, IKKα overexpression enhanced β‐catenin nuclear translocation. Blocking IKKα by siRNA specifically suppressed β‐catenin activation and downstream profibrotic genes such as fibronectin and α‐smooth muscle actin (α‐SMA). Taken together, our study demonstrated that IKKα aggravated renal fibrogenesis by activating Wnt/β‐catenin signalling pathway, providing a new target for the treatment of kidney fibrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: In recent years, the shortage of cow stocks and the reduction of cow breeders in China have caused a shortage of cattle resources and a high price of calves, which has become a bottleneck restricting the further development of China's beef cattle industry. At present, there are few studies on the decision-making behavior of cow breeding in China. In order to explore the factors that affect the decision-making behavior on cow breeding by beef cattle farmers, this paper uses field survey data to make an empirical analysis through the Logit ISM model. The results show that the age of the breeder, the breeding year, the planting area of forage, market expectations, the loan amount, the breeding method policy publicity and policy subsidies are significant factors affecting the decision-making behavior of beef cattle farmers on cow breeding. The beef cattle industry is an important part of herbivorous animal husbandry and an important industry to enrich the dietary structure of residents and promote the income of farmers and herdsmen. The cow is an important foundation to support the healthy development of the beef cattle industry, which is related to the stability of cattle sources and the sustainable development of the industry. However, in recent years, the shortage of cows in our country has led to the shortage of cattle resources and the high price of calves, which has restricted the further development of our beef cattle industry. In order to explore the factors that affect the decision-making behavior behind cow breeding and to find the right policy to mobilize the enthusiasm for cow breeding, based on the field survey of five provinces (cities and regions), including Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, this paper conducts an empirical analysis through the Logit ISM model. The results show that market expectation is the surface factor that directly affects the decision-making behavior of cow breeding. The influencing factors of the middle layer are policy propaganda, policy subsidies, breeding years, and feeding methods. The deep root factors are the age of the breeder, the amount of loan, and whether to plant feed crops. Based on this, this paper proposes that we should actively promote the importance of cow breeding, strengthen policy support for cow breeding, formulate scientific and reasonable subsidy policies for cows, innovate financial support methods to solve the problem of fund shortage of farmers, and develop forage resources and reduce the breeding cost of cows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Z-scheme anatase/rutile TiO 2 /g-C 3 N 4 hybrids (denoted as LTARCN-x, x represents calcination temperature) were designed and synthesized by growing TiO 2 nanorods on the surface of g-C 3 N 4 utilizing impregnation-calcination method. Furthermore, through the etched effect of hydrochloric acid and calcination treatment, the as-prepared LTARCN-x possessed abundant pore structure and larger surface area, and the surface area of LTARCN-425 was 8.5 times than that of bulk g-C 3 N 4. Meanwhile, the g-C 3 N 4 would play a role of carrier to prevent from the aggregation of TiO 2 nanorods. In addition, under visible light irradiation, the Z-scheme heterostructure would be constructed between the rutile TiO 2 nanorod and g-C 3 N 4 nanosheet, respectively. The optimized photocatalyst LTARCN-425 exhibited a preferable activity, the photocatalytic hydrogen production rate of LTARCN-425 was about 1031 μmol g−1 h−1, and it was about 6.3 and 13.6 times than that of g-C 3 N 4 and TiO 2 , respectively. Moreover, the photocatalytic mechanism of the hydrogen production was studied intensively via designing fluorescent probe, Pt and PbO 2 deposition experiment, and the characterizations of EPR, TEM, HRTEM and XPS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the complexity of the application scenarios of rolling bearing and the severe scarcity of fault samples, a solution to the issue of fault diagnosis under varying working conditions along with the absence of fault samples is required. A numerical model-driven cross-domain fault diagnosis method targeting variable working conditions is proposed based on the cross-Domain Nuisance Attribute Projection (cDNAP). Firstly, the simulation datasets consisting of multiple fault types under variable working conditions are constructed to solve the problem of incomplete fault samples. Secondly, the simulation datasets are expanded by means of generating adversarial network to ensure sufficient samples for subsequent model training. Finally, cDNAP is used to obtain the cross-domain simulation projection matrix, which eliminates the variance in the distribution of measured and simulated sample features under varying working conditions. The experimental results of cross-domain for variable working conditions show that the diagnostic accuracy reaches up to 99%. Compared with DANN, DSAN, and DAAN domain adversarial neural networks, the proposed method performs better in bearing fault diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long intergenic non-coding RNA 00852 (LINC00852) has been shown to promote the progression of many different cancers including prostate cancer. However, the involved mechanism in promoting the proliferation, migration and invasion of prostate cancer cells has not