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Metasurface-based beam splitters with high efficiency, large split angle, wide bandwidth and easy fabrication are highly desirable and still in pursuit. In this paper, we propose a heuristic scheme for designing an ultra-broadband high-efficiency power beam splitter based on a homogeneous metasurface. The conversion efficiency and total transmission intensity of the power splitter stays higher than 95% and 0.66 within the wavelength region from 604 nm to 738 nm, respectively. Particularly, the conversion efficiency can maintain greater than 99% in 58 nm bandwidth. The angle between two split beams can reach a maximum of 157.82° at the wavelength of 738 nm. In addition to simplified design and easy fabrication, the proposed power beam splitter possesses high robustness as well. We expect that our design can pave a new way for realizing high-performance metasurface-based beam splitters.

In order to calculate the mooring force of a new semi-submerged Ocean Farm quickly and accurately, based on the unsteady time-domain potential flow theory and combined the catenary model, the control equation of mooring cable is established, and the mooring force of the platform under the wave spectrum is calculated. First of all, based on the actual situation of the ocean environment and platform, the mooring design of the platform is carried out, and the failure analysis and sensitivity analysis of the single anchor chain by the time domain coupling method are adopted: including different water depth, cycle, pretension size, anchor chain layout direction and wind speed, etc. The analysis results confirm the reliability of anchoring method. Based on this, the mooring point location of the platform is determined, the force of each anchor chain in the anchoring process is calculated, and the mooring force and the number of mooring cables are obtained for each cable that satisfies the specification, the results of this paper can provide theoretical calculation methods for mooring setting and mooring force calculation of similar offshore platforms.

A wideband circularly polarized cross-dipole antenna with L-shape slots is proposed in this paper. The proposed antenna contains two pairs of orthogonally placed wide rectangular dipoles and a metal ground. Two L-shape slots are embedded into each arm of the cross dipoles to broaden the AR bandwidth. Simulation results show that an impedance bandwidth of 66.2% from 1.77 GHz to 3.52 GHz and an AR bandwidth of 42.2% from 2.26 GHz to 3.47 GHz are obtained. The average CP gain of the proposed antenna within the operating frequency band is 8 dBic.

Purpose To determine whether patients with coexisting lumbar back pain experience back pain improvement after undergoing hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). Methods An institutional review board–approved retrospective chart review compared patients undergoing hip arthroscopy for FAI with lumbar spine back pain to patients solely reporting hip pain. The modified Harris Hip Score (mHHS) and Nonarthritic Hip Score (NAHS) were recorded preoperatively and at 1-year follow up. The Oswestry Disability Index score, which quantifies disability from lower back pain, and visual analog scale were recorded from the hip–spine cohort alone. Statistical analysis was performed using paired sample t tests with P ≤ .05 considered significant. Results Sixty-eight patients who underwent hip arthroscopy between November 2016 and October 2018 were enrolled. Thirty-four patients with a mean age of 48.2 ± 14.0 years and body mass index of 26.6 ± 6.6 had a history of back pain and 34 patients were age- and sex-matched for the matched-control (MC) cohort. The MC cohort had lower mHHS and NAHS scores preoperatively. The MC cohort reported a larger increase in the mHHS (P = .01) and NAHS scores (P = .01) postoperatively. More patients in the MC cohort reached minimally clinically important difference with mHHS (P = .003) and NAHS (P = .06). Following surgery, the hip–spine cohort reported a lower Oswestry Disability Index score, indicating minimal disability (P = .01). Conclusions Surgical intervention for FAI can lead to improvements in hip and back pain in patients with coexisting lumbar pathology. Level of Evidence III, retrospective comparative study

In this paper, an innovative NiTi shape memory alloy fiber reinforced Ti6Al4V-(NiTif/Mg3AlZn) metal-metal laminate composite (SMAFR-MML) was successfully fabricated by vacuum hot pressing method using Ti6Al4V (TC4) foils, Mg3AlZn (AZ31) foils, commercial pure Al foils and continuous NiTi shape memory alloy fibers. The phase constituent analyses of the composites were conducted by X-ray diffractometer (XRD). The microstructure characterizations and elemental analyses of the composites were examined by a field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The tensile mechanical properties of the composites were comparatively investigated with those of the MML composite without NiTi fibers and as-received AZ31 foils. Results showed that a continuous Mg-Ti elements diffusion layer with a thickness of ∼2.0 μm was formed at the TC4/AZ31 interface, and Mg2Al3 as well as Al8Mn5 phases discontinuously precipitated in the AZ31 matrix near the interface. Similarly, a continuous ∼1.7 μm thick Mg-Ni-Ti elements diffusion layer was formed at the AZ31/NiTi fiber interface, and Al3Ni2 phases precipitated adjacent to the NiTi fiber at the interface. Compared with the AZ31 foils and the MML composite without NiTi fibers, the SMAFR-MML composite possessed a superior comprehensive mechanical properties, which are attributed to the high strength and toughness of TC4 layers, good interfacial bonding at AZ31/NiTif interface and the plastic deformation and fracture of NiTi fibers during tensile process.

Metal–organic framework (MOF)-derived nanostructures exhibit wonderful characteristics and possess broad application potential by modulating the complex composition and inner nanostructure. Although various MOF-based nanocomposites have been successfully developed, a facile method that can easily modulate the structure-dependent chemical components of the MOF-derived hybrids remains a challenge. By coating zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) with Au/polydopamine (Au/PDA) via in situ redox-oxidation polymerization of HAuCl4 and dopamine, it was found that the ZIF-8 templates were simultaneously etched off to give Au/PDA hybrid microcapsules with a cubic shape. This one-step sacrificial templating process followed a competing chelation between gold ions and Zn2+ cations to 2-methylimidazole and PDA; thus, both the hollow and the yolk-like hybrid cubic microcapsules were controllably obtained by varying the synthetic dynamics. Owing to the hollow nature, penetrated PDA shell, well-distributed Au nanocrystals, and unique stable nanostructure, the non-spherical Au/PDA hybrid cubic microcapsules showed high performance in catalyzing the reduction of 4-nitrophenol as well as adsorption/release of ibuprofen as a model drug. Moreover, this simple strategy offers a controllable design in developing multifunctional nanocomposites with definite inner nanostructures and activities for nanocatalysis, drug delivery, energy storage etc.

