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• A robust method is proposed to alleviate the effect of traffic data with outliers. • A comprehensive traffic flow prediction indicator system is established in this paper. • We hybridize polynomial and Gaussian kernel to build nonlinear version of our method. • Parameters of the proposed method are optimized by Fruit Fly Optimization Algorithm. A novel least squares twin support vector regression method is proposed based on the robust L 1 -norm distance to alleviate the negative effect of traffic data with outliers. Although there is some known work for the short-term traffic flow prediction problems, their efficacy depends heavily on the collected traffic data, which are often affected by various external factors (e.g. weather, traffic jam or accident), leading to errors and missing data. This makes it difficult to pick an effective method that accurately predicts the traffic state. As a contribution of this paper, an iterative algorithm is designed to solve the non-smooth L 1 -norm terms of our method; its convergence also proved. Further, a comprehensive traffic flow indicator system based on speed, traffic flow, occupancy and ample degree is utilized in this paper. We also extend the proposed method to a nonlinear version by hybridizing the polynomial kernel and radial basis function kernel, where the weight coefficient of hybrid kernel is determined by the change tendency of traffic data. To promote the prediction performance, the parameters of our nonlinear method are optimized by adaptive fruit fly optimization algorithm. Extensive experiments on real traffic data are performed to evaluate our model. The results indicate that the newly constructed model yields better prediction performance and robustness than other models in various experimental settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All-inorganic CsPbX 3 perovskites have shown great potential in the photovoltaic community due to their excellent thermal stability and suitable bandgap for tandem applications. However, the formation of high-quality all-inorganic perovskite films remains a grand challenge, which requires delicate control over the high-temperature annealing process as the photo-inactive orthorhombic δ -phase is more stable than the photoactive perovskite phase at room temperature. This study revealed the formation of a black γ-phase at low temperature (LT-γ-phase), which is temporarily stabilized by the dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solvent. It collapses to δ -phase when DMSO evaporates and restores to γ-phase at high temperature (HT-γ-phase). Remarkably, we found that an additional methylammonium chloride (MACl) treatment further stabilizes the LT-γ-phase, allowing a direct transition from LT-γ-phase to HT-γ-phase while bypassing the δ -phase, resulting in a uniform and pinhole-free film with reduced defects and released strain. An efficiency as high as 20.1 % was obtained and the device stability under illumination and humidity were both enhanced. This work demonstrates that understanding and control over the crystallization pathway are essential for developing high-performance and high-stability perovskite solar cells for real-life applications. [Display omitted] • High-temperature annealing is known to be necessary for iodide-rich CsPb(I 1−x Br x) 3 perovskite to form black phases. • Surprisingly, black γ-phase forms at low temperatures and is stabilized by residue dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). • High-temperature annealing drives out DMSO, leading to unwanted δ -phase formation and poor film quality/device performance. • Methylammonium chloride stabilizes the low-temperature-formed γ-phase after DMSO removal, facilitating a direct transition to γ-phase at high temperature. Impressive power conversion efficiency of 20.1 % is achieved with enhanced stability under prolonged illumination and humidity exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a new approach based on fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors toward measuring instantaneous and continuous changes of residual strain and stress in glass during glass-to-metal (GTM) sealing process. The GTM seal consists of three components which include stainless steel housing, borosilicate sealing glass and Kovar pin. The temperature cycle of sealing process was from room temperature (20 °C) to 880 °C, and then back to 20 °C. It was found that residual strain in glass increased rapidly at the glass transition region and gradually reached an asymptotic value with the decrease of temperature. The axial residual stress measured by the FBG sensor was 194.35 MPa at 20 °C. In addition, finite element modeling (FEM) was conducted to provide theoretical support. Stress modeling revealed that axial residual stress at the location of sensor was 145.47 MPa. The experimental determination of the residual stress is highly consistent with the theoretical calculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Solar-powered water splitting is expected to be a promising route for sustainable hydrogen