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Existing green wave control methods for passenger cars and buses mainly focus on maximizing bandwidths at the arterial level. There is little research on green wave control for both at the closed road network level, which makes it difficult to improve the efficiency of the entire area. To address this, a green wave control model that considers both passenger cars and buses in closed road networks is presented in this paper. The objective function of the model is to maximize the sum of the weighted bandwidths of passenger cars and buses on each segment of the road network. The relationships between car green bands, bus green bands, offsets, phase sequences, red time, green time, etc. are analyzed on the level of arterials and road networks, respectively, using time–space diagrams. Based on these analyses, the key constraints of the model are constructed accordingly. In addition, 0/1 variables and a sufficiently large positive number M are introduced to relax some of the constraints to ensure that the presented model has feasible solutions. The results of the numerical example demonstrate that compared with the fixed phase sequence schemes 1, 2, and 3, the total weighted bandwidth generated by the presented model increased by 9.5%, 16.4%, and 17%, respectively. Compared with the model without constraint relaxation, the presented model can still find a global, optimal solution when the common cycle time is fixed, while the model without constraint relaxation has no feasible solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The correlation between serum angiopoietin-2 levels and acute kidney injury (AKI) is a topic of significant clinical interest. This meta-analysis aims to provide a comprehensive evaluation of this relationship.A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane databases up to October 11, 2023. The included studies were evaluated using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) and Methodological Index for Non-Randomized Studies (MINORS). Weighted mean differences (WMD) and odds ratios (OR) were calculated using random-effects models. Sensitivity analysis, funnel plots, and Egger’s test were used to assess the robustness and publication bias of the findings. Subgroup analyses were performed to explore potential variations between adults and children.Eighteen studies encompassing a total of 7,453 participants were included. The analysis revealed a significant elevation in serum angiopoietin-2 levels in patients with AKI compared to those without (WMD: 4.85; 95 % CI: 0.75 to 0.27; I²=93.2 %, p<0.001). Subgroup analysis indicated significantly higher angiopoietin-2 levels in adults with AKI (WMD: 5.17; 95 % CI: 3.51 to 6.83; I²=82.6 %, p<0.001), but not in children. Additionally, high serum angiopoietin-2 levels were associated with an increased risk of AKI (OR: 1.58; 95 % CI: 1.39 to 1.8; I²=89.1 %, p<0.001). Sensitivity analysis validated the robustness of these results, showing no substantial change in the overall effect size upon the exclusion of individual studies.This meta-analysis supports a significant association between elevated serum angiopoietin-2 levels and increased risk of AKI. The observed differential association between adults and children highlights the need for further targeted research to understand these age-specific variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transformation optics (TO) provides an unprecedented technique to control electromagnetic (EM) waves by engineering the constitutive parameters of the surrounding medium through a proper spatial transformation. In general, ideal transformation optical devices require simultaneous electric and magnetic responses along all three dimensions. To ease the practical implementation, previous studies usually made use of reduced parameters or other simplified approaches, which inevitably introduce extra reflection or unwanted phase shift. Up to today, experimental realizations of full-parameter transformation optical devices in free space are still quite limited. Here, a general design strategy is proposed to solve this problem. As a specific example, a full-parameter spatial-compression TO medium with constitutive parameters taking the diagonal form diag(a, a , 1/ a) for the TM wave incidence was designed and realized experimentally. Such spatial-compression TO media were then applied to the implementation of an ideal omnidirectional invisibility cloak capable of concealing a large-scale object over a wide range of illumination angles. Both the simulation and experiment confirm that the cloak allows for nearly unity transmission of EM waves in the forward direction without introducing extra scattering or phase shift. This work constitutes an important stepping stone for future practical implementation of arbitrary full-parameter omnidirectional transformation optical devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]