Search

In this paper, we consider the parallel-machine scheduling with step-deteriorating jobs. The actual processing time of each job deteriorates as a step function if its starting time is beyond a given deteriorating date. We focus on the case of the common job deteriorating date. For the minimization problem of total completion time, we first show that the problem is NP-hard in the strong sense. Then we propose one property of any optimal schedule. Furthermore, we prove that two special cases of common normal processing time or common penalty are polynomially solvable. For the minimization problem of total weighted completion time, we analyze the NP-hardness and present a polynomial time optimal algorithm for the case of common normal processing time and common penalty.

Chiral gold(iii) complex was found to be a “golden key” to unlock (±)-1,16-dihydroxytetraphenylene (DHTP), leading to enantiopure DHTP in a large quantity. This approach provided convenient access to 2,15-diaryl (S)-DHTPs and phosphoramidites.

Carbon-13 position-specific isotope analysis of fatty acids from vegetable oils was performed using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in the present study. The measured 13C patterns are not totally in accordance with the conventional view of the relative 13C-depletion of acetogenic lipids and their alternation of 13C-enriched and 13C-depleted carbon positions. The results presented here provide a new evaluation of the isotopic fractionation associated with fatty acids biosynthesis. Whereas it is commonly acknowledged that the pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) is responsible for the 13C distribution within fatty acids, data from the present work demonstrate that the conversion of acetyl-CoA to malonyl-CoA catalyzed by acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) needs to be considered while explaining the measured non-stochastic 13C pattern within fatty acids. These data combined with steady-state calculations give a new description of metabolic steps responsible for the typical 13C intramolecular distribution of acetogenic lipids. In addition, the non-stochastic pattern measured in these plant fatty acids is similar to those previously detected within long-chain n-alkanes suggesting a preservation through geological time and demonstrating the interest of position-specific isotope analysis for studying the evolution of metabolic pathways.

In the order picking process of the warehouse center, considering the rapid increase in the volume of orders arriving at the picking center at the time of the promotional festival, a hybrid operation mode with multiple picking tables is used to meet the picking requirements of the huge number of real-time orders. Therefore, in this paper, a hybrid picking mode is proposed, taking into account both the idle degree of picking stations and their order item centers of gravity, and a new reinforcement learning algorithm embedding mechanism (PRL) with placeholder control is designed to solve the problem of a huge number of real-time item orders arriving at the picking center system on promotional holidays and in inconsistent quantities, and numerical simulations are performed for this algorithm. The experimental results show that the PRL algorithm in hybrid picking mode can handle a huge number of orders simultaneously and improve picking efficiency effectively.

The regulation of mammalian reproductive activity is tightly dependent on the HPG axis crosstalk, in which several reproductive hormones play important roles. Among them, the physiological functions of gonadotropins are gradually being uncovered. However, the mechanisms by which GnRH regulates FSH synthesis and secretion still need to be more extensively and deeply explored. With the gradual completion of the human genome project, proteomes have become extremely important in the fields of human disease and biological process research. To explore the changes of protein and protein phosphorylation modifications in the adenohypophysis after GnRH stimulation, proteomics and phosphoproteomics analyses of rat adenohypophysis after GnRH treatment were performed by using TMT markers, HPLC classification, LC/MS, and bioinformatics analysis in this study. A total of 6762 proteins and 15,379 phosphorylation sites contained quantitative information. Twenty-eight upregulated proteins and fifty-three downregulated proteins were obtained in the rat adenohypophysis after GnRH treatment. The 323 upregulated phosphorylation sites and 677 downregulated phosphorylation sites found in the phosphoproteomics implied that a large number of phosphorylation modifications were regulated by GnRH and were involved in FSH synthesis and secretion. These data constitute a protein–protein phosphorylation map in the regulatory mechanism of “GnRH-FSH,” which provides a basis for future studies on the complex molecular mechanisms of FSH synthesis and secretion. The results will be helpful for understanding the role of GnRH in the development and reproduction regulated by the pituitary proteome in mammals.