The challenge of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) registration is the huge intensity changes caused by contrast agent injections. These changes may lead to the unrealistic deformation of contrast enhancement regions by traditional intensity-based registration algorithms. In this study, we construct and register the de-enhanced time-series, which are consisted of a series of “non-contrast” curves (only including motion) by sparse representation with a specially constructed dictionary. Furthermore, we combine an intensity-invariant similarity, residual complexity, into the cost function of our registration algorithm and apply iterative de-enhancing and registration strategy to improve the robustness and accuracy. Our registration algorithm is conducted on the clinical data of liver DCE-MRI. Experiment results demonstrate that our proposed method has an imporved registration performance.

Paradoxically, aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), ochratoxin A (OTA), deoxynivalenol (DON), T-2 toxin (T-2), fumonisin B1 (FB1), and zearalenone (ZEA) have both immunosuppressive and immunostimulatory effects. The immunotoxicity of six mycotoxins exhibits immune suppression or stimulation, which depends on multiple factors. Low doses of mycotoxins can induce an inflammatory response, but elevated levels of ones can induce immunosuppression; long-term instead of short-term mycotoxin exposure is immunosuppressive. These six mycotoxins play anti-inflammatory roles when the immunologic stimulants are present but pro-inflammatory roles when the immunologic stimulants are absent. Pigs are most sensitive animals to mycotoxins, followed by humans and poultry, rodent, and marine organism, and ruminants are the least susceptible. Female animals are more susceptible to mycotoxins than male ones. The immunosuppresion mechanism of mycotoxins are mainly in, oxidative stress, apoptosis and autophagy of immune cells, as well as inhibits the immunity-related signal pathways; and AFB1, OTA, DON, and T-2 induce immunostimulation via directly activating the TLRs/NF-κB pathway and other crossing pathways including cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK). This review strongly dispels the viewpoint that "immunotoxicity is equivalent to immunosuppression", clearly demonstrates the mechanistic pathway and how it contributes to immunosuppression or immunostimulation, thereby providing reliable references for future studies.

In conjunction with the increasing demand for material cutting, such as the decommissioning and dismantling of nuclear facilities, advanced cutting technologies need be developed to increase precision and cost-effectiveness. As compared with other cutting technologies, laser cutting offers advantages of greater cutting precision, accuracy, and customization. In this work, we investigated the constitution, classification, and current status of this technology. Pollutant emission during laser cutting, corresponding pollution control methods and apparatus were proposed as well. Laser cutting equipment mainly comprises an automated system integrating a fiber laser, industrial computer, servo motor control, electrical control, and detection technology. It mainly consists of mechanical and electrical control parts. Laser cutting equipment is distinguished by light source, power, and cutting dimensions. Known variants of laser cutting technology involve vaporization, fusion, reactive fusion, and controlled fracture cutting. During the cutting process, dust, smoke, and aerosols can be released, which is an environmental concern and poses a threat to public health. The selection of the dedusting method and design of apparatus should take into account the dust removal rate, initial capital cost, maintenance cost, etc. Multi-stage filtration such as bag filtration combined with activated carbon filtration or electrostatic filtration is accepted.

The average share of nuclear energy in electricity production is expected to increase under the background of the global pursuit towards carbon neutrality. Conjugating with its rapid development, the wave of decommissioning and dismantling (D&D) of nuclear facilities is coming. The surface decontamination is a prerequisite to D&D, which will make it easier and reduce the volume of radioactive wastes. However, there are no comprehensive studies on the decontamination methods, which is not helpful for the sustainable development of nuclear energy and environment protection. Therefore, in this work, the current status and future trends of global energy and nuclear energy are first analyzed. Then, various decontamination approaches are comparatively studied, including cleaning mechanisms, application subjects, and intrinsic advantages and disadvantages. Finally, the criteria and factors for selecting a decontamination process, the challenges, and future studies are directed. Among the mechanical methods, laser-based cleaning is high-speed, having automation ability, and thus is promising, although it creates a dust and airborne contaminant hazard. In further studies, factors such as selecting a proper laser facility, optimizing operating parameters, and designing a high-efficiency dust collection system could be studied. Regarding the chemical method, chemical gels are good for decontaminating complex shapes and vertical and overhead surfaces. In addition, they can enhance other decon agents’ efficiency by improving contact time. However, the formulation of colloidal gels is complex and no gel type is useful for all contaminants. Therefore, novel and versatile gels need be developed to enlarge their application field. Combining various decontamination methods will often have better results and thus a reasonable and effective combination of these decontamination methods has become the main direction.

Our previous study reported that aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) promoted influenza replication. Mannan oligosaccharide (MOS), derived from the cell walls of yeast, is a potent immunomodulator. Here, we investigated the role of MOS in AFB1-promoted influenza replication and further explored the underlying mechanisms. In vitro and in vivo, the exposure to AFB1 alone resulted in significantly decreased weight gain and increased viral replication as well as lung and spleen damages. Increased influenza replication coupled with increases in toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), phosphorylated nuclear factor κB, and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) levels. However, MOS given in conjunction with exposure to AFB1 significantly reversed these above changes. A further study indicated that MOS activity was abolished by TLR4 knockout or TLR4 overexpression. Surprisingly, TNF-α played no role in the MOS-mediated protective effects. Collectively, our data suggest that MOS alleviates the AFB1-promoted influenza replication, inflammation, and tissue damages in a TLR4-dependent manner.