been reported. In this study, we found that LINC00852 was highly expressed in the tissue of prostate cancer using quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR). CCK-8 assay, colony formation experiment, Transwell migration and invasion experiments were performed to prove that the up-regulation of LINC00852 could promote the proliferation, migration and invasion of prostate cancer cells in vitro. Xenograft tumors experiments in nude mice confirmed that up-regulation of LINC00852 promoted the proliferation of prostate cancer cells in vivo. Bioinformatics predictions and dual-luciferase reporter gene assay showed that miR-29a-3p binds to the 3'-untranslated region of JARID2, and the enhancement of miR-29a-3p could reverse the effect of LINC00852 overexpression in vitro. Moreover, the results of qRT-PCR and western blot showed that LINC00852 could regulate the expression of JARID2 through miR-29a-3p induction. In summary, we demonstrated that LINC00852 played a key role in promoting the prostate cancer, and LINC00852/miR-29a-3p/JARID2 axis could be used as a target for prostate cancer treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was to investigate the protective effects of resveratrol (RSV) and its 3,5-dimethylether derivative pterostilbene (PT) against liver injury and immunological stress of weaned piglets upon lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge. Seventy-two weaned piglets were divided into the following groups: control group, LPS-challenged group, and LPS-challenged groups pretreated with either RSV or PT for 14 d (n = 6 pens, three pigs per pen). At the end of the feeding trial, piglets were intraperitoneally injected with either LPS or an equivalent amount of sterile saline. After 6 h of sterile saline or LPS injection, plasma and liver samples were collected. LPS stimulation caused massive apoptosis, activated inflammatory responses, and incited severe oxidative stress in the piglet livers while also promoting the nuclear translocation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) p65 (P < 0.001) and the protein expression of Nod-like receptor pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3 ; P = 0.001) and cleaved caspase 1 (P < 0.001). PT was more effective than RSV in alleviating LPS-induced hepatic damage by decreasing the apoptotic rate of liver cells (P = 0.045), inhibiting the transcriptional expression of interleukin 1 beta (P < 0.001) and interleukin 6 (P = 0.008), and reducing myeloperoxidase activity (P = 0.010). The LPS-induced increase in hepatic lipid peroxidation accumulation was also reversed by PT (P = 0.024). Importantly, inhibiting protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) activity in a hepatocellular model largely blocked the ability of PT to prevent tumor necrosis factor alpha-induced increases in NF-κB p65 protein phosphorylation (P = 0.043) and its nuclear translocation (P = 0.029). In summary, PT is a promising agent that may alleviate liver injury and immunological stress of weaned piglets via the PP2A/NF-κB/NLRP3 signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proteomic profiling of extracellular vesicles (EVs) represents a promising approach for early detection and therapeutic monitoring of diseases such as cancer. The focus of this study was to apply robust EV isolation and subsequent data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry (DIA-MS) for urinary EV proteomics of prostate cancer and prostate inflammation patients. Urinary EVs were isolated by functionalized magnetic beads through chemical affinity on an automatic station, and EV proteins were analyzed by integrating three library-base analyses (Direct-DIA, GPF-DIA, and Fractionated DDA-base DIA) to improve the coverage and quantitation. We assessed the levels of urinary EV-associated proteins based on 40 samples consisting of 20 cases and 20 controls, where 18 EV proteins were identified to be differentiated in prostate cancer outcome, of which three (i.e., SERPINA3, LRG1, and SCGB3A1) were shown to be consistently upregulated. We also observed 6 out of the 18 (33%) EV proteins that had been developed as drug targets, while some of them showed protein-protein interactions. Moreover, the potential mechanistic pathways of 18 significantly different EV proteins were enriched in metabolic, immune, and inflammatory activities. These results showed consistency in an independent cohort with 20 participants. Using a random forest algorithm for classification assessment, including the identified EV proteins, we found that SERPINA3, LRG1, or SCGB3A1 add predictable value in addition to age, prostate size, body mass index (BMI), and prostate-specific antigen (PSA). In summary, the current study demonstrates a translational workflow to identify EV proteins as molecular markers to improve the clinical diagnosis of prostate cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hemin with functions such as oxygen carrying, oxygen storing, promoting redox, and performing electron transfer is important for the health of organisms. In this paper, green synthetic silicon nanoparticles (Si-NPs) were synthesized and used for free hemin detection in serum (a low limit of detection (LOD), 29.5 nM). The quenching mechanism was investigated by UV–vis absorption spectra, time-resolved luminescence decay curve, and circular dichroism (CD) spectra. It was confirmed that multiple redox centers of hemin led to intensified effective collision and increased the electron transfer rate, therefore enhancing the dynamic quenching, and it was undeniable that the inner filter effect (IFE) also played a role in the quenching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional nonisolated multilevel inverters based on the buck–boost principle usually have