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Objectives: This study was performed to construct and validate a risk prediction model for non-invasive ventilation (NIV) failure after birth in premature infants with gestational age < 32 weeks. Methods: The data were derived from the multicenter retrospective study program – Jiangsu Provincial Neonatal Respiratory Failure Collaboration Network from Jan 2019 to Dec 2021. The subjects finally included were preterm infants using NIV after birth with gestational age less than 32 weeks and admission age within 72 h. After screening by inclusion and exclusion criteria, 1436 babies were subsequently recruited in the study, including 1235 infants in the successful NIV group and 201 infants in the failed NIV group. Results: (1) Gestational age, 5 min Apgar, Max FiO2 during NIV, and FiO2 fluctuation value during NIV were selected by univariate and multivariate analysis. (2) The area under the curve of the prediction model was 0.807 (95% CI: 0.767–0.847) in the training set and 0.825 (95% CI: 0.766–0.883) in the test set. The calibration curve showed good agreement between the predicted probability and the actual observed probability (Mean absolute error = 0.008 for the training set; Mean absolute error = 0.012 for the test set). Decision curve analysis showed good clinical validity of the risk model in the training and test cohorts. Conclusion: This model performed well on dimensions of discrimination, calibration, and clinical validity. This model can serve as a useful tool for neonatologists to predict whether premature infants will experience NIV failure after birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficient fractionation and recovery of lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) constituents, hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin, are ideal for LCB utilization. In this study, we prepared a solid acid catalyst (SPS120-40) with high acid density using polystyrene resin (PS) as precursor. The synthesized catalyst was characterized by XPS, 13C NMR, TG-FTIR-MS, and so on to investigate its structural properties and thermal stability. During process optimization using FeCl3-assisted SPS120-40, a total of 78.9% xylose yield with 96.6% monosaccharide selectivity was achieved. Moreover, the catalyst showed extraordinary catalytic activity until five runs without significant loss in xylose yield. The pretreated residue was further treated with NaOH-1-butanol to effectively remove the lignin deposited on the residue surface and eventually 89.5% hydrolysis rate was obtained. At the same time, 64.4% lignin was obtained in the residue of enzymatic hydrolysis. This work provides important guidance for utilizing the whole components of lignocellulose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived sensory neuron (iPSC-dSN) models are a valuable resource for the study of neurotoxicity but are affected by poor replicability and reproducibility, often due to a lack of optimization. Here, we identify experimental factors related to culture conditions that substantially impact cellular drug response in vitro and determine optimal conditions for improved replicability and reproducibility. Treatment duration and cell seeding density were both found to be significant factors, while cell line differences also contributed to variation. A replicable dose–response in viability was demonstrated after 48-h exposure to docetaxel or paclitaxel. Additionally, a replicable dose-dependent reduction in neurite outgrowth was demonstrated, demonstrating the applicability of the model for the examination of additional phenotypes. Overall, we have established an optimized iPSC-dSN model for the study of taxane-induced neurotoxicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the thermo-elastoplastic sliding frictional contact and wear problem of a functionally graded material (FGM) coated homogeneous half-plane subjected to a rigid cylindrical punch. The coating has arbitrarily varying material properties including elastic modulus, Poisson's ratio, thermal expansion coefficient, wear coefficient, etc. The graded layer is modeled using a thermo-elastoplastic constitutive model of FGM to evaluate the contact pressure, in-plane stress, and temperature field. A modified Archard model is used to characterize the wear behavior of FGM coating, and the influence of wear on the stress and strain behavior is considered. The constitutive model and wear model are implemented in the finite element method (FEM) to study the thermo-elastoplastic sliding frictional contact and wear behavior of FGM coating. After the validation of the numerical approach, the effects of plasticity, wear, cycle number, gradient index, and gradient form are discussed. Simulation results show that changing the gradient form and gradient index can prevent contact damage and reduce frictional wear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Previous studies shed light on the potential role of secure parental attachment in mitigating the effects of child sexual abuse (CSA) on the survivors' long-term psychological distress. However, few studies have explored both approach and avoidance coping strategies as mediators of the link between parental attachment and psychological distress in a nonclinical sample. The purpose of this study was to examine the respective mediating effects of approach coping and avoidance coping on the relationship between perceived parental attachment, CSA severity, and psychological distress. Method: Our sample included 427 adults with a history of CSA. Participants were recruited from various social media websites (e.g., Facebook, Craigslist, discussion board, university announcement board). We conducted a mediation analysis with bootstrapping. Results: We found that parental attachment significantly predicted CSA survivors' psychological distress. Additionally, both approach coping and avoidance coping mediated the effect of perceived parental attachment on psychological distress. CSA severity was found to be a nonsignificant predictor of psychological distress. Conclusion: These findings may help develop interventions that enhance CSA survivors' effective copings strategies to ultimately reduce psychological distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil moisture monitoring is a significant aspect of environmental and agricultural studies, and Global Navigation Satellite System Interferometric Reflectometry (GNSS-IR) has emerged as a promising technology for this purpose. Traditionally, GNSS-IR is mainly employed for bare soil experiments, and the effectiveness of bare soil retrieval algorithm will be reduced due to the influence of vegetation and meteorological, etc. To address the limitations of the bare-soil retrieval algorithm, a multi-feature soil moisture retrieval approach was proposed. This approach integrated multiple factors including GNSS signals, cumulative precipitation, effective reflection height, and Normalized Microwave Reflection Index (NMRI), and then multi-layer perceptron (MLP) was employed to build retrieval models. In this study, measurements from the Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) H2O networks and a self-built site in Henan, China were used for experiments and validation, and the geographical environment of stations are various. The experimental results demonstrated several key findings: (1) The delay phase is not sensitive to the variations in soil moisture before and after precipitation, but by integrating the cumulative precipitation data, the accuracy of the model could be improved. (2) The introduction of NMRI and reflection height can help remove the influence of vegetation and penetration depth. (3) Compared between three retrieval models (i.e., unary linear regression, multiple linear regression, and MLP), the decrease in the mean absolute error (MAE) of MLP is up to 96% most and the mean coefficient of determination (R2) is all above 0.98. Meanwhile, this study proved that the proposed