Background/Aims: Swine influenza virus (SIV) is a major pathogen of both animals and humans. Afatoxin B1 (AFB1) is one of the most common mycotoxins in feed and food. However, the central contribution of AFB1 to SIV infection remains unclear. Methods: Here, TCID50 assays, fluorescence-based quantitative real-time PCR, western blotting, immunofluorescence staining, histopathological examination, flow cytometry and scanning electron microscopy were performed to investigate the involvement and underlying mechanism of AFB1 in SIV infection in vivo and in vitro using mouse models and porcine alveolar macrophage (PAM) models, respectively. Results: The in vivo study showed that low levels of AFB1 promoted SIV infection and increased its severity, as demonstrated by the increased mRNA expression of viral matrix protein (M); by the increased protein expression of nucleoprotein (NP), matrix protein 1 and ion channel protein; and by animal weight loss, lung index and lung histologic damage. In addition, the increased occurrence of SIV infection accompanied by increases in the level of IL-10 in sera and lungs, in the spleen index and in the number of CD206-positive mouse alveolar macrophages but decreases in the level of TNF-α in sera and lungs, in the thymus index and in the number of CD80-positive mouse alveolar macrophages was observed in SIV-infected mice after low-level AFB1 exposure. The in vitro study showed that low concentrations of AFB1 promoted SIV infection, as demonstrated by the increases in viral titers and viral M mRNA and NP expression levels in SIV-infected PAMs as well as by the number of cells positive for NP protein expression. Furthermore, AFB1 promoted the polarization of SIV-infected PAMs to the M1 phenotype at 8 hpi and to the M2 phenotype at 24 hpi, as measured by the increases in IL-10 expression and in the number of CD206-positive PAMs as well as by the morphological changes observed by scanning electron microscopy. The administration of the immune stimulant lipopolysaccharide (LPS) reversed the switch in PAM polarization from M2 to M1 and thereby counteracted the promotion of influenza virus infection induced by AFB1. Conclusion: Our results are the first to confirm that low-level exposure to AFB1 promotes SIV infection and modulates a switch in macrophage polarization from M1 to M2. The work reported here provides important data that point to a role for AFB1 in SIV infection, and it opens a new field of study.

Dairy cows exposed to heat stress (HS) show decreased performance and immunity, but increased heat shock protein expressions and apoptosis. Zymosan, an extract from yeast cell walls, has been shown to modulate immune responses and defense against oxidative stress. However, few literatures are available about the effects of zymosan on immune responses and other parameters of the dairy cows under HS. Here, both primary peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) and dairy cow models were established to assess the effects of zymosan on performance, immunity, heat shock protein, and apoptosis-related gene expressions of dairy cows under HS. In vitro study showed that proliferation, IL-2 production, and Bcl-2/Bax-α ratio of cow primary PBMC were reduced, whereas hsp70 mRNA and protein expressions, as well as Annexin V-bing, were increased when PBMCs were exposed to heat. In contrast, zymosan significantly reversed these above changes induced by the HS. In the in vivo study, 40 Holstein dairy cows were randomly selected and assigned into zymosan group (supplemental zymosan; n = 20) and control group (no supplemental zymosan; n = 20). The results showed that zymosan improved significantly the dry matter intake and milk yield, increased IgA, IL-2, and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) contents in sera, as well as hepatic Bcl-2/Bax-α ratio, but decreased respiration rate and hepatic hsp70 expressions in the dairy cows under HS. Taken together, zymosan could alleviate HS-induced immunosuppression and apoptosis and improve significantly the productive performance and immunity of dairy cows under HS. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s12192-018-0916-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Thin-film stretchable sensors are believed to have a great applications on devices with curved surfaces. As one type of these sensors, electronic skins (e-skins) for pressure measurement have the potential to provide protection to the human body by feeding back the contact pressure. One of the applications is to monitor the contact pressure from a colonoscope to the colonic wall during a colonoscopy to prevent perforation and hemorrhaging. Many studies have reported the highly flexible and stretchable nature of e-skin sensors. However, no effort has been made to investigate their performance in a colon simulator. In this paper, we developed a new technique to make ultra-thin, highly stretchable electrodes on thin films. Then we successfully built a three-layer tube-shaped tactile sensor with high conformability and stretchability. We then investigated the pressure generated by various bending curvatures on a colonoscope. Finally, we performed a real-time pressure measurement with the whole sensing system on a fake colonoscope in a colon-simulator. The measured pressure was obtained and visualized on a computer screen. These experiments validated the applicability of the designed sensor and revealed the actual stress distribution on a tube-shaped e-skin sensor array in a colon-simulator. This research could be the starting point of the effort to upgrade the strategies of colonoscopy for safer operations and could provide new routines to optimize tactile sensor design for other medical applications.

A new titanium-tungsten-bearing hot rolled high strength bainitic steel was developed through the design of chemical composition and rolling processing. The chemical composition of 0.04C-0.1Ti-0.4W (wt%) was determined to make full use of alloying elements through considering the atomic ratio of elements. The rolling condition in the region through austenite recrystallization to austenite non-recrystallization region was adopted to realize a homogenous and fine microstructure. The effects of coiling temperature (CT) on the microstructure, precipitation and mechanical properties of the steel were investigated. Results showed that the average effective grain sizes of bainite ferrite were measured to be 2.2 µm, 1.8 µm and 2.4 µm for the sample of CTs 550 °C, 600 °C and 650 °C, respectively. The precipitates formed during coiling process were identified as nanoscale NaCl-type (TiW)C carbides that contain a high level of Ti and W. As CT increases, the precipitation amount of nanoscale precipitate increases. At the CT of 600 °C, an optimal combination of strength and ductility was achieved (yield strength: 733 MPa; ultimate tensile strength: 806 MPa; uniform elongation: 14.9%; total elongation: 24.4%). In addition, due to re-precipitation of nanoscale carbides, the strength of the steels coiled at 600 °C was obviously increased after tempering at 650 °C for 15 × 103 s holding, exhibiting superior ageing strengthening effect.

