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Heat pipes (HPs) are gaining increasing popularity in the propulsion motors of transportation electrification due to their remarkable thermal properties. However, the inclination angle affects the HP thermal performance and, thus, results in temperature nonuniformity, which may generate unbalanced thermal stress on the motor. Such an issue has received less attention to date and requires corresponding solutions. This article performs an experimental investigation on motor temperature nonuniformity with HPs and further proposes an improved structure to address this problem. A specimen based on a stator-winding assembly with HPs is prepared and a dedicated experimental platform is established. Then, the temperature distribution across the specimen is studied, followed by an evaluation of the effects of current density and wind velocity. To compensate for the degradation of HP thermal performance, an improved structure with enlarged fins is proposed, and the equilibrium point is determined by fitting and comparing the obtained temperature data. Finally, the proposed structure is verified by the comparison between the original and improved specimens. The experimental results show that the non-uniform temperature distribution is significantly improved, with the temperature range and standard deviation reduced by 42% and 44.3%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), insects from the family Blattidae have a long history of application, and their related active compounds have excellent pharmacological properties, making them a prominent concern with significant potential for medicinal and healthcare purposes. However, the medicinal potential of the family Blattidae has not been fully exploited, and many problems must be resolved urgently. Therefore, a comprehensive review of its chemical composition, pharmacological activities, current research status, and existing problems is necessary. In order to make the review clearer and more systematic, all the contents were independently elaborated and summarized in a certain sequence. Each part started with introducing the current situation or a framework and then was illustrated with concrete examples. Several pertinent conclusions and outlooks were provided after discussing relevant key issues that emerged in each section. This review focuses on analyzing the current studies and utilization of medicinal insects in the family Blattidae, which is expected to provide meaningful and valuable relevant information for researchers, thereby promoting further exploration and development of lead compounds or bioactive fractions for new drugs from the insects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thousands of unique noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) exist within the genomes of higher eukaryotes. Upon virus infection, the host generates interferons (IFNs), which initiate the expression of hundreds of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) through IFN receptors on the cell surface, establishing a barrier as the host's antiviral innate immunity. With the development of novel RNA-sequencing technology, many IFN-induced ncRNAs have been identified, and increasing attention has been given to their functions as regulators involved in the antiviral innate immune response. IFN-induced ncRNAs regulate the expression of viral proteins, IFNs, and ISGs, as well as host genes that are critical for viral replication, cytokine and chemokine production, and signaling pathway activation. This review summarizes the complex regulatory role of IFN-induced ncRNAs in antiviral innate immunity from the above aspects, aiming to improve understanding of ncRNAs and provide reference for the basic research of antiviral innate immunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paris polyphylla Smith is a perennial medicinal herb with records from around 2000 years ago. Polyphyllins are the main bioactive compounds of this herb, which are found to have remarkable effects on bacteriostatic, antiphlogistic, sedative, and antitumor. However, the market demand for P. polyphylla is sharply increasing, and the wild resources are threatened by plundering exploitation. Integrating molecular data of P. polyphylla can benefit the sustainable resource exploitation. Here, we constructed PPDP (Paris polyphylla Data Portal) to provide a data platform for polyphyllin biosynthesis and germplasm resource research. PPDP integrates related molecular data resources, functional genomics analysis, and morphological identification. The database provides abundant data (transcriptome, CDS, lncRNA, alternative splicing, gene family, SSR, and chloroplast genome) and practical analytical tools (network construction, heatmap of expression profiles, enrichment, and pathway search) with a user-friendly interface. So far, PPDP is the first biomolecular database for the genus Paris plants. In the future, we will gradually add genomic data and other necessary molecular biological information to improve the database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nano-silica (NS) is an effective material to improve the strength and durability of high-performance concrete (HPC), but little information is available regarding its role in HPC response to long-term sulfate attack. In this study, six different dosages of NS (0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5%) as cement partial replacement were mixed into HPC and the casted specimens were soaked in sulfate solution for different periods (0, 100, 200, and 300 days). The mass change, dynamic elastic modulus, compressive and splitting strength, microstructure morphology, and porosity characteristics of HPC specimens were measured by mass tests, mechanical properties tests, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) tests. The results showed that the incorporation of NS decreased the mass loss, elevated the compressive and splitting strength, and reduced the porosity formation of HPC in front of sulfate attack. The percentage of 1% NS was among the most effective dosages as, after soaking for 300 days, it decreased the mass loss by 13.5%, elevated the elastic modulus as well as compressive and splitting strength by 50.4%, 31.7%, and 69.8% in comparison of unmodified HPC, respectively. The sulfate attack resistance was delayed in a higher (2–5%) mixed dosage, mainly due to the agglomeration of nano particles, especially after long-term reactions. This study can provide experimental references regarding the performance of HPC mixed with NS in front of sulfate attack. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

However, the honey bees exhibited a reduction in consuming the sucrose containing not less than 1 ug/mL of CdCl SB 2 sb ; although non-significant, there exists the possibility that sucrose containing more than 1 ug/mL of Cd may affect honey bee sucrose responsiveness that is essential for olfactory learning in honey bees [[38]]. We, therefore, investigated whether honey bees exposed to chronic Cd exhibited altered olfactory learning, and we further compared the patterns of brain gene expression between cadmium-exposed bees and control bees using RNA-seq analysis. Our studies showed that the head weight was significantly lower in cadmium-exposed bees when compared to controls, suggesting chronic Cd exposure may have adverse effects on the total protein content of the mandibular and hypopharyngeal glands in the heads of adult honey bees, thus resulting in a decrease in head weight in Cd-exposed bees. [Extracted from the article]

Background: The aim of this study was to exploit integrated PET/MRI to simultaneously evaluate the morphological, component, and metabolic features of advanced atherosclerotic plaques and explore their incremental value. Methods: In this observational prospective cohort study, patients with advanced plaque in the carotid artery underwent 18F-FDG PET/MRI. Plaque morphological features were measured, and plaque component features were determined via MRI according to AHA lesion-types. Maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax) and tissue to background ratio (TBR) on PET were calculated. Area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) and net reclassification improvement (NRI) were used to compare the incremental contribution of FDG uptake when added to AHA lesion-types for symptomatic plaque classification. Results: A total of 280 patients with advanced plaque in the carotid artery were recruited. A total of 402 plaques were confirmed, and 87 of 402 (21.6%) were symptomatic plaques. 