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The Caenorhabditis elegans gene mag-1 can substitute functionally for its homolog mago nashi in Drosophila and is predicted to encode a protein that exhibits 80% identity and 88% similarity to Mago nashi (P. A. Newmarket et al., 1997, Development 120, 3197-3207). We have used RNA-mediated interference (RNAi) to analyze the phenotypic consequences of impairing mag-1 function in C. elegans. We show here that mag-1(RNAi) causes masculinization of the germ line (Mog phenotype) in RNA-injected hermaphrodites, suggesting that mag-1 is involved in hermaphrodite germ-line sex determination. Epistasis analysis shows that ectopic sperm production caused by mag-1(RNAi) is prevented by loss-of-function (lf) mutations in fog-2, gld-1, fem-1, fem-2, fem-3, and fog-1, all of which cause germ-line feminization in XO hermaphrodites, but not by a her-1(lf) mutation which causes germ-line feminization only in XO males. These results suggest that mag-1 interacts with the fog, fem, and gld genes and acts independently of her-1. We propose that mag-1 normally allows oogenesis by inhibiting function of one or more of these masculinizing genes, which act during the fourth larval stage to promote transient sperm production in the hermaphrodite germ line. When the Mog phenotype is suppressed by a fog-2(lf) mutation, mag-1(RNAi) also causes lethality in the progeny embryos of RNA-injected, mated hermaphrodites, suggesting an essential role for mag-1 during embryogenesis. The defective embryos arrest during morphogenesis with an apparent elongation defect. The distribution pattern of a JAM-1::GFP reporter, which is localized to boundaries of hypodermal cells, shows that hypodermis is disorganized in these embryos. The temporal expression pattern of the mag-1 gene prior to and during morphogenesis appears to be consistent with an essential role of mag-1 in embryonic hypodermal organization and elongation.

During video-assisted thoracic surgery, surgical smoke can interfere with the vision and attention of surgeons. In addition, the harmful substances in the surgical smoke also threaten the health of the surgical staff. In practice, we designed an economical and available solution for the smoke in video-assisted thoracic surgery, with satisfactory results. This report introduces the principle and procedure of this solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphical abstract Asthma is a common chronic inflammatory airway disorder associated with considerable morbidity and mortality worldwide. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as a functional food characterized by multi-compound and multi-target have been proven to be effective in treating asthma. However, the potential mechanism of TCM to anti-asthma has not been fully elucidated. In our study, a systems pharmacology-based method is developed to comprehensively elucidate the therapeutic mechanism of asthma, exemplified by the anti-asthma herbal medicine intervention (ASHMI). Highlights • Our method is developed to elucidate the pharmacological mechanism of ASHMI on asthma. • The ADME evaluation and target fishing identify the active compounds and their related targets. • The herb feature mapping discloses the differences in chemistry and pharmacological property. • The established pharmacological networks clarify the therapeutic mechanism of ASHMI on asthma. Abstract Asthma is a common chronic inflammatory airway disorder associated with considerable morbidity, mortality and increased health care costs worldwide. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as a functional food characterized by multi-compound and multi-target have been proven to be effective in treating asthma based on a holistic way. However, the potential molecular or systems mechanism of TCM to anti-asthma has not yet been fully elucidated. A systems pharmacology-based method combining the ADME evaluation, herb feature mapping, drug target fishing, network pharmacology, as well as pathway analysis is developed to comprehensively elucidate the potential therapeutic mechanism of asthma, exemplified by the anti-asthma herbal medicine intervention (ASHMI). Our study not only provides a comprehensive thinking for better understanding the complex action mechanism of ASHMI on asthma from a system level, but also proposed a rational novel way to facilitate the treatment of asthma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] An MFC was successfully started up using nitrite as cathodic electron acceptor. [•] The optimal HRT was deemed to be 8h in this study. [•] The suitable temperature for power generation was found to be 20°C. [•] The suitable temperature for pollutant removal was found to be 25°C. [•] Free buffer led to 50% decrease of TN removal rate and power generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Computer-Aided Plant Design (CAPD) model characterizes its peculiar complex topology among a tremendous number of plant components under complex constraints rather than just geometrical shapes. Lots of watermarking schemes for CAD models have been proposed for geometrical information protection or authentication. However, in the literature, none of them has mentioned the problem of topology authentication for CAPD models yet. In this paper, a semi-fragile watermarking