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The bearing capacity of shallow foundation is significantly affected by stratum uncertainty, mainly including geological uncertainty and spatial variability of soil properties. This paper aims to develop a general framework of shallow foundation to characterize the influence of two types of uncertainties on bearing capacity quantitatively. The geological uncertainty is simulated by Markov random field with different borehole schemes. The spatial variability is characterized using random field theory considering variations of the vertical scale of fluctuation. The bearing capacity of shallow foundation analysis is then conducted based on the proposed calculation framework. Borehole data and soil properties collected from Shenzhen Mawan are adopted as an example to illustrate the proposed framework. A reduction factor is developed to reveal the relationship of two category uncertainties on bearing capacity. A contribution rate indicator is defined to quantitatively evaluate the impact of two category uncertainties. Results show that the geological uncertainty greatly influences the calculation results when boreholes are sparse. However, spatial variability dominates in two kinds of uncertainties when having relatively more boreholes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Headache disorders are widely prevalent and pose a considerable economic burden on individuals and society. Globally, misdiagnosis and inadequate treatment of primary headache disorders remain significant challenges, impeding the effective management of such conditions. Despite advancements in headache management over the last decade, a need for comprehensive evaluations of the status of primary headache disorders in China regarding diagnosis and preventative treatments persists. Methods: In the present study, we analyzed the established queries in the Survey of Fibromyalgia Comorbidity with Headache (SEARCH), focusing on previous diagnoses and preventative treatment regimens for primary headache disorders. This cross-sectional study encompassed adults diagnosed with primary headache disorders who sought treatment at 23 hospitals across China between September 2020 to May 2021. Results: The study comprised 2,868 participants who were systematically examined. Migraine and tension-type headaches (TTH) constituted a majority of the primary headache disorders, accounting for 74.1% (2,124/2,868) and 23.3% (668/2,868) of the participants, respectively. Medication overuse headache (MOH) affected 8.1% (231/2,868) of individuals with primary headache disorders. Over half of the individuals with primary headache disorders (56.6%, 1,624/2,868) remained undiagnosed. The previously correct diagnosis rates for migraine, TTH, TACs, and MOH were 27.3% (580/2,124), 8.1% (54/668), 23.2% (13/56), and 3.5% (8/231), respectively. The misdiagnosis of "Nervous headache" was found to be the most prevalent among individuals with migraine (9.9%, 211/2,124), TTH (10.0%, 67/668), trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias (TACs) (17.9%, 10/56), and other primary headache disorders (10.0%, 2/20) respectively. Only a minor proportion of individuals with migraine (16.5%, 77/468) and TTH (4.7%, 2/43) had received preventive medication before participating in the study. Conclusions: While there has been progress made in the rate of correct diagnosis of primary headache disorders in China compared to a decade ago, the prevalence of misdiagnosis and inadequate treatment of primary headaches remains a veritable issue. As such, focused efforts are essential to augment the diagnosis and preventive treatment measures related to primary headache disorders in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nylon is a common engineering plastic that is easy to machine and can serve as a mechanical end-part. Ultrasonic testing is a highly efficient nondestructive testing method for the inspection of nylon materials. However, the curvature of the surface causes scattering or focusing of the ultrasonic beam bring difficulties to detect the inner defects. In addition, some configuration parameters, such as the water path depth, also affect the acoustic field distribution. It is necessary to predict the acoustic field distribution to achieve a better testing accuracy. An acoustic field simulation model based on a multi-Gaussian beam is established to predict the focused acoustic field in a multilayer medium under a curved interface. The relationship between the acoustic focusing area and the water path depth was explored, and the water path depth is selected by simulating the effective detection region. C-scan imaging of specimens with artificial flat-bottom holes are performed at different water path depths. By comparing the quantitative analysis results of different water path depths, the error of the FBH size obtained by selecting a water path depth is significantly less than others. The ultrasonic C-scan images of nylon bar with natural flaws are compared with the microscopic CT tomography reconstruction images, and the comparison shows that the defects can be detected in the C-scan images. The results show that the proposed method can optimize the configuration parameters to improve the accuracy of the flaw sizing. This study provides an efficient technique for the detection of nylon bars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a set of direct numerical simulation results on Rayleigh-Bénard-Marangoni (R-B-M) flow of cold water in the cylindrical pools. The heat transfer between the free surface and the environment is considered. The aspect ratio Г of the cylindrical pool varies from 2 to 8. Rayleigh (Ra) and Biot (Bi) numbers are respectively confined in Ra ≤ 104 and 0 < Bi ≤ 50. The flow onset critical Ra is determined and the influences of Bi and the density inversion parameter (Θm) on the critical Ra are analyzed. The primary bifurcation flow structures of R-B-M flow are shown and the evolution of the flow structures with Ra and Bi at different Θm is observed. Furthermore, the heat transfer ability is estimated by Nusselt number. The results indicate that the critical Ra of the flow onset increases with increasing Bi and Θm. But it decreases with the increase of Г. The primary bifurcation pattern is multicellular flow. With increasing Г, the number of flow cells in multicellular flow increases fast. With increasing Ra, the up-triangular and up-quadrilateral flow structures appear at Г = 4, and finally transits to the up one-torus. With increasing Ra and Г, and decreasing Θm, average Nusselt number increases monotonically. However, with increasing Bi, it first increases, and then decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scale of fluctuation (SOF) is the critical parameter to describe the soil spatial variability, which significantly influences the embedded geostructures. Due to the limited data in the horizontal direction, horizontal SOF estimation is relatively challenging and not well studied yet. This paper aims to develop an efficient convolutional neural network (CNN)-based approach for estimating the horizontal SOF by coupling random field and limited CPT data. Two or three columns (i.e. pseudo-CPT) were selected from the simulated 2D random field with prescribed SOF at the same spacing and combined into a two-dimensional matrix as input data to train the CNN model, namely CNN2 and CNN3 models. The dataset of CNN2 and CNN3 models contains 196,670 and 149,420 samples. Results on the training and testing datasets show that the trained CNN model has a good estimation performance as the mean squared error value is less than 0.1 and the correlation coefficient value is larger than 0.99. The effectiveness of trained CNN models was further verified by the new simulated CPT data with untrained SOF from the random field and CPT data from real site in Hollywood, South Carolina. The excellent agreement indicates that the trained CNN model