some disadvantage such as necessary dead time or capacitor precharging. To overcome these, a new transformerless single-stage buck–boost voltage source inverter topology and its control method are proposed. In addition, the proposed topology has greater advantages in cost and loss. In this letter, the topological characteristics and working mode of the inverter are analyzed, and a modulation scheme that can ensure the balance of the output capacitor voltage is designed. Finally, a hardware experimental prototype is built, and the proposed scheme is experimentally verified based on DSP TMS320F28335 and FPGA XC6SLX9-2TQG144C digital controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • GNs were prepared by pyrolyzing the amide salt. • GNs have multi-excitation and single color emission properties. • GNs have the characteristics of high water solubility, low toxicity, easy manufacturing, etc. • GNs can efficiently and specifically respond to ClO− and image HepG2 cells. A novel and simple approach of using amide salt pyrolysis to produce photoluminescent (multi-excitation and single color emission) graphene nanosheets (GNs) with a thickness of <1 nm and a diameter of about 100–200 nm is described herein. It has characteristics of high water solubility, low toxicity, easy manufacturing, etc., and has potential application prospects in analytical chemistry and biomedicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two Mn2+ coordination polymers (CPs) with the scientific terms of {[Mn(TTPA)·(H2O)2]·H2O}n (1) and {[Mn(TTPA)·(H2TTPA)]·2DMSO}n (2) were favorably created on the basis of multidentate linking organic ligand 2,5-bis-(1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)-terephthalic acid (H2TTPA) in the conditions of solvent-presupposed thermal reaction. To measure the influence of two Mn2+ coordination polymers with novel structures, the ELISA assay and real-time RT-PCR assay were conducted in this present research. First of all, the ELISA assay was conducted to measure the content of inflammatory cytokines released into the hippocampal tissue. In addition to this, the relative expression of the TAU protein in the brain was further determined with real-time RT-PCR assay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ischemia–reperfusion injury (IRI) is one of the major causes of acute kidney injury (AKI). tRNA derived fragments (tRFs/tiRNAs) are groups of small noncoding RNAs derived from tRNAs. To date, the role of tRFs/tiRNAs in renal IRI has not been reported. Herein, we aimed to investigate the involvement of tRFs/tiRNAs in the occurrence and development of ischemia–reperfusion-induced AKI. Moderate/severe renal IRI mouse models were established by bilateral renal pedicle clamping. The tRF/tiRNA profiles of healthy controls and moderate/severe IRI-stressed kidney tissues were sequenced by Illumina NextSeq 500. Candidate differentially expressed tiRNAs were further verified by RT-qPCR. Biological analysis was also performed. Overall, 152 tRFs/tiRNAs were differentially expressed in the moderate ischemic injury group compared with the normal control group (FC > 2, p < 0.05), of which 47 were upregulated and 105 were downregulated; in the severe ischemic injury group, 285 tRFs/tiRNAs were differentially expressed (FC > 2, p < 0.05), of which 157 were upregulated, and 128 were downregulated. RT-qPCR determination of eight abundantly expressed tiRNAs was consistent with the sequencing results. Gene Ontology analysis for target genes of the tRFs/tiRNAs showed that the most enriched cell components, molecular functions and biological processes were Golgi apparatus, cytoplasmic vesicles, protein binding, cellular protein localization and multicellular organism development. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis showed that these target genes were mainly involved in the natural killer cell mediated cytotoxicity pathway, citrate cycle, and regulation of actin cytoskeleton signaling pathway. Our results indicated that tRFs/tiRNAs were involved in renal IRI. These tRFs/tiRNAs may be effective partly via regulation of renal immunity, inflammation and metabolism processes. Candidate genes, including tiRNA-Gly-GCC-003, tiRNA-Lys-CTT-003, and tiRNA-His-GTG-002, might be potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets of ischemia–reperfusion injury-induced acute kidney injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to accurately characterize and evaluate dust particle diffusion in the dynamic tunneling process of a boring machine, this study considers the 31,116 main transport chute heaving face of the Lijiahao coal mine as a case study. A dynamic tunneling model is developed considering the real dynamic tunneling state of the header, to carry out an in-depth analysis of the spatial and temporal evolution of wind flow and dust dispersion in the tunnel under dynamic excavation. In addition, the results were compared against the calculations of a static standard excavation model of a conventional header. Employing CFD analysis accompanied by field measurements, it was highlighted that the dynamic tunneling of the header leads to an increase in the pressure difference and the turbulent kinetic energy at the working face. Moreover, an increase in the number of vortices was reported, and a higher concentration of dust spreads more quickly along the return wind side wall to the return flow area. On the other hand, the high concentration of dust under the standard tunneling model was found to accumulate a lot on the return wind side. Simultaneously, as the distance between the pressurized air outlet and the working face increases, the average wind speed in the vortex-type wind flow area at the front of the tunnel decreases. When t = 60 s, the return flow area expands