algorithm for topology authentication of CAPD models is presented. We first discuss the problem of topology authentication of CAPD models. Then a subset of the model’s connection points are selected as mark points, also called watermark carriers, according to the mark point selecting principle. We encode the topological relation among components into watermarks. Afterwards, the topology based watermarks are embedded in mark points to keep them in a predefined relationship with neighboring connection points so that any changes will ruin the relationship between marked connection points and neighboring connection points. To the best of our knowledge, our algorithm is the first semi-fragile and blind scheme that can authenticate and verify the topology of CAPD models. Experimental results show that our approach not only can detect and locate malicious topology attacks such as components modification and joint ends modification, but also is robust against various non-malicious attacks such as similarity transformations and simplification. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: When fully-mechanized caving face passed fault, rock burst accidence easily occurred. The SOS microseism monitoring system was applied to monitor the microseismic activities all time occurred in the coal and rock mass near the fault area. Variation features of microseismic energy releasing and microseismic frequency were analyzed. Numerical simulation method was used to research the abutment stress distribution when coal face passed fault, which was compared with microseism occurrence rules. When the coal face approached to fault, the abutment stress increases gradually, so the high stress would accumulate near the fault region. When the coal face left fault, the abutment stress decreased. The SOS microseism monitoring results showed that microseismic activity in the fault area had a high instability. When the coal face neared to the fault, total energy value and frequency released by the microseism steadily increased. The maximum energy peak value also had the tendency to rapidly increase. Before the strong shock occurred, there was a period of weak seismic activity. The weak seismic activity showed energy accumulation for strong shock, which can be used to forecast the danger of rock burst. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of calcyclin-binding protein (also known as Siah-1-interacting protein [CacyBP/SIP]) in astrocytoma and to determine its prognostic value in overall survival of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Tissue specimens were obtained from 77 Chinese patients who had undergone surgery for astrocytoma. The expression of CacyBP/SIP was examined by immunohistochemistry. The relationship between CacyBP/SIP and proliferating cell nuclear antigen index (PCNA) expression was investigated, and the prognostic value of CacyBP/SIP expression in patients with astrocytomas was analyzed. Of 77 tumors, 49 (63.6%) were negative for CacyBP/SIP expression. Loss of CacyBP/SIP expression was significantly associated with a high histological grade and with poor survival in univariate and multivariate analyses. Cox multivariable analysis showed that loss of CacyBP/SIP expression correlated with poor prognosis in patients with astrocytomas and was an independent prognostic factor (p <0.05). The mean survival time of patients with tumors that had lost expression of CacyBP/SIP was 25.58months (95% confidence interval [CI], 15.36–25.81months), compared to a mean survival time of 36.37months (95% CI, 27.90–44.84months) for patients with CacyBP/SIP-expressing tumors. CacyBP/SIP expression was also negatively correlated with PCNA expression in astrocytoma tissue (p <0.05). Our findings suggest that CacyBP/SIP may have an important role as a negative regulator of astrocytoma development and progression, and that CacyBP/SIP might be a useful molecular marker for predicting the prognosis of astrocytoma. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: MicroRNAs control a wide array of biological processes including cell differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis whose dysregulation is a hallmark of cancer. MicroRNA-21 (miR-21) is overexpressed in many cancers including glioblastoma and contributes to tumor resistance to chemotherapy. We investigated whether miR-21 mediated chemoresistance to the chemotherapeutic agent VM-26 in glioblastoma cells and sought to identify the candidate target genes for miR-21 by gene expression profiling. Here we report that miR-21 was involved in mediating chemoresistance to VM-26 in glioblastoma cells. Suppression of miR-21 by specific antisense oligonucleotides in glioblastoma cell U373 MG led to enhanced cytotoxicities of VM-26 against U373 MG cells. We further identified and validated LRRFIP1, whose product is an inhibitor of NF-κB signaling, as a direct target gene of miR-21. Our findings suggest that miR-21 represents a promising target for therapeutic manipulation to increase the efficacy of chemotherapeutic agents in treating glioblastoma, a highly lethal type of cancer. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Independent Innovation Capability of High-Tech Enterprises Based on the attributes of cutting edge endeavours, the foundation of a suitable assessment record framework for the limit of cutting edge ventures' autonomous advancement capacities, utilizing the information originates from, and afterward the far reaching positioning of free development abilities of various undertakings area is accomplished through composite score figuring. Machine Learning algorithmic climate and related movement image arrangement. In method our strategy depends on the utilization of Inception to remove different movement classes of highlights and neural organizations. Volleyball, badminton, and have been utilized for investigation and grouping. So as to check the adequacy of the system and, correlation has been finished with different groupings like Random Forest, and Machine Learning The outcomes show that the degree of free advancement capacity of ventures in our area isn't high, separated. At long last, as indicated by the consequences of the investigation, we set forward some Camille measures and give a few proposals to expand autonomous advancement capacity. Field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based equipment and programming drives keen calculations to handle these utilizing temperature and dampness sensor test information. This strategy actualizes a mechanical Internet of Things framework and shows of the measure of FPGA in equipment assets, diminishing a huge exhibition and asset use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, Mg-Zn-Y-Nd alloy micro-tubes with an outer diameter of φ2.46 mm and a wall thickness of 0.14 mm were successfully prepared using an improved technique including hot extrusion with water cooling, multi-pass cold drawing and final annealing treatment. The outer diameter error, inner diameter error and wall thickness error of the cold drawn micro-tubes were 0.58%, 0.36% and 3.43%, respectively. After final annealing at 350 °C for 60 min, the micro-tubes showed refined microstructure with an average grain size of 8.6 μm, a weak texture of the rare earth texture or recrystallization texture, and homogeneously distributed fine second phase particles. The annealed micro-tubes exhibited significantly improved mechanical properties with a yield strength of 240.1 ± 6.0 MPa, an ultimate tensile strength of 319.9 ± 6.0 MPa and a breaking elongation of 22.2 ± 1.0%. Meanwhile, the typical characteristic of ductile morphology could be observed for the fractured specimens. In addition, the annealed micro-tubes also had better corrosion resistance and showed a uniform corrosion morphology. • The thin-walled Mg alloy micro-tubes were prepared by an improved method. • The rare earth texture and recrystallization texture were formed in the annealed microtube. • The annealed micro-tubes showed weakened texture. • High strength and large elongation of the annealed micro-tubes were achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Osteoporosis, which manifests as reduced bone mass and deteriorated bone quality, is common in the elderly population. It is characterized by persistent elevation of macrophage-associated inflammation and active osteoclast bone resorption. Currently, the roles of intracellular metabolism in regulating these processes remain unclear. In this study, we initially performed bioinformatics analysis and observed a significant increase in the proportion of M1 macrophages in bone marrow with aging. Further metabolomics analysis demonstrated a notable reduction in the expression of carnitine metabolites in aged macrophages, while carnitine was not detected in osteoclasts. During the differentiation process, osteoclasts took up carnitine synthesized by macrophages to regulate their own activity. Mechanistically, carnitine enhanced the function of Nrf2 by inhibiting the Keap1-Nrf2 interaction, reducing the proteasome-dependent ubiquitination and degradation of Nrf2. In silico molecular ligand docking analysis of the interaction between carnitine and Keap1 showed that carnitine binds to Keap1 to stabilize Nrf2 and enhance its function. In this study, we found that the decrease in carnitine levels in aging macrophages causes overactivation of osteoclasts, ultimately leading to osteoporosis. A decrease in serum carnitine levels in patients with osteoporosis was found to have good diagnostic and predictive value. Moreover, supplementation with carnitine was shown to be effective in the treatment of osteoporosis. Carnitine activates Nrf2 in macrophage by inhibiting Keap1-Nrf2 protein-protein interaction (PPI), which further exerts anti-osteoporosis effects. In addition, carnitine serves a diagnostic indicator for osteoporosis. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a marine dual fuel diesel engine fueled with the natural gas (NG: 60%, 70% and 80%) ignited by the biodiesel-diesel blended fuel (25%, 50% and 75% biodiesel by volume) was studied under different conditions. Based on the experiment, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was established, and an improved chemical kinetic mechanism was developed to simulate the fuel spray process and combustion process. The ignition, combustion and emission characteristics of diesel engine fueled with different blended fuels were investigated under different load conditions. In addition, the temperature sensitivity of methane mole fraction with different NG energy fractions was analyzed at the 800 K and 1000 K. The results showed that the additions