has the ability to capture the horizontal SOF for limited CPT data from the actual project. Finally, the collected CPT data from the Shanghai site was applied for application. The COV of the estimated results of CNN3 and CNN2 models for the Shanghai site is 0.09 and 0.40, indicating the estimation performance of the CNN3 model has less variability than the CNN2 model. The proposed method provides the potential to characterize the soil spatial variability using very limited CPT data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the local receptivity of the Mack-mode instability to localized unsteady blowing and suction (UBS) in a chemical non-equilibrium (CNE) hypersonic boundary layer. The five-species CNE model is employed, and the receptivity efficiency is formulated by use of the residual theorem. Compared with the results for the calorically perfect gas (CPG) model, we find that the real-gas effect enhances the receptivity efficiency remarkably in the majority of the second-mode frequency band, and the enhancement is mainly attributed to the modification of the base flow due to the CNE effect, which is akin to the cold-wall effect in hypersonic boundary layers. Combined with the destabilizing role of the CNE effect on the Mack second mode, it is concluded that the CNE effect would lead to a greater linearly accumulated perturbation amplitude, implying premature of transition to turbulence in a high-enthalpy hypersonic boundary layer subject to localized perturbations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this minireview we discuss the role of the more subtle conformational change—protein conformational sampling and connect it to the classic relationship of protein structure and function. The theory of pre-existing functional states of protein are discussed in context of alternate protein conformational sampling. Last, we discuss how temperature, ligand binding and mutations affect the protein conformational sampling mode which is linked to the protein function regulation. The review includes several protein systems that showed temperature dependent protein conformational sampling. We also specifically included two enzyme systems, thermophilic alcohol dehydrogenase (ht-ADH) and thermolysin which we previously studied when discussing temperature dependent protein conformational sampling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the real-world Internet platform "Tao Factory" of Alibaba as an example, the order matching mechanism between manufacturers and retailers is studied. This platform first collects multi-variety small batch orders from retailers and modular production resources from manufacturers, and then matches production orders according to the needs of both parties. Considering the characteristics of the matching process, we take the qualifications of all manufacturers matched to the orders and total transportation costs as optimization goals and establish an order matching model. In order to expand the search space algorithm, we introduce the niche strategy, which can remove crowded particles and make the particle swarm evenly distributed. In addition, the local search method is combined to improve the particle swarm algorithm, and the double-object ZDT test function set is used to verify the superiority of the improved multi-objective particle swarm algorithm (IMOPSO). Finally, based on the order matching model and IMOPSO, simulation experiments are conducted to determine the factors that affect the use of manufacturers' idle capacity and provide some constructive suggestions for small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMEs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is a prevalent type of digestion system malignancies. Dysregulation of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) has been proven to be prognostic factors and biological regulators in human cancers. Aims: The current study aimed to explore the role of long intergenic non-protein coding RNA 1436 (LINC01436) and its underlying mechanism in the progression of GC. Methods: RT-qPCR was conducted to measure RNA expression. Western blot was used for exploration of protein level. CCK-8, caspase-3 activity, and transwell assays were applied to evaluate the proliferative, apoptotic, and migratory abilities of GC cells, respectively. Mechanical experiments were used to probe the molecular interplay between genes. Results: High LINC01436 level suggested low overall survival in GC patients, and LINC01436 was highly expressed in GC tissues and cells. Besides, LINC01436 knockdown hampered cell proliferation and migration, while facilitated cell apoptosis. Mechanistically, LINC01436 upregulated mitogen-activated protein kinase 1 (MAPK1) expression by competitively binding with miR-585-3p and inhibiting miR-585-3p expression. Furthermore, LINC01436 negatively regulated miR-585-3p expression by enhancing the zeste 2 polycomb repressive complex 2 subunit (EZH2)-induced trimethylation of histone H3 at lysine 27 (H3K27me3) on miR-585-3p promoter. Final rescue assays revealed that overexpression of MAPK1 could rescue the suppressive influence of LINC01436 depletion on GC progression. Conclusions: LINC01436 epigenetically silences miR-585-3p and acts as miR-585-3p to upregulate MAPK1 expression and promote GC progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The critical role of the regulatory elements at the 5′ end of the HIV-1 genome in controlling the life cycle of HIV-1 indicates that this region significantly influences virus fitness and its biological properties. In this study, we performed a detailed characterization of strain-specific variability of sequences from the U5 to upstream of the gag gene start codon of diverse HIV-1 strains by using next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques. Overall, we found that this region of the HIV-1 genome displayed a low degree of intra-strain variability. On the other hand, inter-strain variability was found to be as high as that reported for gag and env genes (13–17%). We observed strain-specific single point and clustered mutations in the U5, PBS, and gag leader sequences (GLS), generating potential strain-specific transcription factor binding sites (TFBS). Using an infrared gel shift assay, we demonstrated the presence of potential TFBS such as E-box in CRF22_01A, and Stat 6 in subtypes A and G, as well as in their related CRFs. The strain-specific variation found in the sequence corresponding at the RNA level to functional domains of the 5ʹ UTR, could also potentially impact the secondary/tertiary structural rearrangement of this region. Thus, the variability observed in this 5′ end of the genomic region of divergent HIV-1 strains strongly suggests that functions of this region might be affected in a strain-specific manner. Our findings provide new insights into DNA–protein interactions that regulate HIV-1 replication and the influence of strain characterization on the biology of HIV-1 infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incidence of pale, soft, and exudative (PSE)-like chicken meat is high worldwide. PSE-like chicken meat seriously affects the sensory qualities of fresh meat, which can decrease the consumer's purchasing desire, reduce chicken meat functionality, and decrease product yield, resulting in extensive economic losses for the poultry processing industry. This meat defect has been of increasing concern to processors and researchers in the poultry processing industry. The processing properties of PSE-like meat and the methods for improving its processing properties or alleviating its reduced functionalities are reviewed in the present article, with the aim of providing a theoretical basis and technical support for poultry processing to increase the practical value of PSE-like chicken meat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The laminar-turbulent transition in boundary-layer flows is often affected by wall imperfections, because the latter may interact with either the freestream perturbations or the oncoming boundary-layer instability modes, leading to a modification of the accumulation of the normal modes. The present paper particularly focuses on the latter mechanism in a transonic boundary layer, namely, the effect of a two-dimensional (2D) roughness element on the oncoming Tollmien-Schlichting (T-S) modes when they propagate through the region of the rapid mean-flow distortion induced by the roughness. The wave scattering is analyzed by adapting the local scattering theory developed for subsonic boundary layers (WU, X. S. and DONG, M. A local scattering theory for the effects of isolated roughness on boundary-layer instability and transition: transmission coefficient as an eigenvalue. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 794, 68–108 (2006)) to the transonic regime, and a transmission coefficient is introduced to characterize the effect of the roughness. In the sub-transonic regime, in which the Mach number is close to, but less than, 1, the scattering system reduces to an eigenvalue problem with the transmission coefficient being the eigenvalue; while in the super-transonic regime, in which the Mach number is slightly greater than 1, the scattering system becomes a high-dimensional group of linear equations with the transmission coefficient being solved afterward. In the large-Reynolds-number asymptotic theory, the Kármán-Guderley parameter is introduced to quantify the effect of the Mach number. A systematical parametric study is carried out, and the dependence of the transmission coefficient on the roughness shape, the frequency of the oncoming mode, and the Kármán-Guderley parameter is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional surface seismic exploration in areas with complex surfaces such as karst landforms has been faced with the problem of poor excitation and reception conditions. RVSP (reverse vertical seismic profile) seismic exploration adopts a geometry in which the sources are downhole and receivers are on the ground which can reduce the influence of complex surfaces on seismic wave propagation (to some extent). Through numerical simulations and real data analysis, it was noted that in areas with complex surfaces and large numbers of underground karst caves, seismic waves generated in shallow boreholes are easily affected by various surface and multiple waves as well as by scattering from karst bodies. Therefore, the quality of the reflected seismic data is extremely low. Also, it is difficult to improve the signal to noise ratio (SNR) with conventional noise filtering methods. However, when the source depth is increased, the quality of the reflected waves can be improved. This is exactly what the RVSP method accomplishes. Besides, for the RVSP method, due to its particular geometry, the apparent velocities of the reflected waves and most interference waves are quite different, which can help to filter most noise to further improve the SNR of the reflected signals. In this study, a 3D-RVSP exploration study using 8-hole joint acquisition was conducted in a typical karst landform. The results show that the 3D-RVSP method can obtain higher quality seismic data for complex surface conditions that have large numbers of underground karst caves. Furthermore, multi-hole joint acquisition for 3D-RVSP has higher data collection efficiency and better uniformity of underground coverage. Therefore, in this study, 38 faults were accurately revealed and at high resolution based on the 3D-RVSP imaging results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the distributed and decentralized nature of social media, respective content that contains misinformation is usually propagated without any type of moderation, which may mislead the public and have a profound real-world impact. In addition, it is quite challenging to distinguish misinformation with high precision, since the content is often short and lacks of semantics. A promising solution is to utilize the crowdsourcing wisdom that pushes the suspected misinformation to relevant users based on the expertise and collects the assessments to judge the credibility. Even though a lot of expert finding models have been employed, however, these methods cannot effectively deal with the misinformation-oriented expert matching tasks since the data collected from social network is different form traditional text collection. To this end, we focus on how to obtain an appropriate matching between the suspect misinformation and corresponding experts, and propose a multi-topic expert finding method, called LTM (List based Topic Model), to sufficiently utilize crowdsourcing wisdom. Moreover, we optimize the query results with the help of supervised information that extracted from Twitter Lists. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our work with experiments on real-world data and verify the superiority of our proposed model in accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a predictive model for simulating temporal behaviors of clayey sand during seepage-induced erosion has been developed by coupling discrete element method (DEM) with computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In this model, the particle–fluid coupling simulation is solved by a "fixed coarse-grid" scheme in 3D particle flow code (PFC3D), and the suffusion of clay matrix in the initiation of erosion is converted to a degradation process of bonding strength between particles according to a degradation law. The law is derived from the well-known shear stress threshold law dealing with soil internal erosion, which is based on two erosion parameters—the critical shear stress and the erosion coefficient. Then the degradation law is implemented in the CFD–DEM model via developing customized code using the Python language. The ability of the model to predict the interfacial erosion of soils is confirmed by two numerical tests. The results are seen to match the empirical criteria, such as revealing a clearly defined critical tangential shear stress, beyond which erosion occurs, and a positive correlation between the rate of erosion and the pressure gradient. It is believed that the numerical model is able to reproduce the time-dependent evolution process of seepage-induced erosion in clayey sand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roles of cyclin-dependent kinase 6 (CDK6) in various cancers, including small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC), remain unclear. Here, 111,54 multi-center samples were investigated to determine the expression, clinical significance, and underlying mechanisms of CDK6 in 34 cancers. The area under the curve (AUC), Cox regression analysis, and the Kaplan–Meier curves were used to explore the clinical value of CDK6 in cancers. Gene set enrichment analysis and correlation analysis were performed to detect potential CDK6 mechanisms. CDK6 expression was essential in 24 cancer cell types. Abnormal CDK6 expression was observed in 14 cancer types (e.g., downregulated in breast invasive carcinoma; p < 0.05). CDK6 allowed six cancers to be distinguished from their controls (AUC > 0.750). CDK6 expression was a prognosis marker for 13 cancers (e.g., adrenocortical carcinoma; p < 0.05). CDK6 was correlated with several immune-related signaling pathways and the infiltration levels of certain immune cells (e.g., CD8+ T cells; p < 0.05). Downregulated CDK6 mRNA and protein levels were observed in SCLC (p < 0.05, SMD = − 0.90). CDK6 allowed the identification of SCLC status (AUC = 0.91) and predicted a favorable prognosis for SCLC patients (p < 0.05). CDK6 may be a novel biomarker for the prediction and prognosis of several cancers, including SCLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forward-/backward-facing steps in boundary-layer flows are often seen in engineering applications, and they have potential impacts on laminar-turbulent transition through scattering of the