Metal support interactions modulation is one of the effective strategies to enhance the catalytic performance. Herein, we reported that modulating metal support interactions by switching the strength (CO, H2, NH3) and temperature (200, 300, 400 oC) of reducing gases is a facile way to improve the catalytic performance of Pt/CeO2 for toluene oxidation. The distinct reduction treatments will stepwise enhance the reducibility, ratio of Pt0 and oxygen vacancy concentration, which dominated the activity. The metal support interactions modulation can significantly affect toluene deep oxidation (from benzoate to formate or monodentate carbonate) via enhancing the mobility of surface/lattice oxygen and activation ability towards O2 molecules, since the main activation sites for O2 molecules expand from Pt0 sites to oxygen vacancies and Pt0 sites with temperature increasing.

Conventional metasurfaces cannot adjust the electromagnetic responses once the structures are determined. In this paper, we numerically demonstrate a thermally switchable bifunctional metasurface based on the phase change material vanadium dioxide (VO2) applied to the mid-infrared band. The dual-layer ring resonator consists of an Ag split ring and a VO2 ring, which can achieve ultra-broadband polarization conversion and perfect absorption through the insulator-to-metal phase transition of VO2. When VO2 is in the insulating state, the designed metasurface acts as polarization converter with polarization conversion ratio of over 95% in the wavelength range of 2500 nm to 3500 nm. When VO2 is in the metallic state, the metasurface behaves as perfect absorber with over 90% absorptivity in the region from 2900 nm to 3700 nm. And the operating bandwidths of the two functions are highly overlapped. The ultra-broadband polarization conversion properties are mainly derived from the closed multiple electric and magnetic resonances. Single localized magnetic resonance results in a flat absorption spectrum. The proposed metasurface may provide new ideas for the design of tunable integrated optical devices.

In order to improve the company’s production efficiency, in response to the call of the country to accelerate the industrial automation, the company’s developers have independently developed a painting line parametric automatic programming system based on ABB robot using C++ language, the automatic spraying of the main beams of the crane is realized. The automatic programming system can only spray the main beam of the end beam without end. The end beams obstacle avoidance program is optimized based on the automatic programming system, which aims to control the robot to avoid the end beam of the main beam, so that the system can spray the main beam of the crane with the end beam normally.

We report a synthesis procedure for dodecanethiol capped wurtzite ZnO nanocrystals with an average diameter of 4 nm that are monodisperse, highly soluble, and shelf-stable for many months. Compared to previous ZnO ink recipes, we demonstrate improved particle solubility and excellent ink stability, resulting in ZnO nanocrystal inks that are optimized for printed electronics applications. The ZnO nanocrystal solution exhibits an absorption peak at 341 nm (3.63 eV), which represents a blue-shift of approximately 0.3 eV from the bulk ZnO bandgap (∼3.3 eV). This blue shift is consistent with previously reported models for an increased bandgap due to quantum confinement. We used variable-angle spectroscopic ellipsometry (VASE) to determine the optical properties of solution-processed thin films of ZnO nanocrystals, which provides valuable insight into the changes in film composition and morphology that occur during thermal annealing treatments ranging from 150–300 °C. The ZnO nanocrystals maintain their quantum confinement when deposited into a thin film, and the degree of quantum confinement is gradually reduced as the thermal annealing temperature increases. Using infrared absorption measurements (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), we show that the dodecanethiol ligands are removed from the ZnO films during annealing, resulting in a high-purity semiconductor film with very low carbon contamination. Furthermore, we show that annealing at 300 °C results in complete ligand removal with only a slight increase in grain size. Thin-film transistors (TFT) using ZnO nanocrystals as the channel material annealed at 300 °C show moderate mobility (∼0.002 cm2 V−1 s−1) and good on/off ratio >104. These results demonstrate the distinct advantages of colloidal nanocrystals for printed electronics applications: the composition and morphology of the solution-processed film can be carefully tuned by controlling the size and surface coating of the nanocrystals in the ink.

Vintage is a decisive factor for market price of commercial bottled dry red wines. Aim of this study was to use color parameters and pigments for the prediction of the age of dry red wine by means of partial least squares (PLS) and multiple linear regression (MLR). Both models allow the prediction of the age accurately, with high coefficients of determination (R2), and low enough root mean square error of cross-validation (RMSECV). Although less variables were required to obtain a successful MLR model, its prediction results were as accurate as the model obtained by PLS. The ratio of the first polymeric pigments (TFPP) and malvidin-3-glycoside was demonstrated to be a promising and practical chemical parameter for the rapid and simple age assessment of the dry red wines.

The effects of insulin-like growth factor binding protein 2 (IGFBP2) on the expression of fatty acid synthesis regulators and triglyceride production were investigated in primary cultured chicken hepatocytes. The full-length chicken IGFBP2 coding region was synthesized by overlap extension PCR and cloned into the pcDNA3.1 vector. An in situ digestion method was used to prepare the chicken hepatocytes. Primary chicken hepatocytes were maintained in monolayer culture. Real-time PCR was used to detect changes in the expression of IGFBP2, PPARG, IGF1, IGF1R, APOAI, and LFABP, after the overexpression of IGFBP2 in chicken hepatocytes. Triglyceride production and glucose content were also evaluated using triglyceride and glucose analysis methods. The expression level of IGFBP2 increased after transfection of the IGFBP2-containing vector. The expression levels of PPARG, IGF1, and IGF1R also increased in cultured chicken hepatocytes after the overexpression of IGFBP2, whereas the expression of LFABP and APOAI decreased. Triglyceride production in primary cultured chicken hepatocytes increased after the overexpression of IGFBP2. These results suggest that IGFBP2 is involved in lipogenesis, increasing both the expression of fatty acid synthesis regulators, and triglyceride production in primary cultured chicken hepatocytes.