18F-FDG PET/MRI was performed a mean of 38 days (range 1–90) after the symptom. Increased stenosis degree (61.5% vs. 50.0%, p < 0.001) and TBR (2.96 vs. 2.32, p < 0.001) were observed in symptomatic plaques compared with asymptomatic plaques. The performance of the combined model (AHA lesion type VI + stenosis degree + TBR) for predicting symptomatic plaques was the best among all models (AUC = 0.789). The improvement of the combined model (AHA lesion type VII + stenosis degree + TBR) over AHA lesion type VII model for predicting symptomatic plaques was the highest (AUC = 0.757/0.454, combined model/AHA lesion type VII model), and the NRI was 50.7%. Conclusions: Integrated PET/MRI could simultaneously evaluate the morphological component and inflammation features of advanced atherosclerotic plaques and provide supplementary optimization information over AHA lesion-types for identifying vulnerable plaques in atherosclerosis subjects to achieve further stratification of stroke risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MXenes, as emerging 2D sensing materials for next-generation electronics, have attracted tremendous attention owing to their extraordinary electrical conductivity, mechanical strength, and flexibility. However, challenges remain due to the weak stability in the oxygen environment and nonnegligible aggregation of layered MXenes, which severely affect the durability and sensing performances of the corresponding MXene-based pressure sensors, respectively. Here, in this work, we propose an easy-to-fabricate self-assembly strategy to prepare multilayered MXene composite films, where the first layer MXene is hydrogen-bond self-assembled on the electrospun thermoplastic urethane (TPU) fibers surface and the anti-oxidized functionalized-MXene (f-MXene) is subsequently adhered on the MXene layer by spontaneous electrostatic attraction. Remarkably, the f-MXene surface is functionalized with silanization reagents to form a hydrophobic protective layer, thus preventing the oxidation of the MXene-based pressure sensor during service. Simultaneously, the electrostatic self-assembled MXene and f-MXene successfully avoid the invalid stacking of MXene, leading to an improved pressure sensitivity. Moreover, the adopted electrospinning method can facilitate cyclic self-assembly and the formation of a hierarchical micro-nano porous structure of the multilayered f-MXene/MXene/TPU (M-fM2T) composite. The gradient pores can generate changes in the conductive pathways within a wide loading range, broadening the pressure detection range of the as-proposed multilayered f-MXene/MXene/TPU piezoresistive sensor (M-fM2TPS). Experimentally, these novel features endow our M-fM2TPS with an outstanding maximum sensitivity of 40.31 kPa−1 and an extensive sensing range of up to 120 kPa. Additionally, our M-fM2TPS exhibits excellent anti-oxidized properties for environmental stability and mechanical reliability for long-term use, which shows only ~0.8% fractional resistance changes after being placed in a natural environment for over 30 days and provides a reproducible loading–unloading pressure measurement for more than 1000 cycles. As a proof of concept, the M-fM2TPS is deployed to monitor human movements and radial artery pulse. Our anti-oxidized self-assembly strategy of multilayered MXene is expected to guide the future investigation of MXene-based advanced sensors with commercial values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) stands as a prevalent subtype of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, leading to disease recurrence and low survival rates. PPARγ, a ligand-dependent nuclear transcription factor, holds significance in tumor development. However, the role of PPARγ in the development of OSCC has not been fully elucidated. Through transcriptome sequencing analysis, we discovered a notable enrichment of ferroptosis-related molecules upon treatment with PPARγ antagonist. We subsequently confirmed the occurrence of ferroptosis through transmission electron microscopy, iron detection, etc. Notably, ferroptosis inhibitors could not completely rescue the cell death caused by PPARγ inhibitors, and the rescue effect was the greatest when disulfidptosis and ferroptosis inhibitors coexisted. We confirmed that the disulfidptosis phenotype indeed existed. Mechanistically, through qPCR and Western blotting, we observed that the inhibition of PPARγ resulted in the upregulation of heme oxygenase 1 (HMOX1), thereby promoting ferroptosis, while solute carrier family 7 member 11 (SLC7A11) was also upregulated to promote disulfidptosis in OSCC. Finally, a flow cytometry analysis of flight and multiplex immunohistochemical staining was used to characterize the immune status of PPARγ antagonist-treated OSCC tissues in a mouse tongue orthotopic transplantation tumor model, and the results showed that the inhibition of PPARγ led to ferroptosis and disulfidptosis, promoted the aggregation of cDCs and CD8+ T cells, and inhibited the progression of OSCC. Overall, our findings reveal that PPARγ plays a key role in regulating cell death in OSCC and that targeting PPARγ may be a potential therapeutic approach for OSCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The genus Diploderma Hallowell, 1861 (Squamata, Agamidae), currently consists of 46 species, which are distributed across East Asia (inclusive of Japan) and the northern part of the Indochinese Peninsula, primarily inhabiting dry valley regions in Western China. This article introduces a novel species of Diploderma based on its unique morphological features and molecular evidence, discovered in the lower valley of the Dadu River in Sichuan Province, Western China. Phylogenetic analysis using ND2 data suggests that this new taxon is distinct from its congeners. Morphologically, the new species can be differentiated from other Diploderma species by an assemblage of 46 specific characteristics. Principal component analysis (PCA) further demonstrates that this new species is clearly distinguishable from its closest relative, D. splendidum. Given these multiple lines of evidence, we describe this species from the lower Dadu River valley as a newly identified species, D. daduense sp. nov. This discovery brings the total number of recognized species within the genus Diploderma to 47. This study describes a novel species of Diploderma (Squamata, Agamidae) from the lower valley of the Dadu River of the Sichuan Province of Western China based on its distinct morphological features and molecular evidence. D. daduense sp. nov. can be distinguished from its congeners by its tympanum concealed; head mainly green-yellow, supplemented by black; skin folds under the nuchal and dorsal crest obviously present in adult males only, its vertebral crest discontinuous between nuchal and dorsal sections with a distinct gap; transverse gular fold present but not obvious in some individuals; gular spot absent in both sexes; dorsolateral stripes green-yellow anteriorly, cyan in the center and blurry off-white posteriorly in adult males, the upper edge of dorsolateral stripes strongly jagged in adult males; no radial stripes around the eyes; inner-lip coloration smoky-white, and the coloration of the tongue and oral cavity as a light-flesh color in life; bright green-yellow transverse stripes on dorsal body in males; black patches are evenly distributed along the vertebral line between the dorsolateral stripes from the neck to the base of the tail in males; beech-brown or gray-brown line along the vertebral line with heart-shaped or diamond-shaped black patches on the dorsal body in females; and supratemporals fewer than four on at least one side. The phylogenetic tree based on mitochondrial ND2 sequences indicates that D. daduense sp. nov. forms an independent clade with strong support 1/100 in ML bootstrap/Bayesian posterior probability and is the sister group to D. splendidum. At the inter-species level, the p-distance is at least 6.95%, further confirming that an independent species had been identified. Our work raises the number of species within the genus Diploderma to 47. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To evaluate the corneal biomechanics of stable keratoconus suspects (Stable-KCS) at 1-year follow-up and compare them with those of subclinical keratoconus (SKC). Methods: This prospective case-control study included the eyes of 144 patients. Biomechanical and tomographic parameters were recorded (Corvis ST and Pentacam). Patients without clinical signs of keratoconus in both eyes but suspicious tomography findings were included in the Stable-KCS group (n = 72). Longitudinal follow-up was used to evaluate Stable-KCS changes. Unilateral keratoconus contralateral eyes with suspicious tomography were included in the SKC group (n = 72). T-tests and non-parametric tests were used for comparison. Multivariate general linear models were used to adjust for confounding factors for further analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to analyze the distinguishability. Results: The biomechanical and tomographic parameters of Stable-KCS showed no progression during the follow-up time (13.19 ± 2.41 months, p > 0.05). Fifteen biomechanical parameters and the Stress–Strain Index (SSI) differed between the two groups (p < 0.016). The A1 dArc length showed the strongest distinguishing ability (area under the ROC = 0.888) between Stable-KCS and SKC, with 90.28% sensitivity and 77.78% specificity at the cut-off value of −0.0175. Conclusions: The A1 dArc length could distinguish between Stable-KCS and SKC, indicating the need to focus on changes in the A1 dArc length for keratoconus suspects during the follow-up period. Although both have abnormalities on tomography, the corneal biomechanics and SSI of Stable-KCS were stronger than those of SKC, which may explain the lack of progression of Stable-KCS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous study, we uncovered three immune-responsive patterns of gut microbes using an in vitro mesenteric lymph node cell