Search

To improve the efficiency of polycrystalline silicon solar cells, process optimization is a key technology in the photovoltaic industry. Despite the efficiency of this technique to be reproducible, economic, and simple, it presents a major inconvenience to have a heavily doped region near the surface which induces a high minority carrier recombination. To limit this effect, an optimization of diffused phosphorous profiles is required. A "low-high-low" temperature step of the POCl3 diffusion process was developed to improve the efficiency of industrial-type polycrystalline silicon solar cells. The low surface concentration of phosphorus doping of 4.54 × 1020 atoms/cm3 and junction depth of 0.31 μm at a dopant concentration of N = 1017 atoms/cm3 were obtained. The open-circuit voltage and fill factor of solar cells increased up to 1 mV and 0.30%, compared with the online low-temperature diffusion process, respectively. The efficiency of solar cells and the power of PV cells were increased by 0.1% and 1 W, respectively. This POCl3 diffusion process effectively improved the overall efficiency of industrial-type polycrystalline silicon solar cells in this solar field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The clinical benefits of targeting programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) in various cancers represent a strategy for the treatment of immunosuppressive diseases. Here, it was demonstrated that the expression levels of PD-L1 in cells were greatly upregulated in response to H1N1 influenza A virus (IAV) infection. Overexpression of PD-L1 promoted viral replication and downregulated type-I and type-III interferons and interferon-stimulated genes. Moreover, the association between PD-L1 and Src homology region-2, containing protein tyrosine phosphatase (SHP2), during IAV/H1N1 infection was analyzed by employing the SHP2 inhibitor (SHP099), siSHP2, and pNL-SHP2. The results showed that the expressions of PD-L1 mRNA and protein were decreased under SHP099 or siSHP2 treatment, whereas the cells overexpressing SHP2 exhibited the opposite effects. Additionally, the effects of PD-L1 on the expression of p-ERK and p-SHP2 were investigated in PD-L1-overexpressed cells following WSN or PR8 infection, determining that the PD-L1 overexpression led to the decreased expression of p-SHP2 and p-ERK induced by WSN or PR8 infection. Taken together, these data reveal that PD-L1 could play an important role in immunosuppression during IAV/H1N1 infection; thus, it may serve as a promising therapeutic target for development of novel anti-IAV drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-precision disk resonator gyroscope has a high quality factor in order to improve the performance of the gyroscope, as the high quality factor can lead to a long starting time. In this paper, a control system of the driving loop of the disk MEMS resonant gyroscope with the quick start is designed. The control system has functions of quick frequency locking and fast step response. Coarse-precision mode transition system is designed for quick frequency locking. A large-small mode transition system is designed for fast step response. The correctness of the design is verified by circuit test. The test results show that the start-up time is reduced by over 80% compared with the traditional control loop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote sensing technology is becoming mainstream for mapping the growing stem volume (GSV) and overcoming the shortage of traditional labor-consumed approaches. Naturally, the GSV estimation accuracy utilizing remote sensing imagery is highly related to the variable selection methods and algorithms. Thus, to reduce the uncertainty caused by variables and models, this paper proposes a combined strategy involving improved variable selection with the collinearity test and the secondary ensemble algorithm to obtain the optimally combined variables and extract a reliable GSV from several base models. Our study extracted four types of alternative variables from the Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-2A image datasets, including vegetation indices, spectral reflectance variables, backscattering coefficients, and texture features. Then, an improved variable selection criterion with the collinearity test was developed and evaluated based on machine learning algorithms (classification and regression trees (CART), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), support vector regression (SVR), and artificial neural network (ANN)) considering the correlation between variables and GSV (with random forest (RF), distance correlation coefficient (DC), maximal information coefficient (MIC), and Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) as evaluation metrics), and the collinearity among the variables. Additionally, we proposed a secondary ensemble with an improved weighted average approach (IWA) to estimate the reliable forest GSV using the first ensemble models constructed by Bagging and AdaBoost. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed variable selection criterion efficiently obtained the optimal combined variable set without affecting the forest GSV mapping accuracy. Specifically, considering the first ensemble, the relative root mean square error (rRMSE) values ranged from 21.91% to 30.28% for Bagging and 23.33% to 31.49% for AdaBoost, respectively. After the secondary ensemble involving the IWA, the rRMSE values ranged from 18.89% to 21.34%. Furthermore, the variance of the GSV mapped by the secondary ensemble with various ranking methods was significantly reduced. The results prove that the proposed combined strategy has great potential to reduce the GSV mapping uncertainty imposed by current variable selection approaches and algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new adaptive fault estimation scheme is proposed for a class of hyperbolic partial differential equations in this paper. The multiplicative actuator and sensor faults are considered. There are two cases that require special consideration: (1). only one type of fault (actuator or sensor) occurs; (2). two types of faults occurred simultaneously. To solve the problem of fault estimation, three challenges need to be solved: (1). No prior information of fault type is known; (2). Unknown faults are always coupled with state and input; (3). Only one boundary measurement is available. The original plant is converted to Observer canonical form. Two filters are proposed and novel adaptive laws are developed to estimate unknown fault parameters. With the help of the proposed update laws, the true state of the faulty plant can be estimated by the proposed observers composed of two filters. By selecting a suitable Lyapunov function, it is proved that under unknown external disturbance, the estimation errors of state parameters and fault parameters decay to arbitrarily small value. Finally, the validity of the proposed observer and adaptive laws is verified by numerical simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labeled as a fast-growing tree species, eucalyptus has outstanding carbon sequestration capacity. Forest stock volume (FSV) is regarded as an important parameter for evaluating the quality of planted eucalyptus forests. However, it is an intractable problem to map FSV of planted eucalyptus forests using optical images because of growth characteristics of the crown and low saturation levels. To improve the accuracy of FSV in planted eucalyptus forests, time series Landsat 8 OLI (LC8) images and ZY-3 stereo images were acquired in the study area. Additionally, then, three composite images were proposed using acquired Landsat 8 OLI images based on the size and shape of eucalyptus crowns, and several spectra variables were extracted from these composite images. Furthermore, corrected canopy height model (CCHM) was also extracted from ZY-3 stereo images. Meanwhile, four models (random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbor (KNN), and multiple linear regression (MLR)) were used to estimate the FSV with various variable sets using the importance of the alternative variables ranked by RF. The results show that the sensitivity between proposed spectral variables and FSV is significantly improved using proposed composed images based on the growth characteristics of the crown, especially for young eucalyptus forests. After adding CCHM and stand age to the optimal variable set, the average relative root mean square error (rRMSE) of estimated FSV decreased from 41.01% to 29.94% for single LC8 images and from 32.64% to 26.47% for proposed composite LC8 images, respectively. After using the variable set extracted from composite LC8 images, the number of samples with overestimated FSV was significantly decreased for the young forest. Furthermore, forest height plays an important role in improving the accuracy of mapping FSV, whether young or mature eucalyptus forest. It was also proved that composite images related to crown close and CCHM have great potential to delay the saturation phenomenon for mapping FSV in planted eucalyptus forest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal connectives play a crucial role in marking the sequence of events during language comprehension. Although existing studies have shown that sentence comprehension can be modulated by temporal connectives, they have mainly focused on languages with grammatical tense such as English. It thus remains unclear how temporal information is processed in tenseless languages. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine how world knowledge is retrieved and integrated in sentences linked by zhiqian (before) and zhihou (after) in Mandarin Chinese (e.g., After/Before going to the countryside, Grandpa went to the city because the air there was fresh and pure). The critical words (e.g., fresh) were either congruent or incongruent with world knowledge. Relative to the after-congruent sentences, the after-incongruent sentences evoked a P600 on critical words and a negativity on sentence-final words, whereas relative to before-congruent sentences, before-incongruent sentences showed no significant difference on critical words but a sustained negativity on sentence-final words. Additionally, before-congruent sentences elicited a larger sustained positivity (P600) than after-congruent sentences. The results suggest that before is more difficult to process than after in Mandarin Chinese, supporting the iconicity account of temporal relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power amplifier (PA) nonlinearity is typically unique at the radio frequency (RF) front-end for particular emitters. It can play a crucial role in the application of specific emitter identification (SEI). In this paper, under the Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) multipath communication scenario, two data-aided approaches are proposed to identify multi-antenna emitters using PA nonlinearity. Built upon a memoryless polynomial model, the first approach formulates a linear least square (LLS) problem and presents the closed-form solution of nonlinear coefficients in a MIMO system by means of singular value decomposition (SVD) operation. Another alternative approach estimates nonlinear coefficients of each individual PA through nonlinear least square (NLS) solved by the regularized Gauss–Newton iterative scheme. Moreover, there are some practical discussions of our proposed approaches about the mismatch of the order of PA model and the rank-deficient condition. Finally, the average misclassification rate is derived based on the minimum error probability (MEP) criterion, and the proposed approaches are validated to be effective through extensively numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A meta-surface-based arbitrary bandwidth filter realization method for terahertz (THz) future communications is presented. The approach involves integrating a meta-surface-based bandstop filter into an ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass filter and adjusting the operating frequency range of the meta-surface bandstop filter to realize the design of arbitrary bandwidth filters. It effectively addresses the complexity of designing traditional arbitrary bandwidth filters and the challenges in achieving impedance matching. To underscore its practicality, the paper employs silicon substrate integrated gap waveguide (SSIGW) and this method to craft a THz filter. To begin, design equations for electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structures were developed in accordance with the requirements of through-silicon via (TSV) and applied to the design of the SSIGW. Subsequently, this article employs equivalent transmission line models and equivalent circuits to conduct theoretical analyses for both the UWB passband and the meta-surface stopband portions. The proposed THz filter boasts a center frequency of 0.151 THz, a relative bandwidth of 6.9%, insertion loss below 0.68 dB, and stopbands exceeding 20 GHz in both upper and lower ranges. The in-band group delay is 0.119 ± 0.048 ns. Compared to reported THz filters, the SSIGW filter boasts advantages such as low loss and minimal delay, making it even more suitable for future wireless communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remaining useful life (RUL) prediction has great importance in prognostics and health management (PHM). Relaxation effect refers to the capacity regeneration phenomenon of lithium-ion batteries during a long rest time, which can lead to a regenerated useful time (RUT). This paper mainly studies the influence of the relaxation effect on the degradation law of lithium-ion batteries, and proposes a novel RUL prediction method based on Wiener processes. This method can simplify the modeling complexity by using the RUT to model the recovery process. First, the life cycle of a lithium-ion battery is divided into the degradation processes that eliminate the relaxation effect and the recovery processes caused by relaxation effect. Next, the degradation model, after eliminating the relaxation effect, is established based on linear Wiener processes, and the model for RUT is established by using normal distribution. Then, the prior parameters estimation method based on maximum likelihood estimation and online updating method under the Bayesian framework are proposed. Finally, the experiments are carried out according to the degradation data of lithium-ion batteries published by NASA. The results show that the method proposed in this paper can effectively improve the accuracy of RUL prediction and has a strong engineering application value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we demonstrate the broadband spectra and efficient laser performance of a disordered Nd:Sr0.7La0.3Mg0.3Al11.7O19 (Nd:ASL) crystal. The polarized absorption and emission spectra were characterized and calculated with the Judd–Ofelt (J–O) theory, and the results show that this crystal has relatively large σ polarized absorption and emission cross sections, with peak emission cross sections of 4.5 × 10−20 cm2 at 1051 nm and an emission width of 30 nm at 1074 nm, which are favorable for pulsed lasers. The laser-diode-pumped continuous-wave (CW) and passively Q-switched lasers at 