Nanolayered CrAlN/CNx multilayer films (MFs) with varying modulation periods (thickness of the CNx layer: LCNx) were deposited by ion beam assisted magnetron sputtering. The morphologies and microstructures of these films were investigated. Results indicated that the CNx layer in the CrAlN/CNx-MFs transferred from an amorphous structure into polycrystalline body-centered cubic C3N4 when its thickness was less than 1.6 nm. The corrosion behavior of these CrAlN/CNx-MFs was investigated by polarization test and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in a 3.5 wt% NaCl aqueous solution. Results showed that the multilayer structure could effectively increase the corrosion resistance of the alloy in the NaCl solution. The thick CrAlN layer accelerated the growth of perforative columnar defects as LCNx increased, which destroyed the compact structure, accelerated the infiltration of corrosive medium, and increased the probability of pitting corrosion. The CrAlN/CNx-MFs had a 1.6 nm thickness of laminated CNx, and their corrosion resistance was higher than those of the single layer CrAlN and single layer CNx because of the lack of surface cracks and pores.

KIF26B is a member of the kinesin superfamily that is up-regulated in various tumors, including breast cancer (BC), which can promote tumor progression. This study aimed to investigate the potential function of KIF26B in BC, and the underlying mechanisms, focusing mainly on cell proliferation. KIF26B expression was examined in BC tissue samples obtained from 99 patients. Then, we performed MTS, EdU and flow cytometry assays to detect cell proliferation, and western blotting to measure the expression of cell cycle-related proteins in MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468 cells following KIF26B knockdown. Promoter analysis was used to study the upstream regulatory mechanism of KIF26B. KIF26B was upregulated in BC tissues. High expression of KIF26B was associated with clinicopathological parameters, such as positive lymph node metastasis, higher tumor grade, and higher proliferative index in BC. Furthermore, knockdown of KIF26B expression inhibited MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468 cell proliferation, arresting cells in the G1 phase of the cell cycle in vitro. Similarly, KIF26B silencing decreased the expression levels of Wnt, β-catenin, and cell cycle-related proteins such as c-Myc, cyclin D1, and cyclin-dependent kinase 4, while increasing the expression of p27. Moreover, ELK1 could bind to the core promoter region of KIF26B and activate its transcription. KIF26B acts as an oncogene in BC by regulating multiple proteins involved in the cell cycle. ELK1 activates KIF26B transcription.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the characteristics of immune function of healthy full-term infants at the age of 3 months, and to analyze the relationship of immune function with feeding pattern and sex. METHODS: A total of 84 healthy full-term infants born in four hospitals in Beijing and Hohhot, China were prospectively recruited. Their feeding patterns remained unchanged within 4 months after birth. They were divided into a breast-feeding group and a milk powder feeding group according to their feeding patterns. At the age of 3 months after birth, peripheral venous blood samples of the two groups were collected to evaluate cellular immunity and humoral immunity and perform routine blood test. The laboratory indices were compared between infants with different feeding patterns and sexes. RESULTS: Compared with the milk powder feeding group, the breast-feeding group had significantly lower proportion of T cell second signal receptor CD28, immunoglobulin M, and proportion and absolute count of neutrophils (P

Versatile video coding (VVC) achieves enormous improvement over the advanced high efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard due to the adoption of the quadtree with nested multi-type tree (QTMT) partition structure and other coding tools. However, the computational complexity increases dramatically as well. To tackle this problem, we propose a decision tree accelerated coding tree units (CTU) partition algorithm for intra prediction in VVC. Firstly, specially designated image features are extracted to characterize the coding unit (CU) complexity. Then, the trained decision tree is employed to predict the partition results. Finally, based on our newly designed intra prediction framework, the partition process is early terminated or redundant partition modes are screened out. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm could achieve around 52% encoding time reduction for various test video sequences on average with only 1.75% Bjontegaard delta bit rate increase compared with the reference test model VTM9.0 of VVC.