method could fully utilize satellite reflection signals from all directions and better reflect the fluctuation of soil moisture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bevacizumab is a beneficial therapy in several advanced cancer types. Predictive biomarkers to better understand which patients are destined to benefit or experience toxicity are needed. Associations between bevacizumab induced hypertension and survival have been reported but with conflicting conclusions. Methods: We performed post-hoc analyses to evaluate the association in 3124 patients from two phase III adjuvant breast cancer trials, E5103 and BEATRICE. Differences in invasive disease-free survival (IDFS) and overall survival (OS) between patients with hypertension and those without were compared. Hypertension was defined as systolic blood pressure (SBP) ≥ 160 mmHg (n = 346) and SBP ≥ 180 mmHg (hypertensive crisis) (n = 69). Genomic analyses were performed to evaluate germline genetic predictors for the hypertensive crisis. Results: Hypertensive crisis was significantly associated with superior IDFS (p = 0.015) and OS (p = 0.042), but only IDFS (p = 0.029; HR = 0.28) remained significant after correction for prognostic factors. SBP ≥ 160 mmHg was not associated with either IDFS or OS. A common single-nucleotide polymorphism, rs6486785, was significantly associated with hypertensive crisis (p = 8.4 × 10−9; OR = 5.2). Conclusion: Bevacizumab-induced hypertensive crisis is associated with superior outcomes and rs6486785 predicted an increased risk of this key toxicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Child sexual abuse (CSA) has short-term and long-term effects on survivors, but distress after the abuse varies widely and not all survivors show a significant degree of distress. Factors contributing to the variations of CSA outcomes need to be further investigated. The present study examines the moderating role of childhood attachment in the relationship between the experience of CSA and adult attachment, psychological distress, and self-esteem. Methods: Seven hundred and sixty-seven adults participated in this study, of which 427 (55.67%) reported a history of CSA. Participants were recruited from various social media websites (e.g., Facebook, Craigslist, discussion board, university announcement board). To examine the moderating role of childhood attachment between the experience of CSA and adult attachment, we conducted path analysis. Results: Childhood attachment significantly predicted adult attachment, psychological distress, and self-esteem in adulthood and moderated the relation between CSA and anxious adult attachment; CSA survivors with more secure childhood attachment were less likely to develop anxious attachment in adulthood. Additionally, CSA survivors reported less secure adult attachment, more psychological distress, and lower self-esteem than did individuals without a history of CSA. Furthermore, secure childhood attachment was significantly associated with secure adult attachment, lower levels of psychological distress, and higher levels of self-esteem. Conclusions: The results suggested that secure childhood attachment at least partially protected against negative long-term effects of CSA and fostered healthier intrapersonal and interpersonal adjustment in CSA survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pangolins are susceptible to a variety of gastrointestinal nematodes due to their burrowing lifestyle and feeding habits, and few parasitic nematodes have been reported. Here, a Chinese pangolin with old wounds on its leg and tail was rescued from the Heyuan City, Guangdong Province. The cox1 and SSU rRNA of the worms from the intestine of the Chinese pangolin had the highest sequence identity of 89.58% and 97.95% to the species in the infraorder Spiruromorpha. The complete mitogenome of the worm was further assembled by next-generation sequencing, with a size of 13,708 bp and a GC content of 25.6%. The worm mitogenome had the highest sequence identity of 78.56% to that of Spirocerca lupi, sharing the same gene arrangement with S. lupi and some species in other families under Spiruromorpha. However, the mitogenome between the worm and S. lupi showed differences in codon usage of PCGs, sequences of NCR, and tRNA secondary structures. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the worm mitogenome was clustered with S. lupi in the family Thelaziidae to form a separate branch. However, it is still difficult to identify the worm in the family Thelaziidae because the species in the family Thelaziidae are confused, specifically S. lupi and Thelazia callipaeda in the family Thelaziidae were separated and grouped with species from other families. Thus, the parasitic nematode from the Chinese pangolin may be a novel species in Spiruromorpha and closely related to S. lupi. This study enriches the data on gastrointestinal nematodes in the Chinese pangolin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biochar always suffers from low porosity and/or poor surface functionality, which limit its performances. Among various surface engineering strategies, air oxidation favors both pore development and surface oxygenation for biochar. However, there is still a lack of systematic knowledge and critical perspective on air oxidation in surface engineering of biochar-based materials for various applications. Herein, this review analyzed the mechanisms of air oxidation, summarized the routes of air oxidation in surface engineering of biochar-based materials, investigated the impacts of controlling factors (including operation parameters and intrinsic biochar structure) on pore development and surface oxygenation during air oxidation, and discussed the performances of the resultant materials in pollution control, biomass catalytic conversion and energy storage. This review suggested that air oxidation could be conducted in oxidative torrefaction/pyrolysis, and applied as post-modification or pretreatment processes. Interestingly, air oxidation is efficient in enriching the heteroatoms in the heteroatom-doped biochar, and promoting the doping of metal species on biochar by enriching the anchor sites. This review also highlighted the future challenges concerning air oxidation in the surface engineering of biochar-based materials. Finally, this review was intended to attract broad attention and inspire new discoveries for promoting the application of air oxidation in surface engineering of biochar-based materials for various advanced applications. Highlights: • Air oxidation favors pore development and/or surface oxygenation for biochar. • Air oxidation can be conducted in oxidative torrefaction/pyrolysis, and applied as post-modification or pretreatment processes. • Mechanisms and controlling factors for air oxidation were analyzed, and future challenges were highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyploidization can provide a wealth of genetic variation for adaptive evolution and speciation, but understanding the mechanisms of subgenome evolution as well as its dynamics and ultimate consequences remains elusive. Here, we report the telomere-to-telomere (T2T) gap-free reference genome of allotetraploid horseradish (Armoracia rusticana) sequenced using a comprehensive strategy. The (epi)genomic architecture and 3D chromatin structure of the A and B subgenomes differ significantly, suggesting that both the dynamics of the dominant long terminal repeat retrotransposons and DNA methylation have played critical roles in subgenome diversification. Investigation of the genetic basis of biosynthesis of glucosinolates (GSLs) and horseradish peroxidases reveals both the important role of polyploidization and subgenome differentiation in shaping the key traits. Continuous duplication and divergence of essential genes of GSL biosynthesis (e.g., FMOGS-OX, IGMT, and GH1 gene family) contribute to the broad GSL profile in horseradish. Overall, the T2T assembly of the allotetraploid horseradish genome