1051 nm were realized for the first time to our best knowledge. For CW laser, the maximum output power was 1.95 W with the slope efficiency of 42.6%, and for the passive Q-switching, the maximum output power was 0.73 W with the pulse width of 7.96 ns and peak power of 5.64 W. The results demonstrate that Nd:ASL crystal is a potential candidate for lasers, especially high-peak pulsed lasers such as Q-switching and mode-locking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wide range of applications and continuous demand for plastics is causing serious global environmental problems. Massive discharges of expanded polystyrene (EPS) are thought to be primarily responsible for the increased white pollution. Waste EPS has received wide attention in the development of innovative products. White light-emitting diodes pumped by a near-UV chip (n-UV WLEDs) are regarded as a very promising solid-state lighting. The performance of the n-UV WLED is largely determined by the properties of the tricolor luminescence materials. In this work, a blue-emitting polymer film for n-UV WLED applications was developed from waste EPS. First, using waste EPS as a raw material, benzimidazole groups were bonded to PS benzene rings by chemical reactions to obtain modified PS (PS-PBI). Then, a film based on PS-PBI was prepared by a simple solution drop-casting method. The PS-PBI film can emit intense blue light when irradiated with 365 nm light. An n-UV WLED pumped by a 365 nm UV chip was fabricated using PS-PBI film as the blue-emitting layer. The fabricated n-UV WLED shows excellent luminescence properties, such as a bright white light with color coordinates of (0.337, 0.331), a relatively low color temperature (CCT, 5270 K), and an especially high color rendering index (CRI, 93.6). The results prove that the blue-emitting PS-PBI film prepared from waste EPS is a very promising candidate for n-UV WLED applications. The strategy of converting waste EPS into a high-value-added blue-emitting film in this work provides a convenient and feasible approach for upcycling waste EPS, achieving significant environmental and economic benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to derive sodium abundances and investigate the effects of non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) on the formation of H-band Na I lines, we update the sodium atomic model by incorporating collision rates with hydrogen from new quantum-mechanical calculations. The differential Na abundances for 13 sample stars are obtained by analyzing high-resolution H-band spectra from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) and optical spectra under both local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) and NLTE conditions. Consistent abundances from both bands suggest that our updated atomic model is valid for studying the formation of H-band Na I lines. Our calculations show that, in our stellar parameter space, NLTE effects are negative and can result in corrections larger than −0.4 dex on optical lines. The corrections on H-band Na I lines are typically small, within about 0.05 dex, but not negligible if accurate sodium abundance is desired. We note that the [Na/Fe] ratios favor the theoretical galactic chemical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, based on the information entropy and spatio-temporal correlation of sensing nodes in the Internet of Things (IoT), a Spatio-temporal Scope Information Model (SSIM) is proposed to quantify the scope of the valuable information of sensor data. Specifically, the valuable information of sensor data decays with space and time, which can be used to guide the system to make efficient sensor activation scheduling decisions for regional sensing accuracy. A simple sensing and monitoring system with three sensor nodes is investigated in this paper, and a single-step scheduling decision mechanism is proposed for the optimization problem of maximizing valuable information acquisition and efficient sensor activation scheduling in the sensed region. Regarding the above mechanism, the scheduling results and approximate numerical bounds on the node layout between different scheduling results are obtained through theoretical analyses, which are consistent with simulation. In addition, a long-term decision mechanism is also proposed for the aforementioned optimization issues, where the scheduling results with different node layouts are derived by modeling as a Markov decision process and utilizing the Q-learning algorithm. Concerning the above two mechanisms, the performance of both is verified by conducting experiments using the relative humidity dataset; furthermore, the differences in performance and limitations of the model are discussed and summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tree crown diameter (CD) values, relating to the rate of material exchange between the forest and the atmosphere, can be used to evaluate forest biomass and carbon stock. To map tree CD values using meter-level optical remote sensing images, we propose a novel method that interprets the relationships between the spectral