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The combined high and low cycle fatigue (CCF) loading condition and random uncertainty exert a considerable impact on the design of turbine shafts. To enhance the fatigue life and reliability, this research proposes a CCF reliability analysis and optimization method for turbine shafts. A CCF fatigue reliability analysis framework is established, which focuses on the quantification of CCF loading characteristics and random uncertainty. The consideration of CCF loading characteristics contain the loading frequency ratio of high cycle fatigue (HCF) to low cycle fatigue (LCF), the stress amplitude ratio of HCF to LCF, as well as their interaction. The consideration of random uncertainty contains material, geometry and load, and a surrogate model‐based method is introduced to improve the quantification efficiency. Through the validation by comparing with experimental data and traditional methods, the proposed method is with higher accuracy and efficiency. By integrating the proposed fatigue reliability analysis method with design optimization, optimal design values for the turbine shaft were identified. This method theoretically extends the shaft's CCF life and provides practical engineering guidance for its reliability analysis and design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drugs and their metabolites have become new types of pollutants, the presence of which constitutes a serious environmental problem. This article applies the established LC–MS/MS method to investigate the removal efficiency of different ratios of Fenton reagents for common drugs in wastewater. The results showed that the linearity of the 10 common drugs was good in the dynamic range of 1–100 ng/L, and the R2>0.99. The LODs and LOQs ranged from 0.01–0.443 ng/L and 0.04–1.44 ng/L, respectively. The average relative recoveries ranged from 72.99–117 %. In addition, considering the economic and application effects of chemical reagents, the optimal test dose of H2O2 in Fenton reagent was determined to be 12.5 mL. This experiment provides a simple, rapid and low‐cost LC–MS/MS method for the detection of drugs in wastewater. It also provides data reference for effective management of drug production sites and domestic wastewater pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The load history exerts a considerable impact on the low cycle fatigue (LCF) life of turbine discs. Thus, oversimplifying the load history leads to substantial errors in fatigue life prediction. This study introduces a probabilistic fatigue life prediction method for turbine discs, accounting for the randomness inherent in LCF load history. The method involves quantifying the randomness of load history through numerical simulation and employing a surrogate model enhanced with learning functions to balance computational efficiency and accuracy. The probabilistic LCF life prediction of full‐scale turbine disc was conducted, demonstrating that the fatigue life scatter predicted by the proposed method more closely aligns with experimental data compared to the original approach. By refining the numerical simulation process, the proposed method better accounts for uncertainties in load history while maintaining computational efficiency, offering significant insights for the fatigue reliability design of turbine discs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation focuses on the Goos–Hänchen (GH) and Imbert–Fedorov (IF) shifts on the surface of the uniaxial hyperbolic material hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) based on the biaxial hyperbolic material alpha-molybdenum (α-MoO3) trioxide structure, where the anisotropic axis of hBN is rotated by an angle with respect to the incident plane. The surface with the highest degree of anisotropy among the two crystals is selected in order to analyze and calculate the GH- and IF-shifts of the system, and obtain the complex beam-shift spectra. The addition of α-MoO3 substrate significantly amplified the GH shift on the system's surface, as compared to silica substrate. With the p-polarization light incident, the GH shift can reach 381.76λ0 at about 759.82 cm−1, with the s-polarization light incident, the GH shift can reach 288.84λ0 at about 906.88 cm−1, and with the c-polarization light incident, the IF shift can reach 3.76λ0 at about 751.94 cm−1. The adjustment of the IF shift, both positive and negative, as well as its asymmetric nature, can be achieved by manipulating the left and right circular polarization light and torsion angle. The aforementioned intriguing phenomena offer novel insights for the advancement of sensor technology and optical encoder design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of novel quinazolinone derivatives containing glycosides were designed and synthesized. The biological activities test found that this series of compounds had good antibacterial activities. Among all target compounds, compounds 1 and 15 showed good antibacterial activity in vitro against Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa), with an EC50 value of 48.7 mg/L, 45.6 mg/L, respectively, which better than thiodiazole copper (54.6 mg/L) and zinc thiazole (49.2 mg/L). Compounds 15 and 23 showed good in vitro antibacterial activity against Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) at a concentration of 100 mg/L, with inhibition rates of 79.3% and 77.1%, respectively, which better than thiodiazole copper (71.8%). In addition, compound 15 can cause significant deformation of cell surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benzimidazole fungicides are a class of highly effective, low-toxicity, systemic broad-spectrum fungicides developed in the 1960s and 1970s, based on the fungicidal activity of the benzimidazole ring structure. They exhibit biological activities including anticancer, antibacterial, and antiparasitic effects. Due to their particularly outstanding antibacterial properties, they are widely used in agriculture to prevent and control various plant diseases caused by fungi. The main products of benzimidazole fungicides include benomyl, carbendazim, thiabendazole, albendazole, thiophanate, thiophanate-methyl, fuberidazole, methyl (1-{[(5-cyanopentyl)amino]carbonyl}-1H-benzimidazol-2-yl) carbamate, and carbendazim salicylate. This article mainly reviews the physicochemical properties, toxicological properties, disease control efficacy, and pesticide residue and detection technologies of the aforementioned nine benzimidazole fungicides and their main metabolite (2-aminobenzimidazole). On this basis, a brief outlook on the future research directions of benzimidazole fungicides is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Breast density has consistently been shown to be an independent risk factor for breast cancer in Western populations; however, few studies have evaluated this topic in Chinese women and there is not yet a unified view. This study investigated the association between mammographic density (MD) and breast cancer risk in Chinese women. Methods: The PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Wanfang databases were systematically searched in June 2023 to include all studies on the association between MD and breast cancer risk in Chinese women. A total of 13,977 breast cancer cases from 14 studies were chosen, including 10 case-control/cross-sectional studies, and 4 case-only studies. For case-control/cross-sectional studies, the odds ratios (ORs) of MD were combined using random effects models, and for case-only studies, relative odds ratios (RORs) were combinations of premenopausal versus postmenopausal breast cancer cases. Results: Women with BI-RADS density category II-IV in case-control/cross-sectional studies had a 0.93-fold (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.55, 1.57), 1.08-fold (95% CI 0.40, 2.94), and 1.24-fold (95% CI 0.42, 3.69) higher risk compared to women with the lowest density category. Combined RORs for premenopausal versus postmenopausal women in case-only studies were 3.84 (95% CI 2.92, 5.05), 22.65 (95% CI 7.21, 71.13), and 42.06 (95% CI 4.22, 419.52), respectively, for BI-RADS density category II-IV versus I. Conclusions: For Chinese women, breast cancer risk is weakly associated with MD; however, breast cancer risk is more strongly correlated with