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The article titled "Front Cover: Programmed initiation and enhancement of cGAS/STING pathway for tumour immunotherapy via tailor‐designed ZnFe2O4‐based nanosystem" by Hou et al. discusses the construction of ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles loaded with low-dose paclitaxel (PTX) and encapsulated with cancer cell membrane (CCM). These nanoparticles are designed to respond to the high level of GSH in the tumor cytoplasm, releasing Fe3+, Zn2+, and PTX. This release stimulates anti-tumor immunity by enhancing the cGAS/STING pathway. The authors provide a detailed analysis of their findings and propose that this nanosystem could be used for tumor immunotherapy. [Extracted from the article]

Byline: Yuping He, John McPhee A method is presented for determining the critical speed of rail vehicles. Dynamic Mode Tracking (DMT) is used to identify the dynamic modes for a given speed and a Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) algorithm determines the critical speed at which the least-damped mode has zero damping. It is shown that the SQP algorithm without DMT often fails to find the critical speed. In comparison, the combined SQP-DMT algorithm provides a reliable identification of the critical speed. This integrated algorithm can be applied to rotor dynamics, wind turbine dynamics, aeronautics, and road vehicle dynamics for automatically identifying the critical speed corresponding to a linear stability analysis.

Byline: Yuping He, John McPhee A systematic method is proposed for automating the design synthesis of ground vehicle suspensions. This method combines optimisation algorithms and numerical multibody dynamics software and considers ISO 2631 standard requirements on ride quality. The proposed method is tested and evaluated by optimising three ground vehicle models. It is recommended that stochastic global search algorithms be used with numerical multibody dynamics software in the initial design optimisation, whereas gradient-based algorithms should be used in the fine stage of fine-tuning the parameters. Results show that compared with suspension stiffness and damping coefficients or inertial property parameters, geometric parameters have a more significant effect on the ride quality.

Half-Heusler alloys such as the (Zr,Hf)NiSn intermetallic compounds are important thermoelectric materials for converting waste heat into electricity. Reduced electrical resistivity at the hot interface between the half-Heusler material and a metal contact is critical for device performance; however, this is yet to be achieved in practice. Recent experimental work suggests that a coherent interface between half-Heusler and full-Heusler compounds can form due to diffusion of transition metal atoms into the vacant sublattice of the half-Heusler lattice. We study theoretically the structural and electronic properties of such an interface using a first-principles based approach that combines ab initio calculations with macroscopic modeling. We find that the prototypical interface HfNi2Sn/HfNiSn provides very low contact resistivity and almost ohmic behavior over a wide range of temperatures and doping levels. Given the potential of these interfaces to remain stable over a wide range of temperatures, our study suggests that full-Heuslers might provide nearly ideal electrical contacts to half-Heuslers that can be harnessed for efficient thermoelectric generator devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cronobacter species are associated with severe foodborne infections in neonates and infants, with particular pathovars associated with specific clinical presentations. However, before 2008 the genus was regarded as a single species named Enterobacter sakazakii which was subdivided into 8 phenotypes. This study re-analyzed, using multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) and whole genome sequence with single nucleotide polymorphism analysis (WGS-SNP), 52 strains which had been identified as Enterobacter sakazakii as according to the convention at the time of isolation. These strains had been isolated from dairy product imports into China from 9 countries between 2005 and 6. Bioinformatic analysis was then used to analyze the relatedness and global dissemination of these strains. Result: FusA allele sequencing revealed that 49/52 strains were Cronobacter sakazakii, while the remaining 3 strains were Escherichia coli, Enterobacter cloacae, and Franconibacter helveticus. The C. sakazakii strains comprised of 8 sequence types (STs) which included the neonatal pathovars ST1, ST4 and ST12. The predominant sequence type was ST13 (65.3%, 32/49) which had been isolated from dairy products imported from 6 countries. WGS-SNP analysis of the 32 C. sakazakii ST13 strains revealed 5 clusters and 5 unique strains which did not correlate with the country of product origin. Conclusion: The mis-identification of E. coli, E. cloacae and F. helveticus as Cronobacter spp. reinforces the need to apply reliable methods to reduce the incidence of false positive and false negative results which may be of clinical significance. The WGS-SNP analysis demonstrated that indistinguishable Cronobacter strains within a sequence type can be unrelated, and may originate from multiple sources. The use of WGS-SNP analysis to distinguishing of strains within a sequence type has important relevance for tracing the source of outbreaks due to Cronobacter spp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel electric booster (E-booster) that exibits superior performance advantages over traditional vacuum boosters. The proposed E-booster, consisting of an electric motor and a ball screw assembly, is designed for electro-hydraulic brake (EHB) systems to meet relevant requirements for electric vehicles and active safety technologies. A mathematical model for an EHB system is generated to determine the desired values of the parameters for the E-booster prototype using numerical simulation in MATLAB. Simulation results of the EHB system with the virtual E-booster demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the innovative technique. Built upon the results derived from the numerical simualtions, an integrated algorithm based on the Kalman filter and a sliding mode control technique is designed to control the E-booster motor and to implement the brake booster function. A hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) real-time simulation system equipped with the E-booster prototype is developed. HIL real-time simulations are conducted to evaluate the proposed algorithm. The HIL real-time simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm generates booster brake forces fast, and forces the ball nut to track the push rod well to ensure comfortable brake pedal feel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]