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Highlights: What are the main findings? Rapid acquisition technology of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. EIS was used to quickly and effectively estimate the SOH of LIBs. Machine learning method and equivalent circuit method to estimate battery health state. What is the implication of the main finding? EIS were found to be better SOH estimation method. The technology based on EIS has the characteristics of high precision advantages. The method based on EIS of LIBs SOH estimation has been applied to the BMS. Lithium-ion batteries stand out from other clean energy sources because of their high energy density and small size. With the increasing application scope and scale of lithium-ion batteries, real-time and accurate monitoring of its state of health plays an important role in ensuring the healthy and stable operation of an energy storage system. Due to the interaction of various aging reactions in the aging process of lithium-ion batteries, the capacity attenuation shows no regularity. However, the traditional monitoring method is mainly based on voltage and current, which cannot reflect the internal mechanism, so the accuracy is greatly reduced. Recently, with the development of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, it has been possible to estimate the state of health quickly and accurately online. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy can measure battery impedance in a wide frequency range, so it can reflect the internal aging state of lithium-ion batteries. In this paper, the latest impedance spectroscopy measurement technology and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy based on lithium-ion battery health state estimation technology are summarized, along with the advantages and disadvantages of the summary and prospects. This fills the gap in this aspect and is conducive to the further development of this technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mengyejing potash deposit is located in the southern port of the Simao Basin, Yunnan Province, and is hosted in mid-Cretaceous strata. The chemical compositions of fluid inclusions in halite crystals, collected from the level-610 adit in the deposit, were analysed by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The results show that the brine is of the Na-K-Mg-Ca-Cl type and has K concentrations that are distinctly higher than those of Mg and Ca, unlike normal brines associated with Cretaceous halite. The high K concentrations indicate that the degree of evaporation of the ancient Mengyejing saline lake was very high, reaching the sylvite deposition stage but rarely reaching the carnallite deposition stage. The trajectory of the H and O isotopic compositions of the brines in the halite-hosted fluid inclusions corresponds to intense evaporation, indicating that the net evaporation exceeded the net inflow of brines. These brine compositions in halite-hosted fluid inclusions were likely formed by the dissolution of previously deposited K-bearing minerals by fresh continental and/or seawater, forming a type of modified seawater, with deep hydrothermal fluids potentially supplying additional potassium. The basin likely experienced multiple seawater incursion, dissolution and redeposition events in a high-temperature environment with high evaporation rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As one of the fundamental problems in bioinformatics, the double digest problem (DDP) focuses on reordering genetic fragments in a proper sequence. Although many algorithms for dealing with the DDP problem were proposed during the past decades, it is believed that solving DDP is still very time-consuming work due to the strongly NP-completeness of DDP. However, none of these algorithms consider the privacy issue of the DDP data that contains critical business interests and is collected with days or even months of gel-electrophoresis experiments. Thus, the DDP data owners are reluctant to deploy the task of solving DDP over cloud. Results: Our main motivation in this paper is to design a secure outsourcing computation framework for solving the DDP problem. We at first propose a privacy-preserving outsourcing framework for handling the DDP problem by using a cloud server; Then, to enable the cloud server to solve the DDP instances over ciphertexts, an order-preserving homomorphic index scheme (OPHI) is tailored from an order-preserving encryption scheme published at CCS 2012; And finally, our previous work on solving DDP problem, a quantum inspired genetic algorithm (QIGA), is merged into our outsourcing framework, with the supporting of the proposed OPHI scheme. Moreover, after the execution of QIGA at the cloud server side, the optimal solution, i.e. two mapping sequences, would be transferred publicly to the data owner. Security analysis shows that from these sequences, none can learn any information about the original DDP data. Performance analysis shows that the communication cost and the computational workload for both the client side and the server side are reasonable. In particular, our experiments show that PP-DDP can find optional solutions with a high success rate towards typical test DDP instances and random DDP instances, and PP-DDP takes less running time than DDmap, SK05 and GM12, while keeping the privacy of the original DDP data. Conclusion: The proposed outsourcing framework, PP-DDP, is secure and effective for solving the DDP problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To adapt to frequent charge and discharge and improve the accuracy in the DC microgrid with independent photovoltaics and distributed energy storage systems, an energy-coordinated control strategy based on increased droop control is proposed in this paper. The overall power supply quality of the DC microgrid is improved by optimizing the output priority of the multi-energy storage system. When photovoltaic and energy storage work simultaneously, the proposed method can dynamically adjust their working state and the energy storage unit's droop coefficient to meet the system's requirements. In DC microgrids with energy storage units of different capacities, the proposed strategy can be used to maintain the stability of bus voltage, improve the equalization speed and accuracy of the energy storage state of charge, and avoid the shutdown of energy storage units due to overcharge or discharge. Verification of the proposed strategy is implemented with MATLAB/Simulink. The simulation results show the proposed control strategy's effectiveness in balancing energy supply and demand and reducing the time of charging and discharging energy storage units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: 'Candidatus Phytoplasma tritici' ('Ca. P. tritici') is an insect‐borne obligate pathogen that infects wheat (Triticum aestivum) causing wheat blue dwarf disease, and leads to yield losses. SWP12 is a potential effector secreted by 'Ca. P. tritici' that manipulates host processes to create an environment conducive to phytoplasma colonization, but the detailed mechanism of action remains to be investigated. In this study, the expression of SWP12 weakened the basal immunity of Nicotiana benthamiana and promoted leaf colonization by Phytophthora parasitica, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and tobacco mild green mosaic virus. Moreover, the expression of SWP12 in wheat plants promoted phytoplasma colonization. Triticum aestivum WRKY74 and N. benthamiana WRKY17 were identified as host targets of SWP12. The expression of TaWRKY74 triggered reactive oxygen species bursts, upregulated defense‐related genes, and decreased TaCRR6 transcription, leading to reductions in NADH dehydrogenase complex (NDH) activity. Expression of TaWRKY74 in wheat increased plant resistance to 'Ca. P. tritici', and silencing of TaWRKY74 enhanced plant susceptibility, which indicates that TaWRKY74 is a positive regulator of wheat resistance to 'Ca. P. tritici'. We showed that SWP12 weakens plant resistance and promotes 'Ca. P. tritici' colonization by destabilizing TaWRKY74. Significance Statement: Phytoplasma is an important group of plant pathogens, and infection of wheat (Triticum aestivum) can lead to yield reduction. Understanding the pathogenic mechanism of wheat blue dwarf phytoplasma effectors will help to improve the prevention and control strategies of wheat phytoplasma diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forward-security and key-insulation have been the mainstream antidotes to the key exposure problem in conventional and ring signatures primarily in the setting of public key infrastructure. However, all extant schemes require keeping state of time periods. Moreover, time-bound keys are stored for retrieval during key update and more importantly signature-related dispute resolution which may extend beyond stipulated time periods. Spurred on by the gravity of key exposure in the setting of identity-based cryptography, we introduce a stateless forward-secure key-insulated linkable ring signature accomplished partly with on-demand ephemeral secret keys consequently eliminating the need for state-keeping and long-term storage. We prove security of our construction in the Random Oracle Model based on intractable problems of Computational Diffie–Hellman (CDH) and Discrete Logarithm (DL). Subsequently, we present evaluation results from a comparative analysis of extant identity-based linkable ring signature schemes to attest to the uniqueness, convenience and efficiency of our scheme which incidentally compared to state-of-the-art achieves a running time of 22. 