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The higher the level of development of higher education, the larger its contribution to socioeconomic development. In order to predict the trend of higher education development in a country more accurately, a new methodology is employed in this study. A weakening buffer operator-based GM (1, 1) model is constructed using Kazakhstan's gross enrollment rate (GER) of higher education as the subject of study, which eliminates the disturbance of the shock perturbation system and increases prediction accuracy. Seven models with varying sample sizes are constructed. It is discovered that the short sequence prediction model outperforms the long sequence prediction model. To demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method, cubic curves and logistic models are chosen for comparison. The results of the study revealed that the cubic curve has a better fitting, but the prediction results are overly large due to the quick growth rate of the recent raw data, which is not in line with the realistic development; the logistic model has poor fitting and cannot be used for prediction; the buffer operator-based GM (1, 1) model can effectively deal with the issue of missing data or data outliers, and provide accurate predictions of the trend of higher education development. When compared to other methods, the proposed method is more practicable, reliable, and superior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental monitoring plays a critical role in creating and maintaining a comfortable, productive, and healthy environment. Built upon the advancements of robotics and data processing, mobile sensing demonstrates its potential to address problems regarding cost, deployment, and resolution that stationary monitoring encounters, which therefore has attracted increasing research attentions recently. To facilitate mobile sensing, two key algorithms are needed: the field reconstruction algorithm and the route planning algorithm. The field reconstruction algorithm is to reconstruct the entire environment field from spatially- and temporally-discrete measurements collected by the mobile sensors. The route planning algorithm is to instruct the mobile sensors where the mobile sensor needs to move to for the next measurements. The performance of mobile sensors highly depends on these two algorithms. However, developing and testing those algorithms in the real world is expensive, challenging, and time-consuming. To address these issues, we proposed and implemented an open-source virtual testbed, AlphaMobileSensing, that can be used to develop, test, and benchmark mobile sensing algorithms. AlphaMobileSensing aims to help users more easily develop and test the field reconstruction and route planning algorithms for mobile sensing solutions, without worrying about hardware fault, test accidents (such as collision during the test), etc. The separation of concerns can significantly reduce the cost of developing software solutions for mobile sensing. For versatility and flexibility, AlphaMobileSensing was wrapped up using the standardized interface of OpenAI Gym, and it also provides an interface for loading physical fields that were generated by numerical simulations as virtual test sites to perform mobile sensing and retrieving monitoring data. We demonstrated applications of the virtual testbed by implementing and testing algorithms for physical field reconstruction in both static and dynamic indoor thermal environments. AlphaMobileSensing provides a novel and flexible platform to develop, test, and benchmark mobile sensing algorithms more easily, conveniently, and efficiently. AlphaMobileSensing is open sourced at https://github.com/kishuqizhou/AlphaMobileSensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Remimazolam and dexmedetomidine are commonly used as sedatives. However, the effects and safety of remimazolam alone or in combination with dexmedetomidine have not been investigated. Aim: We sought to investigate the clinical effects of remimazolam alone or in combination with dexmedetomidine in bronchoscopy, and their influence on cognitive function. Method: Ninety eligible patients who underwent bronchoscopy under intravenous anesthesia were randomly divided into three groups: propofol control, remimazolam, and remimazolam plus dexmedetomidine. The primary outcome was the incidence of perioperative hypoxemia. Secondary outcomes included induction and maintenance doses of remimazolam, hemodynamic variables, scores for modified Observer's Assessment of Alertness/Sedation (MOAA/S), coughing, limb movement, incidence of adverse events, patient satisfaction, bronchoscopist satisfaction, incidence of post-operative cognitive dysfunction (POCD), time to loss of consciousness (LoC), and time to awake. Results: The incidence of hypoxemia, hypotension, and bronchoscopist satisfaction score were significantly decreased, and time to LoC and time to awake were markedly longer in the remimazolam and remimazolam plus dexmedetomidine groups than in the propofol control group (p < 0.05). The remimazolam group had