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With the large-scale distributed energy resources (DERs) interfaced by power electronic converters connected to the power grid, the traditional synchronous generation is gradually replaced, and the inertia and primary frequency regulation capability of the power system is weakened, which seriously threatens the frequency security of the power grid. In view of the above problems, a hierarchical control strategy by coordinating the distributed wind turbine (WT) and photovoltaic (PV) is presented to improve the transient frequency (TF) and steady-state frequency (SSF). For the system control level, the optimal frequency regulation coefficients of multiple WTs and PVs clustering systems are determined by the optimal control principle with minimum frequency regulation energy, while considering the constraints of TF and SSF. For the WT/PV control level, the frequency regulation coefficients of WTs and PVs are solved by the model predictive controller (MPC) and alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), with the minimum control cost of WT and PV. It achieves the optimal allocation of frequency regulation power and improves the computing efficiency. Finally, the validity of the proposed method is tested in the modified IEEE 10-machine 39-bus system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The microRNAs (miRNAs) of their hosts play an important role in regulating both the innate and adaptive immune responses to Cryptosporidium parvum infection. The mechanisms of autophagy and apoptosis are important components of the defense system against C. parvum infection. In this study, we investigate the role of miRNA-199a-3p in regulating MTOR-mediated autophagy and apoptosis in HCT-8 cells induced by C. parvum. The expression of miR-199a-3p increased at 3, 6 and 12 hours postinfection (hpi) but decreased at 24 and 48 hpi. The upregulation of miR-199a-3p promoted autophagy and apoptosis and limited the parasite burden in HCT-8 cells after C. parvum infection. The downregulation of miR-199a-3p inhibited the autophagy and apoptosis induced by C. parvum and enhanced the parasite burden in HCT-8 cells. A luciferase reporter showed that MTOR was a target gene of miR-199a-3p. Suppressed expression of MTOR by small interfering RNA (siRNA) promoted autophagy and apoptosis and limited C. parvum burden in HCT-8 cells. Co-transfection with miR-199a-3p inhibitor or si-mTOR revealed that miR-199a-3p regulates autophagy and apoptosis in HCT-8 cells through MTOR, to resist C. parvum infection. In conclusion, intestinal epithelial cells defend against C. parvum infection by regulating their autophagy and apoptosis through the miR-199a-3p-MTOR axis. Autophagy and apoptosis play a role in the defense against C. parvum. This study shows that miR-199a-3p targets MTOR transcripts, thus downregulating MTOR function, and subsequently reduces the C. parvum burden by promoting autophagy and apoptosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate microscopic images segmentation of activated sludge is essential for monitoring wastewater treatment processes. However, it is a challenging task due to poor contrast, artifacts, morphological similarities, and distribution imbalance. A novel image segmentation model (FafFormer) was developed in the work based on Transformer that incorporated pyramid pooling and flow alignment fusion. Pyramid Pooling Module was used to extract multi-scale features of flocs and filamentous bacteria with different morphology in the encoder. Multi-scale features were fused by flow alignment fusion module in the decoder. The module used generated semantic flow as auxiliary information to restore boundary details and facilitate fine-grained upsampling. The Focal–Lovász Loss was designed to handle class imbalance for filamentous bacteria and flocs. Image-segmentation experiments were conducted on an activated sludge dataset from a municipal wastewater treatment plant. FafFormer showed relative superiority in accuracy and reliability, especially for filamentous bacteria compared to existing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anomaly detection algorithms typically utilize generative models to reconstruct anomaly regions. Post-processing is used to pinpoint the anomalies. However, the paucity of real-world anomaly samples and the complex image backgrounds pose significant challenges for anomaly detection. The work innovatively proposed a self-supervised anomaly detection method. An efficient channel attention mechanism in the autoencoder was introduced to improve the reconstruction performance. Besides, a foreground enhancement strategy was designed to distinguish the foreground from the background by maximizing the inter-class variance. The strategy reduced the effect of background noises and simulated various anomalies that were rare in real samples. The MVTecAD and BTAD datasets were used to experiment with anomaly detection and location. Experimental results demonstrated that our method achieved higher AUC and AP scores at both the image level and pixel level compared to other advanced methods. In particular, the average AP score increased by 12.5% at the pixel level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) of different grades from different manufacturers differ in particulate and