expands our understanding of polyploid genome evolution and provides a fundamental genetic resource for breeding and genetic improvement of horseradish. Horseradish is a spicy root vegetable and it also produces horseradish peroxidase, an enzyme widely used in biochemistry applications. Here, the authors report its telomere-to-telomere reference genome, reveal subgenome diversification and the effect on the biosynthesis of glucosinolates and horseradish peroxidases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite limited biomonitoring studies suggesting extensive antibiotic exposure in general population, the body burden of antibiotics in young children and their potential health risks remain unclear. To assess the antibiotic exposure levels in young children, 508 preschoolers aged 3–6 years were recruited from eastern China in 2022, and a total of 50 representative antibiotics from 8 categories, including 17 human antibiotics (HAs), 4 antibiotics preferred as HAs (PHAs), 16 veterinary antibiotics (VAs), and 13 antibiotics preferred as VAs (PVAs), were analyzed by UPLC-MS/MS. Hazard quotient (HQ) and hazard index (HI) were calculated to evaluate the health risks, and multivariate logistic regression was applied to examine diet with antibiotic exposure. Our results showed that there were 41 antibiotics detected in children's urine, and the overall detection frequency was as high as 100%. Sulfonamides, macrolides, β-lactams, quinolones, and azoles were the predominant categories of antibiotic detected. Among the studied children, 6.5% had a sum of estimated daily intake (EDI) of all VAs and PVAs larger than 1 μg/kg/day. Notably, 10.0% of the children had a microbiological HI value exceeding 1, primarily contributed by ciprofloxacin. Children with higher consumption of seafood had a relatively increased exposure to multiple categories of antibiotics, including HAs, VAs, quinolones, azoles, and others. Principal component analysis suggested that "Aquatic products and viscera preferred dietary pattern" scores were positively correlated with the exposure levels of ciprofloxacin (OR: 1.23; 95% CI: 1.02–1.47) and carbadox (OR: 1.32; 95% CI: 1.10–1.59), and a relatively increased exposure of PHAs was realized in children with higher "Meat-egg preferred dietary pattern" scores (OR: 1.24; 95% CI: 1.03–1.50). In conclusion, there was a widespread exposure to antibiotics among preschool children from eastern China, and children who consumed more animal-derived foods may had an increased exposure to antibiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asteraceae (daisy family) is one of the largest families of plants. The genetic basis for its high biodiversity and excellent adaptability has not been elucidated. Here, we compare the genomes of 29 terrestrial plant species, including two de novo chromosome-scale genome assemblies for stem lettuce, a member of Asteraceae, and Scaevola taccada, a member of Goodeniaceae that is one of the closest outgroups of Asteraceae. We show that Asteraceae originated ~80 million years ago and experienced repeated paleopolyploidization. PII, the universal regulator of nitrogen-carbon (N-C) assimilation present in almost all domains of life, has conspicuously lost across Asteraceae. Meanwhile, Asteraceae has stepwise upgraded the N-C balance system via paleopolyploidization and tandem duplications of key metabolic genes, resulting in enhanced nitrogen uptake and fatty acid biosynthesis. In addition to suggesting a molecular basis for their ecological success, the unique N-C balance system reported for Asteraceae offers a potential crop improvement strategy. Asteraceae is the largest family of flowering plants. Here, the authors assemble the genomes of stem lettuce (within Asteraceae) and beach cabbage (within Goodeniaceae) for evolutionary genomics analyses and reveal the absence of the core regulatory gene of nitrogen and carbon assimilation in Asteraceae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regenerated cellulose fibers (RCFs) are widely used biodegradable and eco-friendly materials made from woody biomass that can replace synthetic fibers. In this work, we explored the feasibility of fabricating RCFs using phosphoric acid with hydrogen peroxide (PHP)-treated wheat straw in an N, N-dimethylacetamide/lithium chloride (DMAc/LiCl) solvent system. The effects of upstream pretreatment conditions on the obtained cellulose-enriched fraction (CEF), the solubility of CEF in DMAc/LiCl, the mechanical properties of RCFs, and the interfacial interaction of residual lignin were systematically studied. CEF could be completely dissolved in DMAc/LiCl, and its wet spun RCFs had tensile strengths of 184 MPa and toughness values of 25 MJ/m3; it demonstrated remarkable wet strength (84 MPa), wet toughness (11 MJ/m3), and dyeing properties. The existence of residual lignin negatively affected the RCF mechanical properties; however, it enhanced its resistance to water infiltration. The present work provided a new approach for producing RCFs from woody biomass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the frictional thermoelastic contact of a rigid spherical punch and functionally graded material (FGM) coated half-space with arbitrarily varying material properties. These material parameters include the elastic modulus, Poisson's ratio, heat conduction parameter, and thermal expansion coefficient. The material parameters of the FGM coating and half-space are assumed to be temperature dependent. The spherical punch is rotated in the FGM-coated half-space at a constant angular speed. The generated frictional heat is related to the friction coefficient, contact radius, angular velocity, and contact pressure. A theoretical formula for the thermoelastic rotating contact problem is established and solved using the finite element method. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of temperature dependence, gradient index, friction coefficient, angular velocity, and gradient form on the surface temperature and stresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2020, China's Beidou has begun to provide an initial real-time precise point positioning (PPP) service via B2b signals for the Asia–Pacific region. It is expected to be used to achieve centimeter-level positioning and also brings opportunities for real-time time transfer. We collected 29 days of experimental data and compared it with the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) real-time products. The quality of the satellite's orbit and clock was analyzed first. Then, time transfer based on BDS-3, GPS, and BDS-3/GPS PPP was investigated. The results showed that the GPS PPP with the PPP-B2b is not recommended. The time transfer based on BDS-3 PPP using the PPP-B2a is feasible and achieves a 0.30 ns level. Importantly, the reliability of time transfer using the PPP-B2b outperforms that of PPP using CNES products due to the problem of unstable internet communication. Furthermore, compared to BDS-3-only, the precision of time transfer based on BDS-3/GPS PPP was not improved significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new Precise Point Positioning (PPP) service, called the PPP-B2b service, has been implemented in the BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3), which brings new opportunities for time transfer. However, the solution using the traditional PPP method with the PPP-B2b correction still absorbs some unknown errors and needs reconverging when there exist abnormal data. We developed a new receiver clock model to improve PPP time transfer using the PPP-B2b correction. The traditional PPP time transfers using PPP-B2b with BDS-3, Global Positioning System (GPS), and BDS-3/GPS (Scheme1) are compared with the corresponding time transfer with the proposed clock model (Scheme2). The results show that GPS-only PPP is not recommended because of low accuracy of 2 ns. BDS-3 or BDS-3/GPS PPP time transfers in Scheme1 can realize about 0.2 ns accuracy. When the new clock model is