mammographic density in premenopausal women than postmenopausal women. Further research on the factors influencing MD in premenopausal women may provide meaningful insights into breast cancer prevention in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) and flexible ureterorenoscopy (F-URS) are recommended as the first choice for non-lower pole kidney stones. Therefore, we conducted a prospective study to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and cost of SWL versus F-URS in patients with solitary non-lower pole kidney stones ≤ 20 mm under the COVID-19 pandemic. This prospective study was conducted in a tertiary hospital from June 2020 to April 2022. Patients who underwent lithotripsy (SWL or F-URS) for non-lower pole kidney stones were enrolled in this study. The stone-free rate (SFR), retreatment rate, complications, and cost were recorded. Propensity score-matched (PSM) analysis was performed. A total of 699 patients were finally included, of which 81.3% (568) were treated with SWL and 18.7% (131) underwent F-URS. After PSM, SWL showed equivalent SFR (87.9% vs. 91.1%, P = 0.323), retreatment rate (8.6% vs. 4.8%, P = 0.169), and adjunctive procedure (2.6% vs. 4.9%, P = 0.385) compared with F-URS. Complications were scarce and also comparable between SWL and F-URS (6.0% vs 7.7%, P > 0.05), while the incidence of ureteral perforation was higher in the F-URS group compared with the SWL group (1.5% vs 0%, P = 0.008). The hospital stay was significantly shorter (1 day vs 2 days, P < 0.001), and the cost was considerably less (1200 vs 30,083, P < 0.001) in the SWL group compared with the F-URS group. This prospective cohort demonstrated that SWL had equivalent efficacy with more safety and cost benefits than F-URS in treating patients with solitary non–lower pole kidney stones ≤ 20 mm. During the COVID-19 pandemic, SWL may have benefits in preserving hospital resources and limiting opportunity for virus transmission, compared to URS. These findings may guide clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of synthetic biology, rapid advancements in DNA assembly and editing have made it possible to manipulate large DNA, even entire genomes. These advancements have facilitated the introduction of long metabolic pathways, the creation of large-scale disease models, and the design and assembly of synthetic mega-chromosomes. Generally, the introduction of large DNA in host cells encompasses three critical steps: design-cloning-transfer. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the three key steps involved in large DNA transfer to advance the field of synthetic genomics and large DNA engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Letter reports two kinds of oxygen-containing plasma treated β-Ga2O3 Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs), including N2O plasma treatment and O2 plasma treatment, and the SBD without plasma is prepared for comparison. I–V characteristics, breakdown characteristics, and trap state characteristics of three devices have been studied. It is found that the turn-on voltage of SBDs with N2O plasma can reduce to 0.6 V, and the better current density of 750 A/cm2 and an on-resistance of 3.5 mΩ cm2 are obtained after the N2O plasma treatment. Moreover, the breakdown voltage of SBDs with N2O plasma is 50.2% higher than the conventional one, whose value reaches 323 V. In addition, the trap states' characteristics of the devices are studied, which show that the oxygen-containing plasma can reduce the deep level trap states density partly in the anode region, which can improve the surface quality effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: We determined the prevalence of major depression and suicidal ideation, and the associated risk factors in a large sample of Chinese resident physicians. Methods: This multi-center cross-sectional study was conducted from December 2019 to February 2020 and involved 1343 residents from eight centers. Extensive characteristics, including demographics, dietary habits, life-related factors, work-related factors, and psychological factors were collected based on a self-reported questionnaire. Specific scales measured the levels of sleep quality, physical activity, depression, perceived organization support, psychological capital, and burnout. Adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were determined by binary paired logistic regression. Results: Of the residents enrolled in the study, 12.90% suffered from major depression and 9.70% suffered from suicidal ideation. Four overlapped independent risk factors were identified for major depression and suicidal ideation: poor sleep quality (OR = 1.317, OR = 1.200); lower optimism of psychological capital (OR = 0.899, OR = 0.835); higher depersonalization, (OR = 1.086, OR = 1.097); and reduced personal accomplishment (OR = 0.963, OR = 0.962). The inappropriate working duration weekly (< 40 h vs. 40–60 h; OR = 2.812, > 60 h vs. 40–60 h; OR = 1.945), and higher emotional exhaustion (OR = 1.121) were the only risk factors for major depression. Higher hope of psychological capital (OR = 1.077) was only for suicidal ideation. Conclusion: This study revealed a substantial prevalence of major depression and suicidal ideation in Chinese residents, and identified several shared risk factors for major depression and suicidal ideation. These findings enrich the existing theoretical model of depression and demonstrated a critical need for additional studies that investigate intervention strategies that can address the mental health in residents. Trial registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, ChiCTR1900027707. Registered 24 Nov. 2019, http://www.chictr.org.cn/index.aspx [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A novel method is developed for constructing the minimum-volume ellipsoid convex model with outlier detection using samples of uncertain parameters. • The local outlier factor, combined with the k-nearest Natural Neighbor concept, serves as indicators for outliers in a given set of samples. • The minimum-volume ellipsoid convex model enclosing all the identified normal samples is constructed with the SDP formulation, which is highly efficient and able to ensure global optimality of the problem. • The obtained ellipsoid convex models avoid over-conservativeness induced by outliers in uncertainty modeling and robust topology optimization. The ellipsoid convex model can be suitably used for structural analysis and design optimization under uncertain-but-bounded parameters and loads. Such a model can be constructed using measured samples of the uncertainties. However, the presence of outliers is often unavoidable due to system fluctuations in the measurements. Thus, it is necessary to detect any outliers among the samples before constructing the uncertainty model to prevent over-conservativeness. To this end, the present paper proposes a rational approach for constructing ellipsoid convex models with outlier detection. The concept of the local outlier factor (LOF) is utilized, in conjunction with the k-nearest natural neighbor to adaptively determine the neighborhood range. Then the outliers are detected using the scaled median absolute deviation method, based on the LOF values obtained. Finally, the minimum-volume ellipsoid convex model is constructed with a mathematically strict and efficient semi-definite programming formulation using the normal samples. The validity of the proposed approach is demonstrated with numerical examples. The application of the constructed uncertainty model in non-probabilistic robust topology optimization is demonstrated, and the results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The management of complete staghorn stones remains a challenge for urologists, owing to the high stone burden, low stone free rate, and high rate of complications. Hence, we aimed to evaluate the outcomes of a technique involving combination laparoscopy and nephrolithotomy in the same session in patient with complete staghorn stones and poor performance status. Methods: We retrospectively evaluated seven patients with complete staghorn stones who underwent a combination of laparoscopy and nephrolithotomy in the same session in our center between December 2016 and October 2019. The surgical technique was as follows. Through a four-port