Objective: The present study aimed to explore the application value of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) histograms with multiple sequences in the preoperative differential diagnosis of endometrial stromal sarcoma (ESS) and degenerative hysteromyoma (DH).Methods: The clinical and preoperative MRI data of 20 patients with pathologically confirmed ESS and 24 patients with pathologically confirmed DH were retrospectively analyzed, forming the two study groups. Mazda software was used to select the MRI layer with the largest tumor diameter in T2WI, the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), and enhanced T1WI (T1CE) images. The region of interest (ROI) was outlined for gray-scale histogram analysis. Nine parameters—the mean, variance, kurtosis, skewness, 1st percentile, 10th percentile, 50th percentile, 90th percentile, and 99th percentile—were obtained for intergroup analysis, and the receiver operating curves (ROCs) were plotted to analyze the differential diagnostic efficacy for each parameter.Results: In the T2WI histogram, the differences between the two groups in seven of the parameters (mean, skewness, 1st percentile, 10th percentile, 50th percentile, 90th percentile, and 99th percentile) were statistically significant (P < 0.05). In the ADC histogram, the differences between the two groups in three of the parameters (skewness, 10th percentile, and 50th percentile) were statistically significant (P < 0.05). In the T1CE histogram, no significant differences were found between the two groups in any of the parameters (all P > 0.05). Of the nine parameters, the 50th percentile was found to have the best diagnostic efficacy. In the T2WI histogram, ROC curve analysis of the 50th percentile yielded the best area under the ROC curve (AUC; 0.742), sensitivity of 70%, and specificity of 83.3%. In the ADC histogram, ROC curve analysis of the 50th percentile yielded the best area under the ROC curve (AUC; 0.783), sensitivity of 81%, and specificity of 76.9%.Conclusion: The parameters of the mean, 10th percentile and 50th percentile in the T2WI histogram have good diagnostic efficacy, providing new methods and ideas for clinical diagnosis.

To investigate the effect of improved atraumatic restorative treatment(ART) with high-strength glass ionomer cement in the treatment of primary caries in children.From August 2018 to May 2019, 262 children with primary tooth caries who were treated in Children's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University were selected into our study, prospectively. The children were divided into two groups, randomly: ART group (131 cases, 177 teeth) and control group (131 cases, 178 teeth). Children in the control group were treated with conventional cavity preparation and composite resin filling, while those in the ART group were treated with improved high-intensity glass ionomer. The curative effect and satisfaction degree were compared between the two groups. SPSS 19.0 software package was used for data analysis.The overall curative effect in the ART group was better than that of the control group. The cooperation degree of the 2~4 years old children in the ART group was significantly higher than that of the control group(P0.05). The cooperation degree of the 5 years old children between the two groups had no significant differences(P0.05). Both groups of children accepted 12 months of follow-up. Three months after treatment, the rate of secondary caries in the ART group was significantly lower than that in the control group, but it was not statistically significant(P0.05). Six and 12 months after treatment, the rate of secondary caries in the ART group were significantly lower than that in the control group(P0.05), and the satisfaction of parents in the ART group was significantly higher than that in the control group (P0.05).Improved ART with high-intensity glass ionomer cement is more likely accepted by children and their parents, with more willing to accept and cooperate with the treatment. Not only is it easy to operate, but also has a reliable curative effect in children.

Early identification of individuals susceptible to idiosyncratic drug-induced liver injury (IDILI) is a challenging unmet demand. Diclofenac, one of the most widely available over-the-counter drugs for pain management worldwide, may induce liver dysfunction, acute liver failure, and death. Herein, we report that diclofenac-related hepatobiliary adverse reactions occurred more frequently in cases with immune activation. Furthermore, experiments with rats demonstrated divergent hepatotoxicity responses in individuals exposed to diclofenac, and modest inflammation potentiated diclofenac-induced liver injury. Susceptible rats had unique plasma metabolomic characteristics, and as such, the metabolomic approach could be used to distinguish susceptible individuals. The 23 identified susceptibility-related metabolites were enriched by several metabolic pathways related to acute-phase reactions of immunocytes and inflammatory responses, including sphingolipid, tyrosine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, and lipid metabolism pathways. This finding implies a mechanistic role of metabolic and immune disturbances affects susceptibility to diclofenac-IDILI. Further nine metabolite biomarkers with potent diagnostic capabilities were identified using receiver operating characteristic curves. These findings elucidated the potential utility of metabolomic biomarkers to identify individuals susceptible to drug hepatotoxicity and the underlying mechanism of metabolic and immune disturbances occurring in IDILI.

Almost half a century since its reversion from America’s military rule to the Japanese state in 1972, Okinawa still endures profound politico-historical uncertainties and social precarity, while wa...