of NG and biodiesel in the blended fuel had a significant effect on the combustion and emission characteristics of the diesel engine. The starting of combustion (SOC) of the dual fuel engine lagged with the increases of NG and biodiesel content. The maximum enhancement of SOC reached 0.72°CA. The biggest influence on temperature was R122, which was the main reason for the shorter ignition delay during the combustion process. In all cases, NO x , CO and soot emissions decreased with increasing NG energy fraction. The maximum values of NO x , CO and soot emissions reached 1590 ppm, 461 ppm and 1.42 E−07 kg. Considering the combustion and emission characteristics of the engine, the best fuel blending ratio was EF80-B25. • A marine dual fuel diesel engine fueled with the natural gas ignited by the biodiesel-diesel blended fuel is investigated. • An improved 3D model and chemical kinetics mechanism are developed. • The optimum fuel mixture ratio of diesel engine is obtained. • The temperature sensitivity of methane mole fraction with different NG energy fractions is analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extracellular ATP plays a key role in regulating plants stress responses. Here, we aimed to determine whether ATP can alleviate the glyphosate toxicity in maize seedlings under high temperature by regulating antioxidant responses. Foliar spraying with 100 μM glyphosate inhibited the growth of maize seedlings at room temperature (25 °C), leading to an increase in shikimic acid accumulation and oxidative stress (evaluated via lipid peroxidation, free proline, and H 2 O 2 content) in the leaves, all of which were further exacerbated by high temperature (35 °C). The growth inhibition and oxidative stress caused by glyphosate were both alleviated by exogenous ATP. Moreover, the glyphosate-induced antioxidant enzyme activity and antioxidant accumulation were attenuated by high temperature, while ATP treatment reversed this inhibitory effect. Similarly, qPCR data showed that the relative expression levels of antioxidant enzyme-related genes (CAT1 , GR1 , and γ-ECS) in maize leaves were upregulated by ATP before exposure to GLY. Moreover, high temperature-enhanced GLY residue accumulation in maize leaves was reduced by ATP. ATP-induced detoxification was attenuated through NADPH oxidase (NOX) inhibition. Higher NOX activities and O 2 •− production were noted in ATP-treated maize leaves compared to controls prior to GLY treatment, indicating that the extracellular ATP-induced alleviation of GLY toxicity was closely associated with NOX-dependent reactive oxygen species signalling. The current findings present a new approach for reducing herbicide toxicity in crops exposed to high temperatures. [Display omitted] • High temperatures aggravate glyphosate toxicity in maize seedlings. • ATP treatment alleviates glyphosate toxicity in maize seedlings. • ATP triggers the detoxification system in maize leaves. • ATP promotes glyphosate degradation in maize leaves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-world point cloud objects pose great challenges in point cloud classification as objects acquired by scanning devices from real-world scans are often cluttered with background, and are partial due to occlusions as well as reconstruction errors. In the literature, few works tackle the problem of real-world point cloud classification while existing methods require fully point-level annotated training samples. However, large-scale dense point-level foreground–background labeling for real-world point clouds is a labor-intensive and time-consuming job. Leveraging two auxiliary modules, called semi-supervised point-level pseudo labels generation and noise-robust multi-task loss, the framework can integrate well with existing supervised point cloud classification network. A relational graph convolutional network on the local and non-local graph (PointRGCN) is first proposed to predict point-level foreground–background pseudo labels for each object with sparse ground-truth point-level foreground–background labels in training datasets. Then, a weakly supervised classification network, which combines with an auxiliary foreground–background segmentation branch, is employed to classify real-world point clouds. To cope with noise-containing point-level foreground–background labels generated above, a noise-robust multi-task loss is proposed to train the network accurately. Experimental results show that the performance of the proposed framework which is trained with only 1% point-level labels is comparable with many popular or state-of-the-art fully supervised methods. The source code will be available at http://zhiyongsu.github.io. [Display omitted] • A novel weakly supervised framework for real-world point cloud classification. • A local and non-local graph based relational graph convolutional network (PointRGCN). • A noise-robust multi-task loss combining classification and segmentation losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Topology authentication for computer-aided plant design (CAPD) models features intrinsically complex topological relations. This study investigates a semi-fragile watermarking scheme for CAPD models represented by parametric solids, which offers a solution to the problem of topology authentication. We first analyze the geometrical