oncoming instability modes (e.g., Tollmien-Schlichting (T-S) waves). This issue is studied in the present paper by applying a local scattering framework, which is a rather generic mathematical framework on describing the mode scattering process. In this framework, a high-Reynolds-number triple-deck formalism is employed, and a transmission coefficient, defined as the ratio of the asymptotic amplitude of the instability mode downstream of the step to that upstream, is introduced. Through the systematical study, it has been found that both the forward- and backward-facing steps have a destabilizing effect on the oncoming T-S waves in subsonic boundary layers, this effect increases with the height of the step and/or the frequency of the T-S wave, and a backward-facing step (BFS) always has a greater impact than a forward-facing step (FFS). These facts agree with most of the previous investigations. However, one numerical study (WORNER, A., RIST, U., andWAGNER, S. Humps/steps influence on stability characteristics of two-dimensional laminar boundary layer. AIAA Journal, 41, 192-197 (2003)), which was based on an ad-hoc configuration, showed an opposite impact of an FFS. Through the investigation on the specific configuration, it is revealed that the wrong conclusion was drawn by misinterpreting the numerical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The linear-stability analyses of thermocapillary flow in an annular two-layer system subjected to a radial temperature gradient were conducted. The annular pool with upper free surface and adiabatic bottom is filled with immiscible double layer liquid of 5cSt silicone oil / HT-70. The outer wall of the annular pool is heated and inner wall is cooled. The results indicate that the critical Marangoni number decreases with the increase of aspect ratio and radius ratio. The effect of the ratio of the lower liquid thickness to the total double layer thickness on the convection onset is complicated. The minimum critical Marangoni number is located near the thickness ratio of 0.125. Moreover, there is one Hopf bifurcation from the steady to oscillatory flow when the thickness ratio varies from 0.625 to 0.75. At the same time, two types of flow destabilizing mechanism are identified. Comparing with the results with upper rigid wall, it can be found that the stability of thermocapillary convection in annular two-layer system with the free surface reduces largely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A direct numerical simulation (DNS) on an oblique shock wave with an incident angle of 33.2° impinging on a Mach 2.25 supersonic turbulent boundary layer is performed. The numerical results are confirmed to be of high accuracy by comparison with the reference data. Particular efforts have been made on the investigation of the near-wall behaviors in the interaction region, where the pressure gradient is so significant that a certain separation zone emerges. It is found that, the traditional linear and logarithmic laws, which describe the mean-velocity profiles in the viscous and meso sublayers, respectively, cease to be valid in the neighborhood of the interaction region, and two new laws of the wall are proposed by elevating the pressure gradient to the leading order. The new laws are inspired by the analysis on the incompressible separation flows, while the compressibility is additionally taken into account. It is verified by the DNS results that the new laws are adequate to reproduce the mean-velocity profiles both inside and outside the interaction region. Moreover, the normalization adopted in the new laws is able to regularize the Reynolds stress into an almost universal distribution even with a salient adverse pressure gradient (APG). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Object tracking is the process of locating objects of interest in video frames. Challenges still exist in handling appearance changes in object tracking for robotic vision. In this paper, we propose a novel Dirichlet process-based appearance model (DPAM) for tracking. By explicitly introducing a new model variable into the traditional Dirichlet process, we model the negative and positive target instances as the combination of multiple appearance models. Within each model, target instances are dynamically clustered based on their visual similarity. DPAM provides an infinite nonparametric mixture of distributions that can grow automatically with the complexity of the appearance data. In addition, prior off-line training or specifying the number of mixture components (clusters or parameters) is not required. We build a tracking system in which DPAM is applied to cluster negative and positive target samples and detect the new target location. Our experimental results on real-world videos show that our system achieves superior performance when compared with several state-of-the-art trackers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possible application of the film-cooling technique against aero-thermal heating for surfaces of high-speed flying vehicles is discussed. The technique has been widely used in the heat protection of gas turbine blades. It is shown in this paper that, by applying this technique to high-speed flying vehicles, the working principle is fundamentally different. Numerical simulations for two model problems are performed to support the argument. Besides the heat protection, the appreciable drag reduction is found to be another favorable effect. For the second model problem, i.e., the gas cooling for an optical window on a sphere cone, the hydrodynamic instability of the film is studied by the linear stability analysis to observe possible occurrence of laminar-turbulent transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomena associated with the entrainment of free-stream turbulence (FST) into boundary-layer flows are relevant for a number of subjects. It has been believed that the continuous spectra of the Orr-Sommerfeld (O-S)/Squire equations describe the entrainment process, and thus they are used to specify the inlet condition in simulation of bypass transition. However, Dong and Wu (Dong, M. and Wu, X. On continuous spectra of the Orr-Sommerfeld/Squire equations and entrainment of free-stream vortical disturbances. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 732, 616-659 (2013)) pointed out that continuous spectra exhibit several non-physical features due to neglecting the non-parallelism. They further proposed a large-Reynolds-number asymptotic approach, and showed that the non-parallelism is a leading-order effect even for the short-wavelength disturbance, for which the response concentrates in the edge layer. In this paper, the asymptotic solution is verified numerically by studying its evolution in incompressible boundary layers. It is found that the numerical results can be accurately predicted by the asymptotic solution, implying that the latter is adequate for moderate Reynolds numbers. By introducing a series of such solutions as the inflow perturbations, the bypass transition is investigated via the direct numerical simulation (DNS). The transition processes, including the evolution of streaks, the amplification of secondary-instability modes, and the emergence of turbulent spots, agree with the experimental observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Green's function technique, we respectively investigate the electron transport properties of two spin components through the system of a T-shaped double quantum dot structure coupled to a Majorana bound state, in which only one quantum dot is connected with two metallic leads. We explore the interplay between the Fano effect and the MBSs for different dot-MBS coupling strength λ, dot-dot coupling strength t, and MBS-MBS coupling strength ε in the noninteracting case. Then the Coulomb interaction and magnetic field effect on the conductance spectra are investigated. Our results indicate that G( ω) is not affected by the