to a space of 8 m~24 m from the head, and the dust accumulated above the header spreads to the back of the header to form a high concentration dust region of more than 500 mg/m³. It was shown that the range of high-concentration dust clouds in the breathing zone decreases compared to the results of the standard tunneling model. Moreover, the dust concentration in the breathing zone of the driver is significantly lower than that reported by the standard tunneling model. Based on the results of the field test, the average error between the simulated and measured data of the dynamic tunneling model was calculated to be around 6.46%, thus demonstrating the model's capability in describing the real working conditions of the heave tunnel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. The complex etiological variables and high heterogeneity of bladder cancer (BC) make prognostic prediction challenging. We aimed to develop a robust and promising gene signature using advanced machine learning methods for predicting the prognosis and therapy responses of BC patients. Methods. The single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) algorithm and univariable Cox regression were used to identify the primary risk hallmark among the various cancer hallmarks. Machine learning methods were then combined with survival and differential gene expression analyses to construct a novel prognostic signature, which would be validated in two additional independent cohorts. Moreover, relationships between this signature and therapy responses were also identified. Functional enrichment analysis and immune cell estimation were also conducted to provide insights into the potential mechanisms of BC. Results. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) was identified as the primary risk factor for the survival of BC patients (HR=1.43, 95% CI: 1.26-1.63). A novel EMT-related gene signature was constructed and validated in three independent cohorts, showing stable and accurate performance in predicting clinical outcomes. Furthermore, high-risk patients had poor prognoses and multivariable Cox regression analysis revealed this to be an independent risk factor for patient survival. CD8+ T cells, Tregs, and M2 macrophages were found abundantly in the tumor microenvironment of high-risk patients. Moreover, it was anticipated that high-risk patients would be more sensitive to chemotherapeutic drugs, while low-risk patients would benefit more from immunotherapy. Conclusions. We successfully identified and validated a novel EMT-related gene signature for predicting clinical outcomes and therapy responses in BC patients, which may be useful in clinical practice for risk stratification and individualized treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless indoor localization technology is a hot research field at present. Its basic principle is to estimate the geometric position of the mobile node by measuring the characteristic parameters of the propagation signal between the mobile node and the beacon node. However, in the process of position estimation, there are non-line-of-sight errors such as multipath propagation, which greatly reduces the localization accuracy. This paper proposes an enhanced closest neighbor data association approach based on ultra-wide band (UWB) measurement. First, the measured values were grouped to obtain a series of undetermined prediction position points, and the undetermined points were put into our set verification gate for screening. Then, the particle filter was introduced to weight and redistribute the position estimation after screening, removing the NLOS-contaminated location estimation from consideration. The position estimation group with low error was finally confirmed and weighted again by the nearest neighbor association algorithm. Simulation results showed that the average localization accuracy of the proposed method was about 1 m. Compared with the existing localization algorithms, the proposed method can successfully reduce the influence of NLOS error and obtain higher localization accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generally, traditional uncertainty design optimization (UDO) methods are based on probability density distribution function or fuzzy membership function. In this situation, a large amount of uncertain information is necessary to construct the UDO model accurately. While, the interval UDO methods require less design information. Only the upper and lower bounds of interval uncertainty are utilized to construct the optimization model. In this study, to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of UBDO considering interval uncertainty, a reliability-based multidisciplinary design optimization (RBMDO) strategy using the point-infilled Kriging model is proposed. In the given method, a double-nested RBMDO model considering interval uncertainty is established. The collaborative optimization is utilized to deal with coupling relationships among complex systems. Then, the point-infilled Kriging response surface strategy is introduced to approximate the RBMDO model. The procedure of the interval multidisciplinary collaborative optimization method based on the Kriging model is discussed. Two examples are given to illustrate the application of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous development of encryption technology, the share of encrypted traffic in the network is increasing, which brings great challenges to the traditional methods of rule-based traffic identification. Deep learning is becoming an inspiring methodology to solve the problem. Previous studies have confirmed that time characteristics play an important role in Tor traffic classification. We find that there is a similarity of time characteristics among different