production. However, its wide implementation is hampered by expensive electrocatalysts and photovoltaic apparatus. Herein, we designed a low-cost overall water splitting system combining flexible catalyst electrodes and one novel organic solar cell. The flexible electrodes contain carbon fabric functionalized with nitrogen-doped carbon encased iron-cobalt bimetallic phosphide and sulfide nanohybrids as electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), respectively. The electrolyzer for overall water splitting can realize a current density of 10 mA cm−2 at a low cell voltage of 1.60 V and remain stable in long-time durability test in alkaline media. Moreover, when driven by one organic solar cell, our system yields a record high water-splitting current density of 7.5 mA cm−2 with a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 9.2%. The above results demonstrate its potential as a real-life solar-powered hydrogen production system. Graphical abstract fx1 Highlights • Our electrocatalysts obtains high activity and favourable durability in HER and OER. • Our electrolyzer displays a low cell voltage for overall water splitting. • Driven by one novel organic solar cell, our solar-powered hydrogen production system reached a record high efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Ten amaryllidaceous alkaloids were isolated from L. radiata. • A significant aphicidal activity of L. radiata extract and alkaloids was reported for the first time. • AChE has a great possibility to be the target site for the aphicidal action of amaryllidaceous alkaloids. Abstract Aphids are one of the most destructive and economically important pests of plants on earth, causing severe financial losses worldwide. The extensive and unscientific use of insecticides has resulted in a universal zooming insecticide resistance among aphids across regions and substantial detrimental influences on the environment. This study investigates the insecticidal activity of alkaloids from L. radiata against A. citricola. The crude extract of Lycoris radiate showed a remarkable aphicidal activity against A. citricola. Ten known amaryllidaceous alkaloids were obtained according to the bioassay-guided isolation. The structures of these known alkaloids were identified as amabiline (1), deoxydihydrotazettine (2), deoxytazettine (3), 3-epimacronine (4), galanthamine (5), 11-hydroxygalanthamine (6), N -allylnorgalanthamine (7), 11 β -hydroxygalanthamine (8), lycorine (9) and colchicine (10). The results of aphicidal bioassay against A. citricola showed that compounds 1 - 9 exhibited considerable aphicidal activity with LD 50 values of 67.44, 76.33, 78.30, 96.70, 17.47, 32.60, 4.92, 20.33, 70.41 ng/aphid. N -Allylnorgalanthamine (7) possessed the highest aphicial activity, which was comparable with the commercial pesticide methomyl (2.91 ng/aphid). The results of in vivo AChE assay revealed that N -allylnorgalanthamine showed an obvious inhibitory effect on AChE in A. citricola in a time- and dose-dependent manner. The in vitro inhibition of AChE activity by N -allylnorgalanthamine was remarkable with an IC 50 value of 2.1 × 10−8 M, which was 104 times stronger than the positive control methomyl with an IC 50 value of 4.2 × 10–4 M. Meanwhile, N -allylnorgalanthamine can lead to an increase of the activities of SOD and CAT. The present work comprises the first report on insecticidal action of Amaryllidaceae alkaloids. N -Allylnorgalanthamine displayed a significant inhibition on AChE in Aphis citricola both in vivo and vitro. The insecticidal L. radiata extracts can be possibly used for controlling pests and isolated compounds, designing for new pesticides, can be the promising temples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clausena lansium ( Lour.) Skeels is an attractive shrub or small tree, a member of the Rutaceae family. The seeds, leaves and roots of this plant have been used as herbal medicines for a long time. In this study, seven amides were isolated from the seeds of Clausena lansium . The antifungal assay indicated that lansiumamide B ( 4 ) and lansiumamide C ( 2 ) displayed the highest antifungal activity against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum with EC 50 values of 4.95 and 13.24 μg/mL, which were both lower than that of carbendazim (EC 50  = 0.64 μg/mL). The structure-activity relationships of these amides were investigated using assays to measure their in vitro antifungal activities against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum . The effect of the most potent compound lansiumamide B on morphology and physiology of S. sclerotiorum were also evaluated. Lansiumamide B caused cell rupture and mycelial abnormalities of S. sclerotiorum , and its curative efficacy (75.17%) against S. sclerotiorum infection was better than that of carbendazim (56.57%). This study demonstrated that amides isolated from C. lansium possessed the potential to be exploited as botanical fungicides for commercial application or can be used as templates for designing new fungicides with novel action modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immune and