Majorana bound states, but a '0.5' conductance signature occurs in the vicinities of Fermi level of G( ω). This robust property persists for a wide range of dot-dot coupling strength and dot-MBS coupling strength, but it can be destroyed by Coulomb interaction in quantum dots. By adjusting the size and direction of magnetic field around the quantum dots, the '0.5' conductance signature damaged by U can be restored. At last, the spin magnetic moments of two dots by applying external magnetic field are also predicted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Iron plaques can prevent the uptake of heavy metals on the root surface of wetland plants. The Fe and Mn oxides produced by microorganisms are major Fe/Mn-oxidizing agents in the environment. This study is the first to investigate the influence of Fe/Mn-oxidizing bacteria on Fe/Mn plaque formation and the uptake of Cd and As on rice tissues. Methods: The oxide indicators Fe (1,10-phenanthrolin) and Mn (leucoberbelin blue) were used to determine the Fe/Mn oxidation ratios and Fe(II)/Mn(II) oxidation ability of the isolates. Fe/Mn plaque formation on the root was determined by the dithionite-citrate-bicarbonate method. The Cd and As concentrations in different organs of rice were determined by ICP-MS. Results: Two bacterial strains D54 and TWD-2 with Fe(II) and Mn(II) oxidation ability were isolated from heavy metal-contaminated paddy soils. Fe/Mn plaque formation on rice roots was strongly enhanced via inoculation of Fe/Mn-oxidizing strains. The inoculation of strains D54 and TWD-2 and the addition of Fe(II) significantly decreased the Cd/As concentration in the root, leaf, glume and brown rice grain of the rice plant. Moreover, the photosynthetic rate of rice leaf was enhanced by inoculation of the strains D54 and TWD-2. Conclusions: The formation of Fe/Mn plaques on rice roots can be stimulated via the inoculation of the Fe/Mn-oxidizing strains D54 and TWD-2 combined with the addition of exogenous Fe(II). Increased Fe/Mn plaque formation promotes the deposition of metals to the root surface, thereby limiting the uptake and transfer of Cd/As in rice tissues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of fluorinated dabigatran analogs were designed and synthesized. All the target compounds were characterized by H NMR, C NMR, and FT-ICR-MS. The thrombin inhibitory activities of the new synthesized compounds were also evaluated in vitro. The results show that compound 12a has the highest IC of thrombin inhibition (IC = 5.41 nM). Moreover, molecular docking simulation was carried out to elucidate the conformations of the compounds and key amino acid residues at the active site of thrombin protein. The results show there is an appropriate relationship between IC and the docking scores for compounds 12a- e. We suggest that the hydrogen bond interaction between Asp189, Gly219 of thrombin and the compounds appear to play major role in thrombin inhibition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, the deghosting of towed streamer seismic data assumes a flat sea level and a sea-surface reflection coefficient of −1; this decreases the precision of deghosting. A new method that considers the rough sea surface is proposed to suppress ghost reflections. The proposed deghosting method obtains the rough sea surface reflection coefficient using Gaussian statistics, and calculates the optimized deghosting operator in the τ/ p domain. The proposed method is closer to the actual sea conditions, offers an improved deghosting operator, removes the ghost reflections from marine towed seismic data, widens the bandwidth and restores the low-frequency information, and finally improves the signal-tonoise ratio and resolution of the seismic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a simple yet efficient algorithm for triangulating a 2D input domain containing a Poisson-disk sampled point set. The proposed algorithm combines a regular grid and a discrete clustering approach to speedup the triangulation. Moreover, our triangulation algorithm is flexible and performs well on more general point sets such as adaptive, non-maximal Poisson-disk sets. The experimental results demonstrate that our algorithm is robust for a wide range of input domains and achieves significant performance improvement compared to the current state-of-the-art approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the expression of Numb, MDM2 and p53 for clinical significance in pancreatic cancer (PC) and their functional relationship in regulating biological behaviors of PC cells. IHC, IB and qRT-PCR were used to detect Numb, MDM2 and p53 expression in PC. Transfection and drug intervention were used to investigate their functional relationship in PC cells. IHC showed that Numb expression was negatively associated with tumor size, differentiation and UICC stage, while expression of MDM2 and p53 was positively associated with tumor T and UICC stages, respectively ( P < 0.05). Numb was an independent prognostic indicator in PC ( P < 0.05). Patients with Numb-positive expression or combined with MDM2-negative expression had a significantly better overall survival ( P < 0.05). Altered expression of Numb can regulate wild-type but not mutant p53 expression, while MDM2 knockdown increased Numb but not mutant p53 protein level. Meanwhile, Numb knockdown increased chemoresistance but decreased activated p53 and cleaved-caspase-3 protein expression in gemcitabine-treated Capan-2 cells. Moreover, Numb co-immunoprecipitated with p53 to prevent p53 ubiquitin-dependent protein degradation and this ubiquitin-dependent regulation plays an important role in the coordinate function of these three proteins on cell invasion and migration in PC cells. Our study is the first to demonstrate the clinical significance and functional cooperation among Numb, MDM2 and p53 involved in the development and progression of PC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To retrospectively review the MRI imaging features of adult choledochal cysts associated with biliary malignancy. Patients and methods: Ten out of 72 cases of adult choledochal cysts were found to be associated with biliary malignancy between January 1, 2003 and April 1, 2011 in our hospital database. The following MRI findings of these ten patients were retrospectively reviewed: the type of choledochal cysts, the presence of anomalous union of the pancreaticobiliary duct (AUPBD), manifestations of biliary malignancy, and concomitant findings. Results: Among the ten patients, there were five type I and five type IVA choledochal cysts. AUPBD was noted in four cases. The biliary malignancy was diagnosed as cholangiocarcinoma in seven cases (70.0%) and as gallbladder cancer in three cases. Cholangiocarcinoma manifested with irregularly thickened cyst wall ( n = 2), mass with irregularly thickened cyst wall ( n = 4), or multiple papillary nodules without thickened cyst wall ( n = 1). Most of them showed mark enhancement ( n = 4) after contrast administration. Gallbladder cancer appeared as mass with irregular thickening of the gallbladder wall with inhomogeneous enhancement. Concomitant findings included liver invasion or metastases in five cases, lymph node metastases in two cases, cholangitis and/or hepatic abscess in two cases, biliary stones in three cases. The type of choledochal cysts and the extent of malignant tumor invasion revealed by MRI were consistent with the surgical findings. Conclusion: Most malignancies associated with choledochal cysts are cholangiocarcinoma and gallbladder cancer. MRI is a reliable method for the detection of choledochal cysts with biliary malignant changes. MR features such as irregular thickening of the gallbladder wall or cyst wall, mass or papillary nodules are suggestive of biliary malignant changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Image and video inpainting is a classic problem in computer vision and computer graphics, aiming to fill in