powder properties significantly. The choice of MCC is important to the development of a tablet formulation with satisfactory quality. In this study, the effects of five different MCCs (KG 802, Pharmacel 102, MC 302, M 200, and PH 112) that had different compactibility and tablet disintegration on the tablet quality of two different natural plant products (NPPs) were evaluated systematically, including CrataegiFolium ethanol extract (CF-E) and SarcandraeHerba water extract (SH-W). The result of D-optimal mixture designs demonstrated that KG 802 showed the best ability to improve compression properties and tensile strength, followed by Pharmacel 102, MC 302, and M 200. PH 112 did the weakest. However, MCCs of different grades had no different influence on the disintegration of NPP tablets. Similar results were found in the experiments of the two different NPP powders, suggesting the generalization of the finding. Moreover, KG 802-containing CF-E formulations showed the largest optimum region size, that is, the lowest production risk. The design space sizes of SH-W were hardly sensitive to the change of MCCs, due to the better tabletability. In conclusion, the properties of MCCs could transfer to the high NPP loading (70%) formulations, leading to the variations on the compression properties and tablet quality. The poorer the tabletability of NPP, the more obvious the variation. The result is promising for the use of MCC and the manufacturing of high drug-loading NPP tablets by direct compression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increase in integration and the layers of superconducting electronics circuits, molybdenum (Mo)-based films become attractive resistive and inductive functional components because of the large kinetic inductance with the deep magnetic field penetration depth. A DC magnetron sputtering technology is used to fabricate Mo and MoNx films. The effects of different deposition conditions on the electrical properties, topography and crystal structure of the films are investigated. For the Mo films, the resistivity and the surface roughness decrease to 193 nΩ m and 0.72 nm, respectively, as the sputtering power increases and the sputtering pressure is reduced. The dominant (110) peaks of the X-ray diffraction pattern show a blueshift, and the full width at half maximum decreases with the rising sputtering powers. For the MoNx films, the superconducting transition temperature firstly rises and then lowers as the ratio of N2/Ar ratio increases. The physical properties of the Mo and MoNx films change with the sputtering process, and suitable deposition conditions can be selected for the different application structures in the superconducting electronics circuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sepiolite shows great potential to reduce pollution risk of cadmium (Cd)-contaminated rice of acidic paddy soils, but its effect was the synergy of water–organic fertilizer coupling in practical application. In this study, we studied the effect of goat manure (GM) in primordial and sepiolite (SP) amended soil under aerobic, intermittent, and flooded irrigation condition. The results showed that the application of goat manure in SP-amended soil increased soil pH by 15.6%–23.6%. The application of goat manure increased the content of DOM by 244.3%, 135.2% in unamended and sepiolite amended soil, respectively. As a consequence, the application of GM increased available Cd extracted by DTPA in SP-amended soil under aerobic and flooded condition, but decreased available Cd under intermittent irrigation condition. The application of sepiolite alone in Cd polluted soil decreased the accumulation of Cd in unpolished rice at the first year, but Cd content witnessed slight increase at the second year. Under intermittent condition, the application of goat manure in SP-amended soil decreased Cd content by 229.2%, 59.3% of unpolished rice in the first and second year, respectively. As a result, the application of goat manure and intermittent irrigation pattern could present a water–organic fertilizer coupling effect in SP-amended soil and further increased the long-term passivation effect of sepiolite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aim: The current study aimed to investigate the antiproliferative effect of Resv on the growth of VSMCs and to determine the association between Resv and STAT3 and the mitochondrial biogenesis signaling pathway under high-glucose conditions. Materials and methods: Male Wistar rats weighing between 180 and 200 g were killed by cervical vertebra dislocation. Primary VSMCs were obtained by outgrowth methods. Cells from different treatment groups were then collected, and changes in cell proliferation and signaling pathway activity were analyzed by PCR and Western blotting. And the MTT assay was used to investigate the effect of Resv on VSMC proliferation. Results: Resv inhibited proliferation of VSMCs under high-glucose conditions. Resv suppressed the transcriptional activity of STAT3, but the mitochondrial gene GRIM-19, which is responsible for STAT3 activation, was simultaneously upregulated. The mitochondrial biogenesis signaling pathway components NRF1, NRF2, TFB1m, and TFB2m were also upregulated. In addition, the mitochondrial genes NDUFA1, NDUFA2, and NDUFA3 were involved in the function of Resv. Conclusion: The results of the study suggest that Resv has an antiproliferative effect in high-glucose-cultured VSMCs partly through inhibiting STAT3 function and upregulating mitochondrial biogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To prevent the sticking of Corni fructus extract (CFE) during spray drying, the anti-sticking effects of different excipients were compared. Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC)-VLV showed a higher powder yield at a lower dosage (8% of total solids), and a lower solution viscosity, compared with HPMC-E5. Therefore, HPMC-VLV is a more effective excipient for reducing CFE sticking during spray drying. The spray-drying process parameters were optimized by central composite rotatable design/response surface methodology, and spray drying was conducted under the following conditions: Inlet air temperature, 126 °C; atomization pressure, 1.05 bar; pump speed, 7.7 mL/min. Scanning electron microscopy showed that the powder comprised shrunken spherical particles with particle sizes in the range of 2–30 μm. Analysis of dynamic surface tension and chemical elements on the powder surface showed that HPMC-VLV rapidly moved to the droplet surface owing to its surface activity. HPMC covered the droplet surface and reduced surface tension, achieving an anti-sticking effect. In conclusion, HPMC-VLV at a solid content of 8% significantly improved the spray drying and reduced sticking of CFE. The spray-drying process parameters were nonlinearly related to the dry product yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Degradable chelating agent–assisted phytoextraction is a promising method for the remediation of Cd-contaminated agricultural soil. However, there are limited studies that have examined the effect of chelating agents on soil solutions and soil quality in alkaline soil. In this study, the effects of S,S-ethylenediamine disuccinic acid (EDDS) on the growth and phytoextraction of Solanum nigrum L. (S. nigrum) were studied using pot experiments. The influence of EDDS on the soil solutions, heavy metal contents, and soil enzyme activities was evaluated. EDDS application increased the height of S. nigrum by 7.25–29.25 cm and increased the biomass of stem and leaf by 4.26–14.95 and 1.14–10.78 g/pot, respectively. The Cd concentrations in the leaves and berries of S. nigrum were 1.21–2.17 and 1.7–9.47 times higher than that of the control, respectively, and the Cd extraction amount in the shoots of S. nigrum increased by 22.78–256.16 μg/pot after EDDS application. The chelation of EDDS on heavy metals reached a peak after 7 days of application, decreased gradually with the degradation of EDDS, and disappeared after 30 days of application. Soil pH, available metals, metal speciation, and soil urease were significantly related to the application time of EDDS. Importantly, EDDS application 45 days before S. nigrum harvest treatments decreased the available metal concentrations and improved soil pH and urease activity. However, when EDDS was applied 15 days before S. nigrum harvest, the available Cd and Pb concentrations significantly increased and caused additional Pb pollution. Considering the chelation and degradation effects, the environmental implication, and the cost of EDDS, the results of this study showed that one application of EDDS was better than two applications, a 45-day application before harvest was preferred to a 15-day application, and application of 1–3 mM EDDS 30–45 days before S. nigrum harvest was the most promising application method for the remediation of Cd-contaminated alkaline soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stochastic configuration network (SCN) has great potential in developing fast learning model with sound generalization capability and can be easily extended to the distributed computing framework. This paper aims to develop a distributed regularized stochastic configuration network to solve the limitations of traditional centralized learning on the scalability and efficiency in computing and storage resources for massive datasets. The local models are constructed using a classical stochastic configuration network, and the global unified model is built by the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Elastic net regularization term combining the LASSO and ridge methods is added into loss function of the ADMM optimization to prevent the model from overfitting when the data has high-dimensional collinearity. Each layer of the local regularized SCN model of a node in the topology network is constructed incrementally; its input weights and biases are broadcast to all other nodes under the inequality constraints. Output weights and the Lagrange multipliers of each node are calculated alternately through the decomposition–coordination procedure of the ADMM optimization algorithm until it finally converges to a unified model. A comprehensive study on five benchmark datasets and the ball mill experimental data has been carried out to evaluate the proposed method. The experiment results show that the proposed distributed regularized stochastic configuration network has relative advantages in terms of accuracy and stability compared with the distributed random vector functional link network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modal parameter identification of