programs. This paper proposes an end-to-end classification framework: the temporal sequence of data fluctuation network (TSDFN). It first extracts the temporal sequence of data fluctuation in the original flow and then uses the GRU network to learn the hidden temporal features. Experiments on public data sets validate the effectiveness of our proposal over other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and autophagy are implicated in the pathophysiology of intestinal inflammation; however, their roles in intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR)-induced colon inflammation are unclear. This study explored the protective effects of natural stilbene pterostilbene on colon inflammation using the IUGR piglets and the tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α)-treated human colonic epithelial cells (Caco-2) by targeting ER stress and autophagy. Results: Both the IUGR colon and the TNF-α-treated Caco-2 cells exhibited inflammatory responses, ER stress, and impaired autophagic flux (P < 0.05). The ER stress inducer tunicamycin and the autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine further augmented inflammatory responses and apoptosis in the TNF-α-treated Caco-2 cells (P < 0.05). Conversely, pterostilbene inhibited ER stress and restored autophagic flux in the IUGR colon and the TNF-α-treated cells (P < 0.05). Pterostilbene also prevented the release of inflammatory cytokines and nuclear translocation of nuclear factor kappa B p65, reduced intestinal permeability and cell apoptosis, and facilitated the expression of intestinal tight junction proteins in the IUGR colon and the TNF-α-treated cells (P < 0.05). Importantly, treatment with tunicamycin or autophagosome-lysosome binding inhibitor chloroquine blocked the positive effects of pterostilbene on inflammatory response, cell apoptosis, and intestinal barrier function in the TNF-α-exposed Caco-2 cells (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Pterostilbene mitigates ER stress and promotes autophagic flux, thereby improving colon inflammation and barrier dysfunction in the IUGR piglets and the TNF-α-treated Caco-2 cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, selenocyclization has been extensively exploited for the preparation of a wide range of selenylated heterocycles with versatile activities. Previously, selenium electrophile-based and FeCl3-promoted methods were employed for the synthesis of selenylated benzoxazines. However, these methods are limited by starting material availability and low atomic economy, respectively. Inspired by the recent catalytic selenocyclization approaches based on distinctive pathways, we rationally constructed an efficient and greener double-redox catalytic system for the access to diverse selenylated benzoxazines. The coupling of I2/I− and Fe3+/Fe2+ catalytic redox cycles enables aerial O2 to act as the driving force to promote the selenocyclization. Control and test redox experiments confirmed the roles of each component in the catalytic system, and a PhSeI-based pathway is proposed for the selenocyclization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land surface reflectance (LSR) data form the basis of quantitatively remotely sensed applications. For accurate LSR retrieval, atmospheric correction has been investigated by many researchers and implemented in typical processing systems, including common atmospheric correction software for various types of datasets and automatic operating systems for application to certain individual data sources. In recent years, China has launched multiple medium–high-resolution satellites but has not provided standard LSR products partly because of the lack of an appropriate operational system. In this paper, a multi-source remote sensing LSR product system for medium- and high-resolution data is proposed, called the "Operational Atmospheric Correction Framework for multi-source Medium-high-resolution Remote Sensing data of China" (ACFrC). The AC algorithm, processing flow, and design of the multi-source LSR system were described in detail. A practical atmospheric correction algorithm was proposed specially for data in only the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) bands. The entire processing chain was divided into modules for multi-source data ingestion, apparent reflectance calculation, cloud and water identification, atmospheric correction, and standard LSR product generation. To date, most types of multi-source data have been tested using the ACFrC system, with reasonable results being obtained. From the preliminary results, the 313 scenes of LSR products from the GaoFen-2 (GF-2) satellite over China for the period from 2015 to 2018 were cross-compared with Landsat-8 LSR acquired on the same day, showing an overall uncertainty less than 0.112 × LSR + 0.0112. Further, the ACFrC data processing efficiency was found to be suitable for automatic operation. System improvement is ongoing and future refinements will include online cloud parallel computing functionality and services, more robust algorithms, and other radiometric processing functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the advent of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), researchers have paid extensive attention to MOFs due to their determined structural composition, controllable pore size, and diverse physical and chemical properties. Photocatalysis, as a significant application of MOFs catalysts, has developed rapidly in recent years and become a research hotspot continuously. Various methods and approaches to construct and modify MOFs and their derivatives can not only affect the structure and morphology, but also largely determine their properties. Herein, we summarize the advanced synthesis of