the plausible and realistic content in the missing areas of images and videos. With the advance of deep learning, this problem has achieved significant progress recently. The goal of this paper is to comprehensively review the deep learning-based methods for image and video inpainting. Specifically, we sort existing methods into different categories from the perspective of their high-level inpainting pipeline, present different deep learning architectures, including CNN, VAE, GAN, diffusion models, etc., and summarize techniques for module design. We review the training objectives and the common benchmark datasets. We present evaluation metrics for low-level pixel and high-level perceptional similarity, conduct a performance evaluation, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of representative inpainting methods. We also discuss related real-world applications. Finally, we discuss open challenges and suggest potential future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metabolites are important indicators of cancer and mutations in genes involved in amino acid metabolism may influence tumorigenesis. Immunotherapy is an effective cancer treatment option; however, its relationship with amino acid metabolism has not been reported. In this study, RNA-seq data for 371 liver cancer patients were acquired from TCGA and used as the training set. Data for 231 liver cancer patients were obtained from ICGC and used as the validation set to establish a gene signature for predicting liver cancer overall survival outcomes and immunotherapeutic responses. Four reliable groups based on 132 amino acid metabolism-related DEGs were obtained by consistent clustering of 371 HCC patients and a four-gene signature for prediction of liver cancer survival outcomes was developed. Our data show that in different clinical groups, the overall survival outcomes in the high-risk group were markedly low relative to the low-risk group. Univariate and multivariate analyses revealed that the characteristics of the 4-gene signature were independent prognostic factors for liver cancer. The ROC curve revealed that the risk characteristic is an efficient predictor for 1-, 2-, and 3-year HCC survival outcomes. The GSVA and KEGG pathway analyses revealed that high-risk score tumors were associated with all aspects of the degree of malignancy in liver cancer. There were more mutant genes and greater immune infiltrations in the high-risk groups. Assessment of the three immunotherapeutic cohorts established that low-risk score patients significantly benefited from immunotherapy. Then, we established a prognostic nomogram based on the TCGA cohort. In conclusion, the 4-gene signature is a reliable diagnostic marker and predictor for immunotherapeutic efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the maintenance problem of a multi-component batch production system under dynamic demand, we propose a three-phase condition-based maintenance decision-making framework to reduce the number of downtime and maintenance costs. In phase 1, the minimum maintenance cost rate is used to determine each component's initial preventive maintenance times and intervals. The maintenance cost-time ratio function is defined to evaluate the economics of preventive maintenance. In phase 2, according to the current production plan with batches as the periodic rolling update, the initial preventive maintenance time points are dynamically adjusted based on the advanced-postponed maintenance strategy. In phase 3, an opportunity maintenance model is established to reduce the number of batch production interruptions and the total cost. The numerical results show that the proposed CBM strategy performs effectively, and compared with the strategy that does not consider opportunistic maintenance, the number of downtimes is reduced by 11 times, and the total maintenance cost is reduced by 7%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We seek to demonstrate whether therapeutic efficacy can be improved by combination of repeated intravenous administration and local transplantation of human induced pluripotential stem cell derived MSCs (hiPSC-MSCs). In this study, mice model of hind-limb ischemia is established by ligation of left femoral artery. hiPSC-MSCs (5 × 105) is intravenously administrated immediately after induction of hind limb ischemia with or without following intravenous administration of hiPSC-MSCs every week or every 3 days. Intramuscular transplantation of hiPSC-MSCs (3 × 106) is performed one week after induction of hind-limb ischemia. We compare the therapeutic efficacy and cell survival of intramuscular transplantation of hiPSC-MSCs with or without a single or repeated intravenous administration of hiPSC-MSCs. Repeated intravenous administration of hiPSC-MSCs can increase splenic regulatory T cells (Tregs) activation, decrease splenic natural killer (NK) cells expression, promote the polarization of M2 macrophages in the ischemic area and improved blood perfusion in the ischemic limbs. The improved therapeutic efficacy of MSC-based therapy is due to both increased engraftment of intramuscular transplanted hiPSC-MSCs and intravenous infused hiPSC-MSCs. In conclusion, our study support a combination of repeated systemic infusion and local transplantation of hiPSC-MSCs for cardiovascular disease. A combination of repeated systemic infusion and local transplantation of hiPSC-MSCs could enhance regenerative therapies for cardiovascular disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artemisia annua L. is the only commercial source of the widely used antimalarial compound artemisinin. Biosynthesis of artemisinin has been proposed to take place in glandular trichomes. The first committed step in the conversion of farnesyl diphosphate (FDP) to artemisinin is conducted by the amorpha-4,11-diene synthase (ADS). To explore the organ-specific and developmental distributions of ADS, rabbit polyclonal antibodies were raised against recombinant ADS produced in Escherichia coli from the corresponding A. annua cDNA. Protein gel blot analysis of different A. annua organs showed that ADS was most abundant in young leaves and flower buds. Minor amounts of ADS were found in mature leaves. These findings were generally consistent with the analysis of the transcript level of the ADS gene. Immunolocalization of ADS showed strong positive staining in apical meristems, young leaves and glandular trichomes. No staining was observed in other cells of the leaf. The whole mount hybridization revealed that ADS was not expressed in all glandular trichomes of mature leaves. Specific staining of ADS could be detected in about 10-40 % of glandular trichomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the improved element-free Galerkin (IEFG) method for three-dimensional wave propagation. The improved moving least-squares (IMLS) approximation is employed to construct the shape function, which uses an orthogonal function system with a weight function as the basis function. Compared with the conventional moving least-squares (MLS) approximation, the algebraic equation system in the IMLS approximation is not ill-conditioned, and can be solved directly without deriving the inverse matrix. Because there are fewer coefficients in the IMLS than in the MLS approximation, fewer nodes are selected in the IEFG method than in the element-free Galerkin method. Thus, the IEFG method has a higher computing speed. In the IEFG method, the Galerkin weak form is employed to obtain a discretized system equation, and the penalty method is applied to impose the essential boundary condition. The traditional difference method for two-point boundary value problems is selected for the time discretization. As the wave equations and the boundary-initial conditions depend on time, the scaling parameter, number of nodes and the time step length are considered for the convergence study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The somatic