systems, structures and machines with variable physical parameters is an important task for their damage diagnosis, maintenance and repair, and life cycle management, especially when time-varying vibration modes are involved. The paper proposes a new combined, two-step, i.e., estimated wavelet-based frequency response function (FRF) and least-squares iterative algorithm, modeling approach in order to determine time-varying vibration modes based on Gaussian white noise input excitation. The time-varying wavelet-based FRF is estimated based on output noise estimation model H 1 ; the second step identifies time-varying modal parameters based on estimated wavelet-based FRF with the use of least-squares iterative algorithm. Estimated wavelet-based FRF can reveal the dynamic characteristics of the system correctly similar to the theoretical FRF by single degree of freedom (SDOF). The combined method is demonstrated using system identification analysis based on the simulated stiffness-varying and mass-varying multiple-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) system subjected to random Gaussian white noise excitation. The results show that the proposed combined method accurately identifies modal parameter of the time-invariant analyzed structure, and correctly captures modal parameter of the time-varying analyzed structure. The modal frequency and shape agree with theoretical results well. The analysis results also indicate that the proposed combined method is sensitive to the position of input excitation. The estimation accuracy wavelet-based FRF can be improved by selecting the average number of times and wavelet parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of sepiolite and biochar on the enzymatic activities of the soil in Cd- and atrazine-contaminated soils were studied. During the growth of pakchoi, the activities of acid phosphatase, sucrase, acid protease, and cellulase decreased, catalase activity increased, and urease activity decreased first and then increased. At the first harvest, compared with that for the control group, the soil pH after treatment with remediation materials increased from 5.41 to 7.43; the activities of urease, acid protease, and catalase increased by 62.8%, 38.6%, and 86.1%, respectively. And the activities of sucrase and acid phosphatase decreased by 17.3% and 24.7%, respectively. At the second harvest, the activities of acid phosphatase, acid protease, and cellulase continued to increase, but those of sucrase and catalase decreased. The results showed that soil enzyme activity was closely related to the type and addition of remediation materials, as well as the type of the enzyme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widespread contamination of agricultural soil with Cd and As has resulted in substantial transfer and accumulation of these toxicants in rice grains. In the present study, we investigated the effects of chicken manure application on Cd and As concentrations and As speciation in the rice grains grown under different water conditions by pot experiment. Under aerobic condition, the application of chicken manure increased soil pH and soil Eh during most of the growth period of rice. Consequently, the application of chicken manure has little effect on total Cd, slightly decreased total As and inorganic As of rice grains when applied at rate of 2.0%. Under intermittent irrigation condition, the application of chicken manure increased soil pH and decreased soil Eh during most of the growth period of rice. Thus, chicken manure decreased total Cd, As, and inorganic As of rice grains. Besides, there was increased reduction of Cd and As with increase in the amount of chicken manure applied. Under flooded condition, the application of chicken manure increased soil pH before heading but decreased soil pH after heading. The application of chicken manure dramatically decreased total and inorganic As in rice grains, and slightly decreased Cd of rice grains. There was increased reduction of total As concentration with the increase in the amount of chicken manure applied. Meanwhile, the inorganic As concentration was the lowest when the concentration of chicken manure was 1.0%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Natural sepiolite (SP) has proven effective on the in-situ immobilization remediation of Cd-contaminated soils. But the practical remediation effect may largely influenced by water management and the application of organic manure. The effects of chicken manure (CM) on SP-amended soils were investigated under normal and saturated water conditions using a pot experiment with Brassica campestris L.Materials and methods: Cd-contaminated paddy soils were amended with CM, SP, and CM + SP with no amendment as control. The amount of sepiolite was 0.5% (w/w, the same below) either in SP or CM + SP amended soils, while the amount of CM was 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0% in CM and CM + SP-amended soils. The plant metal contents, fresh weight, and soluble sugar content of plant edible parts were measured on harvest. Soil Cd was extracted by diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) and HCl to estimate the mobility of heavy metal. Soil pH and dissolved organic matter (DOM) of rhizosphere soil were determined. The electronegative charges of soils were also measured using the zeta potential.Results and discussion: The application of CM and increasing soil moisture on SP-amended soil increased plant growth to a greater extent than the application of SP alone. The application of CM along with the increase of soil moisture decreased Cd uptake and translocation in plants grown on SP-amended soil compared to the application of SP alone. Cd content of edible plant parts reached a minimum of 0.24 mg kg−1 with the application of 2.0% CM on SP-amended soils under water-saturated conditions, which was approximately 50% lower than the Cd concentration found when applying SP alone.Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that the application of sepiolite on Cd contaminated soil can effectively reduce Cd uptake by B. campestris L., and the addition of CM combined with effective water management also appears to further reduce Cd absorption and accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The in-situ immobilization effect of sepiolite and biochar on the compound pollution of cadmium (Cd) and atrazine in acid red soil of south China was studied. Results showed that in a certain concentration range, sepiolite and biochar can improve the germination rate, ensure normal growth and increase biomass of pakchoi, reduce the content of Cd in edible parts of pakchoi in different degrees and meet international standards, and restrain absorption of atrazine in pakchoi completely. Sepiolite was more effective than biochar for the immobilization of Cd, while biochar was more effective than sepiolite for the immobilization of atrazine. Combined application of sepiolite and biochar in soil contaminated by Cd and atrazine was better than individual applications of sepiolite or biochar. The remediation method applied in this research can effectively repair the acid red soil with combined pollution of Cd and atrazine in south China, while also providing ideas for in-situ remediation of farmland soil with combined pollution of pesticides and metals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A group of methods were developed for the determination of etofenprox, kresoxim-methyl, cyprodinil, azoxystrobin, and pyrimethanil residues in animal-derived food (milk, egg, pig liver, pig fat, pork, and chicken) by using QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe)-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). With acetonitrile as the extraction solvent, the samples were pretreated with the improved QuEChERS method including extraction, salting-out, and purification processes. Then, all the sample extracts were analyzed with GC/MS in selected-ion monitoring (SIM) mode and quantified by the external standard method using the matrix-matched standard method. Under electron ionization conditions, the analysis was carried out with a DB-5 MS capillary column (30 m × 0.25 mm, 0.25 μm) at a flow rate of 2.0 mL min−1. 163, 116, 224, 344, and 198 were selected as quantitative ion of etofenprox, kresoxim-methyl, cyprodinil, azoxystrobin, and pyrimethanil, respectively. Under the optimal conditions, the calibration curves showed good linearity in the range of 0.0002-5.0 mg L−1 for the five pesticides mentioned above, with correlation coefficients (R2) were more than 0.99. The average recoveries of the five pesticides spiked at three levels were 72.46-104.88%, with the RSDs (n = 5) of 0.70-11.26%. The LODs (S/N > 3) of five pesticides were 0.0002-0.02 mg L−1; the LOQs were 0.0002-0.01 mg kg−1 in milk, egg, pig liver, pig fat, pork, and chicken samples. Such methods showed the advantages of simplicity, rapidness, and sensitivity, and could meet the requirements for the determination of five pesticides residues in various animal derived foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many commonly used tablet fillers are not suitable for direct compaction process due to insufficient properties, mainly of flowability and compactability. This work therefore aimed to use co-spray drying with HPMC as a platform to improve direct compaction properties of various tablet fillers. Starch, calcium hydrogen phosphate dihydrate (DCPD), and mannitol were chosen as a representative of three types of commonly used fillers (i.e. organic macromolecules, water-insoluble inorganic salts, and water-soluble small molecular carbohydrates), respectively. The five-level central composite design-response surface methodology was used (i) to investigate the effects of HPMC level and solid content of the feed on various powder, tableting, and tablet properties of composite excipients, and (ii) to optimize the composition. The results showed that the impacts of the two factors on various properties of composite excipients showed great similarity, despite of significantly different primary properties of the parent fillers, and the HPMC level was the main contributor to the majority of the impacts. An increase in HPMC level significantly improved tablet tensile strength and various tableting parameters. For all the three fillers, their optimized composite excipients provided by the established models showed excellent performances as predicted. The platform suggested is confirmed to be effective and promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biochars that were produced from three different biomass materials were amended to a soil to elucidate their influence on the