suspension model, abbreviated as the MLN model hereafter. We used Akkermansia muciniphila and Clostridium butyricum as the first group directly inducing an immune response, Bifidobacterium sp. and Bacteroides sp. as the second group evoking an immune response with the help of stimuli (anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 antibodies), and Lactobacillus sp. as the third group blunting the immune response with or without stimuli. Our group previously clarified the immune-activation characteristics of A. muciniphila and linked its in vivo immune induction effect in GF and SPF mice under homeostasis. In the present study, we supplemented the characteristics of C. butyricum and B. bifidum in the in vitro MLN model and addressed the specific elements of the model. Finally, we used an in vivo TNBS-challenge model to show the functional differences between these species with different response patterns in vitro. The results showed that C. butyricum and B. bifidum evoked an immune response in vitro in a dose-dependent and strain-unique manner. Although TLR2, rather than TLR4, is indispensable for immune activation in the present in vitro model, it may not involve interaction between TLR2 and bacterial ligands. Like the PBMC model, the present in vitro MLN model is highly dependent on cell resources and should be given more attention when used to conduct a quantitative comparison. Finally, a mixture of two strong immunogenic strains, A. muciniphila and C. butyricum, significantly increased the mortality of TNBS-challenged (2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid, TNBS) mice, indicating a possible link between the in vitro MLN model and in vivo functional evaluation. However, more evidence is needed to clarify the associations and underlying mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space microgravity condition has great physiological influence on astronauts' health. The interaction of endothelial cells, which control vascular permeability and immune responses, is sensitive to mechanical stress. However, whether microgravity has significant effects on the physiological function of the endothelium has not been investigated. In order to address such a question, a clinostat-based culture model with a HUVEC monolayer being inside the culture vessel under the simulated microgravity (SMG) was established. The transmittance of FITC-tagged dextran was used to estimate the change of integrity of the adherens junction of the HUVEC monolayer. Firstly, we found that the permeability of the HUVEC monolayer was largely increased after SMG treatment. To elucidate the mechanism of the increased permeability of the HUVEC monolayer under SMG, the levels of total expression and activated protein levels of Rap1 and Rap2 in HUVEC cells, which regulate the adherens junction of endothelial cells, were detected by WB and GST pull-down after SMG. As the activation of both Rap1 and Rap2 was significantly decreased under SMG, the expression of Rap1GEF1 (C3G) and Rap1GAP in HUVECs, which regulate the activation of them, was further determined. The results indicate that both C3G and Rap1GAP showed a time-dependent increase with the expression of Rap1GAP being dominant at 48 h after SMG. The down-regulation of the expression of junctional proteins, VE-cadherin and β-catenin, in HUVEC cells was also confirmed by WB and immunofluorescence after SMG. To clarify whether up-regulation of Rap1GAP is necessary for the increased permeability of the HUVEC monolayer after SMG, the expression of Rap1GAP was knocked down by Rap1GAP-shRNA, and the change of permeability of the HUVEC monolayer was detected. The results indicate that knock-down of Rap1GAP reduced SMG-induced leaking of the HUVEC monolayer in a time-dependent manner. In total, our results indicate that the Rap1GAP-Rap signal axis was necessary for the increased permeability of the HUVEC monolayer along with the down-regulation of junctional molecules including VE-cadherin and β-catenin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exposure to the antibacterial agent triclosan (TCS) is associated with abnormal placenta growth and fetal development during pregnancy. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) is crucial in placenta development. However, the mechanism of PPARγ in placenta injury induced by TCS remains unknown. Herein, we demonstrated that PPARγ worked as a protector against TCS-induced toxicity. TCS inhibited cell viability, migration, and angiogenesis dose-dependently in HTR-8/SVneo and JEG-3 cells. Furthermore, TCS downregulated expression of PPARγ and its downstream viability, migration, angiogenesis-related genes HMOX1, ANGPTL4, VEGFA, MMP-2, MMP-9, and upregulated inflammatory genes p65, IL-6, IL-1β, and TNF-α in vitro and in vivo. Further investigation showed that overexpression or activation (rosiglitazone) alleviated cell viability, migration, angiogenesis inhibition, and inflammatory response caused by TCS, while knockdown or inhibition (GW9662) of PPARγ had the opposite effect. Moreover, TCS caused placenta dysfunction characterized by the significant decrease in weight and size of the placenta and fetus, while PPARγ agonist rosiglitazone alleviated this damage in mice. Taken together, our results illustrated that TCS-induced placenta dysfunction, which was mediated by the PPARγ pathway. Our findings reveal that activation of PPARγ might be a promising strategy against the adverse effects of TCS exposure on the placenta and fetus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the negative order KdV (NKdV) hierarchy which generates nonlinear integrable equations. Selecting different seed functions produces different evolution equations. We apply the traveling wave setting to study one of these equations. Assuming a particular type of solution leads us to solve a cubic equation. New solutions are found, but none of these are classical solitary traveling wave solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging as a light, flexible and highly thermally conductive material, graphene-based membranes have attracted extensive attention in thermal management field. However, the preparation of high-quality graphene-based membranes usually involves complex processes and thermal annealing at ultra-high temperature, which limits their large-scale application in thermal management field. In our study, reduced graphene oxide-Ni-hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (RGO-Ni-HPMC) composite membrane was prepared from catalytic pyrolysis of hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) with Ni nanoparticles to generate multilayer graphene and form phonon transport channels between adjacent graphene layers. Further, our study shows that the RGO-Ni-HPMC composite membrane has a good heat dissipation effect at the hot spots at high temperature. The average temperature of hot spots is reduced by 11.5 °C. It is expected to solve the heat dissipation problem of high-power electronic equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leaf area index (LAI) plays an important role in models of climate, hydrology, and ecosystem productivity. The physical model-based inversion method is a practical approach for large-scale LAI inversion. However, the ill-posed inversion problem, due to the limited constraint of inaccurate input parameters, is the dominant source of inversion errors. For instance, variables related to leaf optical properties are always set as constants or have large ranges, instead of the actual leaf reflectance of pixel vegetation in the current model-based inversions. This paper proposes to estimate LAI with the actual leaf optical property of pixels, calculated from the leaf chlorophyll content (Chlleaf) product, using a three-dimensional stochastic radiative transfer model (3D-RTM)-based, look-up table method. The parameter characterizing leaf optical properties in the 3D-RTM-based LAI inversion algorithm, single scattering albedo (SSA), is calculated with the Chlleaf product, instead of setting fixed values across a growing season. An algorithm to invert LAI with the dynamic SSA of the red band (SSAred) is proposed. The retrieval index (RI) increases from less than 42% to 100%, and the RMSE decreases to less than 0.28 in the simulations. The validation results show that the RMSE of the dynamic SSA decreases from 1.338 to 0.511, compared with the existing 3D-RTM-based LUT algorithm. The overestimation problem under high LAI conditions is reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The end force of North-South permanent magnet linear synchronous motor (NS-PMLSM) fluctuates symmetrically with a period of one pole. Different from it, the end force's fluctuation cycle of the consequent-pole permanent magnet linear synchronous motor (CP-PMLSM) is usually two poles and asymmetrical. Especially, within two half cycles, the end force presents complex asymmetric characteristics. In this paper, a piecewise function model of the end force of CP-PMLSM is established. Then a primary segmented design method for adjusting the period, symmetry and phase of the end force waveform is proposed. The two-segment and grouped four-segment modular distances are combined and matched to eliminate the odd-numbered harmonics of the end force and suppress the thrust ripple. A slotless primary core experimental platform and a slotted CP-PMLSM prototype are manufactured and tested to verify the theoretical analysis and simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shaanxi is among the provinces with abundant coal resources in North China. These enormous coal resources (approx. 