applied, the accuracy can be improved by up to 45% and 39.8% for BDS-3 and BDS-3/GPS PPP, respectively. The proposed clock model can significantly improve the short-term frequency stability by 57.4%, but less for the long-term stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon fixation and conversion based on Clostridium ljungdahlii have great potential for the sustainable production of biochemicals (i.e., 2,3-butanediol, acetic acid, and ethanol). Here, the effects of reducing agents on the production of biochemicals from H2/CO2 using C. ljungdahlii were studied. It was found that the element S and reducing power could significantly affect the production of biochemicals, and cysteine (Cys) was better than sodium sulfide for the production of biochemicals, especially for the production of 2,3-butanediol. Moreover, comparing to the control (i.e., without the addition of Cys), the gene expression profiles indicated that the fdh and adhE1 were significantly upregulated with the addition of Cys, which involved in pathways of the CO2 fixation and ethanol production. Therefore, the irreplaceability of Cys on the production of biochemicals was both caused by its utilization as a reducing agent and its effect on the metabolic pathway. Finally, compared to the control, the production of 2,3-butanediol was increased by 2.17 times under the addition of 1.7 g/L Cys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are a valuable resource for neurological disease-modeling and drug discovery due to their ability to differentiate into neurons reflecting the genetics of the patient from which they are derived. iPSC-derived cultures, however, are highly variable due to heterogeneity in culture conditions. We investigated the effect of passage number on iPSC differentiation to optimize the generation of sensory neurons (iPSC-dSNs). Three iPSC lines reprogrammed from the peripheral blood of three donors were differentiated into iPSC-dSNs at passage numbers within each of the following ranges: low (5–10), intermediate (20–26), and high (30–38). Morphology and pluripotency of the parent iPSCs were assessed prior to differentiation. iPSC-dSNs were evaluated based on electrophysiological properties and expression of key neuronal markers. All iPSC lines displayed similar morphology and were similarly pluripotent across passage numbers. However, the expression levels of neuronal markers and sodium channel function analyses indicated that iPSC-dSNs differentiated from low passage numbers better recapitulated the sensory neuron phenotype than those differentiated from intermediate or high passage numbers. Our results demonstrate that lower passage numbers may be better suited for differentiation into peripheral sensory neurons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alignment tasks for precision electronics manufacturing require high accuracy and low time consumption. However, in the current industrial environment, multiple servo alignment operations are often required to achieve the desired accuracy targets, which is time-consuming. In this paper, a high precision, fast alignment method based on binocular vision is proposed, which allows the accurate movement of the workpiece to the target position in only one alignment operation, without the need for a standard calibration board. Firstly, a calibration method of the telecentric lens camera is proposed based on an improved nonlinear damped least-squares method to establish the relationship between the image coordinate system and the local world coordinate system in the binocular vision system. Secondly, in order to transform the coordinates from the local world coordinate system to a unified coordinate system with the platform's rotation center as the origin, an angle constraint-based rotation center calibration method is proposed. Thirdly, a two-stage feature point detection method based on shape matching is proposed to detect the feature points of the workpiece. Based on these, the position and pose of the workpiece are obtained. Then the alignment commands are calculated based on the current and the target position and pose of the workpiece, enabling the accurate alignment to be accomplished in one operation. Finally, taking the mobile phone's cover glass alignment task as an example, a series of calibration and alignment experiments were carried out. The experiments and results show that the alignment errors are within ± 0.020 mm and the time taken to calculate alignment commands is less than 20 ms, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the three-step implementation of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), users face the coexistence of BDS-2 and BDS-3 for a period of time. In particular, the real-time BDS-2/BDS-3 clock is the prerequisite for real-time precise point positioning (PPP) and precise orbit determination of low earth orbit satellites. Although the undifferenced clock estimation model can obtain all useful information in the parameter domain, many phase ambiguities make the clock estimation time-consuming. We develop a high-rate clock estimation algorithm without external complex matrix library, which can be easily implemented in cross-platforms. First, the recursive Kalman filter based on a single observation is used to avoid the complex matrix inversion. In addition, parallel computing is also employed to reduce the complexity of the update of the covariance matrix and the data preprocessing of multiple stations. Considering the continuous update of receiver firmware and that 60 globally distributed stations cover two different periods, the algorithm is validated in terms of computational efficiency, clock precision and accuracy of kinematic PPP. The results illustrated that the calculation time per epoch is approaching 0.5 s when the filter's matrix dimension reaches 1300. With the benefit of upgraded receivers, the average precision of BDS-3 C19–C37 is improved by 13.8%, while the precision of BDS-3 C38–C46 is 0.124 ns. The accuracy of kinematic PPP using all estimated BDS-2/BDS-3 satellites was 2.78 cm, 4.44 cm and 7.48 cm in north, east and up directions, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An air superoleophobic/superhydrophilic composite coating with a unique structure was fabricated by oxidation and further modification of the copper mesh, and its design principle was clarified. This unique bird-nest-like configuration gives it instant superhydrophilicity due to the high surface roughness and high polar surface free energy components, while air superoleophobicity is caused by its extremely low dispersive surface free energy components. Furthermore, a water-resistance mechanism was proposed whereby a polyelectrolyte plays a critical role in improving the water-resistance of fluorosurfactants. It can separate oil—water mixtures with high efficiency (98.72%) and high flux (25185 L·m−2·h−1), and can be reused. In addition, our composite coating had certain anti-acid, anti-alkali, anti-salt and anti-sand impact performance. More importantly, after being soaked in water for a long time or being exposed to the air for a long time, it still retained ultra-high air oil contact angle and showed excellent stability, which provided the possibility for practical applications. Thus, these findings offer the potential for significant practical applications in managing oily wastewater and marine oil spill incidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hypertension and proteinuria are common bevacizumab-induced toxicities. No validated biomarkers are available for identifying patients at risk of these toxicities.Methods: A genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analysis was performed in 1039 bevacizumab-treated patients of European ancestry in four clinical trials (CALGB 40502, 40503, 80303, 90401). Grade ≥2 hypertension and proteinuria were recorded (CTCAE v.3.0). Single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-toxicity associations were determined using a cause-specific Cox model adjusting for age and sex.Results: The most significant SNP associated with hypertension with concordant effect in three out of the four studies (p-value <0.05 for each study) was rs6770663 (A > G) in KCNAB1, with the G allele increasing the risk of hypertension (p-value = 4.16 × 10-6). The effect of the G allele was replicated in ECOG-ACRIN E5103 in 582 patients (p-value = 0.005). The meta-analysis of all five studies for rs6770663 led to p-value = 7.73 × 10-8, close to genome-wide significance. The most significant SNP associated with proteinuria was rs339947 (C > A, between DNAH5 and TRIO), with the A allele increasing the risk of proteinuria (p-value = 1.58 × 10-7).Conclusions: The results from the largest study of bevacizumab toxicity provide new markers of drug safety for further evaluations. SNP in KCNAB1 validated in an independent dataset provides evidence toward its clinical applicability to predict bevacizumab-induced hypertension. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00785291 (CALGB 40502); NCT00601900 (CALGB 40503); NCT00088894 (CALGB 80303) and NCT00110214 (CALGB 90401). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By way of broadening the use of diverse sustainable bioethanol feedstocks, the potentials of Paper mulberry fruit juice (PMFJ), as a non-food, sugar-based substrate, were evaluated for fuel ethanol production. The suitability of PMFJ was proven, as maximum ethanol concentration (56.4 g/L) and yield (0.39 g/g) were achieved within half a day of the start of fermentation, corresponding to very high ethanol productivity of 4.7 g/L/hr. The established potentials were further optimally maximized through the response surface methodology (RSM). At the optimal temperature of 30 °C, yeast concentration of 0.55 g/L, and pH of 5, ethanol concentration, productivity, and yield obtained were 73.69 g/L, 4.61 g/L/hr, and 0.48 g/g, respectively. Under these ideal conditions, diverse metal salts were afterward screened for their effects on PMFJ fermentation. Based on a two-level fractional factorial design, nutrient addition had no positive impact on ethanol production. Thus, under the optimal process conditions, and without any external nutrient supplementation, bioethanol from PMFJ compared favorably with typical sugar-based energy crops, highlighting its resourcefulness as a high-value biomass resource for fuel ethanol production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sn–Sb lead-free solders are considered to substitute the tin–lead solders due to their great mechanical properties. At room temperature, the mechanical properties of Ni/Au/Sn–5Sb/Au/Ni and Ni/Au/Sn–5Sb–0.3Ag–0.05Cu/Au/Ni linear solder joints were investigated by nanoindentation experiments at different loads. The results showed that the Sn–Sb intermetallic compound (IMC) was distributed in the β-Sn matrix in Ni/Au/Sn–5Sb/Au/Ni solder joints. Co-addition of Cu and Ag resulted in the formation of the rod-shaped Cu6Sn5 and the fine granular Ag3Sn IMCs. At the same load and loading/unloading rate, the indentation depth and residual indentation morphologies of Ni/Au/Sn–5Sb–0.3Ag–0.05Cu/Au/Ni solder joints were smaller than those of Ni/Au/Sn–5Sb/Au/Ni solder joints. The hardness of the two kinds of solder joints decreased with the increase in load, while the Young's modulus was independent of load. In addition, compared to the Ni/Au/Sn–5Sb/Au/Ni solder joints, the hardness, Young's modulus and stress exponents of Ni/Au/Sn–5Sb–0.3Ag–0.05Cu/Au/Ni solder joints achieved an improvement due to the co-addition of Ag and Cu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating multimodal information into a unified perception is a fundamental human capacity. McGurk effect is a remarkable multisensory illusion that demonstrates a percept different from incongruent auditory and visual syllables. However, not all listeners perceive the McGurk illusion to the same degree. The neural basis for individual differences in modulation of multisensory integration and syllabic perception remains largely unclear. To probe the possible involvement of specific neural circuits in individual differences in multisensory speech perception, we first implemented a behavioral experiment to examine the McGurk susceptibility. Then, functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed in 63 participants to measure the brain activity in response to non-McGurk audiovisual syllables. We revealed significant individual variability in McGurk illusion perception. Moreover, we found significant differential activations of the auditory and visual regions and the left Superior temporal sulcus (STS), as well as multiple motor areas between strong and weak McGurk perceivers. Importantly, the individual engagement of the STS and motor areas could specifically predict the behavioral McGurk susceptibility, contrary to the sensory regions. These findings suggest that the distinct multimodal integration in STS as well as coordinated phonemic modulatory processes in motor circuits may serve as a neural substrate for interindividual differences in multisensory speech perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many tree species especially the rooting-recalcitrant woody perennials, the adventitious root (AR) in the juvenile phase can be easily induced by exogenous auxin, but AR formation becomes recalcitrant in the adult phase. Also, it is reported that the γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) inhibits primary root growth in Arabidopsis and the AR formation in poplar (Populus ssp). So far, how GABA affects or is affected by the ontogenetic phase or auxin remains unclear. Here, we used an apple rootstock, Malus xiaojinensis, and tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) to investigate this question. We first analyzed the content of GABA, the activity of GABA synthetic enzyme GAD, and the expression of the coding gene MxGADs, respectively, in leafy cuttings of juvenile and adult phase. Next, the effect of exogenous GABA on AR formation was examined in in vitro shoots of M. xiaojinensis and tobacco. Interestingly, significant and consistent increases in GABA concentration, GAD activity, and expression of MxGAD genes in response to exogenous indole butyric acid (IBA) were detected in adult-phase cuttings, but not in juvenile-phase cuttings. Exogenous GABA application inhibited the AR formation by delaying rooting time and reducing root number and the total root length in in vitro shoots of both M. xiaojinensis and tobacco. The expression of MxPIN members increased in response to IBA application, but these changes were restrained by the addition of GABA. These results indicate that both the loss of juvenility and IBA are required to trigger GABA accumulation. GABA may affect the AR formation as a co-actor by inhibiting polar auxin transport. Together, these findings facilitate the understanding of the regulatory network among GABA, juvenility, and auxin signaling on the AR formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rett syndrome (RTT) is a severe neurological disorder and a leading cause of intellectual disability in young females. RTT is mainly caused by mutations found in the X-linked gene encoding methyl-CpG binding protein 2 (MeCP2). Despite extensive studies, the molecular mechanism underlying RTT pathogenesis is still poorly understood. Here, we report MeCP2 as a key subunit of a higher-order multiunit protein complex Rbfox/LASR. Defective MeCP2 in RTT mouse models disrupts the assembly of the MeCP2/Rbfox/LASR complex, leading to reduced binding of Rbfox proteins to target pre-mRNAs and aberrant splicing of Nrxns and Nlgn1 critical for synaptic plasticity. We further show that MeCP2 disease mutants display defective condensate properties and fail to promote phase-separated condensates with Rbfox proteins in vitro and in cultured cells. These data link an impaired function of MeCP2 with disease mutation in splicing control to its defective properties in mediating the higher-order assembly of