The tribological properties of Ni3Si alloy were studied at high temperatures. The effect of the addition of Ti was also analyzed. The surface composition was analyzed by Raman spectroscopy. The results showed that the friction coefficient decreased with the increasing temperature, and the wear rate changed slightly from 25 to 400 °C. However, the wear resistance of the alloys decreased sharply at 600 °C, and this was due to the decrease of the high-temperature strength and the severe oxidation of the alloys. Although the oxidation resistance of Ni3Si alloy decreased with Ti addition, the tribological property was improved by the addition of Ti. The Ni3Si alloy with 5% Ti addition had the best wear resistance at high temperatures as compared to pure Ni3Si alloy and with 10% Ti addition, and the wear rates of the alloys were in the order of magnitude of 10−5 mm3/Nm. With the increase of temperature, the wear mechanism of pure Ni3Si alloy transformed from abrasive wear to oxidation wear. As the Ti content increased, the wear mechanisms of the alloys changed from abrasive wear to fatigue wear at low temperature, and oxidation wear and fatigue wear at high temperature.

N-doped mesoporous carbons, NMCs, have attracted intensive attention recently and have shown potential applications in various scientific fields including catalysis and energy conversion/storage. Via modification with foreign N elements and construction of mesoporous structures for NMCs, their electronic and spin structure, as well as their porosity can be greatly tailored. And the resultant electron-donor property, surface wettability, conductivity, ion/molecular transfer and reactivity are changed accordingly. In this review, we will summarize the recent research progress of these metal-free NMCs, with an emphasis on their synthesis and performance, especially for their synthetic strategy and catalytic properties toward oxygen and nitro compound reductions, as well as their electrochemical properties as electrode materials for lithium-ion/sulfur batteries and supercapacitors. We hope for future developments, such as controlling doping methods more precisely, generating more active sites by N-doping, and finding wider applications of NMCs in other fields.

In this paper, a coaxial continuous transverse stub (CTS) array antenna using substrate integrated coaxial line (SICL) is proposed, to address the antenna design requirements of low loss, high performance, and compact size for millimeterwave applications. Different from conventional CTS antennas, the proposed SICL-CTS array antenna consists of SICL for transmitting TEM waves and parallel metal plates for radiation. A SICL-CTS array antenna with four elements is designed to verify the concept. From the simulated results, it can be seen that the reflection coefficient is below -10 dB from 19.64 GHz to 24.17 GHz, and the peak gain is about 6.8 dB at 20 GHz with the radiation efficiency of 94.34%. Moreover, the proposed array can maintain a ominidirectional pattern within a broadband performance. Due to the wide bandwidth and ominidirectional coverage ability, the presented SICL-CTS array antenna is a good candidate for 5G base stations.

This work reported a facile method for fabricating multi-layered polydopamine (PDA) encapsulated AuAg@C@AuAg core/shell nanosphere with a hollow interior. During the synthetic process, the preliminary Ag@C nanosphere is easily covered by an AuAg/PDA hybrid layer through the in situ redox-oxidized polymerization to form the Ag-AuAg@C@AuAg/PDA precursor, in which the AuAg bimetallic nanocrystals are simultaneously obtained via the electrochemical substitution reaction. After etching the residue Ag core, the final AuAg@C@AuAg/PDA hybrid nanosphere is achieved and the inner AuAg shows a unique nanoframe-like nanostructure. The carbon shell plays an important role for the formation and structure evolution of the AuAg@C@AuAg/PDA, and the composition can be modulated by varying the polymerization process. Owing to the well distributed AuAg nanocrystals and inner AuAg nanoframes, the AuAg@C@AuAg/PDA shows better performance than Ag-AuAg@C@AuAg/PDA precursor in catalyzing 4-nitrophenol, and the rate constant (K) to catalyst weight ratio reaches as high as 3.63 min-1 •mg-1. As a result, this work not only offers a hybrid bi-metallic nanocatalyst with excellent performance, but also has valuable implications for compositional modulation of hollow interior multi-layered nanostructure in adsorption, drug delivery, and nanocatalysis.

A reconfigurable microstrip antenna with a dual-polarization beam-scanning feature is proposed in this paper. The proposed antenna is based on microstrip Yagi-Uda antenna comprised of a driven square patch and four parasitic square patches. Two different feed ports are utilized to separately excite two orthogonal modes for dual-polarization operation. The capability of beam-scanning is realized by loading a narrow loop slot and four varactors within each parasitic patch. By tuning the capacitance value of the varactors, the parasitic patch can act as a director or a reflector for the driven patch. Simulation results demonstrate that the beam can be scanned in 2D plane. The simulated cross-polarization discriminations are higher than 20 dB in all seven states presented in this paper. The proposed antenna is in fabrication and experimental results will be provided in the final submission.

With the aim to elucidate the roles of different oxygen species, the catalytic oxidation of toluene over Pt/Mn3O4 synthesized by a facile reduction method was investigated. Compared with the Pt/Mn3O4-C using the commercial Mn3O4 as the support, Pt/Mn3O4-R was found to possess more surface oxygen vacancies, exhibit better redox properties and dispersion of platinum particles, leading to its higher activity for toluene oxidation (T90 = 183 ℃). Through toluene-TPD, toluene-TPSR and in-situ DRIFTS, it was found that toluene oxidation over Pt/Mn3O4-R catalyst might follow the Mars–van Krevelen (MVK) mechanism and the pathway of toluene oxidation over Pt/Mn3O4-R was possible toluene → benzoate → carbonate → CO2. The lattice oxygen species on the surface of catalysts was directly involved in the oxidation of toluene and played an important role in the formation of key intermediate such as carbonate, resulting in the difference of the reaction mechanism and pathway between Pt/Mn3O4-R and Pt/Mn3O4-C. In addition, the degradation of the surface carbonate was demonstrated to be the rate-controlling step at 180℃ to 200℃.