reflectance of pixels and the CD. The approach employs the spectral reflectance of pixels in the tree crown to express the diversity of inclination angles of leaves based on the radiative transfer model and the spatial heterogeneity of these pixels. Then, simulated and acquired GF-2 images are applied to verify the relationships between spatial heterogeneity and the tree CD. Meanwhile, filter-based and object-based methods are also employed to extract three types of variables (spectral features, texture features, and spatial heterogeneity). Finally, the tree CD values are mapped by four models (random forest (RF), K-nearest neighbor (K-NN), support vector machine (SVM), and multiple linear regression (MLR)), using three single types of variables and combinations of variables with different strategies. The results imply that the spatial heterogeneity of spectral reflectance is significantly positively correlated with tree CD values and is more sensitive to tree CD values than traditional spectral features and textural features. Furthermore, the ability of spatial heterogeneity to map tree CD values is significantly higher than traditional variable sets after obtaining stable features with appropriate filter window sizes. The results also demonstrate that the accuracy of mapped tree CD values is significantly improved using combined variable sets with different feature extraction methods. For example, in our experiments, the R2 and rRMSE values of the optimal results ranged from 0.60 to 0.66, and from 15.76% to 16.68%, respectively. It is confirmed that spatial heterogeneity with high sensitivity can effectively map tree CD values, and the accuracy of mapping tree CD values can be greatly improved using a combination of spectral features extracted by an object-based method and spatial heterogeneity extracted by a filter-based method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Lymphatic vessels are low-pressure, blind-ended tubular structures essential in maintaining tissue fluid homeostasis, immune cell transport, and lipid transport. More and more evidence showed that lymphangiogenesis might be closely related to the development of many diseases, and the intervention of lymphangiogenesis may be a new direction of disease treatment. This review aims to discuss the molecular mechanisms of lymphangiogenesis, the effect of lymphangiogenesis on tumor immune tolerance, the emerging role of meningeal lymphatics and cardiac lymphatics, and the promising applications of lymphangiogenesis in immunotherapy and bioengineering materials. The lymphatic system is a channel for fluid transport and cell migration, but it has always been controversial in promoting and suppressing cancer. VEGFC/VEGFR3 signaling has long been recognized as a major molecular driver of lymphangiogenesis. However, many studies have shown that the neural network of lymphatic signaling is complex. Lymphatic vessels have been found to play an essential role in the immune regulation of tumor metastasis and cardiac repair. This review describes the effects of lipid metabolism, extracellular vesicles, and flow shear forces on lymphangiogenesis. Moreover, the pro-tumor immune tolerance function of lymphatic vessels is discussed, and the tasks of meningeal lymphatic vessels and cardiac lymphatic vessels in diseases are further discussed. Finally, the value of conversion therapy targeting the lymphatic system is introduced from the perspective of immunotherapy and pro-lymphatic biomaterials for lymphangiogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A plasma jet-triggered gas switch (PJT-GS) has been developed as an important piece of equipment to operate in an ± 800 kV ultra-high voltage direct current transmission system (UHV DC) to achieve grid system protection and control. The crucial factors that would affect its operational performance, such as the current level the PJT-GS could withstand and the gas gap distance between the two rotating electrodes, are comparatively studied in the present work by analysing the arc dynamic characteristics. The rotating electrode used in the PJT-GS is designed with a helical-slotted structure, and the arc can be rotated circularly driven by the produced transverse magnetic field (TMF) along the electrode edge. The objective of such research is to provide a thorough study of the arc dynamic behaviour during the current flowing process of the PJT-GS and also to characterise the physical mechanism that affects the arc rotation and the PJT-GS operation performance. The magnetohydrodynamic-based (MHD) approach is applied by establishing a 3D arc model. Following such a study, the variation of arc characteristics under different operation conditions could be thoroughly determined and it also could provide the guidance for the PJT-GS optimum design reasonably to support its corresponding engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herpes simplex virus type I (HSV-1) infection is a potential risk factor involved in the Amyloid β (Aβ) associated neuropathology. However, further understanding of the neuropathological effects of