and topological structures of CAPD models. Then, we propose an effective semi-fragile watermarking method for topology authentication, which is based on Laplacian coordinates and quantization index modulation (QIM), against several attacks. We compute the custom Laplacian coordinate vector for each marked connection point according to the topological relation among joint plant components. The topology-based watermark for each marked connection point is generated from selected attributes of its joint plant component. Watermarks are inserted into the coordinates of marked connection points by adjusting the lengths of their Laplacian coordinate vectors. Both experimental results and theoretical analysis demonstrate that our approach can not only detect and locate malicious topology attacks, such as component modification and joint ends modification, but is also robust against various non-malicious attacks, such as similarity transformations and level-of-detail (LOD). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Mitochondria are cellular energy factory, having an essential role in cellular metabolism. Furthermore, abnormal changes in mitochondrial viscosity have been confirmed to be closely related to many diseases. Therefore, the development of probe that responsive to mitochondrial viscosity and its application in mitochondrial viscosity measurement is considered to be a new tool for understanding diseases. In this paper, a mitochondrial viscosity probe (DICB) with a large Stokes shift (214–253 nm) was designed and synthesized by modifying the structure of the carbazole fluorophore. The probe DICB has a favorable responsive to viscosity in the near-infrared (NIR) region (703 nm). In the water-glycerol system (0.893 cP −945 cP), the fluorescence intensity of DICB at 703 nm has a 74 times increase; in the range of 5.041 cP-856.0 cp, it has a well linear fitting relationship. Meantime, the probe has excellent sensitivity to viscosity. The probe (DICB) has been confirmed to be able to detect changes of mitochondrial viscosity in cell models induced by nystatin, carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenyl hydrazone (CCCP) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS); it has also been validated that DICB can be used in the process of autophagy to monitor mitochondrial viscosity. More importantly, DICB can be applied to the detection of abnormal mitochondrial viscosity in inflammatory tissues at the biological level. The outstanding characteristics of DICB for mitochondrial viscosity detection are not only of great importance to the development of viscosity probes, but also provides a universal strategy to study the relationship between inflammatory and mitochondrial viscosity. Image 1 • A mitochondrial viscosity response NIR fluorescence probe DICB was synthesized. • Large Stokes shift of 214–253 nm, selectivity, sensitivity, stability. • Monitoring the mitochondrial viscosity of mitophagy dynamically. • Accurate determination mitochondrial viscosity of inflamed tissues in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • 3D porous graphene (3DPG) as reinforced additive was investigated in SBS/crumb rubber blend-modified asphalt. • 3DPG can significantly improve high and low-temperature performance and fatigue life of SBS/crumb rubber blend-modified asphalts. • The nanopores in 3DPG can effectively enhance the compatibility of SBS and crumb rubber in asphalt system by virtue of its unique amphiphilicity. • 3DPG as a new synergist presents a promising solution for the critical issue of wide adoption of crumb rubber modified asphalt for high-performance pavement. Styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS)/crumb rubber (CR) blend-modified asphalt is a desirable binder for pavement engineering with both environmental and economic benefits. However, the inherent incompatibility of SBS and CR in asphalt is still a critical issue. Herein, 3D porous graphene (3DPG) with high surface area and rich micropores as reinforced additive was investigated in SBS/CR blend-modified asphalt for the first time. The experimental results demonstrate that incorporating 3DPG can effectively improve the compatibility of SBS and CR in asphalt and thus significantly enhance the high and low temperature performance and fatigue resistance of the modified asphalt, compared with that without 3DPG. Theoretical calculations further reveal that the nanopores in graphene can endow graphene with electrophilic property, providing a capability of absorbing nonpolar molecules in asphalt while the non-pore part in graphene can interact with polar molecules by conventional π − π stacking. The two forces within graphene can break the original colloidal structures of asphalt, which is conductive to the homogenous formation of SBS network and swelling of CR in asphalt, significantly promoting the pavement performance of the modified asphalt. This work presents the great potential of 3DPG as new additive to solve the inherent incompatibility of SBS/CR blend-modified asphalt for high-grade pavement engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Bladder cancer, the ninth-most-common malignancy worldwide with an estimated 356,000 new cases and 145,000 deaths annually, has a propensity to relapse, requiring lifelong monitoring after diagnosis. 