4143 Gt) are widely distributed in the Ordos Basin and its marginal fold belts. The main coal-bearing strata consist of the late Carboniferous Taiyuan Formation, the early Permain Shanxi Formation, the late Triassic Wayaobao Formation, and the middle Jurassic Yan'an Formation, which were respectively deposited in coastal plains and a lagoon environment, a continental environment, an inland open lake and a confined lake environment. The Permo-Carboniferous coals are low volatile bituminous and characterized by relatively high vitrinite content, which decreases from south to north, and from the lower coal seams upwards. By contrast, the late Triassic and middle Jurassic coals are highly volatile bituminous, but are respectively characterized by relatively high vitrinite and high inertinite content. Minerals in the Permo-Carboniferous coals, the late Triassic coals, and the middle Jurassic coals, are respectively dominated by kaolinite and calcite, quartz and kaolinite, and quartz and calcite. Furthermore, contemporary coals deposited in different coal fields or even different mines of the same coal field present different mineral characteristics. The Permain Shanxi Formation coals from the Shanbei C-P coalfield in the north of Shaanxi Province are characterized by higher kaolinite and lower carbonate contents compared to those from the Weibei C-P coalfield in the south of Shaanxi Province. The distinctive mineralogical characteristics of coals formed in different coalfields and different geological ages were ascribed to integrated influences of different terrigenous detrital input from sediment provenance, sedimentary settings (e.g., subsidence rate, sea transgression, and regression process), and hydrothermal activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the high-value utilization of hemicellulose-based composite films, the poor film-forming and mechanical properties of hemicellulose-based composite films must be surmounted crucially. Based on this, hemicellulose-based organic-inorganic composite films with good mechanical properties were prepared from quaternized hemicelluloses (QH), bentonite, and polyethyleneimine (PEI). The QH/PEI/bentonite composite films were prepared by vacuum filtration, and the properties of the composite film were investigated. The results showed that the QH was inserted into bentonite nanosheets through hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions. PEI was cross-linked with hemicellulose by hydroxyl groups, electrostatically attracted by the bentonite flake layers. The mechanical properties of the composite films were significantly increased by the incorporation of PEI. When the PEI content was 20%, the tensile stress of the composite film was increased by 155.18%, and the maximum tensile stress was reached 80.52 MPa. The composite films had strong UV absorption ability with the transmittance was almost 0 in the UV region from 200 to 300 nm. The thermal property of composite film was also improved, and the residual mass increased by three times compared to QH. These results provide a theoretical basis for the use of hemicellulose-based composite films in packaging applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A subset of patients with mycosis fungoides (MF) progress to the tumor stage, which correlates with a worse clinical outcome. The molecular events driving this progression are not well-understood. To identify the key molecular drivers, we performed gene expression profiling (GEP) using NanoString. Ten formalin-fixed/paraffin-embedded skin biopsies from six patients (six non-tumor and four tumor MF) were included; non-tumor and tumor samples were available in three patients. Laser capture/single cell microdissection of epidermotropic MF cells was used for non-tumor cases. We found that the RNA extracted from 700–800 single cells was consistently sufficient for GEP, provided that multiplexed target enrichment amplification was used. An un-supervised/hierarchical analysis revealed clustering of non-tumor and tumor cases. Many of the most upregulated or downregulated genes are implicated in the PI3K, RAS, cell cycle/apoptosis and MAPK pathways. Two of the targets, HMGA1 and PTPN11 (encodes SHP2), were validated using immunohistochemistry. HMGA1 was positive in six out of six non-tumor MF samples and negative in five out of five tumor MF samples. An opposite pattern was seen with SHP2. Our study has provided a proof-of-concept that single-cell microdissection/GEP can be applied to archival tissues. Some of our identified gene targets might be key drivers of the disease progression of MF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black pepper (Piper nigrum L.), is dubbed "the King of Spices". However, the lack of genic knowledge has limited the understanding of its physiological processes and hindered the development of its molecular breeding. The SBP-box gene family is an important family in plant development and integrates multiple physiological processes. Here, we made a genome-wide identification of the pepper SBP-box gene family to provide evolutionary and functional information about this conserved transcription factor. In total, 34 SBP genes were identified in pepper. All these pepper SBP genes were clustered into eight groups, and one pepper group was not found in Arabidopsis thaliana. Segment duplications played the most important role in the expansion process of pepper SBP genes, and all these duplications were subjected to purifying selection. Half of pepper SBP genes were found miR156 target sites, and 17 miR156s were predicted. The tissue expression analysis revealed the differential expression of pepper SBP genes. Eleven SBP genes were found in four co-expression networks, and the GO enrichment further provides a functional prediction for pepper SBP genes. This study lays a foundation for further studies of pepper and provides a valuable reference for functional mining of pepper SBP genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the topology optimization of continuum structures with design-dependent loads is studied with a gradient-free topology optimization method in combination with adaptive body-fitted finite element mesh. The material-field series-expansion (MFSE) model represents the structural topology using a bounded material field with specified spatial correlation and provides a crisp structural boundary description. This feature makes it convenient to identify the loading surface for the application of the design-dependent boundary loads and to generate a body-fitted mesh for structural analysis. Using the dimension reduction technique, the number of design variables is significantly decreased, which enables the use of an efficient Kriging-based algorithm to solve the topology optimization problem. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated using several numerical examples, among which a design problem with geometry and contact nonlinearity is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional supervised time series classification (TSC) tasks assume that all training data are labeled. However, in practice, manually labelling all unlabeled data could be very time-consuming and often requires the participation of skilled domain experts. In this paper, we concern with the positive unlabeled time series classification problem (PUTSC), which refers to automatically labelling the large unlabeled set U based on a small positive labeled set PL. The self-training (ST) is the most widely used method for solving the PUTSC problem and has attracted increased attention due to its simplicity and effectiveness. The existing ST methods simply employ the one-nearest-neighbor (1NN) formula to determine which unlabeled time-series should be labeled. Nevertheless, we note that the 1NN formula might not be optimal for PUTSC tasks because it may be sensitive to the initial labeled data located near the boundary between the positive and negative classes. To overcome this issue, in this paper we propose an exploratory methodology called ST-average. Unlike conventional ST-based approaches, ST-average utilizes the average sequence calculated by DTW barycenter averaging technique to label the data. Compared with any individuals in PL set, the average sequence is more representative. Our proposal is insensitive to the initial labeled data and is more reliable than existing ST-based methods. Besides, we demonstrate that ST-average can naturally be implemented along with many existing techniques used in original ST. Experimental results on public datasets show that ST-average performs better than related popular methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR), used in state-of-the-art smartphones, calculates pedestrian positions by using built-in inertial sensors. However, the complex and changeable usage modes of smartphones have been obstructing the development of PDR in the field of gait detection. Since the measurement of the sensor is affected by noise, position errors will emerge, needing to be corrected periodically via