Ethereum attracts extensive attention due to its distinctive function of smart contract and decentralized applications (Dapps). Since the number of contracts on blockchain has increased vigorously, various security vulnerabilities come up. Researchers rely on static symbolic analysis method at first, and it seems to perform well in the accuracy of vulnerability detection. However, this method requires manual analysis in advance and it needs to traverse all the possible execution paths to find out the vulnerable ones. The deeper the path goes, the more time it costs to detect the contracts. This paper proposes an approach to detect smart contracts vulnerability on blockchain by using machine learning(ML) methods. This approach aims to build a general benchmark for new vulnerability detection in order to reduce the demand of expert manpower. Moreover, the high-speed-performance ML algorithm makes quick detection comes true. As long as we adjust the threshold of the model, it can work as a fast prefilter for the traditional symbolic analysis tools in further improvement of accuracy.

To understand the differences in metabolic changes between cows with ovarian inactivity and estrus cows, we selected cows at 60-90 days postpartum from an intensive dairy farm. According to clinical manifestations, B-ultrasound scan, rectal examination, 10 cows were assigned to the estrus group (A) and 10 to the ovarian inactivity group (B). All plasma samples were analyzed by (1)H-nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to compare plasma metabolomic profiles between the groups. We used multivariate pattern recognition to screen for different metabolites in plasma of anestrus cows. Compared with normal estrous cows, there were abnormalities in 12 kinds of metabolites in postpartum cows with ovarian inactivity (|r|> 0.602), including an increase in acetic acid (r = -0.817), citric acid (r = -0.767), and tyrosine (r = -0.714), and a decrease in low-density lipoprotein (r = 0.820), very low-density lipoprotein (r = 0.828), lipids (r = 0.769), alanine (r = 0.816), pyruvate (r = 0.721), creatine (r = 0.801), choline (r = 0.639), phosphorylcholine (r = 0.741), and glycerophosphorylcholine (r = 0.881). These metabolites were closely related to abnormality of glucose, amino acid, lipoprotein and choline metabolism, which may disturb the normal estrus. The decrease in plasma creatine and the increase in tyrosine were new changes for ovarian inactivity of postpartum cows. The decrease in plasma creatine and choline and the increase in tyrosine and p-hydroxyphenylalanine in cows with ovarian inactivity provide new directions for research on the mechanism of ovarian inactivity in cows.

The Toll and immune deficiency (IMD) pathways are essential for inducing immune related genes during invasion of pathogens. In the present study, transcripts of eight pathway-related genes in Litopenaeus vannamei, including Toll, IMD, Pelle, IAP1, TRAF6, ALF, Crustin and Penaeidin3 were analyzed to further understand the potential relationship between Toll and IMD pathway. The high transcription levels of TRAF6, Pelle, Toll, IMD and IAP1 in selected tissues indicates their functional roles in Toll and IMD pathways. The increased mRNA expression of Toll and IMD detected in the early stage might suggest the inducible role of Toll and IMD upon bacterial infection. Moreover, the continuous increase of IMD and the high level of Pelle and TRAF6 in Vibrio anguillarum challenged group indicated that Gram-negative bacterium can activate both the Toll and IMD signaling pathway. Silencing of Toll by a dsRNA-mediated RNAi strongly increased the transcripts of IMD, Pelle, TRAF6, IAP1 and Akirin, knocking down of IMD also markedly increased the transcripts of Toll, Pelle, IAP1 and Akirin. Furthermore, ALF expression was significantly increased in response to V. anguillarum and Micrococcus lysodeikticus challenge, while the transcripts of Crustin and Pen3 in hemocytes were significantly reduced in V. anguillarum group, but rose significantly following M. lysodeikticus infection. In summary, we speculate that Toll and IMD pathway are not independent in shrimp, but linked to defense against bacterial infection.

High flexibility skin-like sensors, such as electrical skin (e-skin) sensor for pressure measurement, have the potential to provide quantitative physical assessments and protection for human life. One promising application is to monitor the contact pressure of a colonoscope to the colonic wall during a colonoscopy to prevent perforation and hemorrhaging. Many attempts have been made to fabricate highly stretchable electronic devices. However, no effort has been made to investigate the mechanical behaviors of a tubular-shaped e-skin when bent, which is a typical working condition of such a sensor when attached to a colonoscope. The sensor should measure no pressure without external compressive force. However, bending of the sensor will generate measurable pressure, which is no use to doctor’s diagnostic and causes disturbance to the doctor. This paper aims to compensate this false positive error to improve the sensor’s reliability and accuracy. Based on a tubular-shaped, highly flexible skin-like sensor array we developed, we conducted both modeling and experimental studies on the change of the maximum pressure distribution of a tubular e-skin sensor under various bending conditions with and without external compressive force. This paper revealed the value of the maximum stress on a tubular-shaped e-skin sensor array when bent. The measuring errors due to bending in pressure detection during colonoscopy can be quantified for compensation. Thus, high accuracy diagnose can be achieved. These results could also be potentially used to address strategies on optimizing tactile sensor design for other medical applications.