the MeCP2/Rbfox/LASR complex. MeCP2 mutations can cause Rett syndrome, a severe childhood neurological disorder. Here the authors show that MeCP2 mediates the higher-order assembly of a large splicing complex Rbfox/LASR, which is disrupted in the mouse models of Rett syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A thermomechanical model is developed to predict the temperature, degree of crystallization, residual stress, and strain in the selective laser sintering process for polymeric powder. Especially, a transient heat transfer model is used to calculate the temperature evolution. An elastic–viscoplastic model is developed to describe the temperature- and time-dependent stress–strain behavior of polymeric materials with crystallization-induced strain being included. A crystallization model is used to predict the relative crystallization degree during the cooling process. The sintering process and cooling process of polyamide 12 are simulated using the developed model. The melt pool depth and the deformation of the printed parts are validated by the experimental results. The evolutions of the temperature, relative degree of crystallization, strain, and stress are evaluated. The effects of the cooling rate on the strain and stress evolutions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Channel morphology and bed sediment erodibility are two crucial factors that significantly affect debris flow entrainment processes. Current debris flow entrainment models mostly hypothesize the erodible beds are infinite with uniform slopes. In this study, a series of small-scale flume experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of bed longitudinal inflexion and sediment porosity on basal entrainment characteristics. Experimental observations revealed that sediment entrainment is negligible at early stages and accelerates rapidly as several erosion points appear. Continual evolution of flow-bed interfaces changes interactions between debris flows and bed sediments, rendering the interfacial shear action involved into a mixed shear and frontal collisional action. Lower bed sediment porosity will change the spatial arrangement and orientation of particle mixture, strengthen the interlocking and anti-slide forces of adjacent sediment particles, and promote the formation of particle clusters, all of which will increase bed sediment resistance to erosion. By examining the post-experimental bed morphology, the slope-cutting amounts and topographic reliefs are determined to positively correlate with longitudinal transition angles. These high topographic reliefs may indicate the propensity of triangular slab erosion, rather than strip-shaped slab erosion, in non-uniform channels with relatively steep erodible beds. Empirical formulas are obtained that denote the relationships among bed sediment strength, channel curvature radius, and sediment porosity through a multi-parameter regression analysis. This study may aid in clarifying the complex coupling effects of spatial variations in debris flow dynamics as well as sediment erodibility and bed morphology in non-uniform channels with abundant seismic loose material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Injuries related with falls are a major health risk for the elderly. Accurate evaluation of the dynamic walking stability of elderly people is the key to fall prevention. A two-dimensional (2-D) model is proposed in this study given that the custom method is mainly focused on the dynamic walking stability along the antero-posterior axis. An inverted pendulum model was utilised to calculate the region of stability at toe-off, and stability conditions were evaluated first along the antero-posterior and medio-lateral axes. The analysis was then extended to the 2-D plane. In the 2-D case, the region of stability was determined based on the use of the information of the envelope of the foot. Twenty-four female participants, categorised as healthy young, healthy elderly, and elderly with a history of falls, were examined. Significant differences among the three groups were demonstrated with the 2-D analysis method, but not in the antero-posterior or medio-lateral analyses. The centre-of-masses of elderly fallers were significantly closer to the foot-supporting boundary compared with that of healthy young and elderly adults at toe-off. A 2-D analysis method using the envelope-of-foot could evaluate the dynamic stability of elderly females based on a more accurate scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle re-identification is a challenging task that matches vehicle images captured by different cameras. Recent vehicle re-identification approaches exploit complex deep networks to learn viewpoint robust features for obtaining accurate re-identification results, which causes large computations in their testing phases to restrict the vehicle re-identification speed. In this paper, we propose a viewpoint robust knowledge distillation (VRKD) method for accelerating vehicle re-identification. The VRKD method consists of a complex teacher network and a simple student network. Specifically, the teacher network uses quadruple directional deep networks to learn viewpoint robust features. The student network only contains a shallow backbone sub-network and a global average pooling layer. The student network distills viewpoint robust knowledge from the teacher network via minimizing the Kullback-Leibler divergence between the posterior probability distributions resulted from the student and teacher networks. As a result, the vehicle re-identification speed is significantly accelerated since only the student network of small testing computations is demanded. Experiments on VeRi776 and VehicleID datasets show that the proposed VRKD method outperforms many state-of-the-art vehicle re-identification approaches with better accurate and speed performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) contamination in peanut oil is harmful and widespread. In this study, a laser induced fluorescence spectroscopy (LIF) system was developed for rapid and non-invasive screening of four varieties of peanut oils contaminated with different levels of AFB1. Discriminant analysis was conducted to classify the four varieties of peanut oils into acceptable (AFB1 < 20 μg kg−1) and contaminated (AFB1 ≥ 20 μg kg−1) levels. The results of single-step modelling, which directly classify the whole 540 peanut oils into acceptable and contaminated levels, could achieve an accuracy of 95% and 93% for calibration and validation sets respectively. Considering the fluorescence spectra could easily be influenced by the difference of physicochemical properties of different varieties of peanut oils, two-steps modelling method was conducted. In the first step, the total 540 peanut oils were classified into four varieties with all accuracy of 100% based on 600–800 nm, by using LDA algorithm. In the second step, the AFB1 contamination levels of each variety were discriminated. The classification accuracy was increased by at least 5% by conducting two-steps modelling. The results of quantitative analysis showed that for single variety, PLSR based on 400–600 nm could achieve accurate quantitative prediction. The feasibility of LIF technique for the rapid and nondestructive detection of AFB1 contamination in different varieties of edible oils was proved in this study. Further research will focus on the detection of naturally infected oils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese plum (Prunus salicina L.), also known as Japanese plum, is gaining importance because of its extensive genetic diversity and nutritional attributes that are beneficial for human health. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are the most abundant form of genomic polymorphisms and are widely used in population genetics research. In this study, we constructed high-quality SNPs through whole-genome resequencing of 67 Prunus accessions with a depth of ~20× to evaluate the genome-level diversity and population structure. Phylogenetic analysis, principal component analysis, and population structure profiling indicated that the 67 plum accessions could be classified into four groups corresponding to their origin location, the southern cultivar group (SCG), the northern cultivar group (NCG), the foreign cultivar group (FG), and the mixed cultivar group (MG). Some cultivars from South China clustered with the other three groups. The genetic diversity indices including private allele number, observed heterozygosity, expected heterozygosity, and the nucleotide diversity of the SCG were higher than those of the NCG. Gene flow from the SCG to FG was also detected. Based on the distribution of wild resources, we concluded that the domestication center of origin of the Chinese plum was southwestern China. This study also provided genetic variation features and the population structure of Chinese plum cultivars, laying a foundation for breeders to use diverse germplasm and allelic variants to improve Chinese plum varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is critical for fabricating flexible biosensors with both high sensitivity and good selectivity to realize real-time monitoring superoxide anion (O2•−), a specific reactive oxygen species that plays critical roles in various biological processes. This work delicately designs a Mn3(PO4)2/MXene heterostructured biomimetic enzyme by assembling two-dimensional (2-D) Mn3(PO4)2 nanosheets with biomimetic activity and 2-D MXene nanosheets with high conductivity and abundant functional groups. The 2-D nature of the two components with strong interfacial interaction synergistically enables the heterostructure an excellent flexibility with retained 100% of the response when to reach a bending angle up to 180°, and 96% of the response after 100 bending/relaxing cycles. It is found that the surface charge state of the heterostructure promotes the adsorption of O2•−, while the high-energy active site improves electrochemical oxidation of O2•−. The Mn3(PO4)2/MXene as a sensing platform towards O2•− achieves a high sensitivity of 64.93 µA·µM−1·cm−2, a wide detection range of 5.75 nM to 25.93 µM, and a low detection limit of 1.63 nM. Finally, the flexible heterostructured sensing platform realizes real-time monitoring of O2•− in live cell assays, offering a promising flexible biosensor towards exploring various biological processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The direct discharge of urine into water bodies leads to environmental pollution, and an increase in the water treatment cost, whereas recycling of the nutrients in urine is of significant economic value. A single-compartment reactor was investigated for the recycling of phosphate and simultaneous removal of nitrogen from urine wastewater by electrochemical magnesium induction, and electrochemical oxidation for the removal of residual nitrogen from the supernatant. The results demonstrated that phosphate recovery capacity was greater than 11 mg P cm−2 h−1 at a current density of 15 m A cm−2 and anodizing time of 20 min; the removal rates of ammonium and total nitrogen in the synchronous electrochemical oxidation were 80% and 75%, respectively, at a current density of 45 m A cm−2 and anodizing time of 60 min. The anodizing time and initial pH were determined to be critical control factors in the electrochemical struvite induction and nitrogen electrochemical oxidation. The on-site electrochemical nitrogen oxidation could rapidly utilize the alkaline supernatant following phosphate recovery. Thus, the integration of the single-compartment reactor, electrochemical magnesium dosage, and simultaneous nitrogen electrochemical oxidation demonstrates potential for application to decentralized reactors to treat source-separated urine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For fog computing network, how to effectively and quickly offload the task to fog nodes is a big challenge. In this paper, a task offloading scheme based on improved contract net protocol and beetle antennae search algorithm in fog computing networks is proposed. Firstly, the system mode of task offloading in fog computing network is described. Then, a contract net protocol is presented to obtain the information from the fog nodes. Based on the information, the agent will allocate the sub-tasks to the fog nodes. And the task offloading issue in fog computing network is formulated and analyzed. Next, an efficient task offloading scheme based on improved contract net protocol and beetle antennae search algorithm is proposed. Finally, the analysis and simulation results validate the efficiency of the proposed scheme compared with other algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

β-poly(L-malic acid) (PMLA) has attracted industrial interest for its potential applications in medicine and other industries. For a sustainable PMLA production, it requires replacing/reducing the CaCO3 usage, since the residual CaCO3 impeded the cells' utilization, and a large amount of commercially useless gypsum was accumulated. In this study, it was found that more glucose was converted into CO2 using soluble alkalis compared with CaCO3 usage. Moreover, since the high ion strength and respiration effect of soluble alkalis also inhibited PMLA production, they could not effectively replace CaCO3. Furthermore, comparing the fermentations with different neutralizers (soluble alkali vs. CaCO3), it was found that the differential genes are mainly involved in the pathway of starch and sucrose metabolism, pentose and glucuronate interconversions, histidine metabolism, ascorbate and aldarate metabolism, and phagosome. In detail, in the case with CaCO3, 562 genes were downregulated and 262 genes were upregulated, and especially, those genes involved in energy production and conversion were downregulated by 26.7%. Therefore, the irreplaceability of CaCO3 was caused by its effect on the PMLA metabolic pathway rather than its usage as neutralizer. Finally, a combined pH shift control strategy with CaCO3 addition was developed. After the fermentation, 64.8 g/L PMLA and 38.9 g/L biomass were obtained with undetectable CaCO3 and less CO2 emission. Key points: • The effect of CaCO3on PMLA metabolic pathway resulted in its irreplaceability. • A pH shift control strategy with CaCO3addition was developed. • Undetectable CaCO3and less CO2emission were detected with the new strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three typical waste furniture boards, including fiberboard, chipboard, and blockboard, were pretreated with conventional hydrothermal method. The responses of chemical composition, physicochemical morphology, and performances of enzymatic hydrolysis were evaluated. Results indicated the almost complete hemicellulose removal at higher pretreatment temperatures, the enhanced crystallinity index, and disordered morphology of the pretreated substrates indicated that the hydrothermal pretreatment deconstructed these boards well. However, the very low enzymatic hydrolysis (< 8% after 72 h) of the pretreated substrates showed the poor biological conversion. Three hypotheses for the weakened enzymatic hydrolysis were investigated, and results indicated that the residual adhesives and their degraded fractions were mainly responsible for poor hydrolysis. When NaOH post-pretreatment was attempted, cellulose-glucose conversion of the hydrothermally pretreated fiberboard, chipboard and blockboard can be improved to 28.5%, 24.1%, and 37.5%. Herein, the process of NaOH hydrothermal pretreatment was integrated, by which the hydrolysis of pretreated fiberboard, chipboard and blockboard was greatly promoted to 47.1%, 37.3%, and 53.8%, suggesting a possible way to pretreat these unconventional recalcitrant biomasses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salinity is a major abiotic stress that affects plant growth and development and leads to crop yield loss. Many crop species are more sensitive to salinity stress at the seed germination