【Objective】 Combining ECC and OPT, a novel elliptic curve algorithm was proposed, which can effectively resist the reverse calculation of quantum computer and ensure the security of private key. 【Method】 On the basis of elliptic curve encryption algorithm, OPT algorithm was introduced to protect the private key. 【Result】 The signature and verification of messages can be successfully completed by the repeated algorithm on Python platform. Finally, the algorithm is proved to be safe under Shor algorithm and quantum computer attack through algorithm theory. 【Conclusion】 ECC combined with OPT encryption algorithm can effectively resist reversible computation of functional quantum devices, prevent eavesdroppers from forging signatures, and ensure the security of modern public key cryptosystems.

This template explains and demonstrates how to prepare your camera-ready paper for Trans Tech Publications. The best is to read these instructions and follow the outline of this text. Please make the page settings of your word processor to A4 format (21 x 29,7 cm or 8 x 11 inches); with the margins: bottom 1.5 cm (0.59 in) and top 3 cm (1.18 in), right/left margins must be 2 cm (0.78 in). This template explains and demonstrates how to prepare your camera-ready paper for Trans Tech Publications. The best is to read these instructions and follow the outline of this text. Please make the page settings of your word processor to A4 format (21 x 29,7 cm or 8 x 11 inches); with the margins: bottom 1.5 cm (0.59 in) and top 3 cm (1.18 in), right/left margins must be 2 cm (0.78 in).

Guided by the framework Construction of University High-quality Education Resource Platform Based on Block Chain [1], the paper introduces IPFS as the data repository of education resources, and realizes the safe storage and efficient sharing of university high-quality education resources by combining IPFS+ block chain technology, and completes the bottom construction of university high-quality education resource platform.Ensure the efficient and secure uploading and sharing of educational data.

With the rapid development of e-commerce, the efficiency requirements for logistics distribution are getting higher and higher, so distribution routing optimisation has important theoretical and practical significance. In this paper, a new coding mechanism is designed to solve the distribution task in the multi-distribution centre scenario and vehicle scheduling problem with capacity constraints in the distribution scenario. Simulation results show that this algorithm has the advantages of high solution efficiency, variable input and avoidance of re-referencing compared with two heuristics of Google OR-Tools, ant colony algorithm and simulated annealing algorithm, thus this algorithm can effectively solve the logistics distribution routing optimisation problem and improve the efficiency of logistics distribution.

BACKGROUND Remote patient monitoring (RPM) devices are increasingly being used in caring for patients to reduce risks of complications. Temperature monitoring specifically has been shown in previous studies to provide a useful signal of inflammation that may help prevent foot ulcers. OBJECTIVE In this cross-sectional study, we evaluated utilization data for patients who were prescribed smart socks as remote temperature monitoring devices. METHODS This study evaluated data from a patient registry from January to July 2021. The utilization data, which were collected starting from the first full month since patients were prescribed the smart socks, were evaluated along with retention over time, the average time that the socks were worn, and the number of days that the socks were worn per month and per week. RESULTS A total of 160 patients wore the smart sock RPM device for 22 to 25 days per month on average. The retention rate was 91.9% (147/160) at the end of the 7-month period; a total of 13 patients were lost to follow-up during this period. The average number of days that the socks were worn per week was 5.8. The percentage of patients with a utilization rate of >15 days ranged from 79.7% (106/133) to 91.9% (125/136) each month. CONCLUSIONS This study shows a high level of utilization for a smart sock RPM device and a high compliance rate. A future prospective study on the clinical outcomes after the use of the smart socks may further solidify the idea of conducting temperature monitoring for foot ulcer prevention.