Due to the utilization of overlapped dipole resonances, traditional Huygens’ metasurfaces suffer from dipole interactions. In this Letter, we propose a design of phase-gradient Huygens’ metasurface based on the quadrupole resonances excited in the cross-shaped structures. The quadrupole resonances are theoretically shown insensitive to the quadrupole interactions. Benefiting from this intrinsic property, the proposed metasurface can well suppress element interaction influence and exhibits some impressive properties, including the ability to suppress high diffraction orders, tunable anomalous refractive angles, and high transmission efficiency. The numerical results show promising potential for quadrupole resonances to be applied in advanced Huygens’ metasurface designs.

This work reports a silicone coating (PDMS-UIa) with marine antifouling and self-healing properties, which was prepared by the first synthesis of polydimethylsiloxane polymer containing imine and urea groups and then adding a small amount of eco-friendly antifoulant. The characteristic structure of the polymer was verified via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The PDMS-UIa coating has rapid self-repairing performance, excellent transparency and the ability to control the release of antifouling agents at a certain rate. The adhesion experiment using four typical benthic diatoms indicated that the PDMS-UIa coating can effectively inhibit the attachment of diatoms, which effectively improves the static antifouling ability of silicone materials.

The porous carbon materials formed from biomass precursors are promising candidates for adsorbing organic vapor pollutants. However, these materials have insufficient pores, which hinder their accessibility to adsorbates. This study develops an ultrahigh-surface-area porous carbon adsorbent with interlacing micro-mesoporous structures through Trichoderma viride decomposition. An orthogonal experiment is conducted, and the most suitable conditions for fabricating porous carbon with an ultrahigh SBET of 3714 m2.g-1 and a hierarchical porous structure are identified. This work achieves one of the highest specific surface areas of biomass carbons among recent studies. T. viride corrodes the internal and external microstructures of rice husks, and regulates the lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose contents, which improve the efficiency of carbonization and chemical activation. The carbonaceous materials with microbial pretreatment exhibit better toluene adsorption performances (100 ppm: 708 mg.g-1), adsorption rates, and cyclic utilization than those without pretreatment (100 pm: 538 mg.g-1). In addition, grand canonical Monte Carlo simulation is conducted. The micropores and mesopores created after microbial pretreatment are effective toluene adsorption sites. Moreover, the diffusion coefficient calculated by utilizing Thomas model and Chemical diffusion verify that the mesopores accelerate the kinetic process of toluene adsorption.

Our previous study reported that aflatoxin B

Selenium deficiency and T-2 toxin exposure may contribute to the development of Keshan disease characterized by congestive cardiomyopathy. The aim of this study was to explore the role of autophagy in the aggravation of selenium deficiency on T-2 toxin-induced damages on primary cardiomyocyte. Our present study demonstrated that 0.25–1 μM T-2 toxin damaged primary cardiomyocytes and selenium deficiency exacerbated T-2 toxin-induced damages by measuring the levels of MTT, lactate dehydrogenase and cleaved-caspase 3. T-2 toxin triggered autophagy in primary cardiomyocytes, as indicated by markedly increased expressions of LC3-Ⅱ and Beclin-1 mRNA levels. Rapamycin (autophagy agonist) treatment increased autophagy levels and decreased the cytotoxicity caused by T-2 toxin while 3-methyladenine (autophagy inhibitor) treatment reduced autophagy levels and enhanced the cytotoxicity of T-2 toxin, suggesting that autophagy protect primary cardiomyocytes from the cytotoxicity of T-2 toxin. Selenium deficiency lowered cytoprotective autophagy in the primary cardiomyocytes treated by T-2 toxin. It can be concluded that autophagy induced by T-2 toxin plays a role in protecting primary cardiomyocyte, but selenium deficiency decreases the protective autophagy and then exacerbate T-2 toxin-induced damages. Our finding may partly interpret the combination effects of selenium deficiency and T-2 toxin on the development of Keshan disease.

Keeping good conductivity at high stretching strain is one of the main requirements for the fabrication of flexible electronic devices. The elastic nature of siloxane-based elastomers enables many innovative designs in wearable sensor devices and non-invasive insertion instruments, including skin-like tactile sensors. Over the last few years, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) thin films have been widely used as the substrates in the fabrication of flexible electronic devices due to their good elasticity and outstanding biocompatibility. However, these kind of thin films usually suffer poor resistance to tearing and insufficient compliance to curved surfaces, which limits their applications. Currently no three-dimensionally mountable tactile sensor arrays have been reported commercially available. In this work, we developed a kind of mechanically compliant skin-like conductive thin film by patterning silver nano wire traces in strip-style on Dragon Skin® (DS) substrates instead of PDMS. High cross- link quality was achieved then. To further improve the conductivity, a thin gold layer was coated onto the silver nanowires (AgNWs) strips. Four different gold deposition routines have been designed and investigated by using different E-beam and spin coating processing methods. Owning to the intrinsically outstanding physical property of the Dragon Skin material and the uniform embedment built in the gold deposition processes, the DS/AgNWs thin films showed convincible advantages over PDMS/AgNWs thin films in both mechanical capability and conductive stability. Through experimental tests, the DS/AgNWs electrode thin films were proven to be able to maintain high conductivity following repeated linear deformations.

Ketosis is an important metabolic disorder in dairy cows during the transition period. The urine proteomics of ketosis has not been investigated using surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS).The aim is to determine differences between urine proteomic profiles of healthy cows and those with clinical ketosis, and facilitate studies of the underlying physiological and biochemical mechanisms that lead to liver pathology in ketosis.We analyzed the urine samples of 20 cows with clinical ketosis (group 1) and 20 control cows (group 2) using SELDI-TOF-MS.Thirty-nine peptide peaks differed between both groups. Polypeptides corresponding to 26 of these differential peptide peaks were identified using the SWISS-PROT protein database. We found that the peaks of 11 distinct polypeptides from the urine samples of the ketosis group were significantly reduced, compared with those of the control group as based on the Wilcoxon rank sum test. Among these were VGF (non-acronymic) protein, amyloid precursor protein, serum amyloid A (SAA), fibrinogen, C1INH, apolipoprotein C-III, cystatin C, transthyretin, hepcidin, human neutrophil peptides, and osteopontin.These proteins may represent novel biomarkers of the metabolic changes that occur in dairy cows with ketosis. Our results will help to better understand the physiological changes and pathogenesis observed in cows with ketosis.The SELDI-TOF-MS can be used to understand the physiological and biochemical mechanisms of ketosis and identify biomarkers of the disease.