mutations of isocitrate dehydrogenase genes (IDH1 and IDH2) have been identified in a proportion of hematologic malignancies. We examined IDH1 R132 and IDH2 R140/R172 mutations by high resolution melting analysis and direct sequencing in Chinese patients with different myeloid malignancies including 198 acute myeloid leukemia (AML), 82 myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), 85 chronic myeloid leukemia, and 57 myeloproliferative neoplasms. IDH1 and IDH2 mutations were found in four (2.0%) and ten (5.0%) AML and in two (2.4%) and three (3.6%) MDS cases, but not in other patients. IDH1 and IDH2 mutations were heterozygous and mutually exclusive. IDH1/2 mutations were significantly more frequently observed in cytogenetically normal AML or MDS compared to those without mutations. There was no difference in overall survival of both AML and MDS patients with or without IDH1/2 mutations ( P = 0.177 and 0.407, respectively). In conclusion, IDH1/2 mutations are recurrent but rare molecular aberrations in Chinese AML and MDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon nanotube thin-film transistors are expected to enable the fabrication of high-performance, flexible and transparent devices using relatively simple techniques. However, as-grown nanotube networks usually contain both metallic and semiconducting nanotubes, which leads to a trade-off between charge-carrier mobility (which increases with greater metallic tube content) and on/off ratio (which decreases). Many approaches to separating metallic nanotubes from semiconducting nanotubes have been investigated, but most lead to contamination and shortening of the nanotubes, thus reducing performance. Here, we report the fabrication of high-performance thin-film transistors and integrated circuits on flexible and transparent substrates using floating-catalyst chemical vapour deposition followed by a simple gas-phase filtration and transfer process. The resulting nanotube network has a well-controlled density and a unique morphology, consisting of long (~10 µm) nanotubes connected by low-resistance Y-shaped junctions. The transistors simultaneously demonstrate a mobility of 35 cm2 V-1 s-1 and an on/off ratio of 6 × 106. We also demonstrate flexible integrated circuits, including a 21-stage ring oscillator and master-slave delay flip-flops that are capable of sequential logic. Our fabrication procedure should prove to be scalable, for example, by using high-throughput printing techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

n electrostatically driven tunable radio frequency (RF) inductor with large inductance tuning range consisting of electroplated soft magnetic permalloy (NiFe alloy) plate was proposed in this paper. The fabricated tunable inductor exhibits a large tunable inductance range up to 77.8%, together with improved quality factor (Q-factor) at high frequencies. Such tunability of inductance and Q-factor was due to the magnetoelectric coupling effect between the soft magnetic permalloy plate and the spiral inductor, which lead to the magnetic flux of the inductor and mutual inductance change. The concept of tuning inductance by using electroplated soft magnetic permalloy has large potential for wide range RFIC applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is a decision-making strategy based on real-time diagnosis of impending failures and prognosis of future equipment health. It is a proactive process that requires the development of a predictive model that can trigger the alarm for corresponding maintenance. Prognostic methodologies for CBM have only recently been introduced into the technical literature and become such a focus in the field of maintenance research and development. There are many research and development on a variety of technologies and algorithms that can be regarded as the steps toward prognostic maintenance. They are needed in order to support decision making and manage operational reliability. In this paper, recent literature that focuses on the machine prognostics has been reviewed. Generally, prognostic models can be classified into four categories: physical model, knowledge-based model, data-driven model, and combination model. Various techniques and algorithms have been developed depending on what models they usually adopt. Based on the review of some typical approaches and new introduced methods, advantages and disadvantages of these methodologies are discussed. From the literature review, some increasing trends appeared in the research field of machine prognostics are summarized. Furthermore, the future research directions have been explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to understand the synaptic remodeling in the course of axonal regeneration, the synaptic remodeling of the perforant path in hippocampus was investigated in the present study with entorhino-hippocampal coculture, DiIDiOlistic assay and transmission electron microscopy. The results showed that the regeneration of the perforant pathway occurred in entorhino-hippocampal slice coculture, and putative synaptic contacts formed between the regenerated fibers and dendritic spines of granule cells. Ultrastructural analysis confirmed the formation of new synaptic contacts. In conclusion, the synaptic formation implicated in the neuroregeneration could integrate into the network in CNS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypodematium humile F. G. Wang & F. W. Xing and H. villosum F. G. Wang & F. W. Xing, two new species of Hypodematiaceae from Guangdong, southern China, are described and illustrated. Their spore morphology, ecology and conservation status are also presented. Hypodematium villosum differs from H. fordii in having glabrous petiole except on the base, both surfaces of lamina, rachis and costa densely covered with long acicular hairs ca. 1 mm long, and apex of pinnulets acute. Hypodematium humile differs from H. glandulosum in having leaves 8-11 cm long with both surfaces of lamina, rachis and costa sparsely covered with rod-shaped glandular hairs and caducous indusium. A key to the species of Hypodematium known from Guangdong Province is provided. The systematic relationship of Hypodematium with Leucostegia is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new method for computing laminar-turbulent transition and turbulence in compressible boundary layers is proposed. It is especially useful for computation of laminar-turbulent transition and turbulence starting from small-amplitude disturbances. The laminar stage, up to the beginning of the breakdown in laminar-turbulent transition, is computed by parabolized stability equations (PSE). The direct numerical simulation (DNS) method is used to compute the transition process and turbulent flow, for which the inflow condition is provided by using the disturbances obtained by PSE method up to that stage. In the two test cases including a subsonic and a supersonic boundary layer, the transition locations and the turbulent flow obtained with this method agree well with those obtained by using only DNS method for the whole process. The computational cost of the proposed method is much less than using only DNS method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  Future microwave networks require miniature high-performance tunable elements such as switches, inductors, and capacitors. In this paper, high performance variable capacitor was fabricated by simple microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. The capacitance and quality (Q) factor at 1 GHz are 0.792 pF and 51.6. The pull-in voltage is 13.5 V and the tuning ratio of the capacitor is more than 1.31:1. A reduced-order model for the dynamic characteristics of the capacitor is established based on the equilibrium among the plate flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  Modeling, optimization and performance of on-chip solenoid inductors is presented. MATLAB is used to get the π-equivalent circuit model