Background Lower extremity complications of diabetes represent major health care complications both in terms of cost and impact to quality of life for patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Temperature monitoring has been shown in previous studies to provide a useful signal of inflammation that may indicate the early presence of a foot injury. Objective In this study, we evaluated the temperature data for patients that presented with a diabetic foot injury while using a sock-based remote temperature monitoring device. Methods The study abstracted data from patients who were enrolled in a remote temperature monitoring program (2020-2021) using a smart sock (Siren Care). In the study cohort, a total of 5 participants with a diabetes-related lower extremity injury during the study period were identified. In the second comparison cohort, a total of 26 patients met the criteria for monitoring by the same methods but did not present with a diabetes-related podiatric lower extremity injury during the same period. The 15-day temperature differential between 6 defined locations on each foot was the primary outcome measure among subjects who presented with a diagnosed foot injury. Paired t tests were used to compare the differences between the two groups. Results A significant difference in temperature differential (temperature measured in °F) was observed in the group that presented with a podiatric injury over the course of evaluation versus the comparator group that did not present with a podiatric injury. The average difference from all 6 measured points was 1.4 °F between the injury group (mean 3.6, SD 3.0) and the comparator group (mean 2.2, SD 2.5, t=–71.4, df=39; P Conclusions The results of this study suggest temperature monitoring in a sock form factor could be used to predict a developing foot injury. The continuous temperature monitoring system employed has implications for further algorithm development to enable early detection. The study was limited by a nonrandomized, observational design with limited injuries present in the study period. We look forward to further studies that will refine the predictive potential and confirm or refute the current promising data.

BACKGROUND Lower extremity complications of diabetes represent major health care complications both in terms of cost and impact to quality of life for patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Temperature monitoring has been shown in previous studies to provide a useful signal of inflammation that may indicate the early presence of a foot injury. OBJECTIVE In this study, we evaluated the temperature data for patients that presented with a diabetic foot injury while using a sock-based remote temperature monitoring device. METHODS The study abstracted data from patients who were enrolled in a remote temperature monitoring program (2020-2021) using a smart sock (Siren Care). In the study cohort, a total of 5 participants with a diabetes-related lower extremity injury during the study period were identified. In the second comparison cohort, a total of 26 patients met the criteria for monitoring by the same methods but did not present with a diabetes-related podiatric lower extremity injury during the same period. The 15-day temperature differential between 6 defined locations on each foot was the primary outcome measure among subjects who presented with a diagnosed foot injury. Paired t tests were used to compare the differences between the two groups. RESULTS A significant difference in temperature differential (temperature measured in °F) was observed in the group that presented with a podiatric injury over the course of evaluation versus the comparator group that did not present with a podiatric injury. The average difference from all 6 measured points was 1.4 °F between the injury group (mean 3.6, SD 3.0) and the comparator group (mean 2.2, SD 2.5, t=–71.4, df=39; P CONCLUSIONS The results of this study suggest temperature monitoring in a sock form factor could be used to predict a developing foot injury. The continuous temperature monitoring system employed has implications for further algorithm development to enable early detection. The study was limited by a nonrandomized, observational design with limited injuries present in the study period. We look forward to further studies that will refine the predictive potential and confirm or refute the current promising data.

In the past few years, deep learning-based image inpainting has made significant progress. However, many existing methods do not take into account the rationality of the structure and the fineness of the texture, which leads to the scattered structure or excessive smoothness of the repaired image. To solve this problem, we propose a two-stage image inpainting model composed of structure generation network and texture generation network. The structure generation network focuses on the structure and color domain and uses the damaged structure map extracted from the mask image to reasonably fill the mask area to generate a complete structure map. The texture generation network uses the repaired structure map to guide the refinement process. We train the two-stage network on the public datasets Places2, CelebA, and Paris StreetView, and the experimental results show the superiority of our method over the previous methods.