Noroviruses can establish chronic infections with active viral shedding in healthy humans but whether persistence is associated with adaptive immune dysfunction is unknown. We used genetically engineered strains of mouse norovirus (MNV) to investigate CD8+ T cell differentiation during chronic infection. We found that chronic infection drove MNV-specific tissue-resident memory (Trm) CD8+ T cells to a differentiation state resembling inflationary effector responses against latent cytomegalovirus with only limited evidence of exhaustion. These MNV-specific Trm cells remained highly functional yet appeared ignorant of ongoing viral replication. Pre-existing MNV-specific Trm cells provided partial protection against chronic infection but largely ceased to detect virus within 72 hours of challenge, demonstrating rapid sequestration of viral replication away from T cells. Our studies revealed a strategy of immune evasion by MNV via the induction of a CD8+ T cell program normally reserved for latent pathogens and persistence in an immune-privileged enteric niche.

In this paper, we propose to combine local and global features in a carefully designed convolutional neural network for 3D face alignment. We firstly adopt a part heatmap regression network to predict the landmark points on a local granularity by generating a series of heatmaps for each 3D landmark point. To enhance the ability of local feature representation, we incorporate the designed network with a part attention module, which transfers the convolution opereation into a channelwise attention opereation. Additionally, we take all these heatmaps alongside the input image as the input of another shape regression network in order to model the feature representations from local discrete regions to a global semantically continuous space. Extensive experiments on challenging datasets, AFLW2000-3D, 300VW and the Menpo Benchmark, show the effectiveness of both the global consistency and local description in our model, and the proposed algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art baselines.

In order to understand pharmacokinetics in vivo and tissue residues of florfenicol in Hybrid sturgeon cultured in cold water, changes in concentration of florfenicol in plasma, muscle, liver and kidney of sturgeon after administration were measured by high performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. The results show that after 15.0 mg/kg dose administration, the concentration change in plasma and liver, kidney and muscle of sturgeon are suitable for the one compartment open model. Florfenicol pharmacokinetic parameters in plasma, liver, kidney and sturgeon muscle showed that the peak concentration (Cmax ) were 549.7, 551.8, 958.2 and 405.4 μg/kg, respectively. The peak time (Tmax ) was 17.5, 14.2, 14.0 and 20.8 hr, respectively. The elimination half-life (T1/2 ) was 75.1, 99.8, 68.8 and 75.5 hr, respectively. Area under the curve were 70,048.9, 63,850.6, 109,579.9 and 53,437.3 μg/kg hr, respectively. Mean residence time was 100.6, 96.4, 96.5 and 104.6 hr, respectively. The absorption speed and elimination of florfenicol in cold water cultured sturgeon is slow, and the peak concentration is low, but the florfenicol was widely distributed in the body of sturgeon. The results provide a theoretical basis for formulation of medication and withdrawal period of florfenicol used in sturgeon cultured in cold water.

The oral and maxillofacial region is rich in blood, and it is often difficult to stop bleeding during the operation of maxilla. Nitroglycerin is one of the most commonly used antihypertensive drugs in our hospital. We observed the effect of controlled hypotension in patients with maxillary resection. In group N, the patients had different degrees of tachycardia after using nitroglycerin only. In addition, nitroglycerin has the characteristics of rapid drug resistance. A combined reversed temporal muscle flap and random forehead flap technique was performed successfully to reconstruct the large defect after ipsilateral maxillectomy and orbit evisceration. There were 43 cases used this method during 2014-2016 without large side effects.

Pentoxifylline is widely used in the treatment of cerebrovascular disease, at present, there are a variety of drugs in the clinical expansion of the role of the skin flap, by improving or promoting blood circulation, to ensure the survival of the flap. We designed scalping forehead flap to reconstruct large temporal cutaneous defects. This flap is reliable and can give us excellent postoperative result. This design has several advantages and is worth to be promoted. The scalping forehead flap we designed is reliable. The posterior auricular artery and it branches provided enough blood supply to the scalp and forehead tissue of the flap. The frontal muscle also make the flap have a high survival rate. Large temporal cutaneous defects can be reconstructed by this novel scalping forehead flap we described. This technique is useful especially for patients who suffered malignant tumor and can not choose free flap.

Thin film stretchable sensors are believed to have great applications on devices with curved surface. Among them, electrical skin (e-skin) sensors for pressure measurement have the potential to provide protection to human body by feeding back the contact pressure. One of the applications is to monitor the contact pressure from colonoscope to the colonic wall during a colonoscopy to prevent perforation and hemorrhaging. Many researches have been reported about highly flexible and stretchable e-skin sensors. However, no effort has been made to investigate its performance in a colon simulator. In this work, we developed a new technique to make ultra-thin, highly stretchable electrodes on thin films. Then we successfully built a three-layer tube shaped tactile sensor with high conformability and stretchability. We then investigated the pressure generated by various bending curvatures on a colonoscope. Finally, we performed a real-time pressure measurement with the whole sensing system on a fake colonoscope in a colon-simulator. The measured pressure was obtained and visualized on a computer screen. These experiments validated the applicability of the designed sensor and revealed the actual stress distribution on a tube shaped e-skin sensor array in a colon-simulator. This research could be the starting point of the effort on upgrading the strategies of colonoscopy for safer operations and could provide new routines to optimize tactile sensor design for other medical applications.