113 m s faster at verification phase making it the fastest compared to extant schemes aside the statelessness and constant linkability attributes. • A novel stateless forward-secure key-insulated linkable ring signature scheme is advanced. • On-demand computation of ephemeral secret keys. • Proof of security of the scheme in the Random Oracle Model (ROM). • Thorough evaluation of the scheme to highlight uniqueness and efficiency gains compared to state-of-the-art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DBTRU was proposed by Thang and Binh in 2015. As a variant of NTRU, the integer polynomial ring is replaced by two binary truncated polynomial rings G F (2) [ x ] / (x n + 1) . DBTRU has some advantages over NTRU in terms of security and performance. In this paper, we propose a polynomial-time linear algebra attack against the DBTRU cryptosystem, which can break DBTRU for all recommended parameter choices. The paper shows that the plaintext can be achieved in less than 1 s via the linear algebra attack on a single PC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lithium-ion batteries have been used in all aspects of life for environmental and resource reasons. The accurate estimation of the state of charge (SOC) ensures the proper operation of the battery. However, few methods have focused on the problem of SOC estimation at low temperatures. A hybrid method based on the CNN-BWGRU network is proposed in this paper. The method optimizes the influence of battery information on the results through a "multi-moment input" structure and the bidirectional network. The convolutional neural network (CNN) is used to learn the feature parameters in the input. The bidirectional weighted gated recurrent unit (BWGRU) can improve the fitting performance of the network at low temperatures by changing the weights. The proposed network has a strong generalization capability, estimation accuracy, and robustness. SOC estimation is performed under different conditions to verify the plausibility of the network. The experimental results show that the method has higher accuracy and stability than other networks. In addition, the proposed method can overcome the effect of different initial SOC on the estimation results. Therefore, the CNN-BWGRU network provides a new method in battery SOC estimation while providing helpful guidance for safe and stable battery operation in natural environments. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: EIS was used to estimate the SOH of LIBs found to be fast and effective. It is more convenient to use CNN to extract features of EIS data automatically. The improved ECM method and IPSO-CNN-BiLSTM method are proposed in this paper. IPSO algorithm was first proposed to applied to the problem of optimizing the initial parameters of the neural networks. The state of health (SOH) is critical to the efficient and reliable use of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Recently, the SOH estimation method based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) has been proven effective. In response to different practical applications, two models for SOH estimation are proposed in this paper. Aiming at based on the equivalent circuit model (ECM) method, a variety of ECMs are proposed. Used EIS to predict the ECM, the results show that the improved method ensures the correctness of the ECM and improves the estimation results of SOH. Aiming at a data-driven algorithm, proposes a convolution neural network (CNN) to process EIS data which can not only extract the key points but also simplifies the complexity of manual feature extraction. The bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) model was used for serial regression prediction. Moreover, the improved Particle Swarm Optimization (IPSO) algorithm is proposed to optimize the model. Comparing the improved model (IPSO-CNN-BiLSTM) with the traditional PSO-CNN-BiLSTM, CNN-BiLSTM and LSTM models, the prediction results are improved by 13.6%, 93.75% and 94.8%, respectively. Besides that, the two proposed methods are 27% and 35% better than the existing gaussion process regression (GPR) model, which indicates that the proposed improved methods are more flexible for SOH estimation with higher precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dihedral coset problem (DCP) that comes from the hidden subgroup problem over dihedral group is one of the fundamental problems in quantum computation, and its hardness has become a promising cryptographic assumption of post quantum cryptography. In this work, we carry out a quantum cryptographic scheme based on dihedral coset states, which is a novel quantum cryptography that not only exploits the principles of quantum physics but also depends on the post-quantum hardness of DCP N ℓ , where ℓ is the number of samples of DCP states and N is the modulus. Specifically, we propose a bipartite quantum key agreement protocol based on dihedral coset states, and by using it we demonstrate a quantum secure communication scenario that ⌊ ℓ / 4 ⌋ bits of information can be transmitted securely. Finally, we discuss the security analysis of our proposal under the optimal measurement attack and show that the proposal can achieve the maximum secrecy capacity with information-theoretic security under the constraint of m = Θ (log N - 4) for the large N, where m denotes the number of DCP states transmitted in the quantum channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The physical and geochemical character of the post‐depositional changes present in the Early‐Middle Jurassic carbonate‐dominated units (Samana Suk, Shinawari, Chiltan and Loralai formations) of the Indus Basin, Pakistan have been addressed. The study is based on 11 sections along a N‐S transect on the western margin of the Indian Plate to provide an insight into the nature of cementation and dolomitization behavior by using an integrated petrographic and geochemical analysis. The carbonates located in the northern proximity are dominated by the eogenetic signatures of hardgrounds, biogenic micritization, and iron‐containing burrows. The pattern and yellowish‐brown coloration of the burrows is distinct, and shows a positive relationship with the Fe, Si, Al, K, Mn concentrations, and meteoric phase. The transition from the Early to Middle Jurassic is marked by a correspondent increase in the dolomitization and bioturbation but its intensity decreases from north to the south. The packing index and marine phreatic environments generally increase towards the south. The planar‐s to planar‐e protodolomite and dolomite proper have particularly targeted the micritic facies and allochems, courtesy of retaining high‐magnesian calcite waters, and the geochemical analysis also reveals some dedolomitization, associated with sequence boundaries. The pore occluding cements of the Samana Suk and Chiltan formations are Fe deficient and have low Sr and Mn levels, as compared to the Shinawari Formation. The latter has an elevated concentration of Fe, Mg, Si, Al, Sr, Mn, and the Fe + Mn versus Sr relationship and Mn* values suggest that cementation dominantly occurred in the oxic‐dysoxic zones of sub‐tropical climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, based on the event-triggered mechanism, the problem of distributed set-membership filtering is concerned for a class of time-varying non-linear systems over sensor networks subject to saturation effects. Different from the traditional periodic sample-data approach, the filter is updated only when the predefined event is satisfied, which the event is defined according to the measurement output. For each node, the proposed novel event-triggered mechanism can reduce the unnecessary information transmission between sensors and filters. The purpose of the addressed problem is to design a series of