75% patients diagnosed with BC are non-muscle invasive BC and over 50% of them experience recurrences within 6–12 years of initial diagnosis. miRNA are small, noncoding RNA and shown to be oncogenes or anti-oncogenes in bladder cancer, contributing to numerous BC cell processes, including cell proliferation, differentiation, migration and apoptosis. Methods RT-qPCR were performed to detect the expression of miR-187-5p in tissues and cell lines, After which, clinicopathological variables and the prognostic value of altered miR-187-5p expression in BC was analyzed with the 48 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded BC samples. Moreover, Cell functional assays (wound healing assay, CCK-8 assay, transwell assay and flow cytometry assay) were performed to explore the relationship between miR-187-5p expression and cell proliferation, migration, invasion and apoptosis in BC. Results Up-regulation of miR-187-5p was observed in BC tissues and BC cell lines. Cox proportional hazard regression analysis demonstrated that the patients with low expression of miR-187-5p experience lower risks of recurrence in the univariate and multivariate analysis. The Kaplan-Meier recurrence-free curves suggested that the patients with low expression of miR-187-5p experience lower risks of recurrence. Up-regulation of miR-187-5p promotes cell proliferation and mobility and inhibits the apoptosis of 5637 and UM-UC-3 cell, while down-regulation of miR-187-5p reverses these effects. Conclusions The results of our study demonstrated that oncogene miR-187-5p is associated with cellular proliferation, migration, invasion, apoptosis and an increased risk of recurrence in bladder cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The development of higher alcohols of modern automobile engines is listed. • The improvements of higher alcohols characteristic are discussed. • Optimization applications in diesel engine are investigated. • Improvement suggestions for performance enhancement of diesel engine are proposed. The application of oxygenated alternative fuels in diesel engines is an effective way to solve the energy crisis and environmental pollution. Higher alcohols (butanol and pentanol), as oxygenated and renewable fuels, are considered as new promising alternative fuels for diesel engine due to their good physicochemical properties and excellent combustion and emission characteristics in engines. The combustion is a complex process and has a significant impact on performance and emission characteristics of compression ignition (CI) engines. There are complicated relationships among CI engine, environment and fuel physicochemical properties, which interacts with each other. Therefore, it is important to investigate the synergistic effects of alternative fuels and their additives on CI engines. In recent years, the research on the advanced alcohols and its additives had made great progress. However, few people have reviewed the synergistic effect of higher alcohols and its additives on diesel engines. Therefore, this paper takes the combustion, performance and emission aspects of higher alcohols and its additives on the diesel engine as a starting point. Firstly, the physicochemical properties and preparations of higher alcohols are described, and their advantages are highlighted. Then, the effects of higher alcohols and its additives on the combustion, performance and emission characteristics of CI engines are summarized in terms of neat fuel, dual-fuel injection and multi-fuel blends, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), injection strategy and advanced combustion mode. Finally, some important conclusions and discussions on the future development and experimental research direction are put forward, which will be helpful for the research on the use of higher alcohol in CI engines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Multi-crosslinked Flexible CNC/PVAGMA/TA nanocomposite hydrogel fibers was prepared. • The CNC/PVAGMA/TA nanocomposite hydrogels exhibited excellent tensile strengths as well as high-water content of 70 %. • The hydrogel fibers can be easily knitted into various complex geometries or integral textiles. Hydrogel fibers with excellent mechanical properties are requested for biomedical applications, especially for flexible and wearable devices. However, it remains a challenge to fabricate hydrogel fibers with both enough strength and high water content. Herein, we prepare cellulose nanocrystal/polyvinyl alcohol nanocomposite hydrogels by rapid covalent crosslinking and the subsequent strong hydrogen bonding interaction derived from tannic acid. The multi-crosslinked skeletal structure endows the hydrogels with excellent tensile strengths as well as high water content, compared to the polyvinyl alcohol-glycidylmethacrylate hydrogels. Notably, P10C5T15 hydrogel can lift loads to 4.375 kg, which is approximately 2353 times its weight. Subsequently, the flexible and mechanically stable hydrogel fibers are fabricated with a tensile strength of 7.3 MPa and a breaking elongation of 123.8 %. Furthermore, the fabricated hydrogel fibers can be easily knitted into various complex geometries or integral textiles, suggesting their great potential for woven smart devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Point cloud denoising is a crucial and fundamental