This chapter draws attention to a wide spectrum of documentary-making praxes that have emerged in conjunction with the discourses of remembering and therefore, forgetting, apropos of the triple disaster in post-3.11 Japan. It looks at how some of the independent documentary works by Japanese filmmakers, characterized with their cinema verite style and “on-the-scene” aesthetics, have potentially contested the archiving efforts initiated by, for instance, the public broadcaster Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK). The chapter highlights how the Tohoku Documentary Trilogy has exemplified an alternative mode of filmmaking that intervenes in the common documentary practices around 3.11. NHK launched their “Great East Japan Earthquake Archives” online from 1 March 2012, with part of the web contents regularly broadcast on TV at the time of writing.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic relapsing inflammatory disease that occurs in the gastrointestinal tract, characterized by an upregulation in autoantibody production and antimicrobial antibody production. The interaction between follicular helper T cells (Tfh) and follicular regulatory T cells (Tfr) is critical to the induction and regulation of antibody production. In this study, we investigated the characteristics of Tfr cells in UC patients. We gated circulating Tfr cells as CD4+CXCR5+CD25+CD127- T cells, of which approximately 73% on average were Foxp3+. The circulating Tfh (CD4+CXCR5+CD25-) cells from control subjects and UC patients presented a comparable capacity to induce IgM production from naive B cells and to mediate class switching to IgG. Tfr cells significantly reduced Tfh-mediated B cell help in both healthy controls and UC patients in a concentration-dependent manner. However, the suppression capacity of Tfr cells was significantly lower in UC patients than in healthy controls. Subsequently, we found that the frequency of CTLA-4-expressing cells was only slightly lower in UC patients, but the MFI of CTLA-4, however, was markedly lower in UC patients. CTLA-4 blockade nearly abrogated Tfr-mediated suppression of IgM, and significantly reduced Tfr-mediated suppression of IgG. Moreover, CTLA-4 blockade removed the relative advantage of Tfr suppression capacity in healthy controls compared to UC patients. Overall, this study demonstrated that CTLA-4 was required for Tfr-mediated suppression of B cell help, but was expressed at lower levels in UC patients.

Organic pollutants’ treatment in wastewater has attracted extensive attention due to its degradation-resistance and potentially hazardous to human health. Some organic matters such as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) could exist in environment and resist to decomposition, which may cause chronic intoxication or even cancers. Because photocatalytic technique is efficient, nontoxic, and cost-effective to degrade organic pollutants, some semiconductors including TiO2 and ZnO as photocatalysts have aroused wide public concern. CeO2 has been reported as an efficient photocatalyst in contrast to TiO2 owing to its high oxygen storage, eco-friendly properties and photostability. But inefficient utilization of solar energy due to its intrinsic wide bandgap restrains its further application in real environmental pollutant treatment. In order to improve photocatalytic performances of CeO2, some modifications have been developed such as doping ions, coupling with semiconductor and construction of CeO2-based solid-solution. The purpose of this review is to introduce these techniques, reveals its fundamental mechanisms and the recent researches about photodegradation of organic pollutants in wastewater over CeO2-based photocatalysts. Besides, this review will evaluate the photocatalytic performance for organic pollutants and outlook the challenges and prospects in the future.

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4), a conjugated polymer semiconductor, has drawn increasing attention in environmental photocatalysis over the past decade, owing to its highly chemical stability, low cost and suitable electronic structure with a mild energy gap (∼ 2.7 eV). Whereas, its practical applications in wastewater purification are still faced with huge challenges, such as insufficient visible light absorption, low electronic conductivity, poor surface area and fast recombination of photoinduced charge carriers. The modification of g-C3N4 by coupling with other nanomaterials or forming unique nanostructures have been confirmed as valuable strategies. In this review, we give a comprehensive introduction about the recent developments in engineering g-C3N4 by constructing heterostructures or diverse morphologies to improve its photodegradation performance for the photocatalytic degradation of persistent organic pollutants. Such heterojunctions contain metal/g-C3N4, g-C3N4/C-based material and many other binary or ternary composites, and these special morphologies normally include nanorods, nanowires, nanotubes, nanosheets, porous architectures and other different tunable nanostructures. Several enhanced photocatalytic mechanisms for these nanohybrids under visible light irradiation have been explicated in detail, and future perspectives are also concluded in this review.

Graphene with atomic layer of sp2-hybridized carbon atoms in a hexagonal structure has attracted multidisciplinary attention since its discovery. Due to the inherent advantages of large specific surface area and abundant functional groups, its derivative graphene oxide (GO) nanomaterials have achieved large-scale development in effective pollution treatment. In the past few years, novel GO-based nanomaterials through coupling with other nanomaterials have been synthesized with significant process and applied for efficient elimination of different kinds of pollutants. This paper aims to summarize recent research results on the excellent removal ability of GO-based nanomaterials for various heavy metal ions in aqueous solutions. The synthesis, adsorption process characteristics and interaction mechanism of the adsorbent are emphasized and discussed. The effects of various environmental conditions are outlined. At last, a brief summary, perspective and outlook are presented. This review is intended to provide some thrilling information for the design and manufacture of GO-based nanomaterials for the elimination of heavy metal ions from wastewater in environmental pollution management.

