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The design and production of assembled buildings are difficult to standardise, which limits their extensive application. In this paper, the design for manufacture and assembly (DFMA) concept is applied to the design of vertical precast concrete (PC) components for assembled buildings. Taking vertical PC components as an example, the rapid modelling and whole life-cycle application of DFMA-oriented PC components for assembled buildings are investigated. Firstly, the modular design method is introduced. By combining parametric design and building information modelling (BIM), we propose a modular, parametric design method and process of PC components based on DFMA. Secondly, the design of standard modules after secondary splitting is introduced for a better DFMA-oriented parametric design of PC components. We explored the secondary development process of DFMA and BIM and the module creation process of the parametric standard based on family templates and DFMA. Thirdly, based on the parametric standard module, the application of the optimised whole life cycle of design, manufacture and assembly of PC components is introduced. Finally, the feasibility of this method is verified by practical cases. The design process for PC components is fast, accurate and standardised. The integrated application of BIM is accelerated, and digital collaboration in assembly construction is strengthened. The study results are conducive to establishing a standardised design and production system for PC components, reducing design costs, improving design efficiency and the comprehensive benefits of assembled buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale: Tau hyperphosphorylation and aggregation is considered as a main pathological mechanism underlying Alzheimer's disease (AD). Rose Bengal (RB) is a synthetic dye used for disease diagnosis, which was reported to inhibit tau toxicity via inhibiting tau aggregation in Drosophila. However, it was unknown if RB could produce anti-AD effects in rodents. Objectives: The research aimed to investigate if and how RB could prevent β-amyloid (Aβ) oligomers-induced tau hyperphosphorylation in rodents. Methods and results: RB was tested in vitro (0.3–1 μM) and prevented Aβ oligomers-induced tau hyperphosphorylation in PC12 cells. Moreover, RB (10–30 mg/kg, i.p.) effectively attenuated cognitive impairments induced by Aβ oligomers in mice. Western blotting analysis demonstrated that RB significantly increased the expression of pSer473-Akt, pSer9-glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK3β) and reduced the expression of cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (CDK5) both in vitro and in vivo. Molecular docking analysis suggested that RB might directly interact with GSK3β and CDK5 by acting on ATP binding sites. Gene Ontology enrichment analysis indicated that RB might act on protein phosphorylation pathways to inhibit tau hyperphosphorylation. Conclusions: RB was shown to inhibit tau neurotoxicity at least partially via inhibiting the activity of GSK3β and CDK5, which is a novel neuroprotective mechanism besides the inhibition of tau aggregation. As tau hyperphosphorylation is an important target for AD therapy, this study also provided support for investigating the drug repurposing of RB as an anti-AD drug candidate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the critical challenges in developing high-performance micromachined pyroelectric infrared detector array and piezoelectric micro/nanosensors lies in obtaining excellent sensing thin films with micron thickness. In this study, high-quality ternary 0.36Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3–0.36Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.28PbTiO3 (PIMNT36/36/28) thin films with high-Curie point were prepared on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates and dense morphology and remarkable dielectric, ferroelectric, piezoelectric, and pyroelectric properties were obtained. Under optimized processing temperature of 650 °C, the remnant polarization of the films reached 19.15 μC/cm2 and large pyroelectric coefficient up to 6.85 × 10–4 C/m2 K was obtained with high figure of merit (Detectivity F d reached 1.96 × 10–5 Pa−1/2 @ 100 Hz for 1 μm-thick PIMNT36/36/28 film). Piezoresponse force microscopy revealed an obvious domain reversal under in situ electric field with "butterfly" shape local piezoelectric response. The superior global performance makes the present PIMNT36/36/28 thin film quite favorable for integrated pyroelectric devices' applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To solve the problem of falling into local optimum and poor convergence speed in large Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), this paper proposes a Pearson correlation coefficient-based Pheromone refactoring mechanism for multi-colony Ant Colony Optimization (PPACO). First, the dynamic guidance mechanism is introduced to dynamically adjust the pheromone concentration on the path of the maximum and minimum spanning tree, which can effectively balance the diversity and convergence of the algorithm. Secondly, the frequency of communication between colonies is adjusted adaptively according to a criterion based on the similarity between the minimum spanning tree and the optimal solution. Besides, the pheromone matrix of the colony is reconstructed according to the Pearson correlation coefficient or information entropy to help the algorithm jump out of the local optimum, thus improving the accuracy of the solution. These strategies greatly improve the adaptability of the algorithm and ensure the effectiveness of the interaction. Finally, the experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm could improve the solution accuracy and accelerate the convergence speed, especially for large-scale TSP instances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithms tend to fall into local optimal and have insufficient astringency when applied to solve Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). To address this issue, a novel game-based ACO (NACO) is proposed in this report. NACO consists of two ACOs: Ant Colony System (ACS) and Max-Min Ant System (MMAS). First, an entropy-weighted learning strategy is proposed. By improving diversity