transperitoneal laparoscopic approach, the kidney was mobilized after complete dissection of the renal pedicle. The renal pelvis was then incised with a cold scalpel. A nephroscope was inserted into the renal collecting system through both a laparoscopic port and the renal pelvis incision. This method enabled visualization of and access to almost all calyces for clearing the stones from the affected kidneys in a hand-assisted manner which a hand was inserted in the peritoneal cavity. The outcome data included the stone-free rate, short-term and long-term complication rates, and stone recurrence rate. Results: The stone free rate was 85.70% (6/7). No patients had sepsis or required blood transfusion perioperatively, and no major short-term complications occurred. After 24.00 (15.00, 48.00) months' follow-up, no patients had long-term complications, and only one patient had stone recurrence. Conclusion: The technique of combining laparoscopy and nephrolithotomy in the same session was an effective and safe treatment for patients with complete staghorn stones and poor performance status. The method was scarcely affected by the stone burden and morphology, had a satisfactory stone free rate, and resulted in no major complications, particularly life-threatening sepsis. It might be an option for such patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodegradability significantly impacts the bioapplication of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN). In recent years, immense efforts have been made to understand and tailor the biodegradability of MSN. In this mini review, we overview the recent reports on the biodegradation of MSN, with a focus on the correlation between biodegradation and physicochemical properties including specific surface area, morphology, pore size, particle diameter and condensation degree of silicon-oxygen network. In addition, strategies for improving the biodegradability of MSN such as metal ions and organic species doping are also introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aero‐engine hot section components experience combined high and low cycle fatigue (CCF) loading under actual working conditions. This paper proposes a modified fatigue damage accumulation model to precisely predict lifetimes of aero‐engine materials according to the newly presented interaction factor, which is able to quantitatively map damage interactions introduced by high cycle fatigue (HCF) and low cycle fatigue (LCF) loads. With the model, the lifetimes of four typical engine materials are predicted and compared to their factual data from experiments. The validation of the model is illustrated by a comprehensive comparison of the results concluded by the proposed model and that of other classical methodologies, which indicates that the new model holds the best performance in lifetime predictions. Moreover, an actual engineering case, which is the lifetime prediction of third stage turbine blades of an aero‐engine, is completed to validate the feasibility of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vacuum arc thruster is a type of micro-thruster based on pulsed ablative vacuum arc discharge. A simple inductive energy storage circuit in a vacuum arc thruster is particularly suitable for CubeSats because of its compact size and low cost. In practice, it is necessary to predict the thruster performance with the given design parameters. However, unlike the pulsed plasma thruster, there is a lack of integrated performance models for the vacuum arc thruster that cover all three processes of the circuit, ablation, and acceleration. In this study, a circuit model that accounts for the real characteristics of the components, such as the inductor, was developed. Discharge experiments were conducted to validate the proposed circuit model. The current-time curve and discharge energy were calculated and had relative errors of less than 15%. The performance model was obtained by combining the circuit model with the existing ablation and acceleration models. The input power and thrust-to-power ratio were predicted, and the results were compared to a flight test of the thruster prototype. The error in the input power was small, whereas the error in the thrust-to-power ratio was relatively large. This large error can be explained by the differences in the surface conditions. • A circuit model is built to calculate the pulse discharge process. • The circuit model is validated by ground discharge experiments. • The influence of circuit parameters on discharge is investigated. • An integrated model is developed for predicting the thruster performance. • The predictions are compared with the flight test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Person re-identification (re-ID) has attracted much attention recently due to its great importance in video surveillance. In general, distance metrics used to identify two person images are expected to be robust under various appearance changes. However, our work observes the extreme vulnerability of existing distance metrics to adversarial examples, generated by simply adding human-imperceptible perturbations to person images. Hence, the security danger is dramatically increased when deploying commercial re-ID systems in video surveillance. Although adversarial examples have been extensively applied for classification analysis, it is rarely studied in metric analysis like person re-identification. The most likely reason is the natural gap between the training and testing of re-ID networks, that is, the predictions of a re-ID network cannot be directly used during testing without an effective metric. In this work, we bridge the gap by proposing Adversarial Metric Attack, a parallel methodology to adversarial classification attacks. Comprehensive experiments clearly reveal the adversarial effects in re-ID systems. Meanwhile, we also present an early attempt of training a metric-preserving network, thereby defending the metric against adversarial attacks. At last, by benchmarking various adversarial settings, we expect that our work can facilitate the development of adversarial attack and defense in metric-based applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents regional attraction of line segment maps, and hereby poses the problem of line segment detection (LSD) as a problem of region coloring. Given a line segment map, the proposed regional attraction first establishes the relationship between line segments and regions in the image lattice. Based on this, the line segment map is equivalently transformed to an attraction field map (AFM), which can be remapped to a set of line segments without loss of information. Accordingly, we develop an end-to-end framework to learn attraction field maps for raw input images, followed by a squeeze module to detect line segments. Apart from existing works, the proposed detector properly handles the local ambiguity and does not rely on the accurate identification of edge pixels. Comprehensive experiments on the Wireframe dataset and the YorkUrban dataset demonstrate the superiority of our method. In particular, we achieve an F-measure of 0.831 on the Wireframe dataset, advancing the state-of-the-art performance by 10.3 percent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To investigate the relationship between intrapartum maternal fever and the duration and dosage of patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA). Methods: This observational study included 159 pregnant women who voluntarily accepted PCEA. During labor, patients with body temperature ≥ 38 °C were classified into the Fever group, (n = 42), and those with body temperature < 38 °C were classified into the No-fever group (n = 117). The outcome measures included the duration of PCEA, number of PCEA, and total PCEA amount. Body temperature and parturient variables, including interpartum fever status and the duration of any fever were monitored. Results: The total PCEA duration and total PCEA amount in the Fever group were significantly higher than the corresponding values in the No-fever group (both, p < 0.05). The duration of fever was weakly correlated with the duration of PCEA (R2 = 0.08) and the total PCEA amount (R2 = 0.05) (both, p < 0.05). The total and effective PCEA were higher in the Fever group than in the No-fever group (both, p < 