external measurements. To this end, an optimization-based PDR (OBPDR) method for smartphones is proposed in this study. First, an improved finite state machine (IFSM) gait detection method is designed, which can improve the gait recognition rate and stability compared with the traditional peak detection method. Second, the step detection algorithm proposed in this paper is combined with a heading estimation to obtain the PDR dynamic model. Finally, the measurements of GNSS are fused to the PDR model, based on an adaptive extended Kalman filter (AEKF) algorithm, which can enhance the adaptability of the system to the environment in order to reduce the cumulative errors of PDR. Experiments are carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The results indicate that compared with the gait detection method, based on peak detection, and the integrated positioning method, based on an extended Kalman filter, the proposed method boasts favorable robustness and a high gait recognition rate, the recognition accuracy being kept between 97.5% and 98.5%; the average position error decreased by more than 67.25%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the main areas of value investing, the stock market attracts the attention of many investors. Among investors, market index movements are a focus of attention. In this paper, combining the efficient market hypothesis and the fractal market hypothesis, a stock prediction model based on mixed fractional Brownian motion (MFBM) and an improved fractional-order particle swarm optimization algorithm is proposed. First, the MFBM model is constructed by adjusting the parameters to mix geometric Brownian motion (GBM) and geometric fractional Brownian motion (GFBM). After that, an improved fractional-order particle swarm optimization algorithm is proposed. The position and velocity formulas of the fractional-order particle swarm optimization algorithm are improved using new fractional-order update formulas. The inertia weight in the update formula is set to be linearly decreasing. The improved fractional-order particle swarm optimization algorithm is used to optimize the coefficients of the MFBM model. Through experiments, the accuracy and validity of the prediction model are proven by combining the error analysis. The model with the improved fractional-order particle swarm optimization algorithm and MFBM is superior to GBM, GFBM, and MFBM models in stock price prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The aim of this study was to explore the regulatory effect of gga-miR-449b-5p on GC proliferation and steroidogenesis in laying hens. Our results showed that gga-miR-449b-5p had no effect on the proliferation of GCs, but regulated the expression of key genes involved in steroid synthesis and the secretion of P4 and E2. In addition, gga-miR-449b-5p could target IGF2BP3 and inhibit its mRNA and protein expression. Therefore, we concluded that gga-miR-449b-5p played an important role in the synthesis of steroid hormones in laying hens. MiRNAs have been found to be involved in the regulation of ovarian function as important post-transcriptional regulators, including regulators of follicular development, steroidogenesis, cell atresia, and even the development of ovarian cancer. In this study, we evaluated the regulatory role of gga-miR-449b-5p in follicular growth and steroid synthesis in ovarian granulosa cells (GCs) of laying hens through qRT-PCR, ELISAs, western blotting and dual-luciferase reporter assays, which have been described in our previous study. We demonstrated that gga-miR-449b-5p was widely expressed in granulosa and theca layers of the different-sized follicles, especially in the granulosa layer. The gga-miR-449b-5p had no significant effect on the proliferation of GCs, but could significantly regulate the expression of key steroidogenesis-related genes (StAR and CYP19A1) (p < 0.01) and the secretion of P4 and E2 (p < 0.01 and p < 0.05). Further research showed that gga-miR-449b-5p could target IGF2BP3 and downregulate the mRNA and protein expression of IGF2BP3 (p < 0.05). Therefore, this study suggests that gga-miR-449b-5p is a potent regulator of the synthesis of steroid hormones in GCs by targeting the expression of IGF2BP3 and may contribute to a better understanding of the role of functional miRNAs in laying hen ovarian development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies indicated that extensive genetic variations could be generated due to polyploidy, which is considered to be closely associated with the manifestation of polyploid heterosis. Our previous studies confirmed that triploid loquats demonstrated significant heterosis, other than the ploidy effect, but the underlying mechanisms are largely unknown. This study aimed to overcome the narrow genetic distance of loquats, increase the genetic variation level of triploid loquats, and systematically illuminate the heterosis mechanisms of triploid loquats derived from two cross combinations. Here, inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSRs) and simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were adopted for evaluating the genetic diversity, and transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq) was performed to investigate gene expression as well as pathway changes in the triploids. We found that extensive genetic variations were produced during the formation of triploid loquats. The polymorphism ratios of ISSRs and SSRs were 43.75% and 19.32%, respectively, and almost all their markers had a PIC value higher than 0.5, suggesting that both ISSRs and SSRs could work well in loquat assisted breeding. Furthermore, our results revealed that by broadening the genetic distance between the parents, genetic variations in triploids could be promoted. Additionally, RNA-Seq results suggested that numerous genes differentially expressed between the triploids and parents were screened out. Moreover, KEGG analyses revealed that "photosynthetic efficiency" and "glyco-metabolism" were significantly changed in triploid loquats compared with the parents, which was consistent with the results of physiological indicator analyses, leaf micro-structure observations, and qRT-PCR validation. Collectively, our results suggested that extensive genetic variations occurred in the triploids and that the changes in the "photosynthetic efficiency" as well as "glyco-metabolism" of triploids might have further resulted in heterosis manifestation in the triploid loquats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composites of functionalized single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) of ≈15 nm diameter were drop-cast on a printed circuit board (PCB) substrate equipped with interdigitated electrodes to make a hybrid thin film. Addition of Au NPs decorated the surface of SWCNTs networked films and acted as catalysts which resulted into an enhanced sensitivity and low ppb concentration detection limit. The compositions of the film were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM). SWCNTs clusters were loaded with various amount of Au NPs ranging from 1–10% (by weight) and their effect on Nitric oxide (NO) sensitivity was studied and optimized. Further, the optimized composite films were tested in both air and nitrogen environments and as well as over a wide relative humidity range (0–97%). Sensors were also tested for the selectivity by exposing to various gases such as nitrous oxide, ammonia, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and acetone. Sensitivity to NO was found much higher than the other tested gases. The advantage of this sensor is that it is sensitive to NO at low ppb level (10 ppb) with estimated response time within 10 s and recovery time around 1 min, and has excellent reproducibility from sensor to sensor and works within the wide range of relative humidity (0–97%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical sand-fixing technology has shown good potential in preventing desertification, but the effect is determined by materials. In this paper, the adsorption behavior of quartz and six common polymer sand-fixing agents under dry conditions was studied by molecular dynamics method. The results show that all polymers could be adsorbed on the surface of quartz and their functional groups play an important role in the adsorption process. Compared with other materials, the binding energy and the number of hydrogen bonds of PAA-quartz composites were improved by 30.7–65.6% and 8.3–333.3%, respectively. It was found that the number of hydrogen bonds formed under the unit molecular was positively correlated with the mechanical properties of the improved sandy soil. This study provides an accurate, efficient and inexpensive qualitative evaluation method for the curing effect of sand fixers, which will assist in the screening and development of new high performance sand fixers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitrate nitrogen is an important nitrogen source for tea plants' growth and development. LBD transcription factors play important roles in response to the presence of nitrate in plants. The functional study of LBD transcription factors in tea plants remains limited. In this study, the LBD family gene CsLBD39 was isolated and characterized from tea plants. Sequence analysis indicated that CsLBD39 