adaptively, the optimal solution precision can be optimized. Then, to improve the astringency, a nucleolus game strategy is set for ACS colonies. ACS colonies under cooperation share pheromone distribution and distribute cooperative profits through nucleolus. Finally, to jump out of the local optimum, mean filtering is introduced to process the pheromone distribution when the algorithm stalls. From the experimental results, it is demonstrated that NACO has well performance in terms of both the solution precision and the astringency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, while sudden cardiac death (SCD) accounts for over 60% of all cardiovascular deaths. Elevated blood pressure and hypertension have been associated with increased risk of SCD, but the findings have not been consistent. To clarify whether blood pressure or hypertension is associated with increased risk of SCD and to quantify the size and the shape of any association observed. PubMed and Embase databases were searched for published prospective studies on blood pressure or hypertension and SCD up to 30 April 2018. Summary relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using a random effects model. The meta-analysis included 2939 SCDs among 418,235 participants from 18 studies. The summary RRs were 2.10 (95% CI 1.71–2.58, I2 = 56.7%, pheterogeneity = 0.018, n = 10) for prevalent hypertension, 1.28 (95% CI 1.19–1.38, I2 = 45.5%, pheterogeneity = 0.07, n = 10) per 20 mmHg increment in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and 1.09 (95% CI 0.83–1.44, I2 = 83.4%, pheterogeneity = 0.002, n = 3) per 10 mmHg increment in diastolic blood pressure (DBP). A nonlinear relationship was suggested between SBP and SCD. The results persisted in most subgroup and sensitivity analyses. There was no evidence of publication bias. This meta-analysis found an increased risk of SCD with hypertension diagnosis and increasing SBP. Future studies should clarify the association for DBP and the shape of the dose–response relationship between blood pressure and SCD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Osteosarcoma is a highly malignant tumor. The molecular mechanism of its occurrence and development has not yet been clarified. Current studies have found that noncoding RNAs, such as circular RNAs (circRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs), play important regulatory roles in the progression of diseases. Our previous studies have shown that miR-19b is an oncogene in osteosarcoma. Further studies have shown that circ_ANKIB1 has binding sites for miR-19b, and both molecules were generally upregulated in osteosarcoma cells. RIP assay, RNA pull down, and dual-luciferase reporter gene assay showed that circ_ANKIB1 could directly bind to miR-19b and act as an miR-19b sponge in osteosarcoma cells. Circ_ANKIB1 promoted miR-19b expression, inhibited the expression of the downstream target gene SOCS3, and then activated the STAT3 pathway. When cotransfected with circ_ANKIB1 siRNA, and miR-19b mimics, the expression of SOCS3 and the phosphorylation level of STAT3 did not change significantly. Continuous detection of cell growth and invasion showed that the downregulation of circ_ANKIB1 or miR-19b significantly inhibited cell proliferation and invasion, but increased the apoptotic level. When cotransfected with circ_ANKIB1 siRNA and miR-19b mimics or SOCS3 siRNA, the cell proliferation, apoptosis, and invasion levels did not change significantly, suggesting that circ_ANKIB1 could affect the STAT3 pathway and osteosarcoma cell growth and invasion by enhancing the regulation of miR-19b on the downstream target gene SOCS3. These findings suggest that circRNAs stabilize miRNA functions, and further studies on this new function of circRNAs will provide a meaningful reference for the diagnosis and treatment of tumors and other diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Image restoration is an important part of various applications, such as computer vision, robotics and remote sensing. However, recovering the underlying structures of the latent image contained in multi-image is a challenging problem because of the need to develop robust and fast algorithms. In this paper, a novel problem formulation for multi-image restoration problem is proposed. This novel formulation is composed of multi-data fidelity terms and a composite regularizer. The proposed regularizer consists of total generalized variation (TGV) and lp-norm. This multi-regularization method can simultaneously exploit the consistence of image pixels and promote the sparsity of natural signals. To deal with the resulting problem, we derive and implement the solution using alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). The effectiveness of our method is illustrated through extensive experiments on multi-image denoising and inpainting. Numerical results show that the proposed method is more efficient than competing algorithms, achieving better restoration performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) are fatal in 80% of the cases when ruptured. Hypertension has been considered a potential risk factor for AAA; but the findings from prospective cohort studies have not been entirely consistent, nor have they been summarised in a comprehensive meta-analysis. Our aim was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies of the association between blood pressure, hypertension and AAA to clarify the strength and shape of these associations. We searched PubMed and Embase databases for relevant cohort studies up to April 30th, 2018. Random-effects models were used to calculate summary relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The meta-analysis included 21 cohort studies (20 publications) with data on 28,162 cases and 5,440,588 participants. The findings indicate that the RR of AAA in hypertensive patients is 1.66 times (95% CI: 1.49–1.85, I2 = 79.3%, n = 13) that of non-hypertensive patients. In addition, there was a 14% (95% CI: 6–23%, I2 = 30.5%, n = 6) and a 28% (95% CI: 12–46%, I2 = 80.1%, n = 6) increase in the RR of AAA for every 20 mmHg and 10 mmHg increase in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), respectively. The analysis of DBP showed evidence of a strong and highly significant nonlinear dose–response relationship (p < 0.001) with a steeper