Future fusion reactors need materials that can withstand high heat loads. This study introduced a production process of high thermal conductivity diamond/W composite materials via spark plasma sintering (SPS). The microstructures, structure of the interface, and thermal properties of the diamond/W composites are investigated. The results indicated that both the interfacial bonding and the thermal conductivity of the composite with a W coated layer are strengthened compared to the non-coated composites. The volume fraction of the diamond particles in the composites is between 10% and 50%. Moreover, thermal conductivity of 30% by volume of coated composites reaches 204 W/(mK), an increase of 18% over pure tungsten. A high thermal conductivity is achieved because of the formation of the diamond/WC、W2C/W structure at the interface between diamond and tungsten.

Novel visible-light-driven dual-oxygen-doped porous g-C3N4 (OPCN) photocatalysts were synthesized by a facile thermal copolymerization of urea and ammonium oxalate. The introduced O atoms were preferable to synchronously substitute for two sp2-hybridized N atoms in the para-positions (i.e., N1′ and N4′ sites) of the melem unit by forming dual-O-doped g-C3N4. Together with porous structures, OPCN exhibited enlarged specific surface area, narrowed band gap and expanded visible light response. The photocatalytic activity of the optimal OPCN was approximately 9 times higher than that of pure g-C3N4 for bisphenol A (BPA) removal under visible light irradiation, and efficient removal rates for various chlorophenols, phenols and dyes were also observed. Combined with experiments and DFT calculations, this dual-O-doped structure resulted in effective charge transfer and separation of OPCN under visible light irradiation by forming e− and h+-related conjugated delocalized systems on the surface, which contributed to its interfacial contact with organic pollutants and adsorbed O2. As a result, the degradation of BPA was readily induced by photoinduced h+ and then thoroughly mineralized by O2 −. On the other hand, more O2 − radicals were generated, which could also oxidize BPA directly due to their strong oxidation power. The superior stability and reusability of OPCN catalysts were also revealed during photoreaction. This work provides a novel viewpoint to fabricate high-performance nonmetal photocatalysts for wastewater treatment.

Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) based methods are becoming increasingly popular for modeling the texture evolution and local mechanical response of polycrystalline materials within the representative volume element (RVE). Originally, the FFT-based method was formulated through the Lippman–Schwinger (L–S) equation in terms of a homogeneous elastic reference medium. More recently, the Fourier–Galerkin method was proposed to discretize the RVE weak form independently of the reference medium using trigonometric polynomials . The Fourier–Galerkin method, albeit efficient and robust, has not been extended to solve crystal plasticity (CP) problems with spatial heterogeneity and fine resolution. Also, its algorithmic homogenization has not yet been investigated, which is essential for concurrent multiscale modeling . In this paper, a general framework is proposed that connects the FFT-based method and objective rate constitutive models, in particular a generalized implementation of crystal plasticity. Consistent linearization is achieved by pulling back the tangent stiffness from unrotated configuration to reference configuration, which improves the convergence behavior of the Newton–Krylov solver. Applying the inexact Newton method further improves the numerical efficiency. Also, the algorithmic homogenized tangent stiffness for the Fourier–Galerkin method is derived to enable mixed boundary conditions and concurrent multiscale modeling. Lastly, the Fourier–Galerkin method’s accuracy and efficiency for solving CP problems are studied in a parallelized environment, and significant speedup is observed versus the finite element method and L–S based FFT method.

Despite some efforts have been made in the research of supramolecular hyperbranched polymers (SHPs) self-assemblies, the study which has not been consideration to date is the influence of incoming stimuli-responsive polymer chain on their self-assembly property undergo outer stimuli. The introduction of stimuli-responsive segments which could maintain their hydrophilic property are expected to affect the self-assembly behaviour of SHPs and expand their further biomedical application. In this paper, AB2-type macromolecular monomer, LA-(CD-PDMA)2, which consisted one lithocholic acid (LA) and two β-cyclodextrin terminated poly(2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate) segments (CD-PDMA) was synthesized. LA-(CD-PDMA)2 based SHP were obtained based on the host-guest inclusion interactions of CD/LA moietes and with PDMA as pH-responsive hydrophilic chains. As a control to study the influence of incoming PDMA chains, both LA-(CD-PDMA)2 based SHPs-1 and LA-CD2 based SHPs-2 self-assemblies were comparatively investiged through 2D 1H NMR ROESY, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS). The results suggested that except for the higher drug loading efficiency LA-(CD-PDMA)2 based SHPs-1 pocessing, the release rates of SHPs-1 increased notably at pH 5.0 than that of pH 7.4 due to the repulsion and stretch of protonated PDMA chains while the release rates of SHPs-2 showed no obvious difference. Finally, basic cell experiments demonstrated that the SHPs based self-assemblies can be internalized into cancer cells, indicating their potential application in the drug delivery field.