0.05). The total PCEA duration and total PCEA amount were positively correlated with the incidence of fever (both, p < 0.05). The diagnostic cutoff value for fever was 383 min, with a sensitivity of 78.6% and specificity of 57.3%. The mean temperature-time curves showed that parturients who developed fever had a steeper rise in temperature. Conclusions: This study showed that there were weak time- and dose-dependent correlations between PCEA and maternal fever during delivery. A total PCEA duration exceeding 6.3 h was associated with an increase in the duration of maternal intrapartum fever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning robust and discriminative representations is essential for 3D object retrieval. In this paper, we present an improved Multi-view Convolutional Neural Network (MVCNN) for view-based 3D object representation learning. Our technical contributions are divided into two aspects. First, we propose to employ Group-view Similarity Learning (GSL) over the multi-view representations before the aggregation operation (i.e., max-pooling in MVCNN). We assume that the similarity information among the view groups of different 3D objects can provide an important cue but has been neglected more or less by previous methods. To enhance it, we add a branch to the original MVCNN architecture and learn to maintain such group-view similarity relationships. Second, we utilize an end-to-end metric learning loss function to improve the representation learning process. In particular, we propose an improved Triplet-Center Loss (TCL) named Adaptive Margin based Triplet-Center Loss (AMTCL). The original TCL assumes a fixed and common margin to control the relative distance relationship between a sample to its corresponding class center and to the nearest negative center. Though TCL has demonstrated its great capacity on the 3D object retrieval task, however, when considering the distinguishability between samples of one class and samples of another class, we assume that it would be more appropriate that the margin takes different values based on the distinguishability of samples of different classes. Therefore we propose to adaptively and dynamically adjust the margin hyperparameter based on the normalized confusion matrix which is obtained on the training set during the training process. Extensive experiments on several public 3D shape benchmarks show that our method, GSL + AMTCL, can learn more suitable representations for 3D object retrieval, obtaining superior performance against state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sediment dredging is a controversial technology for lake eutrophication control. A lengthy and holistic assessment is important to understand the effects of a dredging project on a lake ecosystem. In this study, a dredging project was followed for 5 years. To understand the variations of lake ecosystems before, during and after the project, water quality, phytoplankton, zooplankton and benthic animal biomass were monitored; Four subindicators, including eco-exergy (Ex), structural eco-exergy (Ex st), buffer capacity of total phosphorus for phytoplankton (β (TP)(phyto)) and trophic level index (TLI) were calculated and developed to an integrated ecosystem health indicator (EHI). The monitoring results showed that the dredging project caused many short-term positive effects such as decreased total nitrogen, total phosphorus, permanganate index and phytoplankton biomass throughout the entire lake water, increased Secchi disk depth in the whole lake and increased benthonic animal biomass in the nondredged regions. However, these positive effects disappeared overtime. Water chemistry and biomass returned to the initial state before dredging. EHI showed that the dredging project caused negative effects on the lake health in the dredged region at first. Subsequently, the health status of the entire lake, including the dredged and nondredged regions, improved until 1–2 years after the project finished. Because of the lack of other timely ecological restoration measures, the lake gradually returned to its initial health status. However, the health status in the dredged regions was only slightly better than before dredging and often worse than that of the nondredged regions. Our study suggested that dredging projects may only cause short-term positive effects on lake ecosystem health. The external interception and dredging ratio were important. A dredging project should be combined with other ecological lake restoration measures when the project has caused positive effects in a lake. Unlabelled Image • A dredging project was followed for 5 years. • The effects of dredging on water quality, biomass and lake health were assessed. • Dredging caused positive effects in a short-term (approximately 2 years). • Lake health in the dredged regions was worse than that in the nondredged regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Although surgical resection is the primary treatment method for pheochromocytoma, it carries a high risk of morbidity, especially cardiovascular‐related morbidity. There are no models for predicting cardiovascular morbidity after pheochromocytoma surgery. Thus, we developed and validated a model for the preoperative prediction of cardiovascular morbidity after pheochromocytoma surgery. Design: The development cohort consisted of 262 patients who underwent unilateral laparoscopic or open pheochromocytoma surgery at our centre between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2016. Patient's clinicopathologic data were recorded. The LASSO regression was used for data dimension reduction and feature selection; then, multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to develop the prediction model. An independent cohort consisting of 112 consecutive patients from 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2018 was used for validation. The performance of this prediction model was assessed with respect to discrimination, calibration and clinical usefulness. Results: The predictors in this prediction model included body mass index, history of coronary heart disease, tumour size, intraoperative hemodynamic instability and use of crystal/colloid fluids preoperatively. In the validation cohort, the model showed good discrimination with an AUROC of 0.869 (95% CI, 0.797, 0.940) and good calibration (unreliability test, P = .852). Decision curve analysis demonstrated that the model was also clinically useful. Conclusion: This study presented a good nomogram that could facilitate the preoperative individualized prediction of cardiovascular morbidity after pheochromocytoma surgery, which may help improve perioperative strategy and good treatment outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A quantification and generation method of random load history is proposed. • The H-LCF life prediction framework is established considering random load history. • An improved H-LCF damage curve considering load interaction is proposed. In this paper, a probabilistic high and low cycle fatigue (H-LCF) life prediction framework is proposed to consider random load history into fatigue life prediction of structures. First, the random load history is generated and quantified by finite element analysis (FEA) and Monte Carlo simulation (MCS). Subsequently, based on the quantification approach and an improved H-LCF damage curve, the framework of probabilistic H-LCF life prediction is then established. A turbine shaft is analyzed by the proposed method, which confirms the superior accuracy of the proposed method than the existing ones. Overall, the proposed method provides an effective way for structures' fatigue life and reliability assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chitotriose (CTS), the hydrolysate of chitosan, is readily soluble in water because of the shorter chain lengths of the oligomers and the free amino groups in the d -glucosamine units. In the current study, we report the synthesis of novel conjugate vaccine Tn-BSA-CTS with chitotriose as built-in adjuvant, along with an evaluation of the effect of adjuvant chitotriose (CTS). Immunological evaluations of the resultant conjugate vaccine revealed that Tn-BSA-CTS could provoke the highest titers of IgG antibodies (102,400). The Tn-BSA-CTS conjugate remarkably enhanced both humoral and cellular