step in geometry processing, which has achieved significant progress in the last two decades. Denoising real-world noisy point clouds is a very challenging problem since it is hard to describe the complex real-world noise by simple distributions such as Gaussian distribution. Furthermore, existing methods may suffer from performance degradation when dealing with real-world noisy point clouds with complex structures, which contain not only sharp features (sharp edges, sharp corners, etc.) but also smooth features, fine features, etc. To solve the above-mentioned problems, we propose a novel structure-aware denoising approach by exploiting the prior information in both external clean point clouds and the given noisy point cloud. We first group nonlocal self-similarity (NSS) patches from a set of external clean point clouds. Then, we employ the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) learning algorithm to learn external NSS priors over patch groups. Next, the internal priors are learned from the given noisy point cloud in the same way to refine the prior model. We integrate both the learned external and internal priors into a set of orthogonal dictionaries to efficiently estimate point normals. Finally, we propose a feature-aware point updating method through adaptive neighborhood selection to reposition points to match the estimated normals. Extensive experiments show that our approach achieves favorable comprehensive performance compared with many popular or state-of-the-art methods in terms of both objective and visual perception. The source code can be found at https://zhiyongsu.github.io. • A structure-aware denoising method is proposed for real-world noisy point clouds. • The proposed method jointly learns external and internal priors for denoising. • A feature-aware point updating method is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Piping isometric drawings, which feature their intrinsical topological relation rather than just geometrical shape, are important industrial art works in the field of Computer-Aided Design (CAD). This paper takes a fresh look at the topology integrity authentication of piping isometric drawings, which has not been mentioned before in the literature, from the digital watermarking perspective. A blind and semi-fragile watermarking based algorithm is proposed to address the referred interesting issue. The topology authentication problem of piping isometric drawings is investigated. In addition to the stretching operation, both global and local similarity transformation operations, which are critical problems in the case of watermarking embedding and extraction, are analyzed in detail. The topological graph is extracted and constructed from the drawing firstly. Then, similarity transformation invariants are constructed as watermarks carriers for each node. After that, the topological relation among joint components is encoded into singular watermarks for each node of the graph. These generated topology sensitive watermarks are embedded into geometrical invariants of each node via quantization index modulation. Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate that our approach yields a strong ability in detecting and locating unauthorized topology attacks while achieves robustness against both global and local similarity transformations especially the stretching operation. The proposed scheme can be employed to authenticate topology integrity for each of the drawings derived from the model individually in industry practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] A method based on GC–QqQ MS/MS was developed for tobacco flavor additives measurement. [•] An average of 40% timesaving is achieved in the purification compared to the reported methods. [•] The MS/MS fragmentation pathways of cinnamic esters additives were illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A model-based dynamic multi-parameter method for peak power estimation is proposed for batteries and battery management systems (BMSs) used in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). The available power must be accurately calculated in order to not damage the battery by over charging or over discharging or by exceeding the designed current or power limit. A model-based dynamic multi-parameter method for peak power estimation of lithium–ion batteries is proposed to calculate the reliable available power in real time, and the design limits such as cell voltage, cell current, cell SoC, cell power are all used as its constraints; more importantly, the relaxation effect also is considered. Where, to improve the model’s accuracy, the ohmic resistance of Thevenin model for the lithium–ion battery has been refined; in order to further improve the polarization parameters identification precision, a genetic algorithm has been used to gain the optimal time constant. Lastly, a test with several consecutive Federal Urban Driving Schedules (FUDSs) profiles is carried to evaluate the model-based dynamic multi-parameter method for peak power estimation. The experimental and simulation results indicate that the model-based dynamic multi-parameter method for peak power estimation can calculate the terminal voltage and the current available power much more reliably and accurately. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]