distributed set-membership filters, for all the admissible unknown but bounded noises, non-linearities and sensor saturation, such that the set of all possible states can be determined. The desired filter parameters are obtained by solving a recursive linear matrix inequality that can be computed recursively using the available MATLAB toolbox. Finally, a simulation example is exploited to show the effectiveness of the proposed design approach in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tertiary lacustrine Niubao Formation is well exposed in the middle-western part of the Lunpola Basin, central Tibetan Plateau, where crude oil was once discovered during drilling campaigns. Sedimentological, organic petrographic and geochemical work was performed on the upper and middle members of this formation in order to investigate its hydrocarbon source rock potential. Sedimentological analyses indicate that both members were deposited in relatively deep lake conditions away from the influence of big stream system, with the upper Niubao Formation (UNF) having higher sand content. The two members contain abundant high-quality Type I kerogen derived mainly from plankton, algae, and bacteria. Compared with samples of the middle Niubao Formation (MNF), UNF samples also contain more Type II and Type III kerogens of terrestrial origin. Biomarkers of source rock extracts suggest that a long-standing anoxic, stratified, and saline ancient lake occupid the basin during deposition of the two members, which was conducive to the preservation of organic matter. However, higher gammacerane content and the presence of β-carotane in MNF samples imply a more saline lake condition. Rock-Eval T max and biomarker parameters reveal marginal maturity and immaturity for samples from MNF and UNF, respectively. Therefore, MNF has better source rocks of higher maturity might be the main hydrocarbon generating member of the basin; similar diagnostic biomarkers and biomarker parameters reported in the crude oil also imply its affiliation with the source rocks of MNF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bangong–Nujiang Ocean played an important role in the formation of the Tibetan Plateau prior to the Cenozoic India–Eurasia collision. However, there are still uncertainties about the subduction polarity and timing of the Lhasa–Qiangtang collision. We conducted sandstone petrologic and detrital zircon U–Pb–Hf isotopic analyses on the Cretaceous Wada mélange, trench-fill strata and Duoni Formation in the Basu area in the eastern Bangong–Nujiang Suture Zone. The Wada mélange (∼114 Ma) exhibits block-within-matrix features and a detrital zircon U-Pb age spectrum characterized by multiple peaks at 114–180 Ma, 200–300 Ma, and 1800–2000 Ma. The trench-fill strata consist of coherent chert, sandstone, and mudstone, with a detrital zircon age spectrum dominated by a single peak at ∼120 Ma. The ε Hf (t) values of the 110–300 Ma detrital zircon grains in the Wada mélange and trench-fill strata range from −20 to +10 and are consistent with those of the South Qiangtang Terrane. The ε Hf (t) values of the ∼120 Ma detrital zircons are all negative, and these grains were likely derived from a remnant Cretaceous arc in the South Qiangtang Terrane to the north. These data suggest that the accretionary wedge was derived from the South Qiangtang Terrane during the northward subduction of the Bangong–Nujiang Ocean. The Duoni Formation (∼113 Ma) represents peripheral foreland basin deposits with the Lhasa Terrane as the basement. Provenance analysis indicates that these deposits received clastic material mainly from the South Qiangtang Terrane and to a lesser degree from the North Lhasa Terrane. Our results suggest that the Lhasa–Qiangtang collision occurred in the Early Cretaceous (∼113 Ma) in the eastern segment of the Bangong–Nujiang Suture Zone. • The Wada mélange and trench-fill strata (∼114 Ma) are associated with northward subduction. • The Duoni Formation (113 Ma) represents the peripheral foreland basin in the Basu area. • The eastern Bangong–Nujiang Ocean closed at ca. 113–114 Ma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing carbon emissions worldwide, lithium-ion batteries have become the main component of energy storage systems for clean energy due to their unique advantages. Accurate and reliable state-of-charge (SOC) estimation is a central factor in the widespread use of lithium-ion batteries. This review, therefore, examines the recent literature on estimating the SOC of lithium-ion batteries using the hybrid methods of neural networks combined with Kalman filtering (NN-KF), classifying the methods into Kalman filter-first and neural network-first methods. Then the hybrid methods are studied and discussed in terms of battery model, parameter identification, algorithm structure, implementation process, appropriate environment, advantages, disadvantages, and estimation errors. In addition, this review also gives corresponding recommendations for researchers in the battery field considering the existing problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a new type of energy-storage device, supercapacitors are widely used in various energy storage fields because of their advantages such as fast charging and discharging, high power density, wide operating temperature range, and long cycle life. However, the degradation and failure of supercapacitors in large-scale applications will adversely affect the operation of the whole system. To maximize the efficiency of supercapacitors without damaging the equipment and to ensure timely replacement before reaching the end of their useful life, it is critical to accurately predict the remaining useful life of supercapacitors. This paper presents a comprehensive review of model-based and data-driven approaches to predict the remaining useful life of supercapacitors, introduces the characteristics of the various methods, and foresees future trends, with the expectation of providing a reference for further research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic properties of large aggregate concrete under the triaxial loading state of tension-compression-compression (T-C-C) are experimentally investigated. The loads of each specimen in three directions are increased monotonically following a fixed load ratio at constant strain rate of 10/s, 10/s, 10/s or 10/s. Based on the experimental results, the specimens under triaxial T-C-C are ruptured by one apparent tensile crack perpendicular to the direction of the applied tensile loading. It is revealed that the shapes of the stress-strain curves corresponding to different strain rates are similar to each other at the same stress ratio. The tensile strength and secant modulus under triaxial T-C-C increase with the increase of strain rate, but decrease with the increase of lateral compressive stress. Meanwhile, the tensile critical strain under triaxial T-C-C increases slightly with the increase of strain rate, but increases significantly with the increase of lateral compressive loading. The dynamic failure criterion for large aggregate concrete under triaxial T-C-C in octahedral stress space is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Most robust and noninteractive threshold public key encryption (PKE) schemes have only been proven secure against chosen-ciphertext attacks under the static corruption model; yet, the dynamic corruption model is more reasonable. In this paper, on the basis of bilinear groups of prime order and dual pairing vector spaces, we propose a threshold PKE scheme that is noninteractive, robust and, secure against adaptive chosen-ciphertext attacks under the dynamic corruption model without random oracles. Moreover, our scheme is shown to be more efficient than currently existing fully secure threshold PKE schemes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lithium battery state of health (SOH) is a key parameter to characterize the actual battery life. SOH cannot be directly measured. In order to further improve the accuracy of SOH estimation of lithium batteries, a model combining incremental capacity analysis (ICA) and bidirectional long- and short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) neural networks based on health characteristic parameters is proposed to predict the SOH of lithium-ion batteries. First, the health characteristic parameters are initially selected from the lithium battery charging curve, and the health characteristics are extracted by the Pearson correlation coefficient, including the charging time of constant current, charging time of constant voltage, voltage change rate from 300 s to 1000 s, 200s of voltage per cycle at a time. Second, ICA was used to deeply mine the deep associations related to SOH and the peaks of IC curves and their corresponding voltages were extracted as additional inputs to the model. Then, Bi-LSTM is used to form a combined SOH estimation model through adaptive weighting factors. Finally, the verification is based on the 5th battery parameters of the NASA lithium battery data set. The experimental results show that the proposed combined model reduces the mean square error by 55.17%, 49.28%, and 41.47%, respectively, compared with single models such as BP neural network (BPNN), LSTM, and gated recurrent neural network (GRU). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a kind of aminopropyl imidazole-modified silica sorbent was synthesized and used as a solid-phase extraction (SPE) sorbent for the determination of carboxylic acid compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The resultant aminopropyl imidazole-modified silica sorbent was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and elemental analysis (EA) to ensure the successful binding of aminopropyl imidazole on the surface of silica gel. Then the aminopropyl imidazole-modified silica sorbent served as a SPE sorbent for the enrichment of carboxylic acid compounds and PAHs. The new sorbent exhibited high extraction efficiency towards the tested compounds and the results show that such a sorbent can offer multiple intermolecular interactions: electrostatic, π–π, and hydrophobic interactions. Several parameters affecting the extraction recovery, such as the pH of sample solution, the pH of eluent, the solubility of eluent, the volume of eluent, and sample loading, were also investigated. Under the optimized conditions, the proposed method was applied to the analysis of four carboxylic acid compounds and four PAHs in environmental water samples. Good linearities were obtained for all the tested compounds with R2 larger than 0.9903. The limits of detection were found to be in the range of 0.0065–0.5 μg L−1. The recovery values of spiked river water samples were from 63.2% to 112.3% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) less than 10.1% (n = 4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the reliablefiltering problem for discrete-time piecewise linear systems subject to sensor failures and time delays. The considered sensor failures are depicted by bounded variables taking value on a certain interval. The time delays are assumed to be infinitely distributed in the discrete-time domain. The purpose of the addressed reliablefiltering problem is to design a piecewise linear filter such that, for the admissible sensor failures and possible infinite distributed delays, the augmented dynamics is exponentially stable and theperformance is guaranteed with a prescribed attenuation level. With the aid of the convex optimal method, the filter parameters are obtained in terms of the solution to a set of LMIs which can be solved by the Matlab Toolbox. At last, an illustrative simulation is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The reinforced concrete beam-column joint exhibits different properties under dynamic loading when compared with that under quasi-static loading, due to the effect of strain rate. However, the majority of previous studies are focused more on the rate effect of concrete and reinforcement, but less on beam-column joints. Based on the former considerations, the seismic behavior of 15 cruciform specimens subjected to various strain rates is studied in this paper, aimed at attaining a better understanding of the effect of strain rates on beam-column joints. In terms of the effect of different strain rates, the failure mode, carrying capacity, stiffness degradation, and energy dissipation of beam-column joints are discussed in detail. An empirical equation to predict the dynamic increase factor of horizontal shear carrying capacity of beam-column joints under different axial compression ratios and strain rates is also proposed through multiple linear regression analysis. Finally, four adjustments for the softened strut-and-tie model are made to get better predicting of the test results. It has been proved that predicted results by the improved softened strut-and-tie model are in good agreement with the test results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The objective of this paper is to investigate the steel stress/strain variation and redistribution in partially prestressed concrete (PPC) post-tensioned T-beams with bonded tendons under various ranges of fatigue loading by using an embedded Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensor. A total number of six beams were tested to failure under fatigue loading, and two control beams were tested for determing the monotonic bearing capacity. Test results indicated that the initial fatigue failure of all beams was caused by fatigue fracture of the non-prestressed reinforcement rather than failure of the prestressing strands. Based on the strain recorded, the development trends of non-prestressed steel strain and the ratio of strain range between prestressed and non-prestressed reinforcement during fatigue loading were described. Moreover, an analytical model for fatigue life prediction of partially prestressed concrete beams by using the sectional analysis and local strain-life method was developed. Good agreement between analytical and experimental results for fatigue life of PPC beams is observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combined use of seawater sea-sand concrete (SSC), epoxy-coated rebar (ECR) and fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) can achieve significant economic and environmental benefits in coastal infrastructure constructions. Thus, this paper first presents an experimental and analytical study on the eccentric compression behavior of partially carbon FRP (CFRP) wrapped SSC columns reinforced with ECR. The effects of load eccentricities, thickness of CFRP strips, clear spacing ratios, and slenderness ratios were comprehensively analyzed. Test results show that as the eccentricity increased from 60 mm to 120 mm, the increment of load capacity of partially CFRP wrapped columns reduced by 27.6 % to 17.1 %. Moreover, a larger lateral deflection was detected for the specimens with a relatively high slenderness ratio, which results in an obvious second-order effect and further aggravates the nonlinearity of axial load-bending curves, especially for the specimens under a small eccentricity. In addition, an eccentricity-dependent stress-strain model for concrete was developed under FRP strip-steel hoop composite confinement, and the lateral deflection formula of eccentrically loaded columns was also derived based on force equilibrium analysis. Finally, a new theoretical formula incorporating the effect of the slenderness ratio was also presented for the determination of load and moment capacity of the partially CFRP wrapped columns based on section analysis. By comparing with the test results, the developed model exhibits satisfactory accuracy. • Eccentric compression performance of partially CFRP wrapped SSC columns reinforced with ECR was investigated. • Effects of load eccentricities, thickness of CFRP strips, clear spacing ratios, and slenderness ratios were explored. • An eccentricity-dependent stress-strain model was developed for concrete under FRP strip-steel stirrup composite confinement. • The lateral deflection formula of columns was derived and a new formula of load and moment capacity was presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Nanoporous array anodic titanium wire was functionalized and used as fiber support. [•] Two imidazolium ILs were synthesized and copolymerized in situ on metal support. [•] Good extraction performance was obtained by combination of NAAT and ILs copolymer. [•] Aliphatic alcohols in liquors were quantified by the GS–SPME–GC method. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In threshold public-key encryption (TPKE), the decryption key is divided into n shares, each one of which is given to a different decryption user in order to avoid single points of failure. A robust TPKE is that if threshold decryption of a valid ciphertext fails, the combiner can identify the decryption users that supplied invalid partial decryption shares. In this paper, we propose a practical and efficient TPKE scheme which is robust and non-interactive. Security against chosen-ciphertext attacks (CCAs) can be proved in the standard model under the hashed Diffie–Hellman assumption in bilinear groups. The security reduction is tight and simple. We use an instantiation hash function of the Kiltz's key encapsulation mechanism and Lai et al.'s chosen-ciphertext secure technique to construct a TPKE scheme. Moreover, our scheme is more simple and shown to be more efficient than currently existing CCA-secure TPKE schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) by the anti-androgen drug enzalutamide (Enz) may improve the survival level of patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), most patients may eventually fail due to the acquired resistance. The reprogramming of glucose metabolism is one type of the paramount hallmarks of cancers. PKM2 (Pyruvate kinase isozyme typeM2) is a speed-limiting enzyme in the glycolytic mechanism, and has high expression in a variety of cancers. Emerging evidence has unveiled that microRNAs (miRNAs) and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have impact on tumor development and therapeutic efficacy by regulating PKM2 expression. Herein, we found that lncRNA SNHG3, a highly expressed lncRNA in CRPC via bioinformatics analysis, promoted the invasive ability and the Enz resistance of the PCa cells. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis indicated that glucose metabolic process was tightly correlated with lncRNA SNHG3 level, suggesting lncRNA SNHG3 may affect glucose metabolism. Indeed, glucose uptake and lactate content determinations confirmed that lncRNA SNHG3 promoted the process of glycolysis. Mechanistic dissection demonstrated that lncRNA SNHG3 facilitated the advance of CRPC by adjusting the expression of PKM2. Further explorations unraveled the role of lncRNA SNHG3 as a 'sponge' of miR-139-5p and released its binding with PKM2 mRNA, leading to PKM2 up-regulation. Together, Our studies suggest that lncRNA SNHG3 / miR-139-5p / PKM2 pathway promotes the development of CRPC via regulating glycolysis process and provides valuable insight into a novel therapeutic approach for the disordered disease. • LncRNA SNHG3 has highly expression in CRPC and promotes the process of glycolysis. • PKM2 is highly expressed in enzalutamide resistant PCa. • LncRNA SNHG3 can regulate the expression of PKM2 by sponging miR-139-5p. • lncRNA SNHG3/miRNA-139-5p/PKM2 pathway promotes the development of CRPC via regulating glycolysis process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rubberized geopolymer concrete (RuG) has become increasingly popular due to its capability of sustainable utilization of resources, but the mechanical properties of RuG could deteriorate significantly with the increase of rubber content. To mitigate the adverse effects of rubber and further promote the engineering applications of eco-friendly building materials, a new type of composite column, i.e., steel tubed rubberized geopolymer concrete (ST-RuG) columns, was proposed and tested in this paper. The influence of concrete types, rubber replacement ratios, the configurations of steel tubes, and diameter-to-thickness ratios on the compressive behavior of specimens was analyzed. The test results show that the incorporation of rubber has a deterioration effect on the strength of ST-RuG columns with a maximum degradation of 37.6%, but it can improve the ductility of specimens to a certain extent, which is slightly superior to steel tubed rubberized ordinary concrete (ST-RuO) columns. Due to the inherent brittleness of geopolymer concrete (GPC), more obvious residual behavior is detected for ST-RuG compared with ST-RuO under the same rubber replacement ratio R f. Moreover, with the increase of R f , the confining pressure of ST-RuG specimens gradually decreases, and a significant decreasing trend is observed for both the peak stress ratio and residual strength ratio of confined RuG. Finally, a new stress-strain model considering the effect of rubber replacement ratio is developed, and comparisons with test results reveal that the proposed model possesses satisfactory accuracy in predicting the axial stress-strain curves of steel-confined GPC and RuG. • The axial compressive behavior of steel tubed rubberized geopolymer concrete columns was investigated. • The effects of key test parameters on the interaction mechanism of specimens were explored. • A new stress-strain model considering the effect of rubber particles was developed for steel tubed geopolymer concrete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By introducing functional groups such as quaternary amine groups, sulfonic acid groups, triazine groups, and other mespore nanomaterials into the hydrogel, better separation effect of some organic framework materials has been obtained. Due to a reasonable design and preparation strategy, the hydrogel composite-modified silica can be used in the selective separation of various analytes such as pesticides, alkylbenzenes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nucleosides/bases, benzoic acids, antibiotics, and carbohydrates. Through the exploration of chromatographic retention behavior, it is proved that the column can be used in mixed-mode liquid chromatography. The intra-day relative standard deviation for retention time of this new stationary phase is 0.12–0.16% (n = 10), and the inter-day relative standard deviation is less than 0.39% (n = 5). This new stationary phase can also be used for separation in complex samples. The limit of detection (LOD) for chlorotoluron in farm irrigation water is 0.21 µg/L and the linear range is 2–250 µg/L. After optimizing the chromatographic conditions, the highest efficiency of the hydrogel column in RPLC and HILIC modes has reached 32,400 plates/m (chlorobenzuron) and 41,300 plates/m (galactose). This new type of hydrogel composite is a porous network material with flexible functional design and simple preparation method and its application has been expanded in liquid chromatography separation successfully. The hydrogel composed of triallyl cyanate cross-linking agent and 3-(2-(methacryloyloxy) ethyl) dimethylamine) propane-1-sulfonate (SBMA) monomer which were co-modified on the surface of mesoporous silica with MOF-919 for separation in mixed-mode liquid chromatography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secret sharing is an important aspect of key management in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks. In this paper, we define a new secure model of secret sharing, use the Lagrange interpolation and the bilinear cyclic groups to construct an efficient publicly verifiable secret sharing scheme on the basis of this model, and show that this scheme is provably secure against adaptively chosen secret attacks (CSAs) based on the decisional bilinear Diffie-Hellman (DBDH) problem. We find that this scheme has the following properties: (a) point-to-point secure channels are not required in both the secret distribution phase and the secret reconstruction phase; (b) it is a noninteractive secret sharing system in that the participants need not communicate with each other during subshadow verification; and (c) each participant is able to share many secrets with other participants despite holding only one shadow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The results of a research program aimed at investigating the effectiveness of simultaneous application of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets and steel jacket to upgrade corrosion-damaged reinforced concrete (RC) columns was presented. A total of 14 RC columns were tested under combined lateral cyclic displacement excursions and constant axial load. The variables studied in this program included effectiveness of different strengthening techniques, as well as effects of degree of rebar corrosion, axial load, CFRP sheets and steel jacket. It was showed that strengthening corroded RC columns with combined CFRP sheets and steel jacket was effective in enhancing the seismic performance of the columns and resulted in more stable hysteresis curves with lower strength degradations as compared with the un-strengthened ones. Additionally, it was also found that the corroded RC columns strengthened with combined CFRP sheets and steel jacket behaved better than those strengthened only with the single material. Analytical study was conducted and compared with the experimental results. A good agreement was observed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A new specific stationary phase based on poly(1-allylimidazole)-grafted silica has been synthesized and characterized, by infrared spectra, elemental analysis, thermogravimetric analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The results of test showed that poly(1-allylimidazole) can effectively mask the residual silanol groups and reduce the adverse effect of residual silanol. Using this stationary phase, phenol compounds, aniline compounds, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were successfully separated with symmetric peak shapes in the reversed-phase chromatography. Inorganic anions (IO3 −, BrO3 −, Br−, NO3 −, I−, SCN−) were also separated completely in the anion-exchange chromatography using sodium chloride solution as the mobile phase. The effects of pH and the concentration of eluent on the separation of inorganic anions were studied. The separation mechanism appears to involve the mixed interactions of hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic, π–π, electrostatic, and anion-exchange interactions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Anonymity and authenticated key exchange should be paid much more attention in secure mobile ad hoc routing protocols, especially in privacy-vital environment. However, as far as we know, few papers on secure routing protocols have addressed both the anonymity and authenticated key exchange. Therefore, in this paper, we present a new secure anonymous routing protocol with authenticated key exchange for ad hoc networks. In comparison with other previous secure routing protocols, our proposed protocol not only provides the anonymity to the route from the source to the destination, but also integrates the authenticated key exchange into the routing algorithm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Two types of potash ores were sampled from the Mengyejing potash deposit (the MPD) which is the only ancient potash deposit ever found in China. Geochemical analyses, including Br, K, Mg and some heavy metals, were performed on those samples. The relatively consistent Br contents (141.42 to 763.67 ppm) in both bedded potash and veined potash ores show that the potash-forming brine was likely derived from seawater. K contents and Br/Cl ratios of the veined potash ores are relatively high in contrast to bedded potash ores. The K/Br ratios of veined potash ores exhibit a positive correlation with Br contents, which is opposite to that of the bedded potash ore of the MPD and potassium-salts from the evaporation of modern seawater. The contents of heavy metals in veined potash ores are much higher than those of bedded potash ores in the MPD and potash in other evaporite basins of the world. Sr and S isotopic compositions of these two types of potash ores suggest that the brines for precipitating veined potash were formed by mixing of connate waters (seawater or/and continental freshwater) and hydrothermal fluids. The geochemical and petrological characteristics of the veined potash ores indicate that the brine for forming veined potash orebodies caused by dissolution of previous bedded potash orebodies by hydrothermal fluids. The veined potash orebodies were formed through a cooling process by which sylvite precipitated first prior to halite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial and construction solid waste regarded as a hazardous material has given rise to the potential threats of environmental pollution. The ferronickel slag (FNS) as an industrial by-product and recycled concrete aggregates (RCAs) derived from construction and demolition wastes have potential for sustainable use as the fine and coarse aggregate in concrete, respectively. However, less information regarding the re-utilization of FNS as fine aggregate in recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) and the effects on transport properties can be found in the previous literature. The aim of this study is to investigate the compressive strength and transport behavior of RAC incorporating FNS as fine aggregate. In this study, several groups of specimens with different replacement ratios of FNS as fine aggregate (0, 20%, 40% and 50%) and RCAs (0, 50% and 100%) as coarse aggregate were prepared. The compressive strengths of FNS-RAC specimens at curing age of 3, 7 and 28 days were measured. The coupled effects of FNS and RCAs on the resistance to water absorption and chloride penetration of concrete were discussed. To explore the effect of microstructure on transport behavior, the tests of scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) were further conducted. Overall, the sorptivity and chloride diffusion coefficient increase as the RCA replacement ratio increases, but they generally decrease with increasing of FNS content. The mixtures containing 40%–50% FNS fine aggregate in RAC exhibit the greater compressive strength and better resistance to transport behavior. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A general method was developed for preparing a metal–organic framework–polymer composite coated silica core–shell stationary phase. Silica microspheres were comodified with metal–organic framework and polyvinylpyrrolidone rather than the in situ method of silica modification by original metal–organic framework particles. Metal–organic framework particles and polyvinylpyrrolidone on silica surface were beneficial to suppress silanol activity and enhance composite material tolerance, as well as increasing the water compatibility of the original metal–organic framework-based stationary phases. The stationary phase exhibited superior hydrophilic and hydrophobic performance in terms of separation for various analytes including seven alkaloids, six sulfonamides, five antibiotics, and five polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Moreover, the composite material also showed excellent stability with the relative standard deviation of the retention time of 0.4 to 0.7%. The separation performance with real samples proved that the column has good practical application potential. In summary, the poposed method provides a general way for preparing metal–organic framework–polymer composite material and changed the current status of original metal–organic framework particles modified silica as a single mode chromatographic stationary phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To alleviate the consumption of resources and promote the further application of geopolymer concrete in practical engineering, the mechanical performance of steel tubed geopolymer concrete (STGC) columns under axial compression was first explored in this study. The impact of experimental parameters including concrete types, configurations of steel tubes, diameter-to-thickness ratios (D / t), and slag contents were analyzed in detail. The test results illustrate that after grooving at the two ends of columns, the axial deformation of the external steel tube becomes smaller compared with the core concrete and the confining pressure of the external steel tube is improved significantly, resulting in a remarkable improvement of the compressive strength and corresponding strain at both peak and residual state of the specimens. Although little influence of concrete types on the steel stress evaluation is detected, the ductility of the STGC columns is inferior to that of the specimens with ordinary concrete due to the obvious brittle property of geopolymer concrete. Moreover, the ratio of axial stress to yield strength of the external steel tube at the peak load of STGC columns is increased with the decrease of diameter-to-thickness ratio and concrete strength. Finally, a new model for predicting the steel axial stress in steel tubed concrete (STC) columns at the peak state is established and a load capacity model incorporating the steel axial contribution is also developed for STC columns. Compared with extensive existing test results, the developed model can provide satisfactory accuracy. • Axial compressive behavior of steel tubed geopolymer concrete columns was investigated. • Effects of key test parameters on the interaction mechanism of the composite columns were analyzed. • The axial stress model of steel tube at the peak state of STC columns is proposed. • The load capacity model incorporating the axial contribution of the steel tube is developed for STC columns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) need to maintain high energy efficiency and power level in several application scenario. Accurate state of health (SOH) forecast is essential for designing a safe and reliable battery management systems (BMS). Temporal convolutional network (TCN) is a prevailing deep learning method for estimating the SOH of lithium-ion batteries. However, the hyperparameters in the network are usually difficult to predefine, which poses a challenge for the SOH estimation accuracy in real-world. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a data-driven estimation approach, where the TCN is combined with the modified flower pollination algorithm (MFPA) to determine the network topology. After hyperparameter optimization, the external sensor raw data and identified ohmic resistances trajectories in the equivalent circuits model (ECM) are both input to the TCN model to estimate SOH of LIBs. In contrast to prior approaches for feature extraction, this method is not only conductive to improve SOH estimation accuracy, but also can reduce on-board estimation computing burden. We carry out experiments on the same type of cells from NASA public data resources. The experimental results systematically validate the superiority of the proposed method, which covers high estimation accuracy, great robustness to varied training set and satisfied universality to different batteries. [Display omitted] • The MFPA algorithm is introduced to optimize several key hyper parameters in the TCN structure • Extracting external morphological features from the raw voltage and current curves • Ohmic resistances trajectories in the ECM with aging mechanisms to improve the SOH estimation accuracy • High estimation accuracy, great robustness to varied training set and satisfied universality to different battery types [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an optimized power distribution method for hybrid electric energy storage systems for electric vehicles (EVs). The hybrid energy storage system (HESS) uses two isolated soft-switching symmetrical half-bridge bidirectional converters connected to the battery and supercapacitor (SC) as a composite structure of the protection structure. The bidirectional converter can precisely control the charge and discharge of the SC and battery. Spiral wound SCs with mesoporous carbon electrodes are used as the energy storage units of EVs. Under the 1050 operating conditions of the EV driving cycle, the SC acts as a "peak load transfer" with a charge and discharge current of 2isc~3ibat. An improved energy allocation strategy under state of charge (SOC) control is proposed, that enables SC to charge and discharge with a peak current of approximately 4ibat. Compared with the pure battery mode, the acceleration performance of the EV is improved by approximately 50%, and the energy loss is reduced by approximately 69%. This strategy accommodates different types of load curves, and helps improve the energy utilization rate and reduce the battery aging effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Melt-spun surface structured fiber could be a large-scale versatile platform for materials with advanced surface function and local properties. Fibers with distinct surface and bulk structures are developed by tailoring the viscosity ratio and blend ratio of polymer component using the melt-spinning method. Spherical bulge and fibril groove structured fibers are obtained in different viscosity ratio and blend ratio systems. The interfacial bonding between fiber and matrix is improved due to the mechanical interlocking between the structured surface and matrix. The low-viscosity second phase stays as a spherical droplet even in high content. The second phase in matched- and high-viscosity ratio cases is deformed into fibril like droplet which causes an in-situ fibration of the second phase in polymer blend fiber with an enhanced mechanical property. This method provides a simple route to developing polymer materials with surface structure and appropriate mechanical properties to apply in textile and polymer fiber-reinforced composite materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ferroelectric multilayered thin film structures consisting of Pb 1.25 (Zr 0.52 ,Ti 0.48)O 3 and Pb 1.1 (Zr 0.52 ,Ti 0.48)O 3 have fabricated on Pt/Ti/SiO 2 /Si substrates by sol-gel synthesis. The effect of various layer ratios (m/n) of Pb 1.25 (Zr 0.52 ,Ti 0.48)O 3 and Pb 1.1 (Zr 0.52 ,Ti 0.48)O 3 thin films on the properties of PZT films were investigated. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) reveals that oxygen vacancies were suppressed by altering m/n. Dense perovskite structures were observed by Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis. Dielectric properties were enhanced significantly in the multilayered films. Especially, the ε r reaches 1873 at 1 kHz with a tanδ of 0.082 for the sample with a m/n of 1/3. Moreover, improved ferroelectricity (2 P r = 36.2 μC/cm2, 2 E c = 78 kV/cm), reduced leakage current density (2.91 × 10−7 A/cm2 at 185 kV/cm), and well fatigue resistance were obtained for the film (m/n = 1/3). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A hydrophobically associating polyacrylamide (HAPM) coated silica was prepared for the first time. • The new chromatographic material can be used for a feasible option for analysis of polar compounds and showed excellent chromatographic repeatability. • The preparation method of stationary phase was facile and simple. A hydrophobically associating polyacrylamide (HAPM)-coated silica packing (HAPM@silica) as a novel stationary phase was synthesized by a simple thermal immobilization to separate multiple polar compounds for the first time. The successful immobilization of HAPM on the silica support was confirmed by elemental analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET). The thickness of HAPM coating is crucial and the one-layer HAPM@silica stationary phase was demonstrated the highest separation efficiency. Compared with the bare silica and amino modified silica, the new stationary phase showed better separation performance for multiple polar compounds such as bases, alkaloids, carbohydrates and amino acid compounds under the experimental conditions. The chromatographic behaviors were evaluated by investigating the effects of acetonitrile content, water content, mobile phase pH on separation. A typical hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) retention feature of HAPM based column was observed at the low percentage of water content. The packing material also showed excellent chromatographic repeatability with intraday RSDs of the retention time of five bases less than 0.46% (n = 10) and interday RSDs less than 1.45% (n = 5). In summary, the new chromatographic material can be used for a feasible option for analysis of polar compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sichuan Basin contains the most prolific marine potash salt deposits in China. Although a vast amount of polyhalite has been found in the Triassic Jialingjiang Formation, the production of soluble potash deposits has yet to begin. The origin and sedimentary environment of polyhalite has remained unclear, and this information could have a significant economic impact. The recent discovery of protogenetic polyhalite co-existing with halite crystals in cores from the early Triassic Jialingjiang Formation in eastern Sichuan Basin provides vital clues to its origin and depositional environment. Two types of polyhalite have been identified, through the examination of sedimentary textures and fabrics, mineral composition and contents, and major and trace elements from cores. The first type is protogenetic polyhalite, which co-exists and is commingled with halite crystals. The second type is secondary in origin with a radiating texture and was formed by the metasomatism of gypsum. Triassic polyhalite and halite was deposited during periods of freshwater and sylvite-saturated, evaporated seawater mixing. Further dilution of the freshwater resulted in gypsum precipitation among the halite crystals. After periods of desalination, increasing evaporation leads to the formation of highly concentrated and dense brines that are rich in potassium and magnesium. These heavy brines sink downward through intercrystalline pores and fractures, replacing gypsum with polyhalite through metasomatism. These sequential phenomena occur because the Triassic marine basins were relatively small and tectonically active. Although these shallow, small salt basins can have a fast concentration rate, they can be easily desalinated by the peripheral freshwater input in an overall arid but fluctuating arid and wet climate. The alternating periods of evaporation and desalination are responsible for the formation of soluble potassium salt deposits. Our proposed mechanisms provide useful information for understanding the distribution of polyhalite. These mechanisms can be used to guide future exploration and production of Triassic marine potash salts in the periphery of the Tethys Ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetic hierarchical nickel/nickel oxide/carbon nanorods (Ni/NiO@C) were prepared via the pyrolysis of a metal-organic framework containing nickel(II) nickel (Ni-MOF; Ni3(BTC)2) under argon atmosphere. In this material, magnetic Ni/NiO@C nanoparticles are embedded in porous carbon nanorods, and the morphology is similar to that of the original Ni-MOF precursor. The synthesized nanorods were applied as magnetic sorbents in the solid-phase extraction of five benzoylurea insecticides (flufenoxuron, chlorbenzuron, teflubenzuron, diflubenzuron and triflumuron), and their performance was evaluated under optimized