immunity. The obtained results demonstrate the potential of CTS as a novel vaccine adjuvant in the development of antitumor vaccine and the covalent linkage of tumor vaccine to CTS might be available strategy to increase the efficacy against cancer. [Display omitted] • A novel fully synthetic two-component self-adjuvanting antitumor vaccine Tn-BSA-CTS was successfully synthesized. • This Tn-BSA-CTS conjugate remarkably enhanced both humoral and cellular immunity. • Covalent linkage of CTS to conjugated tumor vaccine might be a available strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The association between small Sc addition and different precipitates in an Al Cu Mg Ag alloy is investigated in the present work to explain the Sc-dependent microstructural evolution during extended aging at 180 °C. The age-hardening capacity and the strength properties of Al Cu Mg Ag alloy are found to be degraded by 0.32 wt% Sc addition. This negative effect of Sc is directly associated with the formation of Al 8 Cu 4 Sc intermetallics, which consumes the available Cu solutes for Ω precipitation and hence contributes to the slower Ω nucleation and resultant lower plate number density. Addition of 0.32 wt% Sc to the studied Al Cu Mg Ag alloy also facilitates the rapid growth of S precipitates and induces a rapid lengthening of Ω phase during extended aging. In addition, no distinct grain refinement can be observed with 0.32 wt% Sc addition. • Sc reduces the age-hardening level of an Al Cu Mg Ag alloy. • Sc significantly suppresses the precipitation of Ω and θ phases. • Sc accelerates the growth of S phase and induces a rapid lengthening of Ω phase. • Sc fails to refine the grain structure of aged Al Cu Mg Ag alloy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diffusion process has advanced object retrieval greatly as it can capture the underlying manifold structure. Recent studies have experimentally demonstrated that tensor product diffusion can better reveal the intrinsic relationship between objects than other variants. However, the principle remains unclear, i.e., what kind of manifold structure is captured. In this paper, we propose a new affinity learning algorithm called Regularized Diffusion Process (RDP). By deeply exploring the properties of RDP, our first yet basic contribution is providing a manifold-based explanation for tensor product diffusion. A novel criterion measuring the smoothness of the manifold is defined, which simultaneously regularizes four vertices in the affinity graph. Inspired by this observation, we further contribute two variants towards two specific goals. While ARDP can learn similarities across heterogeneous domains, HRDP performs affinity learning on tensor product hypergraph, considering the relationships between objects are generally more complex than pairwise. Consequently, RDP, ARDP and HRDP constitute a generic tool for object retrieval in most commonly-used settings, no matter the input relationships between objects are derived from the same domain or not, and in pairwise formulation or not. Comprehensive experiments on 10 retrieval benchmarks, especially on large scale data, validate the effectiveness and generalization of our work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility and safety of reproductive organ preserving radical cystectomy (ROPRC) compared to radical cystectomy (RC) for elderly female patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer.Methods: We retrospectively studied 135 elderly female patients (aged ≥75 years) who underwent RC followed by cutaneous ureterostomies at our center between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2017. Eighty-four patients treated with RC, and 51 patients treated with ROPRC, were grouped into 45 pairs. Patient demographics, extensive peri-operative, and oncological data were then recorded and evaluated.Results: In the matched group, the incidence of short-term and long-term complications in the ROPRC group were lower than the RC group (18.0% vs 28.0%, P = .035; 12.0% vs 22.0%, P = .030). Furthermore, operative time was shorter, estimated blood loss was lower, and bowel recovery was quicker in the ROPRC group (207.5 minutes vs 267.9 minutes, P < .001; 500 mL vs 600 mL, P = .024; 3.0 days vs 4.0 days, P < .001, respectively) compared to the RC group. The recurrence free survival (P = .658), overall survival (P = .604), and cancer-specific survival (P = .361) were all equivalent when compared between the 2 groups with a median follow-up period of 34.0 and 38.0 months, respectively. The surgical approach (RC vs ROPRC) was an independent risk factor for short-term complications (P = .045), duration of operative time (P < .001), estimated blood loss (P = .004), and bowel recovery (P < .001).Conclusion: This propensity score-matched cohort study showed that ROPRC was both feasible and safe for elderly female patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer compared to RC, and also had comparable oncological outcomes after a lengthy follow-up period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a post-processing procedure, the diffusion process has demonstrated its ability of substantially improving the performance of various visual retrieval systems. Whereas, great efforts are also devoted to similarity (or metric) fusion, seeing that only one individual type of similarity cannot fully reveal the intrinsic relationship between objects. This stimulates a great research interest of considering similarity fusion in the framework of the diffusion process (i.e., fusion with diffusion) for robust retrieval. In this paper, we first revisit representative methods about fusion with diffusion and provide new insights which are ignored by previous researchers. Then, observing that existing algorithms are susceptible to noisy similarities, the proposed regularized ensemble diffusion (RED) is bundled with an automatic weight learning paradigm, so that the negative impacts of noisy similarities are suppressed. Though formulated as a convex optimization problem, one advantage of RED is that it converts back into the iteration-based solver with the same computational complexity as the conventional diffusion process. At last, we integrate several recently-proposed similarities with the proposed framework. The experimental results suggest that we can achieve new state-of-the-art performances on various retrieval tasks, including 3D shape retrieval on the ModelNet data set, and image retrieval on the Holidays and Ukbench data sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the ability of capturing the geometry structure of data manifold, context-sensitive similarity has demonstrated impressive performances in the retrieval task. The key idea of context-sensitive similarity is that the similarity between two data points can be more reliably estimated with the local context of other points in the affinity graph. Therefore, neighborhood selection is a crucial factor for those algorithms, which affects the performance dramatically. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm called Smooth Neighborhood (SN) that mines the neighborhood structure to satisfy the manifold assumption. By doing so, nearby points on the underlying manifold are guaranteed to yield similar neighbors as much as possible. Moreover, SN is adjusted to tackle multiple affinity graphs by imposing a weight learning paradigm, and this is the primary difference compared with related works which are only applicable with one affinity graph. Finally, we integrate SN with Sparse Contextual Activation (SCA), a representative context-sensitive similarity proposed recently. Extensive experimental results and comparisons manifest that with the neighborhood structure generated by SN, the proposed framework can yield state-of-the-art performances on shape retrieval, image retrieval and 3D model retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that deformation prior to artificial aging considerably decreases the strength properties of Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloys by suppressing the formation of the main strengthening Ω precipitates. This negative effect is the as-yet unresolved obstacle for the wide applications of Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloys. In this work, preaging prior to deformation is conducted