stage than at other developmental stages. Some studies have shown that sunflower is tolerant to salinity to a certain degree. However, no systematic screening data for sunflower germplasms are available for salinity stress. In this study, 552 sunflower germplasms with different genetic backgrounds were evaluated for salt tolerance. Among them, 30 and 53 sunflower germplasms were identified as highly salt-tolerant and salt-tolerant germplasms, respectively, while 80 and 23 were grouped as salt-sensitive and highly salt-sensitive materials, respectively. Of all the traits tested, the germination index and the germination vigor index were the two most reliable traits, showing the highest correlation with salt tolerance during the seed germination stage of sunflower. Thus, a highly efficient and reliable method for evaluating salinity tolerance of sunflower seed germination was established. These results provided a good foundation for studying salt-tolerance mechanisms and breeding highly salt-tolerant sunflower cultivars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries are considered as next-generation technology for energy storage due to their high energy density. However, the rapid capacity fading resulted from the shuttle effect obstructs their practical application. Herein, ultrathin dense double-walled carbon nanotube (DWCNT) membrane has been designed to impede the shuttle effect. The outer wall of DWCNT helps to keep the integrity and conductivity for its inner wall. The defects on DWCNT are less than those on multi-walled CNT (MWCNT), which helps DWNCT to stack and form dense membrane. The tiny areal density of 0.00477 mg cm−2 of DWCNT membrane would not weaken the Li-S battery's energy density too much. The electrochemical tests suggested that the DWCNT membrane improved the cycling performance effectively. A possible reason was discussed. The cathode electrolyte interphase (CEI) grown on the DWCNTs made the membrane further dense, which promoted the blocking effect on polysulfides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, frequent oily wastewater pollution has become one of the most concerning environmental issues. Typically, such a global challenge calls for the development of efficient and durable separation materials for oil spill cleanups. Inspired by hydrogels, the physical crosslinking of PVP with chitosan was utilized in this work to enhance the surface properties; in addition, a facile approach was described to prepare the superhydrophilic/superoleophobic surface for oil–water separation on various substrates through one-step spraying. The surface morphology, elementary composition, and wettability were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (XEDS), and contact angle measurement, respectively. The results suggested that the coating exhibited both superhydrophilicity and superoleophobicity on the stainless steel mesh (SSM), glass, and copper mesh. Particularly, the contact angle (CA) of edible oil on SSM reached up to 156°. The as-prepared coating also possessed excellent mechanical and chemical durability. Furthermore, the separating efficiencies of three kinds of oil–water mixtures, including diesel oil, edible oil, and lubricating oil, were higher than 98%, 97%, and 94%, respectively, at various oil–water ratios. Of note, the separation efficiency remained 96% after 15 separation cycles, indicating that the surface might serve as a promising repeatable material for oily wastewater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A connectivity based k-coverage hole detection algorithm is proposed in this paper. We adopt Rips complex in homology theory to model a wireless sensor network (WSN). We firstly present a simplicial complex reduction algorithm to simplify the network topology by vertex and edge deletion, while keeping the homology intact. Then a connectivity-based algorithm is proposed for discovering boundary cycles of non-triangular k-coverage holes. The algorithm consists of two parts, one part is 1-coverage hole detection and the other part is coverage degree reduction. In the 1-coverage hole detection part, boundary cycles of 1-coverage holes are found. In the coverage degree reduction part, an independent covering subset of nodes for the covered region is found and these nodes are set to dormant state to decrease the coverage degree of the target region by one. The k-coverage hole detection algorithm is an iterative process of the two parts. Computation complexity of the algorithm is analyzed and simulation results show that more than 95% of non-triangular k-coverage holes can be accurately detected by our algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two varieties of grain sorghum, including Chuannuo (CN) and Luzhouhong (LZH), were attempted on heavy metal (HM−) contaminated farmland. HMs distribution in the harvested biomasses, including grain and stover (leaf + stalk), were analyzed. The mostly HM-accumulated part was anaerobically digested to check the biogas releasing performances, and the fates of HMs in digestion. Results indicated the bioconcentration factors were lower than 1, suggesting these investigated varieties were characterized by lower accumulation on HMs. The accumulated HMs mainly existed in stover, in detail, 80.9% (Cu), 71.4% (Pb), 97.8% (Cr) and 99.1% (Cd) were in CN, and the corresponding HM was 78.4%, 85.1%, 98.9% and 97.8%, respectively, in LZH. Anaerobic digestion of stover were performed well with methane yield of 173.78 mL/g VS and 144.73 mL/g VS for CN and LZH, respectively. After digestion, more than 99% HMs were retained in solid residues, in which the residual state HMs were increased by 7–38%. Besides, the decreased mobility (except Cu) and bioavailability after anaerobic digestion implied these HMs tended to be more stable in the digested solid residues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an unsupervised background reconstruction method to detect defects on surfaces with unevenly distributed textures. An improved deep convolutional autoencoder is utilized to reconstruct the textured background of the original image as a defect-free reference. Specifically, a weighted loss function based on structural similarity (SSIM) is utilized to adapt to the unevenly distributed texture background and improve the reconstruction accuracy. Furthermore, combined with the reconstructed defect-free reference, a novel difference analysis method based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT) is given to accurately segment the defect regions from the original image. A series of experiments for the defect detection on mobile phone cover glass (MPCG) are conducted. The processing time for an image of 512 × 512 pixels is only 20 ms, which satisfies the requirement of online detection. The experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most gear fault diagnosis (GFD) approaches suffer from inefficiency when facing with multiple varying working conditions at the same time. In this paper, a non-negative matrix factorization (NMF)-theoretic co-clustering strategy is proposed specially to classify more than one task at the same time using the high dimension matrix, aiming to offer a fast multi-tasking solution. The short-time Fourier transform (STFT) is first used to obtain the time-frequency features from the gear vibration signal. Then, the optimal clustering numbers are estimated using the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) theory, which possesses the simultaneous assessment capability, compared with traditional validity indexes. Subsequently, the classical/modified NMF-based co-clustering methods are carried out to obtain the classification results in both row and column tasks. Finally, the parameters involved in BIC and NMF algorithms are determined using the gradient ascent (GA) strategy in order to achieve reliable diagnostic results. The Spectra Quest's Drivetrain Dynamics Simulator gear data sets were analyzed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]