contained a highly conserved CX2CX6CX3CX domain. The phylogenetic tree assay showed that CsLBD39 belonged to class II subfamily of the LBD family. CsLBD39 was highly expressed in flowers and root; we determined that its expression could be induced by nitrate treatment. The CsLBD39 protein was located in the nucleus and has transcriptional activation activity in yeast. Compared with the wild type, overexpression of CsLBD39 gene in Arabidopsis resulted in smaller rosettes, shorter main roots, reduced lateral roots and lower plant weights. The nitrate content and the expression levels of genes related to nitrate transport and regulation were decreased in transgenic Arabidopsis hosting CsLBD39 gene. Compared with the wild type, CsLBD39 overexpression in transgenic Arabidopsis had smaller cell structure of leaves, shorter diameter of stem cross section, and slender and compact cell of stem longitudinal section. Under KNO3 treatment, the contents of nitrate, anthocyanins, and chlorophyll in leaves, and the content of nitrate in roots of Arabidopsis overexpressing CsLBD39 were reduced, the expression levels of nitrate transport and regulation related genes were decreased. The results revealed that CsLBD39 may be involved in nitrate signal transduction in tea plants as a negative regulator and laid the groundwork for future studies into the mechanism of nitrate response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tremendous progress has been made in the field of nanomedicine for cancer treatment. However, most of the research to date has been focused on inhibiting primary tumor growth with comparatively less efforts directed towards managing tumor metastasis. Here, we introduce a polymeric conjugate P-DOX-iRGD that not only significantly suppressed primary tumor growth but also substantially inhibited pulmonary metastasis in an orthotopic mouse model of breast cancer. In addition, treatment with P-DOX-iRGD markedly reduced breast cancer-induced splenomegaly and liver hematopoiesis. Interestingly, contrasting results were seen for the free form and polymeric form of DOX in vitro and in vivo, which may be attributed to the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reinfection risk is a great concern with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic because a large proportion of the population has recovered from an initial infection, and previous reports found that primary exposure to SARS-CoV-2 protects against reinfection in rhesus macaques without viral presence and pathological injury; however, a high possibility for reinfection at the current stage of the pandemic has been proven. We found the reinfection of SARS-CoV-2 in Syrian hamsters with continuous viral shedding in the upper respiratory tracts and few injuries in the lung, and nasal mucosa was exploited by SARS-CoV-2 for replication and shedding during reinfection; meanwhile, no viral replication or enhanced damage was observed in the lower respiratory tracts. Consistent with the mild phenotype in the reinfection, increases in mRNA levels in cytokines and chemokines in the nasal mucosa but only slight increases in the lung were found. Notably, the high levels of neutralizing antibodies in serum could not prevent reinfection in hamsters but may play roles in benefitting the lung recovery and symptom relief of COVID-19. In summary, Syrian hamsters could be reinfected by SARS-CoV-2 with mild symptoms but with obvious viral shedding and replication, and both convalescent and vaccinated patients should be wary of the transmission and reinfection of SARS-CoV-2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2 (ERK1/2) inhibitor, PD98059, on high blood pressure and related vascular changes. Blood pressure was recorded, thicknesses of renal small artery walls were measured and ERK1/2 immunoreactivity and erk2 mRNA in renal vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and endothelial cells were detected by immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization in normotensive wistar kyoto (WKY) rats, spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and PD98059-treated SHR. Compared with normo-tensive WKY rats, SHR developed hypertension at 8 weeks of age, thickened renal small artery wall and asymmetric arrangement of VSMCs at 16 and 24 weeks of age. Phospho-ERK1/2 immunoreactivity and erk2 mRNA expression levels were increased in VSMCs and endothelial cells of the renal small arteries in the SHR. Treating SHR with PD98059 reduced the spontaneous hypertension-induced vascular wall thickening. This effect was associated with suppressions of erk2 mRNA expression and ERK1/2 phosphorylation in VSMCs and endothelial cells of the renal small arteries. It is concluded that inhibition of ERK1/2 ameliorates hypertension induced vascular remodeling in renal small arteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultraviolet B (UVB) induces cell death by increasing free radical production, activating apoptotic cell death pathways and depolarizing mitochondrial membrane potential. Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), an essential cofactor in the mitochondrial electron transport chain, serves as a potent antioxidant in the mitochondria. The aim of the present study is to establish whether CoQ10 is capable of protecting neuronal cells against UVB-induced damage. Murine hippocampal HT22 cells were treated with 0.01, 0.1 or 1 µM of CoQ10 3 or 24 h prior to the cells being exposed to UVB irradiation. The CoQ10 concentrations were maintained during irradiation and 24 h post-UVB. Cell viability was assessed by counting viable cells and MTT conversion assay. Superoxide production and mitochondrial membrane potential were measured using fluorescent probes. Levels of cleaved caspase-9, caspase-3, and apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) were detected using immunocytochemistry and Western blotting. The results showed that UVB irradiation decreased cell viability and such damaging effect was associated with increased superoxide production, mitochondrial depolarization, and activation of caspase-9 and caspase-3. Treatment with CoQ10 at three different concentrations started 24 h before UVB exposure significantly increased the cell viability. The protective effect of CoQ10 was associated with reduction in superoxide production, normalization of mitochondrial membrane potential and inhibition of caspase-9 and caspase-3 activation. It is concluded that the neuroprotective effect of CoQ10 results from inhibiting oxidative stress and blocking caspase-3 dependent cell death pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food waste has caused double waste of resources in the food itself and the food supply chain of production, transportation, cooking, and processing, resulting in unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions and economic losses. This paper first conducted the quantification of students' food waste and the collection of canteens operation data in the three canteens at Taiyuan University of Technology (China) in 2019 through the weighing method and interview. Then an integration of Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Costing was used to quantify the impact of food waste in university canteens on the environment and costs. The study found that the total amount of food waste in the university canteens with 22,000 students was 246.75 t/a, the carbon footprint caused by food waste was 539.28 t CO2-eq, and the cost was 4,729,900 yuan. Most of the impact of canteen meals on the environment comes from the use of energy in food cooking and the consumption of animal food types. The innovative integration of life cycle cost calculations highlights the key role of the labor required for cooking. The research results answer the basic scientific questions of how much food is wasted in the university canteens, and the carbon emissions and cost ratios of these wasted food in all links of the supply chain. The research results can provide a policy-making basis and data support for reducing food waste in universities and realizing carbon emission reduction in university canteens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: CircRNAs: as molecules involved in gene regulation, have become a new research hotspot in the non-coding RNA field. CircRNAs show tissue- or developmental stage-specific patterns of expression and can influence the expression levels of their parental genes. Recent studies have documented the potential biological roles of circRNAs in the growth, development, reproduction and health of humans and animals. Tongue sole (Cynoglossus semilaevis) is a marine flatfish that is an economically important farmed species in China. The commercial aquaculture of tongue sole has developed in the last few years because wild resources have decreased. Reproduction is regulated by brain-pituitary-gonad-liver axis which limits the development of artificial tongue sole culture. However, the roles of circRNAs in the ovarian development and maturation of tongue sole has never been reported. The identification of the potential functions of circRNAs provides a foundation for understanding the genetic mechanisms that regulate oocyte growth and maturation, which will allow the efficiency of tongue sole reproduction to be improved. Moreover, our findings extend the knowledge