to evaluate its possible influence on improving the typical microstructure and strength of deformed Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloy. Quantitative transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atom probe tomography (APT) analysis of the initial solute clustering and subsequent Ω precipitation of the deformed alloy with and without preaging indicate that preaging ensures strong Mg-Ag co-clustering and hence benefits the dense precipitation of Ω phase in deformed Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloy. Naturally, the strength of 1% stretched Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloy is obviously enhanced by preaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator gene ( CFTR ) gene can be involved in the development of congenital bilateral absence of the vas deferens (CBAVD). This study was aimed at investigating mutations in the promoter region of the CFTR gene and its associated effects on CFTR transcription in Chinese patients with CBAVD. Methods To identify CFTR promoter region mutations in Chinese CBAVD patients, fragments 1.4 kb upstream of the ATG start codon of the CFTR gene were sequenced in 66 Chinese patients with CBAVD and compared to the corresponding sequences from 60 healthy subjects and sequence data present in the NCBI database. The relationship between the mutations and gene regulation was explored using Transfac analysis and a phylogenetic footprint method. Plasmids were constructed by incorporating statistically significant variant sequences. The effects of the mutations on CFTR transcription were investigated using a dual luciferase reporter gene assay. Results a total of six point mutations, which included c.-150G > T, c.-205 T > C, c.-245C > T, c.-871G > T, c.-966 T > G and c.-1062G > C, and one deletion mutation, namely c.-861delT, were identified in the promoter region of the CFTR gene in Chinese CBAVD patients. Among them, c.-966 T > G had the highest frequency and presented in either a homozygous or heterozygous mutation state. The frequency of G/G genotype in the CBAVD group was 33/66 (50.00%), while the T/G and T/T genotypes had frequencies of 18/66 (27.27%) and 15/66 (22.73%), respectively. A significant difference was found between the CBAVD and control group (P < 0.01). The locus for this variant was found in a conserved sequence. The Transfac tool showed that transcription factors EHF and STAT3, which are closely associated with reproduction, can bind to the sequence containing the variant locus. Two types of plasmid vectors, one carrying the G/G variant and the other the wild type T/T sequences, were constructed and respectively transfected into human cervical cancer cells (HeLa), human renal epithelial cells (HEK-293), and human colon cancer cells (SW480). It was found that the homozygous c.-966 T > G mutation significantly reduced CFTR transcription efficiency by 18.75%–35.50%. Conclusion Mutations in the promoter region of the CFTR gene in Chinese CBAVD patients are different from those found in comparable Caucasian patients. The homozygous c.-966 T > G mutation state had the highest frequency, which reduced the CFTR transcriptional level and showed significant tissue-specificity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By using a chiral cinchona alkaloid-squaramide catalyst, a series of both enantiomers of novel amino-pyrimidine derivatives can be obtained in an enantioselective three-component one-pot Mannich reaction with high yields and excellent enantioselectivities. In addition, these chiral derivatives were found to exhibit higher antiviral activities against tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) in vivo than the commercial agent ningnanmycin. In particular, chiral compounds (R)-4b and (R)-4e showed excellent antiviral activity against TMV at a concentration of 500 μg/mL, with a curative activity of 56.8% and 55.2%, respectively, a protection activity of 69.1% and 67.1%, respectively, and an inactivation activity of 91.5% and 94.3%, respectively. These values are superior to those of the agent ningnanmycin (which has curative, protective, and inactivation activities of 52.9%, 62.8%, and 90.4%, respectively). The antiviral mechanisms and enhanced antiviral activities of these chiral derivatives are interesting subjects for future investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The initial solute clustering is known to significantly affect the subsequent precipitation of various strengthening precipitates that determine the mechanical properties of Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloys. In this work, the influence of Ag variations on the initial cluster hardening and microstructure evolution of Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloys is investigated by quantitative transmission electron microscopy (TEM), electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and atom probe tomography (APT) analysis. Our statistical data and calculation results indicate that the overwhelming Mg-Ag co-clustering by increasing Ag from 0.41 to 0.97 indeed enables a higher nucleation rate of Ω phase and contributes to a denser Ω precipitation generating a stronger age-hardening response at 180 ℃. Analysis of the contribution of individual precipitates to the yield strength highlights the positive role of increasing Ag on improving the cluster hardening capacity of Mg-Ag co-clusters by increasing its order hardening level. Compared with Cu-Mg co-clusters and GP zones, Mg-Ag co-clusters exhibit a greatest strengthening contribution to yield strength of the material as the bulk Ag content increases. Except for GP zones, Mg-Ag and Cu-Mg co-clusters prefer to exhibit a strong order hardening rather than modulus hardening in initially aged alloys. In addition, the average grain sizes, as well as the proportions of low angle grain boundaries (LAGBs) and high angle grain boundaries (HAGBs), reveal no distinct differences in both alloys, suggesting the independence of grain structure on the bulk Ag content. • The dependence of initial solute clustering on Ag variations is confirmed. • The individual contribution of various clusters to the strengthening is quantified. • Increasing Ag favors a greatest order strengthening effect of Mg-Ag co-clusters. • Increasing Ag enhances the hardening response by preferred Mg-Ag co-clustering. • The bulk Ag variations have no obvious influence on the grain structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of cloud computing, big data, IoT, and mobile applications in the public transportation industry has resulted in the generation of vast and complex data, of which the large data volume and data variety have posed several obstacles to effective data sensing and processing with high efficiency in a real-time data-driven public transportation management system. To overcome the above-mentioned challenges and to guarantee optimal data availability for data sensing and processing in public transportation perception, a public transportation sensing platform is proposed to collect, integrate, and organize diverse data from different data sources. The proposed data perception platform connects multiple data systems and some edge intelligent perception devices to enable the collection of various types of data, including traveling information of passengers and transaction data of smart cards. To enable the efficient extraction of precise and detailed traveling behavior, an efficient field-level data lineage exploration method is proposed during logical plan generation and is integrated into the FlinkSQL system seamlessly. Furthermore, a row-level fine-grained permission control mechanism is adopted to support flexible data management. With these two techniques, the proposed data management system can support efficient data processing on large amounts of data and conducts comprehensive analysis and application of business data from numerous different sources to realize the value of the data with high data safety. Through operational testing in real environments, the proposed platform has proven highly efficient and effective in managing organizational operations, data assets, data life cycle, offline development, and backend administration over a large amount of various types of public transportation traffic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamically assisted Schwinger mechanism for vacuum pair production from two fields to three fields is proposed and examined. Numerical results for enhanced electron–positron pair production in the combination of three fields with different time scales are obtained using the quantum Vlasov equation. The significance of the combination of three fields in the regime of super low field strength is verified. Although the strengths of each of the three fields are far below the critical field strength, we obtain a significant enhancement of the production rate and a considerable yields in this combination, where the nonperturbative field is dynamically assisted by two oscillating fields. The number density depending on field parameters are also investigated. It is shown that the field threshold to detect the Schwinger effect can be lowered significantly if the configuration of three fields with different time scales are chosen carefully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of 2.5% pre-stretching on the solute clustering and subsequent precipitation of an initial aged Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloy is investigated by quantitative transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atom probe tomography (APT) technique. In present work, 2.5% pre-stretching is found to restrict the dense precipitation of Ω phase, leading to the slower age-hardening response at 180 °C. The dominant Mg-Ag co-clustering, as revealed in non-stretched alloy, becomes weak by 2.5% pre-stretching prior to aging. This suppressed Mg-Ag co-clustering leads to a steep drop of the number density of Mg-Ag co-clusters by 70% and finally fails to induce the formation of high density Ω plates. High density dislocations introduced by pre-stretching also serve as the heterogeneous nucleation sites of θ′ phase and favor an enhanced precipitation of coarse θ′ needles. In addition, pre-stretching also exhibits a negative effect on initial Cu-Mg co-clustering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel 4H–SiC trench MOSFET with Inverted-T groove (IT-UMOS) is proposed and investigated by numerical TCAD simulations in this paper. The IT-UMOS features an Inverted-T groove beneath the gate trench. As a result, compared with the conventional trench MOSFET (C-UMOS) and step-UMOS, the IT-UMOS boasts a much lower gate-drain charge owing to the introduction of Inverted-T groove, thus a lowest switching loss is attained. In addition, the maximum oxide electric field during the blocking state in IT-UMOS is significantly reduced, which means the breakdown capability is not compromised. The dynamic figure of merit (FOM) R on,sp × Q gd of IT-UMOS is the lowest among these three structures. • A novel 4H–SiC trench MOSFET with Inverted-T groove beneath the gate trench (IT-UMOS) is proposed. • The maximum oxide electric field during the blocking state and the gate-drain charge of IT-UMOS is significantly reduced due to the introduction of Inverted-T groove. • The IT-UMOS boasts a lowest dynamic figure of merit (FOM) R on,sp × Q gd among these three structures, indicating the IT-UMOS is a promising candidate for the high frequency application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been reported that RSV infection can enhance IL-33 production in lung macrophages. However, little is known about specific signaling pathways for activation of macrophages during RSV infection. In the present study, by using real-time RT-PCR as well as western blot assay, it became clear that RSV infection can enhance not only the expression of mRNAs for MAPK molecules (including p38, JNK1/2, and ERK1/2), but also the levels of MAPK proteins in lung macrophages as well as RAW264.7 cells. Furthermore, infection with RSV resulted in an increased level of phosphorylated MAPK proteins in RAW264.7 cells, suggesting that MAPK signaling pathway may participate in the process of RSV-induced IL-33 secretion by macrophages. In fact, the elevated production of IL-33 in RAW264.7 was attenuated significantly by pretreatment of the cells with special MAPK inhibitor before RSV infection, further confirming the function of MAPKs pathway in RSV-induced IL-33 production in macrophages. In contrast, the expression of NF-κB mRNA as well as the production of NF-κB protein in lung macrophages and RAW264.7 cells was not enhanced markedly after RSV infection. Moreover, RSV infection failed to induce the phosphorylation of NF-κB in RAW264.7 cells, suggesting that NF-κB signaling pathway may be not involved in RSV-induced IL-33 production in macrophages. Conclusion, these results indicate that RSV-induced production of IL-33 in macrophages is dependent on the activation of MAPK signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the electron–positron pair production process in an oscillating field with modulated amplitude in the quantum kinetic formalism. By comparing the number density in the oscillating field with and without modulation, we find that the pair production rate can be enhanced by several orders when the photon energy just reaches the threshold with the help of shifted frequency due to modulation. We also detect the same effect in a pulse train with subcycle structure. We demonstrate that the frequency threshold can be lowered by the frequency of the pulse train due to the modulation effect. We also find that the momentum distribution for a N -pulse train can reach N 2 times the single pulse at the maximum value and the number density as a function of pulse number follows the power law with index 1.6 when the modulation effect is maximized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A scheme with a gold cone-capillary is proposed to improve the protons acceleration, and involved problems are investigated by using the two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. It is demonstrated that the cone-capillary can efficiently guide and collimate the protons to a longer distance and result in a better beam quality with a dense density ≥ 10nc, monoenergetic peak energy Ek ~ 1.51 GeV, spatial emittance ~ 0.0088 mm mrad with divergence angle θ ~ 1.0° and diameter ~ 0.5μm. The enhancement is mainly attributed to the focusing effect by the transverse electric field generated by the cone as well as the capillary, which can prevent greatly the protons from expanding in the transverse direction. Comparable to without the capillary, the protons energy spectra have a stable monoenergetic peak and divergence angle nearby 1.0° in longer time. Besides, the efficiency of acceleration depending on the capillary length is explored, and the optimal capillary length is also achieved. Such a target may be beneficial to many applications such as ion fast ignition in inertial fusion, proton therapy and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The close association between the Ω precipitation and various Ag additions is systematically investigated by quantitative transmission electron microscopy and atom probe tomography analysis. Our results suggest that the precipitation of Ω phase is strongly dependent on Ag variations. Increasing the bulk Ag content favors a denser Ω precipitation and hence leads to a greater age-hardening response of Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloy. This phenomenon, as proposed by proximity histograms, is directly related to the greater abundance of Ag solutes within Ω precursors. This feature lowers its nucleation barrier and increases the nucleation rate of Ω phase, finally contributes to the enhanced Ω precipitation. Also, it is noted that increasing Ag remarkably restricts the precipitation of θ' phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioconversion is an important method for transforming food waste (FW) into high value-added products, rendering it harmless, and recycling resources. An artificial microbial consortium (AMC) was constructed to produce FW-based lipopeptides in order to investigate the strategy of FW bioconversion into value-added products. Exogenous fatty acids as a precursor significantly improved the lipopeptide production of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens HM618. To enhance fatty acid synthesis and efflux in AMC, the recombinant Yarrowia lipolytica YL21 (strain YL21) was constructed by screening 12 target genes related to fatty acids to replace