fate of carbaryl. Sorption and degradation of carbaryl in soils amended with the biochars were investigated. The results showed that the amendment of biochars to soil enhanced the sorption of carbaryl. The nonlinearity of sorption isotherm and sorption affinity of carbaryl increased with the content and pyrolytic temperature of the biochars. Both chemical and biological degradation of carbaryl were influenced by biochars. The biochars enhanced the chemical hydrolysis of carbaryl in soil, with biochars produced at 700 °C (BC700) exhibiting greater impact, due to their strong liming effect. In contrast, BC350 (produced at 350 °C) promoted the biodegradation of carbaryl in soil by different extents, while BC700 obviously reduced the biodegradation of carbaryl. The enhanced activities of natural microorganisms in the soil and the lowered bioavailability of carbaryl acted together to determine the biodegradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP), prepared by hispidin as the template molecule, was synthesized and applied as an adsorbent phase for solid phase extraction (SPE) to isolate and enrich hispidin from eight species of mushrooms. The optimization of synthesis and the adsorption behaviors of the MIPs were investigated in detail. In comparison with C-SPE, MIP-SPE displayed high selectivity and good affinity for hispidin for extract of Phellinus igniarius. The antioxidant activity of the extracts after using the MIPs was evaluated by free radical scavenging activity, and inhibition of erythrocyte hemolysis, and lipid peroxidation. This developed method provided a rapid, selective, and effective approach for separation and enrichment of active compounds from the natural products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breviscapine, one of cardiovascular drugs extracted from a Chinese herb Erigeron breviscapinus, has been frequently used to treat cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, angina pectoris, coronary heart disease and stroke. However, its poor water solubility and low bioavailability in vivo severely restrict the clinical application. To overcome these drawbacks, breviscapine solid dispersion tablets consisting of breviscapine, polyvinylpyrrolidone K30 (PVP K30), microcrystalline cellulose and crospovidone were appropriately prepared. In vitro dissolution profiles showed that breviscapine released percentage of solid dispersion tablets reached 90 %, whereas it was only 40 % for commercial breviscapine tablets. Comparative pharmacokinetic study between solid dispersion tablets and commercial products was investigated on the normal beagle dogs after oral administration. Results showed that the bioavailability of breviscapine was greatly increased by 3.45-fold for solid dispersion tablets. The greatly improved dissolution rate and bioavailability might be attributed to intermolecular hydrogen bonding reactions between PVP K30 and scutellarin. These findings suggest that our solid dispersion tablets can greatly improve the bioavailability as well as the dissolution rate of breviscapine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accurate and reliable measurement of effluent quality indices is essential for the implementation of successful control and optimization of wastewater treatment plants. In order to enhance the estimate performance in terms of accuracy and reliability, we present a partial least-squares-based extreme learning machine (called PLS-ELM) in this paper. The partial least squares (PLS) regression is applied to the ELM framework to improve the algebraic property of the hidden output matrix, which can be ill-conditional due to the high multicollinearity of the hidden layer output. The main idea behind our proposed PLS-ELM is to achieve a robust generalization performance by extracting a reduced number of latent variables from the hidden layer and using orthogonal projection operations. The results from a case study of a municipal wastewater treatment plant show that the PLS-ELM can effectively capture the input-output relationship with favorable performance against the conventional ELM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty-three polychlorinated and perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) were investigated in water phase and particulate matters of 19 precipitation samples (18 snow samples and 1 rain sample) from different cities across eastern and central China collected in February 2010. The PFCs in samples of 9e precipitation events during more than half a year at 1 site in Tianjin and 6 successive samples during 1 precipitation event were measured to elucidate the change of PFC in precipitation. In addition, PFCs in 3 runoffs at different kinds of sites in Tianjin were compared with those in the corresponding precipitation. The results showed that the particulate matters separated from the precipitation contained undetectable PFCs. The total PFC concentration ranged between 4.7 and 152 ng L in water phase of the precipitation samples, with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) being detected at all of the sampling sites and the dominant PFC at most of the sampling sites. Some potential precursors of environmentally concerned PFCs and their degradation intermediates were measured simultaneously, among which 6:2 fluorotelomer unsaturated carboxylic acid (6:2 FTUCA), 8:2 FTUCA, and × (3, 4, 5, 7):3 acid [F(CF)xCHCHCOOH] were measured for the first time in Chinese precipitations; however, their concentrations were all lower than the limits of detection except that 6:2 FTUCA and 8:2 FTUCA could be detected in 3 and 8 precipitation samples, respectively. No clear seasonal variation in PFC concentrations in precipitation was observed during half a year; however, a relatively greater average concentration of total PFCs was observed during winter and summer compared with spring. The concentration of individual PFCs showed an obvious descending trend in the successive samples of the precipitation event. PFOA and perfluorononanoic acid in runoffs collected from different sites showed the following similar pattern-gas station > highway > university campus-whereas the other detected PFCs had no concurrent trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimal configuration of piezoelectric shunt structures is obtained by analyzing admittance of the system. The dissipated energy in the shunt circuit is a function of admittance. Therefore, admittance was selected as the cost function in the process of optimization. Taguchi method was used to determine the optimal configuration of piezoceramic patch bonded on the host structure. Full three dimensional finite element models were analyzed to simulate vibration modes of smart panel and to obtain the admittances of the system. Numerical admittance was validated by experiment. After optimizing process using admittance, the optimal configuration of piezoceramic patch was obtained. It is observed that the performance of smart panel can be predicted by analyzing admittance of piezoelectric structure and admittance can be used as a design index of smart panel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to evaluate the microstructure of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) grown (211)B oriented HgCdTe films. TEM analysis of in-situ doped p-on-n and n-p-n device structures will be presented. Under fully optimized growth conditions the substrate-epilayer interface is free of threading dislocations and twins, and a high degree of structural integrity is retained throughout the entire device structure. However, under non-optimal growth conditions that employ high Hg/Te flux ratios, twins can be generated in the p-type layer of p-on-n device structure, resulting in roughness and facetting of the film surface. We propose a mechanism for twin formation that is associated with surface facetting. TEM evaluation of voids, threading dislocations and Te-precipitates in HgCdTe films are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a three-dimensional ordered hollow sphere (3DOH) structure composite Pt/TiO2-ZrO2 was prepared by using polystyrene (PS) colloidal spheres as the template and combining with two-step vacuum impregnation method, of which the composition, crystalline structure, morphology, and surface physicochemical properties were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-vis diffuse reflectance (UV-vis/DRS), photoluminescence (PL), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), and nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurements. The results illustrate the crystal type of 3DOH Pt/TiO2-ZrO2 is mainly anatase TiO2 and tetragonal ZrO2 phase, which exhibits a three-dimensional ordered hollow sphere structure. Hollow spheres are arranged orderly; moreover, the composite shows a strong absorption in the visible region due to the effect of surface plasmon absorption (SPA) after doping Pt nanoparticles. Meanwhile, the photocatalytic activity of 3DOH Pt/TiO2-ZrO2 was investigated by using Congo red as the model molecule. The results show that 3DOH Pt/TiO2-ZrO2 has good photocatalytic activity under multi-modes photocatalytic experiments, and its activity is higher than that of P25, ZrO2, and other Pt/TiO2-ZrO2 not treated by PS colloidal spheres. In addition, the total amount of hydrogen production of 3DOH Pt/TiO2-ZrO2 is 100 times as much as the commercial P25 in the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution experiment (8 h), which shows an excellent photolysis of water hydrogen production activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) contain millions of parameters and require a tremendous amount of computation; therefore, they cannot be well supported by resource-constrained edge devices. We propose a two-stage model compression method to alleviate this restriction: channel pruning and group vector quantization (CP-GVQ). By channel pruning, many channels of the DCNNs layers are pruned to reduce the model size and improve model inference speed. Based on vector quantization (VQ), GVQ is proposed to compress DCNNs, and it uses group codebooks and code matrices to represent the parameters of grouped layers; the model size is reduced greatly. CP-GVQ not only dramatically decreases model size but also improves inference speed. In each stage, it is necessary to fine-tune the model to recover the original accuracy. When applied to the filament indices classification model of microscopic images of activated sludge, the classification accuracy decreased marginally from 0.99 to 0.97, but the model size was decreased by 99% and the inference speed was improved by 42%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]