This paper investigates the inter-connectedness between WTI oil price returns and the returns of listed firms in the US energy sector. Specifically, we focus on the issue of whether firm-level idiosyncratic information matters. A generalised dynamic factor model is used to separate common components from idiosyncratic components in these energy stocks. Systemic connectedness is then estimated following Diebold and Yilmaz (2014). Our empirical results demonstrate the important role of industrial-level common information in understanding the oil–stock relationship. A number of interesting points include: the US energy sector is the net contributor to WTI price changes, but the effect is mainly driven by industrial-level common information; the oil and gas industry dominates other industries in the energy sector; the dynamic analysis shows that although idiosyncratic information is mostly independent of oil shocks, individual energy stock returns do respond to WTI price movements.

Photodegradation has been considered as an efficient environmental remediation technology to eliminate organic pollutants from wastewater, and the calling for high-performance photocatalysts is end...

Designing and fabricating environmental friendly adsorbents with more accessible active sites and higher specific surface area for achieving rapid kinetics and high efficiency have become an impending challenge in radionuclides’ pollution remediation. To overcome these issues, we rationally designed the hierarchical structured layered double hydroxides with mesoporous carbon template (CMK-3@LDHs) by in situ hydrothermal method. The adsorption data could be well simulated with pseudo-second-order and Langmuir model, and the results indicated that the CMK-3@LDHs exhibited higher adsorption capacities (171 mg·g−1 for CMK-3@Mg-Al LDHs and 301 mg·g−1 for CMK-3@Ni-Al LDHs at pH = 5.0) and more rapid kinetics (achieved equilibrium within 30 min) than SBA-15@LDHs towards U(VI). The kinetic model simulation demonstrated that the adsorption rate was dominated by intra-particle and film diffusion models simultaneously. In addition, the interaction between U(VI) and LDHs was pH-dependent and weakly related with ionic strength at pH

This paper studies online scheduling of jobs with kind release times on a single machine. Here “kind release time” means that in online setting, no jobs can be released when the machine is busy. Each job J has a kind release time r(J) ≥ 0, a processing time p(J) > 0 and a deadline d(J) > 0. The goal is to determine a schedule which maximizes total processing time (Σp(J)E(J)) or total number (ΣE(J)) of the accepted jobs. For the first objective function Σp(J)E(J), we first present a lower bound \(\sqrt 2 \), and then provide an online algorithm LEJ with a competitive ratio of 3. This is the first deterministic algorithm for the problem with a constant competitive ratio. When p(J) ∈ {1, k}, k > 1 is a real number, we first present a lower bound min{(1+k)/k, 2k/(1+k)}, and then we show that LEJ has a competitive ratio of 1+⌈k⌉/k. In particular, when all the k length jobs have tight deadlines, we first present a lower bound max{4/(2 + k), 1} (for Σp(J)E(J)) and 4/3 (for ΣE(J)). Then we prove that LEJ is ⌈k⌉/k-competitive for Σp(J)E(J) and we provide an online algorithm H with a competitive ratio of 2⌈k⌉/(⌈k⌉ + 1) for the second objective function ΣE(J).

Halohydrin dehalogenases are usually recognized as strict β-position regioselective enzymes in the nucleophile-mediated ring-opening of epoxides. Here we found the HheG from Ilumatobacter coccineus exhibited excellent α-position regioselectivity in the azide-mediated ring-opening of styrene oxide derivatives 1a–1k, producing the corresponding 2-azido-2-aryl-1-ols 2a–2k with the yields up to 96%.