significantly decreased induction and maintenance doses of remimazolam and a shorter time to LoC than the remimazolam plus dexmedetomidine group (p < 0.05). Scores for coughing, limb movement, MOAA/S, and post-operative patient satisfaction were comparable among the three groups. POCD was not induced in any of the groups. Conclusion: Remimazolam is safe and effective for painless bronchoscopy, with a low incidence of adverse reactions, and exhibits a good synergistic effect with dexmedetomidine. Trial Registration: This trial protocol had been registered on Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR2000041435, date: 2020 12 26 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ternary cathode material LiNi0.83Co0.12Mn0.05O2 (NCM) has excellent properties, such as superior energy density, low cost, and high voltage platform. Recently, it becomes one of the research hotspots of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, NCM has insufficient cycle stability and cannot meet the demand for the high-rate capability, which limits its application in energy storage equipment. The precursor of NCM was modified with (Ni0.4Co0.2Mn0.4)1−xZrx(OH)2 by the co-precipitation. After high-temperature sintering, the diffusion of Zr4+ has significant impacts on the stability and capability for NCM. The doped sample exhibits a capacity retention rate of 79.5% at 1 C after 200 cycles and also delivers excellent rate performance, and the average specific discharge capacity is 189.4 mAh g−1 (2 C) and 180.6 mAh g−1 (5 C), respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instance segmentation requires both pixel-level classification accuracy and high-level semantic features at the target instance level, which is very challenging, and the cascade structure can effectively improve both of these problems. To make full use of the relationship between detection and segmentation, this paper proposes a joint multi-tasking cascade structure, which is not simply to cascade the two tasks of detection and segmentation, but to unitedly put them into multi-stage processing, and especially to integrate the information at different stages of the mask branch. The entire structure can effectively utilize the superior characteristics of each stage in the matter of detection and segmentation, thus improving the quality of mask prediction. The feature fusion process is introduced in the full convolution networks (FCN) branch, and the high-level and low-level features are effectively fused to enhance the contextual information of the picture semantic features. The experiments demonstrate the better results on the COCO dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To simulate self-irradiation effects of nuclear waste forms in long period of deep geological disposal, Gd2Ce2O7 as simulated An4+ matrix was chosen to be irradiated using 0.5 MeV alpha ions to fluences ranging from 1 × 1015 to 1 × 1017 ions cm−2. Irradiation-induced structural change and microstructural evolution were examined using grazing incidence X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Lattice swelling and amorphization in irradiated layer indicated an enhanced disordering degree with increased ion fluences. Main Raman peaks broaden and intensity decrease indicated a significant bonds distortion. In addition, no element aggregation about Gd, Ce and O occurs after He2+ irradiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Object transfiguration is a subtask of the image-to-image translation, which translates two independent image sets and has a wide range of applications. Recently, some studies based on Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) have achieved impressive results in the image-to-image translation. However, the object transfiguration task only translates regions containing target objects instead of whole images; most of the existing methods never consider this issue, which results in mistranslation on the backgrounds of images. To address this problem, we present a novel pipeline called Deep Attention Unit Generative Adversarial Networks (DAU-GAN). During the translating process, the DAU computes attention masks that point out where the target objects are. DAU makes GAN concentrate on translating target objects while ignoring meaningless backgrounds. Additionally, we construct an attention-consistent loss and a background-consistent loss to compel our model to translate intently target objects and preserve backgrounds further effectively. We have comparison experiments on three popular related datasets, demonstrating that the DAU-GAN achieves superior performance to the state-of-the-art. We also export attention masks in different stages to confirm its effect during the object transfiguration task. The proposed DAU-GAN can translate object effectively as well as preserve backgrounds information at the same time. In our model, DAU learns to focus on the most important information by producing attention masks. These masks compel DAU-GAN to effectively distinguish target objects and backgrounds during the translation process and to achieve impressive