the HSV-1 infection is hampered by the limitations of existing infection models due to the distinct differences between human brains and other mammalians' brains. Here we generated cerebral organoid models derived from pluripotent stem cells to investigate the HSV-induced Aβ associated neuropathology and the role of antiviral drugs in the phenotypic rescue. Our results identified that the HSV-1-infected cerebral organoids recapitulated Aβ associated neuropathology including the multicellular Aβ deposition, dysregulated endogenous AD mediators, reactive gliosis, neuroinflammation, and neural loss, indicating that cerebral organoids offer an opportunity for modeling the interaction of HSV-1 with the complex phenotypes across the genetic, cellular, and tissue levels of the human Alzheimer's disease (AD). Furthermore, we identified that two antiviral drugs, namely Ribavirin (RBV) and Valacyclovir (VCV), inhibited HSV-1 replication and rescued the neuropathological phenotypes associated with AD in the HSV-1-infected cerebral organoids, implying their therapeutic potential to slow down the progression of AD. Our study provides a high-fidelity human-relevant in-vitro HSV-1 infection model to reconstitute the multiscale neuropathological features associated with AD and discover therapeutic drug candidates relevant to the AD viral hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a method for use in estimating the state of charge (SOC) of lithium-ion batteries which is based on an electrochemical impedance equivalent circuit model with a controlled source. Considering that the open-circuit voltage of a battery varies with the SOC, an equivalent circuit model with a controlled source is proposed which the voltage source and current source interact with each other. On this basis, the radial basis function (RBF) neural network is adopted to estimate the uncertainty in the battery model online, and a non-linear observer based on the radial basis function of the RBF neural network is designed to estimate the SOC of batteries. It is proved that the SOC estimation error is ultimately bounded by Lyapunov stability analysis, and the error bound can be arbitrarily small. The high accuracy and validity of the non-linear observer based on the RBF neural network in SOC estimation are verified with experimental simulation results. The SOC estimation results of the extended Kalman filter (EKF) are compared with the proposed method. It improves convergence speed and accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pseudorabies virus (PRV) infection could cause severe histopathological damage via releasing multiple factors, including cytokines, peptides, etc. Here, peptidomic results showed that 129 peptides were identified in PRV-infected mouse lungs and were highly involved in the process of PRV infection. The role of one down-regulated biological peptide (designated as AGDP) during PRV infection was investigated. To verify the expression profiles of AGDP in response to PRV infection, the expression level of the precursor protein of AGDP mRNA was significantly decreased in PRV-infected mouse lungs and cells. The synthesized AGDP-treating cells were less susceptible to PRV challenges than the controls, as demonstrated by the decreased virus production and gE expression. AGDP not only inhibited the expression of TNF-α and IL-8 but also appeared to suppress the extracellular release of high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) by inhibiting the output of nuclear HMGB1 in cells. AGDP could also inhibit the degradation of IκBα and the phosphorylation levels of P65 after PRV infection. In total, our results revealed many meaningful peptides involved in PRV infection, thereby enhancing the current understanding of the host response to PRV infection, and how AGDP may serve as a promising candidate for developing novel anti-PRV drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work reports the modification of egg shell (ES) particles by using stearic acid (SA) and their reinforcement in the epoxy matrix. The ES treatment via SA was optimized, the optimum conditions for concentration, temperature, and time were found to be 2.5%, 85 °C, and 50 min, respectively. The untreated ES (UES) and treated ES (TES) particles were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), particle size distribution, and contact angle. FTIR confirmed the chemical modification of SA on ES surface and DSC reflects an endothermic peak at 240 °C. XRD reveal a decrease in crystal size and crystallinity, while contact angle increases to 169° from 42°. The SEM observations clearly reflect a distinct decrease and separation of small domains of ES particles thus improving an increased surface area. Afterwards, the UES and TES particles were reinforced in epoxy at 15 and 20 weight (wt.) % loading. The tensile tests confirmed a 22% increase in elongation as compared to pure epoxy due to the hydrogen bonding between TES particles and matrix. The lowest brittleness was recorded for TES/epoxy composites on 20 wt % loading. The TGA confirmed the improved thermal stabilities