MOFs-based materials in the field of the photocatalytic decomposition of water to produce hydrogen in the recent three years. The main contents include the overview of the novel synthesis strategies in four aspects: internal modification and structure optimization of MOFs materials, MOFs/semiconductor composites, MOFs/COFs-based hybrids, and MOFs-derived materials. In addition, the problems and challenges faced in this direction and the future development goals were also discussed. We hope this review will help deepen the reader's understanding and promote continued high-quality development in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To promote the design and optimization as well as a deeper understanding of pintle injectors further, the progress on atomization and mixing characteristics of pintle injectors were reviewed in this paper. Considering the dilemma of highly empirical dependence in industrial structure design, significant achievements in the structure design and optimization of pintle injectors were summarized first. Then, the atomization and mixing characteristics of the pintle injectors were discussed in detail, with emphasis on their measurement techniques and simulation approaches. Finally, the future challenges regarding the atomization and mixing of pintle injectors were summarized, and corresponding research suggestions were also provided. This review presented the recent achievements, future perspectives and challenges on atomization and mixing of the pintle injectors, which is expected to provide insight into further exploration in scientific research and industrial application. • The design and optimization of pintle injector are reviewed. • The atomization characteristics of pintle injector are summarized. • The mixing characteristics of pintle injector are discussed. • Some suggestions for further research are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have been widely adopted to serve as accelerators in artificial intelligence and big data related applications. Since the static random access memory (SRAM)-based FPGA is suffering from limited density and high leakage power, nonvolatile FPGAs have been proposed, where SRAM is replaced with emerging nonvolatile memories (NVMs). Multilevel cell (MLC), which can store multiple bits within one memory cell, further improves the density of nonvolatile FPGAs and shows great potential to enable large on-chip memory. However, it suffers from limited lifetime. In this article, we propose a wear leveling scheme to improve lifetime of MLC-based nonvolatile FPGAs. Instead of generating a series of configuration files for runtime reconfiguration, we propose to identify write-heavy MLC regions and dynamically transform them to durable single-level cell (SLC) mode. Specifically, we propose three modules: 1) pertaining to write behavior monitor; 2) approximate cost calculator; and 3) mode transformation manager to achieve adaptive mode transformations. We consider FPGA features to design these modules, which is different from implementations for MLC-SLC transformation in CPU architecture. Evaluation shows that the proposed scheme can improve lifetime for MLC nonvolatile FPGAs by $6.03\times $ , at cost of 12.5% storage overhead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long noncoding ribonucleic acids (RNAs; lncRNAs) have been associated with cancer immunity regulation. However, the roles of immune cell-specific lncRNAs in glioblastoma (GBM) remain largely unknown. In this study, a novel computational framework was constructed to screen the tumor-infiltrating immune cell-associated lncRNAs (TIIClnc) for developing TIIClnc signature by integratively analyzing the transcriptome data of purified immune cells, GBM cell lines and bulk GBM tissues using six machine learning algorithms. As a result, TIIClnc signature could distinguish survival outcomes of GBM patients across four independent datasets, including the Xiangya in-house dataset, and more importantly, showed superior performance than 95 previously established signatures in gliomas. TIIClnc signature was revealed to be an indicator of the infiltration level of immune cells and predicted the response outcomes of immunotherapy. The positive correlation between TIIClnc signature and CD8, PD-1 and PD-L1 was verified in the Xiangya in-house dataset. As a newly demonstrated predictive biomarker, the TIIClnc signature enabled a more precise selection of the GBM population who would benefit from immunotherapy and should be validated and applied in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Pentraxin 3 (PTX3) is an essential regulator of the immune system. However, the immune‐modulatory role of PTX3 in the tumor microenvironment of glioma has not been elucidated. Methods: The RNA seq samples were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the China Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) datasets. The single‐cell sequencing data of glioblastoma (GBM) samples were obtained from the Single Cell Portal platform (http://singlecell.broadinstitute.org). Immunohistochemistry was used to assess PTX3 expression, HAVCR2, PD‐1, PD‐L1, and CD276 in glioma sections from the Xiangya cohort (n = 60). Multiplex immunofluorescence staining of PTX3, CD68, and CD163 was performed in several solid cancer types, including GBM. HMC3 was cocultured with U251 and U87, and transwell assay and flow cytometry assay were performed to explore the migration and polarization activity of HMC3. Results: PTX3 expression is significantly increased in GBM. PTX3 expression predicts worse survival in the Xiangya cohort. PTX3 is closely related to the expression of PD‐1, PD‐L1, CD276, and HAVCR2 in the tumor microenvironment. Additionally, PTX3 is involved in tumorigenic and immunogenic