association from 80 mmHg and above. This meta-analysis suggests that hypertension increases the risk of developing AAA by 66%. Further studies are needed to clarify the underlying mechanism explaining the much stronger association between DBP and AAA than for SBP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyploidy breeding has proved to be a valuable approach for acquiring the high yield superior varieties in medicinal plants. An effective protocol for obtaining Bletilla striata autotetraploid is in vitro induction of protocorms with colchicine. The protocorms of B.striata were soaked in different concentrations of colchicine solution [0.05, 0.1 and 0.2% (w/v)] for 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60 h, and the ploidy of the seedlings was identified by chromosome counting and flow cytometry analysis. The results showed that the optimal condition for induction of autotetraploid of B. striata protocorms was treated with 0.2% colchicine for 36 h with the induction rate reached as high as 26.7%. In addition, the morphological and anatomical characteristics were observed and compared between the diploid and tetraploid plants. And we found that the features of tetraploid plants were significantly different from diploid plants, such as tetraploid plants possessed thicker and deeper green leaves, larger stomata and more chloroplast number, which could be used as simple and efficient parameters for screening tetraploid. This study laid a foundation for breeding superior varieties of B. striata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) formed in cooked muscle foods are recognized as mutagenic and carcinogenic compounds. A total of 9 nine HAAs were analyzed in 34 meat products consumed in China. The total HAAs content in all meat products ranged from 4.14 to 108.80 ng/g. Dry and sauced meats contained higher concentration of total HAAs than other kinds of meat products. Samples from East and Northwest China showed higher concentrations of total HAAs than samples from other regions. The most common specific HAAs, harman and norharman, were detected in all meat samples at levels of 1.09-63.97 and 1.19-62.30 ng/g, respectively. Concentrations of MeIQx, PhIP, 4, 8-DiMeIQx, and AαC were much lower. MeAαC ( n=8), IQ ( n=15), and Trp-P-2 ( n=23) were detected in some samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different amounts of the potent mutagenic and/or carcinogenic heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) are formed in muscle-based foods under different cooking methods. HAAs (9 varieties) in lamb patties cooked using traditional Chinese cooking methods (roasting, frying, panfrying, and stewing in seasonings) were investigated. The total HAAs contents in roasted, fried, pan-fried, and stewed patties were 4.39-123.15 ng/g, 3.59-43.24 ng/g, 0.71-10.05 ng/g, and 51.07-120.32 ng/g, respectively. Amounts of HAAs increased as cooking time increased. 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo [4,5-b] pyridine (PhIP) was the dominant HAAs in deep roasted and fried samples, while 1-methyl- 9H-pyrido [3,4-b] indole (Harman) and 9H-pyrido [3,4-b] indole (Norharman) were the main HAAs in pan-fried and stewed samples. Types and contents of HAAs formed at different cooking times using different methods are unique. Stewing in seasoning generated a higher HAAs content than the high-temperature cooking methods roasting, frying, and pan-frying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High stable C/S composites are fabricated by a novel high-temperature sulfur infusion into micro-mesoporous carbon method following with solvent cleaning treatment. The C/S composite cathodes show high Coulombic efficiency, long cycling stability and good rate capability in the electrolyte of 1.0 M LiPF6+EC/DEC (151 v/v), for instance, the reversible capacity of the treated C/S-50 (50% S) cathode retains around 860 mAh/g even after 500 cycles and the Coulombic efficiency is close to 100%, which demonstrates the best electrochemical performance of carbon-sulfur composite cathodes using the carbonate-based electrolyte reported to date. It is believed that the chemical bond of C-S is responsible for the superior electrochemical properties in Li-S battery, that is, the strong interaction between S and carbon matrix significantly improves the conductivity of S, effectively buffers the structural strain/stress caused by the large volume change during lithiation/delithiation, completely eliminates the formation of high-order polysulfide intermediates, and substantially avoids the shuttle reaction and the side reaction between polysulfide anions and carbonate solvent, and thus enables the C/S cathode to use conventional carbonate-based electrolytes and achieve outstanding electrochemical properties in Li-S battery. The results may substantially contribute to the progress of the Li-S battery technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information fusion is a challenging task to extract the required information for high-level applications from various homogeneous or heterogeneous sensors. This paper summarizes some improvements in recent five years in the presented structure of information fusion, including estimation fusion, image fusion and others. Some technologies of information fusion and their variants are discussed. Although the state-of-the-art of the algorithms for information fusion have been proposed, there still remains some fundamental challenges with regard to exploiting the emerging multi-sensors' characteristics and their special structures. Finally, some potential prospects of estimation fusion and image fusion are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterostructure ReS2/GaAs was fabricated on a 110-μm (111) GaAs wafer by chemical vapor deposition method. Passively Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser was demonstrated by employing heterostructure ReS2/GaAs as a saturable absorber (SA). The shortest pulse width of 51.3 ns with a repetition rate of 452 kHz was obtained, corresponding to the pulse energy of 465 nJ and the peak power of 9.1 W. In comparison with the ReS2 Q-switched laser and the GaAs Q-switched laser, the heterostructer ReS2/GaAs Q-switched laser can generate shorter pulse duration and higher pulse energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]