conditions. The results show that the material exhibits high extraction recoveries from spiked samples (82.9%–107.6%) and linear response in the range of 0.2–450 μg·L−1. It is also characterized by relatively low limits of detection (50–100 ng·mL−1) at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. The sorbent is chemically stable and can be repeatedly recycled, with little decline in extraction capacity after 20 cycles of reuse. The method was successfully applied to the quantification of benzoylureas in tea, wolfberry, millet, and oat samples, and it showed high extraction efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A metal organic framework (MOF-235) was fabricated by a simple solvothermal method and utilized as an adsorbent for the selective removal of electron-rich conjugated dyes. Parameters that influenced the adsorption process were investigated and the excellent adsorption properties of MOF-235 toward Congo red (CR) and lemon yellow (LY) are also exhibited in a wide range of pH 3–9. Moreover, the adsorption kinetics and thermodynamics were determined, indicating that the Langmuir model can well describe the adsorption isotherm and the pseudo-second order model can satisfactorily describe the adsorption kinetics. Thanks to the large hydrophobic effect between electron-deficient MOF and electron-rich conjugated dye molecules, the ultrahigh maximum adsorption capacity for CR and LY calculated by the Langmuir model is up to 1250 and 250 mg g−1, respectively, which surpass that of most reported adsorbents. Notably, the maximum adsorption capacity of adsorption of CR and LY is up to 1131 and 209 mg g−1 in fruit juice, respectively. Additionally, the synthesized MOF-235 has a high adsorptive selectivity and fast adsorption rate and can be regenerated for removal by washing with ethanol containing NaOH solution. These results demonstrated that MOF-235 would be an effective and easily reusable adsorbent for the adsorptive removal of CR and LY from fruit juice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, a novel, fusiform-like magnetic metal–organic framework material (Fe3O4-NH2@MOF-235) was fabricated by a facile two-step solvothermal approach. Then, Fe3O4-NH2@MOF-235 was applied as an adsorbent in magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE) coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for the simultaneous extraction and determination of five kinds of benzoylurea insecticides (flufenoxuron, chlorbenzuron, teflubenzuron, diflubenzuron and triflumuron) from honey, fruit juice and tap water samples. Moreover, potential variables influencing the MSPE efficiency were optimized. Under the optimized conditions, an excellent linearity was achieved in the range of 1.0–300.0 μg L−1 for teflubenzuron and flufenoxuron and 2.0–300.0 μg L−1 for diflubenzuron, chlorbenzuron and triflumuron, with the correlation coefficients of 0.9991–0.9995. The limits of detection for the analytes were 0.25–0.5 μg L−1, and the recoveries at three fortified concentration levels ranged from 76.45% to 90.74% for the honey samples, 79.95–95.27% for the fruit juice samples, and 84.02–99.62% for the tap water samples. The π–π stacking and hydrophobic interactions between Fe3O4-NH2@MOF-235 and the analytes played an important role in the adsorption process. Moreover, maximum adsorption could be achieved within 5 minutes with very little adsorbent for all the samples. Therefore, the magnetic Fe3O4-NH2@MOF-235 composite combined with MSPE is a convenient approach to detect benzoylurea insecticides in actual samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cryptosystem-based data privacy preserving methods employ high computing power of cloud servers, where the main feature is to allow resource sharing and provide multi-user independent services. Therefore, to achieve the rapid allocation and release of resource sharing in cloud computing, decentralized cryptographic protocols need to be proposed for multi-user consensus systems. In this work, we first present a multi-secret sharing scheme with multi-level access structure, where the secret reconstruction algorithm satisfies the additive homomorphism. The secret sharing scheme needs no trusted third parties and any user can play the role of dealer. In the designing, multiple target secrets are independently shared, where each subset of users forms a sub-access structure and shares one target secret only with a short secret share. This scheme is efficient and unconditionally secure. Furthermore, based on the multi-level access structures, a decentralized multi-role e-voting protocol is designed using Chinese Remainder Theorem, where each role's election is associated with one sub-access structure. The voters employ a shared parameter to blind the sum of ballot values. Meanwhile, the e-voting scheme supports a public verification for the final election results. Compared with the existing e-voting protocols, our e-voting system does not require any authority center and the cloud server runs vote counting. And our e-voting scheme does not need any high-complexity computational cost operation such as module exponential operation, etc. Finally, the common feature of Blockchain and Ad Hoc networks is decentralized. Thus the main idea of this protocol without a trusted third party can be used to achieve a secure consensus among multiple nodes in Blockchain and Ad Hoc network, meanwhile, the consensus results can be verified. • A multi-secret sharing scheme with multi-level access structure was proposed. • The scheme can share multiple secrets and each party only keeps a short share. • A decentralized multi-role e-voting protocol was designed. • The e-voting system achieves fast verification for the final election results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A zirconium(IV)‐based metal–organic framework material (MOF‐808) has been synthesized in a simple way and used for the extraction of phenoxyacetic acids in complex samples. The material has good thermal and chemical stability, large specific surface area (905.36 m²/g), and high pore size (22.18 Å). Besides, it contains a large amount of Zr‐O groups, easy‐to‐form Zr‐O‐H bond with carboxyl groups of phenoxyacetic acids, and possesses biphenyl skeleton structure, easy to interact with compounds through π‐π and hydrophobic interactions. These characteristics make the material very suitable for the extraction of certain compounds with a high extraction efficiency and excellent selectivity. The extraction conditions were optimized, and then an analytical method was successfully established and applied for analysis of actual samples. The solid‐phase extraction method based on prepared material had a wide linear range of 0.2–250 μg/L and a low detection limit of 0.1–0.5 μg/L for four phenoxyacetic acid compounds including 2,4‐dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, 2‐(2,4‐dichlorophenoxy) propionic acid, 4‐chlorophenoxyacetic acid, and dicamba. The relative standard deviations of intra‐ and interday precision were 1.8–3.8 and 4.3–6.9%, and the recoveries after spiking were between 77.1 and 109.3%. The results showed that the material is a desired substituent for the extraction of compounds with benzene ring structure containing carboxyl groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Au nanoparticle-hybridized silica (Au@sil) spheres were synthesized in one step as a liquid chromatographic stationary phase for the first time. The hybridized stationary phase showed good separation performances in reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography even without bonding with any organic groups. Compared with the bare silica stationary phase, the Au@sil stationary phase showed better separation performance under the same conditions in RPLC and HILIC modes. The effects of acetonitrile content, buffer concentration, and the pH of the mobile phase on analyte retention were further investigated. The results showed that the Au@sil stationary phase had a complex retention mechanism of electrostatic and partitioning interactions. By comparing Au solution (solAu) with different proportion volumes in silica sol, the optimum hybridized stationary phase was found to comprise 33 vol% solAu. Au@sil was further modified with 1-octadecanethiol by self-assembly and used to separate alkylbenzenes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by RPLC. The separation efficiency of the 1-octadecanethiol self-assembled modified Au@sil (C18-Au@sil) column was much better than that of Au@sil. Overall, the successful hybridization of Au nanoparticles provided a new method to prepare a stationary phase in a simple and environmentally friendly way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]