processes, especially the activity of macrophages based on various signaling pathways in cellular communications and critical transcription factors. Specifically, PTX3 actively mediates macrophages' infiltration, migration, and inflammation‐resolving‐polarization. PTX3 could also predict immunotherapy response. Conclusion: PTX3 is critically involved in macrophage infiltration, migration, and inflammation‐resolving‐polarization and modulates an immunosuppressive microenvironment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated stress flow in weathering steel Q345 after strong acid corrosion. In total, 27 specimens were immersed in 36% industrial hydrochloric acid for 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 24, 48, and 72 h, respectively. A three-dimensional noncontact laser scanner was used to measure geometric parameters of pits on the surface of the steel. The influence on ductile crack initiation in steel under the pit was investigated through tensile testing and finite-element simulation, which obtained the relationship among depth-diameter ratio, depth ratio, and stress triaxiality. Based on analysis of 65 finite-element models, the equivalent ductile fracture criterion of strong-corrosion steel per corrosion times was proposed. The results showed that the depth-to-diameter ratio of pits increased linearly with pit depth, whereas the depth ratio of pits increased nonlinearly with corrosion time extending. After 24 h of corrosion, the depth ratio of pits in weathering steel Q345 showed an inflection point where the growth rate was relatively slow. When corrosion time reached 72 h, the depth-diameter ratio and depth ratio of the maximum pit was 0.74 and 0.01, respectively. With the development of the depth-to-diameter ratio, the stress triaxiality inside corrosion steel increased; meanwhile, the equivalent plastic fracture strain decreased, which accelerated internal crack initiation. For pits in weathering steel Q345 with a depth-diameter ratio of 0.40–0.80, stress triaxiality increased from 0.56 to 1.23. Finally, the elongation of corrosion steel degraded gradually. By comparing test values, formula values, and finite-element values, fracture strain errors were all less than 5%. These data show that the equivalent ductile fracture criterion can accurately simulate the ductile degradation in weathering steel Q345 after hydrochloric-acid corrosion. The research results can provide a theoretical basis and application reference for strong-corrosion protection ways of weathering steel Q345 after hydrochloric-acid corrosion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep neural networks have achieved great performance on blind Image Quality Assessment (IQA), but it is still challenging for using one network to accurately predict the quality of images with different distortions. In this paper, a Distortion-Aware Convolutional Neural Network (DACNN) is proposed for blind IQA, which works effectively for not only synthetically distorted images but also authentically distorted images. The proposed DACNN consists of a distortion aware module, a distortion fusion module, and a quality prediction module. In the distortion aware module, a Siamese network-based pretraining strategy is proposed to design a synthetic distortion-aware network for full learning the synthetic distortions, and an authentic distortion-aware network is used for extracting the authentic distortions. To efficiently fuse the learned distortion features, and make the network pay more attention to the essential features, a weight-adaptive fusion network is proposed to adaptively adjust the weight of each distortion. Finally, the quality prediction module is adopted to map the fused features to a quality score. Extensive experiments on four authentic IQA databases and four synthetic IQA databases have proved the effectiveness of the proposed DACNN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell (CAR-T cell) therapy based on gene editing technology represents a significant breakthrough in personalized immunotherapy for human cancer. This strategy uses genetic modification to enable T cells to target tumor-specific antigens, attack specific cancer cells, and bypass tumor cell apoptosis avoidance mechanisms to some extent. This method has been extensively used to treat hematologic diseases, but the therapeutic effect in solid tumors is not ideal. Tumor antigen escape, treatment-related toxicity, and the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) limit their use of it. Target selection is the most critical aspect in determining the prognosis of patients receiving this treatment. This review provides a comprehensive summary of all therapeutic targets used in the clinic or shown promising potential. We summarize CAR-T cell therapies' clinical trials, applications, research frontiers, and limitations in treating different cancers. We also explore coping strategies when encountering sub-optimal tumor-associated antigens (TAA) or TAA loss. Moreover, the importance of CAR-T cell therapy in cancer immunotherapy is emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible multi-body dynamics of wind turbines is a subfield of structural mechanics that mainly studies the response of the coupling structure under dynamic loading, such as the transient changes of displacement and stress, in order to measure the load carrying capacity of the coupling structure and obtain the corresponding dynamic properties. Structural dynamics takes into account not only the damping and inertia forces generated by the vibration of the structure but also the elastic force generated by the deformation of the structure. With the continuous increase of individual power and tower height, the flexibility of the multi-body system of