inflammation dysregulation have been associated with the aging process and contribute to age-related disorders, but the underlying mechanism remains elusive. Here, we employed late-generation Terc knockout (Terc-/-) mice to investigate the impact of telomere dysfunction on the host defense and function of innate immune cells. Terc-/- mice displayed exaggerated lung inflammation and increased mortality upon respiratory staphylococcal infection, although their pathogen-clearing capacity was uncompromised. Mechanistically, we found that telomere dysfunction caused macrophage mitochondrial abnormality, oxidative stress, and hyperactivation of the NLRP3 inflammasome. The ubiquitin-editing enzyme TNFAIP3, together with PGC-1α, was critically involved in the regulation of mitochondrial and inflammatory gene expression and essential for the homeostatic role of telomeres. Together, the study reveals a regulatory paradigm that connects telomeres to mitochondrial metabolism, innate immunity, and inflammation, shedding light on age-related pathologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we construct a least squares version of the recently proposed twin bounded support vector machine (TBSVM) for binary classification. As a valid classification tool, TBSVM attempts to seek two non-parallel planes that can be produced by solving a pair of quadratic programming problems (QPPs), but this is time-consuming. Here, we solve two systems of linear equations rather than two QPPs to avoid this deficiency. Furthermore, the distance in least squares TBSVM (LSTBSVM) is measured by L2-norm, but L1-norm distance is usually regarded as an alternative to L2-norm to improve model robustness in the presence of outliers. Inspired by the advantages of least squares twin support vector machine (LSTWSVM), TBSVM and L1-norm distance, we propose a LSTBSVM based on L1-norm distance metric for binary classification, termed as L1-LSTBSVM, which is specially designed for suppressing the negative effect of outliers and improving computational efficiency in large datasets. Then, we design a powerful iterative algorithm to solve the L1-norm optimal problems, and it is easy to implement and its convergence to an optimum solution is theoretically ensured. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of L1-LSTBSVM are validated by extensive experimental results on both UCI datasets and artificial datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five new verrucosidin derivatives, poloncosidins G–K (1 – 5), were isolated from the deep sea cold-seep sediment-derived fungus Penicillium polonicum CS-252. Their planar structures were elucidated by discreet analysis of the NMR spectroscopic and HRESIMS spectrometric data. The absolute configurations of compounds 1 – 5 were deduced from the combination of the modified Mosher's method and quantum chemical calculations of their ECD and NMR (with DP4+ probability analysis) data. The antimicrobial activities against several human- and aquatic-pathogenic bacteria of all the isolated compounds were evaluated and the structure-bioactivity relationship was briefly discussed. [Display omitted] • Five new verrucosidin derivatives were isolated from deep sea cold-seep sediment-derived fungus Penicillium polonicum CS-252. • Compounds 3 and 5 exhibited potent antibacterial activity to Micrococcus luteus. • Structure-activity relationship was briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extrusion dies, in which melted raw materials are forced continuously into a profile to produce various plastic products, are often empirically designed leading to overweight and waste in materials, energy and emissions. Lightweight design method has been applied to reduce weight and increase material efficiency of extrusion dies at design stage. However, the research work was often focused on weight reduction with function requirements as the design constricts. Environmental impacts (EIs) over the entire life cycle of dies are not considered, as a result, it may result in environmental burdens being shifted from design stage to other stages of life cycle of products. Aiming at it, a new lightweight design method is proposed to integrate life cycle assessment (LCA) with shape optimization. The optimization mathematic models for the proposed method are developed, in which the EIs of extrusion dies are modeled as a function of shape variables and processing parameters. An example of extrusion dies for plastic pipe was presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results showed that 13% weight reduction whist achieving reduction in EIs over the life cycle of dies in comparison with 18% weight reduction yet 29% increase in EIs at manufacturing stage and resultant increase in EIs over the life cycle using conventional lightweight design method in which EIs are not taken into account. It indicated that the proposed lightweight method could have great potentials to reduce weight and prevent environmental burdens shift problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A gravitropism-deficient mutant M96 was isolated from a mutant bank, generated by ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS) mutagenesis of indica rice accession ZJ100. The mutant was characterized as prostrate growth at the beginning of germination, and the prostrate growth phenotype ran through the whole life duration. Tiller angle and tiller number of M96 increased significantly in comparison with the wild type. Tissue section observation analysis indicated that asymmetric stem growth around the second node occurred in M96 . Genetic analysis and gene mapping showed that M96 was controlled by a single recessive nuclear gene, tentatively termed as gravitropism-deficient M96 ( gdM96 ), which was mapped to a region of 506 kb flanked by markers RM5960 and InDel8 on the long arm of chromosome 11. Sequencing analysis of the open reading frames in this region revealed a nucleotide substitution from G to T in the third exon of LOC_Os11g29840 . Additionally, real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR analysis showed that the expression level of LOC_Os11g29840 in the stems was much higher than in the roots and leaves in M96 . Furthermore, the expression level was more than four times in M96 stem than in the wild type stem. Our results suggested that the mutant gene was likely a new allele to the reported gene LAZY1 . Isolation of this new allele would facilitate the further characterization of LAZY1 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-aqueous lithium-oxygen battery is considered as the next-generation battery because it has the highest theoretic energy density among all rechargeable batteries. But its discharge product Li 2 O 2 is difficult to be oxidized back in the charge process, which causes high charge overpotential, serious electrolyte decomposition and poor cyclability. An effective way to solve this problem is adding redox mediator (RM) in the electrolyte to catalyze the charge reaction via redox shuttle process. However, the reaction kinetics between the oxidized RM and Li 2 O 2 is seldom reported. Here, taking iodine species as the model RM, we find that the efficiency of the solution phase catalysis is limited by the reaction rate between the oxidized RM and Li 2 O 2 , which is largely dependent on the electrolyte solvent. Protic solvents, such as water and alcohols lead to high reaction rate because of the hydrogen bond-assisted solvation of Li 2 O 2 . However, too high proton activity may also bring unwanted peroxide disproportionation. Among a series of alcohols, n-butanol is found to show proper proton activity and significantly promote the efficiency of the redox shuttle process. To prove the electrochemical mechanisms, this paper also introduces a Li 2 O 2 -graphite cell to evaluate the reversibility of cathodic reaction. Comparing with conventional cycling tests with excess lithium metal anode, the Li 2 O 2 -graphite configuration can eliminate the “fake reversible capacity” caused by parasitic cathodic reactions, and thus is more reliable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polymer acceptors based on the polymerization of small-molecule acceptor (PSMAs) have developed rapidly in recent years. All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) composed of PSMAs and polymer donors not only retain the excellent mechanical properties, but also have better morphological properties than traditional polymer acceptors such as N2200. However, since PSMAs are generally not highly polymerized, their electron mobilities are generally lower than the hole mobilities of the high-molecular-weight polymer donors they are used with. In this work, we apply the sequential processing (SqP) method and use toluene as the processing solvent to prepare PSMA-based all-PSCs, which effectively improves the electron mobility and shows much higher efficiency (15.8 %) than the SqP device prepared from chloroform (13.9 %) – the conventional solvent used for high-performance PSMAs. Not only that, the efficiency of the toluene-processed SqP device is also higher than that of the device prepared by the traditional blending-casting (BC) method (14.2 %). In addition, for the first time, we reveal the film formation process of all-polymer active layers prepared by the SqP method using the in situ UV-Vis absorption technique, and investigate the vertical phase separation and the rate of exciton generation across the device using film-depth-dependent absorption spectroscopy, which systematically explained the effect of increased mobility on device parameters. This methodology is applied in two different all-polymer systems, namely, PM6:PYF-T- o and PM6:PY-IT, and both systems manifest the same conclusion. [Display omitted] • Using sequential processing (SqP) to improve the electron mobility in small-molecule acceptor (PSMAs) based all-PSCs. • Revealing the timeframe for nucleation and precipitation of donor and acceptor using in situ techniques. • Using toluene to sequentially process both the donor and acceptor layers for all-polymer solar cells • Improved device performance over the conventional blend-casting counterpart as well as the chloroform-processed ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]