parameters. The effects of the geometrical parameters on the inductance and quality factor (Q-factor) are different. Normally, the performance of the inductors can be improved by increasing the coil turns in a way and increasing the length of the conductor, but both of them will occupy more chip area, which is not good for the minimization of the on-chip system. It is desirable to improve the performance of inductor by increasing the height of the via. Of the three types of fabricated inductors covering the same area, the inductors with the height of via 15, 30 and 45 μm have high performance. The self-resonant frequency is up to 10 GHz. The inductances and Q-factors at peak-Q frequency (about 5.8 GHz) are 1.16, 1.35, 1.78 nH and 21.9, 27, 38, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  In this paper, the results of the dynamic pull-in voltage characteristics of a micro-mirror using electrostatic actuation are analyzed. Based on torsional dynamic theory, appropriate equations are developed that allowed to give insight into the actuating voltage, switching time and other dynamic parameters. The analytical results are discussed in detail without and with considering air squeeze film damping, respectively. This is equivalent to assuming the mirror is operated in vacuum or at ambient pressure. When the effect of the damping is considered, the movement trajectory of the cantilever beam is changed, and the calculated results of the pull-in voltage and switching time are considerably different compared to those without considering damping. Therefore, the effect of the air squeeze film damping is an important factor in the design and fabrication of micro-electro-mechanical systems. Finally, the experimental results in the air environment are discussed and compared to the theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  High-performance three-dimensional (3-D) microinductors with air-core and polyimide-core were fabricated by using simple MEMS technology. Both inductors have electroplated copper coils to minimize resistance to obtain high quality factor. The measurement results show that both inductors have high Q-factors over wide range of operating frequency. The maximum Q-factor of the polyimide-core is 36.5 and the inductance is 1.42 nH at 4.5 GHz, while the maximum Q-factor of the air-core inductor is 22.9 and the inductance is 1.17 nH at 5.5 GHz. The series resistance/parasitic capacitance of the polyimide-core inductor and air-core inductor is 1.05 Ω/1.07 pF and 1.82 Ω/0.57 pF respectively at the peak-Q frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yunnan Province with numerous international rivers has huge impacts on downstream countries such as Burma, Laos and Vietnam. Agricultural expansion in Yunnan has conferred and continues to confer detrimental impacts on environments. In the past 43 years (1960-2003), the increase in crop yield was associated with a 99.1-fold increase in fertilizers, 2.0-fold in pesticides, and 0.4-fold in cultivated lands, respectively. Based on linear regression of the past trend, the next doubling of crop yield in the future would be accompanied by the increase in fertilizer application (from about 1.3×109 kg to 3.6×109 kg), and the increase in application of pesticides (from about 2.7×107kg to 9.6×107 kg). Similarly, the total amount of cultivated lands would increase from about 5.9×106 hato 9.3×106 ha. In the past decades, these changes have caused a series of environmental problems such as agricultural non-point source pollution (ANSP), deforestation, land degradation, and biodiversity loss. If the escalating status continues as our prediction, those problems would get worse and be tough to be dealt with. As for the situation in this region, some practices to minimize the impacts should be implemented in controlling population growth, protecting wetlands, developing tourism, and utilizing fertilizers and pesticides more rationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial evolution of 2-D disturbances in supersonic sharp cone boundary layers was investigated by direct numerical simulation (DNS) in high order compact difference scheme. The results suggested that, although the normal velocity in the sharp cone boundary layer was not small, the evolution of amplitude and phase for small amplitude disturbances would be well in accordance with the results obtained by the linear stability theory (LST) which supposes the flow was parallel. The evolution of some finite amplitude disturbances was also investigated, and the characteristic of the evolution was shown. Shocklets were also found when the amplitude of disturbances increased over some value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was designed to characterize pharmacological, biophysical and electrophysiological properties of the recombinant human cardiac I (Ks) (KCNQ1/KCNE1) channels at physiological temperature. Human cardiac KCNQ1 and KCNE1 genes were cotransfected into HEK 293 cells, and a cell clone stably expressing both genes was selected. Membrane currents were recorded using a perforated patch-clamp technique. The typical I (Ks) was slowly activated upon depolarization voltages in HEK 293 cells stably expressing human cardiac KCNQ1 and KCNE1 genes, and the current was inhibited by I (Ks) blockers HMR 1556 and chromanol 293B, with 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC(50)s) of 83.8 nM: and 9.2 muM: , respectively. I (Ks) showed a significant temperature-dependent increase in its magnitude upon elevating bath temperature to 36 degrees C from room temperature (21 degrees C). The current was upregulated by the beta-adrenoceptor agonist isoproterenol, and the effect was reversed by H89. In addition, I (Ks) was inhibited by Ba(2+) in a concentration-dependent manner (IC(50) = 1.4 mM). Action potential clamp revealed a "bell-shaped" time course of I (Ks) during the action potential, and maximal peak current was seen at the plateau of the action potential. A significant use- and frequency-dependent increase of I (Ks) was observed during a train of action potential clamp. These results indicate that the recombinant human cardiac I (Ks) stably expressed in HEK 293 cells is similar to native I (Ks) in drug sensitivity and regulated by Ba(2+) and beta-adrenoceptor via the cyclic adenosine monophosphate/protein kinase A pathway. Importantly, the current exhibits significant temperature dependence, a bell-shaped time course during action potential and prominent use- or frequency-dependent accumulation during a train of action potentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is geared toward developing an integrated modeling framework and simulation models for understanding decision-making issues of the supply chain network configuration in an integrated environment. To achieve this objective, first, this paper presents an integrated modeling framework for multistage supply chains, in which the interdependencies between model components are captured. Second, the state and resource-based simulation concepts are used to model the supply chain network configurations. The employment of state and resource-based simulation techniques facilitates the implementation procedure, since they are strong in modeling dynamic supply chain networks with highly interdependent components subject to activity start-up conditions. To investigate the impacts of component commonality on integrated supply chain network performance effectively, a new analytical measure of component commonality that consists of a component-level commonality index and a product-level commonality index is defined. The results of analysis-of-variance and Tukey’s tests reveal that there is a significant difference in performance measures, such as delivery time and order fill rates, when comparing an integrated supply chain with higher component commonality to an integrated supply chain with lower component commonality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]