wind turbines also increases. The study of the influence of structural parameters on the coupled structural vibrations of tower blades of large wind turbines can provide a scientific basis for the flexible design of large wind turbines as well as important theoretical support for their safe, stable, and economic operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goats are an important livestock and goat meat is essential to local people. The intramuscular fat (IMF) content has a great influence on the quality of goat meat. The intramuscular preadipocytes differentiation is closely related to the IMF deposition; however, its potential regulatory mechanisms remain unclear. CircRNAs were revealed to be involved in multiple biological progressions. In this study, we took primary goat intramuscular preadipocyte (GIMPA) as the study model to verify the function and mechanism of chi-circ_0006511, which was abundant and up-regulated in mature adipocytes (GIMA). The results showed that the expression level of chi-circ_0006511 gradually increased in the early stage of GIMPA differentiation, and chi-circ_0006511 was confirmed to promote GIMPA lipid droplets aggregation and up-regulate the adipogenic differentiation determinants, further promoting GIMPA differentiation. Mechanistically, chi-circ_0006511 exerts its function by sponging novel-miR-87, thereby regulating the expression of CD36. The results from this study provided novel significant information to better understand the molecular regulatory mechanism of intramuscular preadipocytes differentiation, thereby providing a new reference for the intramuscular fat adipogenesis in goats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, along with the rapid development of urban rail transit (URT) in China, the evaluation of operational efficiency and energy efficiency has become one of the most important topics. However, the extant literature regarding the efficiency of URT at the line level and considering carbon emissions is limited. To fill the gap, an evaluation model based on slacks-based measure (SBM) data envelopment analysis (DEA) is proposed to measure the efficiencies, which is applied to 61 URT lines in China's four megacities. The findings are summarized as follows: (1) The average operational efficiency and energy efficiency of URT lines are low, and both have great room for improvement. (2) There are significant disparities in the efficiency of URT lines in the case cities. For instance, the average operational efficiency of URT lines in Guangzhou is higher than that of other cities, while the average energy efficiency of URT lines in Shanghai is higher than that of other cities. (3) The URT lines operated by state-owned enterprises have higher average operational efficiency, while the lines operated by joint ventures have higher average energy efficiency. Finally, some suggestions are provided to improve the efficiencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. This paper aims to explore novel ferroptosis-related biomarkers for acute kidney injury (AKI). Methods. Various bioinformatic methods, such as differential expression analysis, functional annotation analysis, machine learning, and chemical-gene network analysis, were used in this study. Furthermore, the expression and proferroptotic role of RPS7 were validated with further bioinformatics analysis and biochemical experiments. Results. GSE30718 dataset and GSE139061 dataset were used, and the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened. The DEGs were overlapped with ferroptosis-related genes and genes associated with AKI, which led to the identification of four candidate genes. Machine learning and ROC curve analysis were conducted, and RPS7 and TRIB3 were selected for diagnostic model analysis and functional analysis. Finally, the upregulation of RSP7 in cisplatin-induced AKI was validated in cisplatin-induced AKI, and its proferroptotic role was confirmed in cisplatin-treated proximal tubular cells. Conclusion. Our results indicated that RPS7 might present as a novel ferroptosis-related biomarker for AKI, and it derived ferroptosis to accentuate cisplatin-induced AKI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with polymers and nanoparticles, fatty alcohols can not only increase the stability of foam, but also maintain better foamability at pH < 2, which is beneficial to reduce waste liquid and increase decontamination efficiency for radioactive surface pollution. However, different fatty alcohols have different hydrophobic chain lengths. The effects of fatty alcohols with different chain lengths on the performance of decontamination foam were studied at pH < 2, to assist in the selection of suitable fatty alcohols as foam stabilizers. Combined with betaine surfactant and phytic acid, biomass-based foams were synthesized using fatty alcohols with different chain lengths. When the hydrophobic tail groups of the fatty alcohol and the surfactant were the same, the foam showed the best performance, including the lowest surface tension, the highest liquid film strength, the greatest sag-resistance and the best stability. However, when the hydrophobic tail groups were different, the space between adjacent surface active molecules was increased by thermal motion of the excess terminal tail segments (a tail-wagging effect), and the adsorption density reduced on the gas-liquid interface, leading to increased surface tension and decreased liquid film strength, sag-resistance and stability. The use of decontamination foam stabilized by fatty alcohols with the same hydrophobic group as the surfactant was found to increase the decontamination rate of radioactive uranium pollution from 64 to over 90% on a vertical surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]