about a new type of endogenous RNA involved in regulating the ovarian development and maturation of tongue sole. CircRNAs are novel endogenous non-coding small RNAs involved in the regulation of multiple biological processes. However, little is known regarding circRNAs in ovarian development and maturation of fish. Our study, for the first time, provides the genome-wide overview of the types and relative abundances of circRNAs in tongue sole tissues during three ovarian developmental stages. We detected 6790 circRNAs in the brain, 5712 in the pituitary gland, 4937 in the ovary and 4160 in the liver. Some circRNAs exhibit tissue-specific expression, and qRT-PCR largely confirmed 6 differentially expressed (DE) circRNAs. Gene Ontology and KEGG pathway analyses of DE mRNAs were performed. Some DE circRNA parental genes were closely associated with biological processes in key signalling pathways and may play essential roles in ovarian development and maturation. We found that the selected circRNAs were involved in 10 pathways. RNase R digestion experiment and Sanger sequencing verified that the circRNA had a ring structure and was RNase R resistant. qRT-PCR results largely confirmed differential circRNA expression patterns from the RNA-seq data. These findings indicate that circRNAs are widespread in terms of present in production-related tissues of tongue sole with potentially important regulatory roles in ovarian development and maturation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, gold and bismuth bimetallic nanoparticles decorated L-cysteine functionalized graphene oxide nanocomposites (Au-BiNPs/SH-GO) were prepared and applied to selective detection of Fe(III) in lake and seawater samples by modifying onto glassy carbon electrodes. Bimetallic nanoparticles have various excellent properties and better catalytic properties because of the unique synergistic effect between metals. The modified electrode was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. Under optimized conditions, current peak intensity increased linearly with increasing Fe(III) concentration over the range of 0.2–50 μM and a detection limit of 0.07 μM (S/N = 3). The Au-BiNPs/SH-GO/GCE was used for the determination of Fe(III) in lake and seawater samples with recoveries ranged from 90 to 103%. Those satisfactory results revealed the potential application of the Au-BiNPs/SH-GO electrochemical sensor for heavy metals detection in environmental monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the dynamic event-triggered tracking control issue is studied for a class of unknown stochastic nonlinear systems with strict-feedback form. At first, neural networks (NNs) are used to approximate the unknown nonlinear functions. Then, a dynamic event-triggered controller (DETC) is designed through the adaptive backstepping method. Especially, the triggered threshold is dynamically adjusted. Compared with its corresponding static event-triggered mechanism (SETM), the dynamic event-triggered mechanism (DETM) can generate a larger execution interval and further save resources. Moreover, it is verified by two simulation examples that show that the closed-loop stochastic system signals are ultimately fourth moment semi-globally uniformly bounded (SGUUB). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-temperature resistant high-entropy alloys (HEAs) have attracted extensive attention due to their excellent thermodynamic stability and mechanical properties, especially at high temperatures. However, a highly effective method for large-size HEAs is still desirable but challengeable. This research reported a facile yet effective strategy for MoNbTaWTi HEAs via in-situ wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM). The wire was MoNbTaWTi cable-type welding wire (CTWW) consisting of one center wire and seven twisted peripheral wires. Then, additive manufacturing of MoNbTaWTi high entropy alloys (HEAs) was accomplished, and various analytical techniques studied the microstructures and mechanical properties of the overlaying formed layers. X-ray diffraction showed the overlaying formed layers to contain a single disordered BCC solid solution phase with high-temperature structural stability. In addition, the single-phase BCC structure was maintained from 0 to 1400 °C. The bottom of the overlaying formed layers was made of columnar cellular structure, and the upper part resembled "cauliflower-like" fine dendrite and equiaxed crystal structure. The hardness of the overlaying formed layers averaged 533 HV0.2 at room temperature. At 1000 °C, the hardness was around 110 HV1, close to the value of Inconel 718 alloy (125 HV1). The compressive strength of the overlaying formed alloy layers displayed no sensitivity towards change in temperature from 500 to 1000 °C. As the temperature rose from 500 to 1000 °C, the compressive strength changed from 629 to 602 MPa, equivalent to only a 27 MPa decrease. The latter was much higher than the strength of Inconel 718 alloy at the same temperature (200 MPa). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a building façade contouring method from LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scans and photogrammetric point clouds. To this end, we calculate the confidence property at multiple scales for an individual point cloud to measure the point cloud's quality. The confidence property is utilized in the definition of the gradient for each point. We encode the individual point gradient structure tensor, whose eigenvalues reflect the gradient variations in the local neighborhood areas. The critical point clouds representing the building façade and rooftop (if, of course, such rooftops exist) contours are then extracted by jointly analyzing dual-thresholds of the gradient and gradient structure tensor. Based on the requirements of compact representation, the initial obtained critical points are finally downsampled, thereby achieving a tradeoff between the accurate geometry and abstract representation at a reasonable level. Various experiments using representative buildings in Semantic3D benchmark and other ubiquitous point clouds from ALS DublinCity and Dutch AHN3 datasets, MLS TerraMobilita/iQmulus 3D urban analysis benchmark, UAV-based photogrammetric dataset, and GeoSLAM ZEB-HORIZON scans have shown that the proposed method generates building contours that are accurate, lightweight, and robust to ubiquitous point clouds. Two comparison experiments also prove the superiority of the proposed method in terms of topological correctness, geometric accuracy, and representation compactness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The encapsulation of therapeutic agents into nano-based drug delivery system for cancer treatment has received considerable attention in recent years. Advancements in nanotechnology provide an opportunity for efficient delivery of anticancer drugs. The unique properties of nanoparticles not only allow cancer-specific drug delivery by inherent passive targeting phenomena and adopting active targeting strategies, but also improve the pharmacokinetics and bioavailability of the loaded drugs, leading to enhanced therapeutic efficacy and safety compared to conventional treatment modalities. Small molecule drugs are the most widely used anticancer agents at present, while biological macromolecules, such as therapeutic antibodies, peptides and genes, have gained increasing attention. Therefore, this review focuses on the recent achievements of novel nano-encapsulation in targeted drug delivery. A comprehensive introduction of intelligent delivery strategies based on various nanocarriers to encapsulate small molecule chemotherapeutic drugs and biological macromolecule drugs in cancer treatment will also be highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early detection of forest fire is helpful for monitoring the spread of fire promptly, minimizing the loss of forests, wild animals, human life, and economy. The performance of brightness temperature (BT) prediction determines the accuracy of fire detection. Great efforts have been made on BT prediction model building, but there still remains some uncertainty. Based on the widely used contextual BT prediction model (CM) and temporal-contextual BT prediction model (TCM), we proposed a spatio-temporal contextual BT prediction model (STCM), which involves historical images to contrast the BT correlation matrix between the pixel to be predicted and its background pixels within a dynamic window, and the spatial distance factor was introduced to modify the BT correlation matrix. We applied the STCM to a fire-prone area in San Diego, California, US, and compared it with CM and TCM. We found that the average RMSE of STCM was 12.54% and 9.12% lower than that of CM and TCM, and the standard deviation of RMSE calculated by STCM was reduced by 12.04% and 15.57% compared with CM and TCM, respectively. In addition, the bias of STCM was concentrated around zero and the range of bias of STCM was 88.7% and 15.3% lower than that of CM and TCM, respectively. The results demonstrated that the STCM can be used to obtain the highest BT prediction accuracy and most robust performance, followed by TCM, and CM performed worst. Our research on the BT prediction of potential fire pixels is helpful for improving the fire detection accuracy