translation results in two subsets of ImageNet and CelebA. Moreover, the results show that we cannot only investigate the model from the image itself but also research from other modal information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a sol-spray pyrolysis route was employed to fabricate (Cs, Ba)-hollandite ceramic waste forms. The high-phase purity (Cs0.8−xBa0.4+x)(Al1.6+xTi6.4−x)O16 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.4) ceramics were synthesized at 1050 °C using the produced powders by sol-spray pyrolysis. The results show that all samples show tetragonal hollandite with rod morphology. Additionally, the sintered (Cs, Ba)-hollandite ceramics exhibit a good chemical durability. The normalized release rates of Cs and Ba were < 10−2 g m−2 d−1 after 14 days. These results indicate that hollandite ceramics are promising candidate for immobilizing radioactive cesium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Escherichia coli MinE is required for placement of a division septum. A nucleus-encoded and plastidtargeted MinE homologue, CrMinE, was identified from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Similar to the Arabidopsis nucleus-encoded AtMinE, the CrMinE protein possesses extra N-terminal and C-terminal extensions relative to the eubacterial and other algal plastid-encoded MinE proteins. The CrMinE protein functions in plastids, as revealed by a transient expression assay using a full-length CrMinE protein fused to enhanced green fluorescent protein. In addition, the overexpressed CrMinE:EGFP in wild-type E. coli with clear coiled structures could still recognize the cell division site of the host cell, which suggests evolutionary conservation of the MinE mode of action. No MinE homologue was found in a search of all researched plastid genome sequences of land plants; moreover, the researched MinEs of land plants are encoded by nuclear genomes. Thus, the identification of the CrMinE located in the nuclear genome implies that the transfer events of MinE from plastid to nucleus might have occurred before the evolution of land plants and during the evolution of green algae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poly(ethylene oxide)-coated sulfur/carbon (S/C/PEO) composite with a high sulfur loading is prepared to improve the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries. By magnetic string, 3.7 wt% PEO is coated onto the surface of ball-milling obtained S/C composite, leading to synthesis of S/C/PEO composite containing 78 wt% S. It is confirmed from a series of measurements that PEO covers the S/C composite uniformly, and PEO coating is quite effective in stabilizing the electrochemical performance. When employed as cathode for lithium-sulfur batteries, S/C/PEO delivers an initial discharge capacity of 989.6 mAh g and remains 648.3 mAh g after 110 cycles at a discharge/charge rate of 1 C (based on sulfur weight). Meanwhile, the coulomb efficiency of S/C/PEO composite reaches to ~98 % during the latter 105 cycles. The improved electrochemical performance can be attributed to the formation of PEO coating layer which can keep a tight contact between carbon and sulfur and lead to improved conductivity. Moreover, the PEO coating can act as a flexible cushion to accommodate volume changes of sulfur cathode as well as a barrier to trap soluble polysulfide intermediates during the charge-discharge processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We tried to find an ideal therapeutic regimen for patients with advanced esophageal cancer. Totally 240 patients with advanced esophageal cancer were randomly divided into experimental group (endoscopic sequential treatment, 126 cases) and control group (traditional treatment, 114 cases) with a 2-year follow-up period. The experimental group was randomly divided into three subgroups: group A: local chemotherapeutic drug injection with ordinary metal stent implantation; group B: local chemotherapeutic drug injection with iodine-125 particle implantation; and group C: radiofrequency (RF) therapy with ordinary metal stent group. The control group was also randomly divided into three subgroups: group D: local chemotherapeutic drug injection group; group E: RF therapy group; and group F: common metal stent implantation group. The survival rate, survival quality, adverse reactions, and complications were compared among these groups. A significant improvement of curative effect was found in the experimental group. Group A and B had higher survival rate and survival quality, and lower esophagotracheal fistula incidence and metastasis rate, compared with group C. There was no significant difference in survival rate between group A and group B, while the quality of life was higher in group B than in group A. While patients in group B had lower esophagotracheal fistula incidence and metastasis rate comparing with group A. Local chemotherapeutic drug injection combined with iodine-125 particle stent might be an effective sequential treatment to improve the life quality of advanced esophageal cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]