at 20 wt % loading of TES particles in matrix, the improvements in T5%, T10%, and T20% values were recorded as 33, 26, and 21 °C higher than the corresponding values for neat matrix. The TES/epoxy composites on 20 wt % showed 41% increase in storage modulus as compared to the pristine epoxy, and cross-link density reaches to 2.71 × 10−3 from 1.29 × 10−3 mol/cm3 for neat matrix. The decline in tan δ height and improvement in Tg were also observed. The best adhesion effectiveness was recorded for TES/epoxy composites. This simple and economical modification technique can enhance the application of ES particles in various polymeric coating and composites applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate measurement of forest growing stem volume (GSV) is important for forest resource management and ecosystem dynamics monitoring. Optical remote sensing imagery has great application prospects in forest GSV estimation on regional and global scales as it is easily accessible, has a wide coverage, and mature technology. However, their application is limited by cloud coverage, data stripes, atmospheric effects, and satellite sensor errors. Combining multi-sensor data can reduce such limitations as it increases the data availability, but also causes the multi-dimensional problem that increases the difficulty of feature selection. In this study, GaoFen-2 (GF-2) and Sentinel-2 images were integrated, and feature variables and data scenarios were derived by a proposed adaptive feature variable combination optimization (AFCO) program for estimating the GSV of coniferous plantations. The AFCO algorithm was compared to four traditional feature variable selection methods, namely, random forest (RF), stepwise random forest (SRF), fast iterative feature selection method for k-nearest neighbors (KNN-FIFS), and the feature variable screening and combination optimization procedure based on the distance correlation coefficient and k-nearest neighbors (DC-FSCK). The comparison indicated that the AFCO program not only considered the combination effect of feature variables, but also optimized the selection of the first feature variable, error threshold, and selection of the estimation model. Furthermore, we selected feature variables from three datasets (GF-2, Sentinel-2, and the integrated data) following the AFCO and four other feature selection methods and used the k-nearest neighbors (KNN) and random forest regression (RFR) to estimate the GSV of coniferous plantations in northern China. The results indicated that the integrated data improved the GSV estimation accuracy of coniferous plantations, with relative root mean square errors (RMSErs) of 15.0% and 19.6%, which were lower than those of GF-2 and Sentinel-2 data, respectively. In particular, the texture feature variables derived from GF-2 red band image have a significant impact on GSV estimation performance of the integrated dataset. For most data scenarios, the AFCO algorithm gained more accurate GSV estimates, as the RMSErs were 30.0%, 23.7%, 17.7%, and 17.5% lower than those of RF, SRF, KNN-FIFS, and DC-FSCK, respectively. The GSV distribution map obtained by the AFCO method and RFR model matched the field observations well. This study provides some insight into the application of optical images, optimization of the feature variable combination, and modeling algorithm selection for estimating the GSV of coniferous plantations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long, robust hypocotyls are important for facilitating greenhouse transplant production. The use of far-red light at the end of the day (end-of-day far-red, EOD-FR) is known to prompt hypocotyl elongation, but the mechanism of EOD-FR-mediated hypocotyl elongation in pumpkin remains unclear. Here, we found that hypocotyl length, parenchymal cell size in hypocotyls, and plant IAA levels were significantly greater in pumpkin after EOD-FR treatment. This effect was counteracted by the application of the polar auxin transport inhibitor 1-N-naphthylphthalamic acid. Integrated transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis of pumpkin hypocotyls revealed that the expression of auxin-related genes changed significantly after EOD-FR treatment, and the contents of the auxin biosynthetic precursors tryptophan and indole were also significantly higher. Our results show that auxin plays an essential role in EOD-FR-mediated hypocotyl elongation, shed light on the mechanisms of EOD-FR mediated hypocotyl elongation, and provide a theoretical basis for the use of EOD-FR in facility cultivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: To reduce feed costs, the exploration of feed resources is currently the main research direction. In the past, fiber feed was generally regarded as anti-nutritional factors. Recently, fiber has received special attention due to its many beneficial effects. Therefore, this study selected five common household and production wastes as fiber sources and added them to the diet of pregnant sows to explore the impact on sows and piglets. The results of this study indicated that adding corn gluten feed (CG) significantly improved the digestibility of sows and body weight (BW) of piglets, which provide evidence and insight for the application of corn gluten feed in gestation sow diets. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of increasing dietary neutral detergent fiber (NDF) levels on pregnant sows, and to select the best feed ingredients based on reproductive performance, plasma biochemistry parameters, colostrum and milk composition, and nutrient digestibility. Seventy-two multiparous sows were randomly allotted to six dietary treatment groups (n = 12). The feeding of chicory meal (CM), wheat bran (WB), corn gluten, and rice bran meal (RBM) increased the average weaning weight of piglets compared with the control (CON) group (p < 0.05). Supplementation with CG diet increased the sow BW, weight gain, and back fat thickness compared with WB and RBM on day 107 of gestation (p < 0.05). Furthermore, Supplementation with CG diet resulted in lower plasma urea nitrogen (PUN) and higher total protein (TP) concentrations in plasma (p < 0.05). Feeding CM diet and soybean curd residue (SCR) diet reduced the total protein and globulin, and supplementation with CM diet significantly increased the PUN (p < 0.05). The apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of crude protein (CP), crude fat (EE), calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), and acid detergent fiber (ADF) were decreased following the addition of CM, WB, or SCR to the diets (p < 0.05). The ATTD of NDF and ADF were significantly increased in the CG group (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the feeding of CG diet to sows have an excellent effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To create an intelligent surface region of interests (ROI) 3D quantitative inspection strategy a reality in the continuous casting (CC) production line, an improved 3D laser image scanning system (3D-LDS) was established based on binocular imaging and deep-learning techniques. In 3D-LDS, firstly, to meet the requirements of the industrial application, the CCD laser image scanning method was optimized in high-temperature experiments and secondly, we proposed a novel region proposal method based on 3D ROI initial depth location for effectively suppressing redundant candidate bounding boxes generated by pseudo-defects in a real-time inspection process. Thirdly, a novel two-step defects inspection strategy was presented by devising a fusion deep CNN model which combined fully connected networks (for defects classification/recognition) and fully convolutional networks (for defects delineation). The 3D-LDS' dichotomous inspection method of defects classification and delineation processes are helpful in understanding and addressing challenges for defects inspection in CC product surfaces. The applicability of the presented methods is mainly tied to the surface quality inspection for slab, strip and billet products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For positive integers s and t, the Ramsey number R (s , t) is the smallest positive integer n such that every graph of order n contains either a clique of order s or an independent set of order t. The triangle-free process begins with an empty graph of order n, and iteratively adds edges chosen uniformly at random subject to the constraint that no triangle is formed. It has been an important tool in studying the asymptotic lower bound for R (3 , t) . Cyclic graphs are vertex-transitive. The symmetry of cyclic graphs makes it easier to compute their independent numbers than related general graphs. In this paper, the cyclic triangle-free process is studied. The sizes of the parameter sets and the independence numbers of the graphs obtained by the cyclic triangle-free process are studied. Lower bounds on R (3 , t) for small t's are computed, and R (3 , 35) ≥ 237 , R (3 , 36) ≥ 244 , R (3 , 37) ≥ 255 , R (3 , 38) ≥ 267 , etc. are obtained based on the graphs obtained by the cyclic triangle-free process. Finally, some problems on the cyclic triangle-free process and R (3 , t) are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report the fabrication of high-quality 5 at. % Er3+ ions doped SrF2 transparent ceramics, the potential candidate materials for a mid-infrared laser-gain medium by hot-pressing at 700 °C for 40 h using a chemically-derived powder. The phase structure, densification, and microstructure evolution of the Er:SrF2 ceramics were systematically investigated. In addition, the grain growth kinetic mechanism of Er:SrF2 was clarified. The results showed lattice diffusion to be the grain growth mechanism in the Er:SrF2 transparent ceramic of which highest in-line transmittance reached 92% at 2000 nm, i.e., very close to the theoretical transmittance value of SrF2 single crystal. Furthermore, the emission spectra showed that the strongest emission band was located at 2735 nm. This means that it is possible to achieve a laser output of approximately 2.7 μm in the 5 at. % Er3+ ions doped SrF2 transparent ceramics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]