and is potentially useful for the prediction of other environmental variables with high spatial and temporal autocorrelation. However, the requirement of high-quality continuous data will limit the application of STCM in cloudy and rainy areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting user activity intensity is crucial for various applications. However, existing studies have two main problems. First, as user activity intensity is nonstationary and nonlinear, traditional methods can hardly fit the nonlinear spatio-temporal relationships that characterize user mobility. Second, user movements between different areas are valuable, but have not been utilized for the construction of spatial relationships. Therefore, we propose a deep learning model, the geographical interactions-weighted graph convolutional network-gated recurrent unit (GGCN-GRU), which is good at fitting nonlinear spatio-temporal relationships and incorporates users' geographic interactions to construct spatial relationships in the form of graphs as the input. The model consists of a graph convolutional network (GCN) and a gated recurrent unit (GRU). The GCN, which is efficient at processing graphs, extracts spatial features. These features are then input into the GRU, which extracts their temporal features. Finally, the GRU output is passed through a fully connected layer to obtain the predictions. We validated this model using a social media check-in dataset and found that the geographical interactions graph construction method performs better than the baselines. This indicates that our model is appropriate for fitting the complex nonlinear spatio-temporal relationships that characterize user mobility and helps improve prediction accuracy when considering geographic flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulation studies have proposed a significant thermal effect of water ice clouds on the Martian atmosphere and climate. However, previous studies focused more on seasonal variations but less on short-term changes. In this work, we used the MCS multi-local time data to investigate the water ice diurnal variations on Mars. We quantified its diurnal variations with amplitude and phase by applying the tidal fitting method to the water ice abundance. In addition, we found a close correlation (antiphase relation) between the thermal tide and water ice diurnal variations during the aphelion seasons that was not sensitive to both the background water ice and dust opacity but increased with the tidal amplitude. In the perihelion seasons, the antiphase relation was sensitive to the water ice and dust opacity, both affected by the dust storm activity. Finally, the statistic results suggested an unexpected low threshold of diurnal tide amplitude (2 to 3 K) for generating a relevant water ice diurnal variation, accounting for the ubiquitous water ice diurnal variations in the Martian atmosphere. These new observational results can help further understand the phase transition process between ice and vapor in the Martian atmosphere and better constrain the Martian global climate model in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of MOx (M = Co, Ni, Zn, Ce)-modified lamellar MnO2 electrode materials were controllably synthesized with a superfast self-propagating technology and their electrochemical practicability was evaluated using a three-electrode system. The results demonstrated that the specific capacitance varied with the heteroatom type as well as the doping level. The low ZnO doping level was more beneficial for improving electrical conductivity and structural stability, and Mn10Zn hybrid nanocrystals exhibited a high specific capacitance of 175.3 F·g−1 and capacitance retention of 96.9% after 2000 cycles at constant current of 0.2 A·g−1. Moreover, XRD, SEM, and XPS characterizations confirmed that a small part of the heteroatoms entered the framework to cause lattice distortion of MnO2, while the rest dispersed uniformly on the surface of the carrier to form an interfacial collaborative effect. All of them induced enhanced electrical conductivity and electrochemical properties. Thus, the current work provides an ultrafast route for development of high-performance pseudocapacitive energy storage nanomaterials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metasurface-based beam splitters attracted huge interest for their superior properties compared with conventional ones made of bulk materials. The previously reported designs adopted discrete metasurfaces with the limitation of a discontinuous phase profile. In this paper, we propose a dual-band beam splitter, based on an anisotropic quasi-continuous metasurface, by exploring the optical responses under x-polarized (with an electric field parallel to the direction of the phase gradient) and y-polarized incidences. The adopted metasurface consists of two identical trapezoidal silicon antenna arrays with opposite spatial variations that lead to opposite phase gradients. The operational window of the proposed beam splitter falls in the infrared and visible region, respectively, for x- and y-polarized light, resulting from the different mechanisms. When x-polarized light is incident, the conversion efficiency and total transmission of the beam splitter remains higher than 90% and 0.74 within the wavelength range from 969 nm to 1054 nm, respectively. In this condition, each array can act as a beam splitter of unequal power. For y-polarized incidence, the maximum conversion efficiency and transmission reach approximately 100% and 0.85, while the values remain higher than 90% and 0.65 in the wavelength range from 687 nm to 710 nm, respectively. In this case, each array can be viewed as an effective beam deflector. We anticipate that it can play a key role in future integrated optical devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last several years, the coordination control of hybrid AC/DC microgrids (HMGs) has been gaining increasingly more attention. However, most of these discussions are focused on single-bus HMGs whose AC or DC bus is not sectionalized by AC or DC breakers. Compared with these single-bus HMGs, the bus-sectionalized HMG has more flexible topologies, more diverse operation modes, and consequently higher service reliability. However, meanwhile, these benefits also bring challenges to the stable operation of bus-sectionalized HMGs, particularly for mode switching. Relying on the national HMG demonstrative project in Shaoxing, China, this paper makes efforts to present the hierarchical control paradigm of a typical bus-sectionalized HMG toward standardization. The test results demonstrate that the proposed system provides seamless switching and uninterrupted power supply without controller reconfiguration among different operation modes. The operational data are also brought forth and analyzed to provide significant and useful experiences for designing and developing similar HMGs in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital cameras obtain color information of the scene using a chromatic filter, usually a Bayer filter, overlaid on a pixelated detector. However, the periodic arrangement of both the filter array and the detector array introduces frequency aliasing in sampling and color misregistration during demosaicking process which causes degradation of image quality. Inspired by the biological structure of the avian retinas, we developed a chromatic LED array which has a geometric arrangement of multi-hyperuniformity, which exhibits an irregularity on small-length scales but a quasi-uniformity on large scales, to suppress frequency aliasing and color misregistration in full color image retrieval. Experiments were performed with a single-pixel imaging system using the multi-hyperuniform chromatic LED array to provide structured illumination, and 208 fps frame rate was achieved at 32 × 32 pixel resolution. By comparing the experimental results with the images captured with a conventional digital camera, it has been demonstrated that the proposed imaging system forms images with less chromatic moiré patterns and color misregistration artifacts. The concept proposed verified here could provide insights for the design and the manufacturing of future bionic imaging sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the magneto-optical transport properties and Landau levels of type-II nodal line semimetals. The tilted liner dispersion in type-II nodal line semimetals makes the conduction band and valence band asymmetric, and Landau levels are coupling in the presence of a magnetic field. We find the background of absorption peaks is curved. The oscillation peaks are tailless with the change of magnetic field. Through tuning tilt term, we find the absorption peaks of optical conductivity change from incomplete degenerate structure to splitting double peaks structure. We also find interband absorption peaks is no longer zero in the imaginary part of Hall conductivity. With the change of the tilt term, the contribution of the absorption peak has two forms, one is that the negative peak only appears at high frequencies, and the other is two adjacent peaks with opposite signs. In addition, the resistivity, circularly polarized light and magnetic oscillation of Hall conductivity are studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]