exogenous fatty acids in order to improve lipopeptide production. The levels of fengycin, surfactin, and iturin A in the AMC of strains HM618 and YL21 reached 76.19, 192.80, and 31.32 mg L−1, increasing 7.24-, 12.13-, and 3.23-fold compared to the results from the pure culture of strain HM618 in flask with Landy medium, respectively. Furthermore, free fatty acids were almost undetectable in the co-culture of strains HM618 and YL21, although its level was around 1.25 g L−1 in the pure culture of strain YL21 with Landy medium. Interestingly, 470.24 mg L−1 of lipopeptides and 18.11 g L−1 of fatty acids were co-produced in this AMC in a bioreactor with FW medium. To our knowledge, it is the first report of FW biotransformation into co-produce of lipopeptides and fatty acids in the AMC of B. amyloliquefaciens and Y. lipolytica. These results provide new insights into the biotransformation potential of FW for value-added co-products by AMC. [Display omitted] • Exogenous fatty acid enhanced lipopeptides syntheses of B. amyloliquefaciens HM618. • AMC with producing FFAs strain was built to improve lipopeptides synthesis of HM618. • FW bioconversion efficiently coproduced lipopeptides and FFAs by AMC system. • AMC could accelerate high-value resource utilization of FW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shape clustering is a difficult visual task due to large intra-class variations and small inter-class variations induced by shape articulation, rotation, occlusion, etc . To tackle this problem, we attempt to leverage the complementary nature among features of different statistics ( e.g. , skeleton-based descriptors and contour-based descriptors) for robust clustering. In this paper, a similarity fusion framework based on spectral analysis is proposed. The proposed method, which we call co-spectral, is a spectral clustering algorithm. It has two inborn merits for shape clustering: (1) it can automatically make use of the complementarity of various shape similarities based on a co-training framework; (2) it does not require shape representations to be vectors. Co-spectral is evaluated on several popular shape benchmarks. The experimental results demonstrate that co-spectral outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms by a large margin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incorporation of Pd into Pt co‐catalysts is demonstrated as an approach to improve water splitting performance by employing TiO2 nanosheets as a semiconductor model. Theoretical simulations reveal that interatomic polarization between Pd and Pt may play a role in facilitating adsorption of molecular water and activation on Pt reaction sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• CCF loading characteristic is considered in fatigue life prediction of turbine shaft. • The model for CCF life prediction contains HCF-LCF interaction damage. • Generic procedure-based life prediction considers material and load uncertainties. • The effect of random geometric parameters on CCF life is quantified by HSV method. • Probabilistic CCF life modelling of a turbine shaft is presented and validated. Combined high and low cycle fatigue (CCF) is a common failure mode of turbine shaft. This study presents a generic procedure for probabilistic CCF life prediction, and combined with the modified highly stressed volume (HSV) method to improve a prediction framework, which considers the effect of random geometric parameters on fatigue life and establishes the dynamic relationship between key geometric parameters and life distribution. The probabilistic CCF life modeling of turbine shafts with stochastic geometric parameters is presented, whose predicted result is consistent with practical engineering. This research is of great significance for life estimation and prolongation of turbine shaft. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modulus hardening capability of various co-clusters in a low Cu/Mg ratio Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloy aged at 165 °C is investigated by quantitative atom probe tomography analysis. Prolonged aging from 5 min to 2 h leads to the simultaneous increase in the critical shear stress of both Mg-Ag and Cu-Mg co-clusters. Regardless of the higher shear modulus of Cu-Mg co-clusters, calculation results show that Mg-Ag co-clusters possess a greater modulus hardening capability than Cu-Mg co-clusters, suggesting its primary contribution to the rapid hardening at the early aging stage. As aging extends from 30 min to 2 h, the increment in the critical shear stress of Mg-Ag co-clusters is lower than that of Cu-Mg co-clusters due to the precipitation of high density Ω phase. In addition, the shear modulus of Mg-Ag co-clusters is generally independent on its size at each investigated condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an extremely efficient algorithm for visual re-ranking. By considering the original pairwise distance in the contextual space, we develop a feature vector called sparse contextual activation (SCA) that encodes the local distribution of an image. Hence, re-ranking task can be simply accomplished by vector comparison under the generalized Jaccard metric, which has its theoretical meaning in the fuzzy set theory. In order to improve the time efficiency of re-ranking procedure, inverted index is successfully introduced to speed up the computation of generalized Jaccard metric. As a result, the average time cost of re-ranking for a certain query can be controlled within 1 ms. Furthermore, inspired by query expansion, we also develop an additional method called local consistency enhancement on the proposed SCA to improve the retrieval performance in an unsupervised manner. On the other hand, the retrieval performance using a single feature may not be satisfactory enough, which inspires us to fuse multiple complementary features for accurate retrieval. Based on SCA, a robust feature fusion algorithm is exploited that also preserves the characteristic of high time efficiency. We assess our proposed method in various visual re-ranking tasks. Experimental results on Princeton shape benchmark (3D object), WM-SRHEC07 (3D competition), YAEL data set B (face), MPEG-7 data set (shape), and Ukbench data set (image) manifest the effectiveness and efficiency of SCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decreasing the shell thickness of TiO 2 hollow spheres is a promising route to achieve an overall enhanced photocatalytic performance. However, in traditional synthetic approaches, the thin shell can not guarantee the structural stability of the TiO 2 hollow spheres in the following calcination process to achieve a high degree of crystallinity. In this paper, ultrathin porous TiO 2 hollow spheres with good structural stability, high degree of crystallinity as well as in small grain size were prepared through a novel etching and reconstruction route using amorphous SiO 2 /TiO 2 hollow spheres as precursor. With hot water as etchant, the removal of SiO 2 leads to the reconstruction of TiO 2 hollow spheres and receiving a thinner and thinner shell. Such thin shell enables the exposure of more catalytic active sites of TiO 2 nanocrystals and the improved photogenerated charge transfer and separation. Meanwhile, the residual SiO 2 on the TiO 2 shell protects the TiO 2 nanocrystals from growing larger during high-temperature calcinations. The as-obtained ultrathin porous TiO 2 hollow spheres exhibited enhanced photocatalytic activity in hydrogen production from water in comparison with those with thicker shell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction between dislocations and the plate-like Ω phase in crept Al–Cu–Mg–Ag alloys is well investigated by electron microscope technique. Our results shows that Ω phase are sheared by dislocation during creep. Except for the small shearing steps, large steps produced by multiple dislocation shearing along the same slip planes are undoubtedly observed. These shearing steps act as the potential growth ledges and considerably accelerate the thickening of Ω phase during creep. High resolution transmission electron microscopy analysis confirms the interface created by dislocation shearing remains coherent. In addition, the slip system in Ω phase is (010) Ω [001] Ω . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]