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After considering the manufacturer's production capacity constraints and market preference, this paper presents a closed-loop supply chain of automotive tires which consists of a remanufacturer, a retailer, and a recycler, where used tires are collected and reused. Based on the features of the closed-loop tire remanufacturing supply chain, four Stackelberg models are developed to investigate the influences of the carbon tax and the technology subsidy on recycling performance. The result shows that the carbon tax is conducive to improving the remanufacturing technology level and reducing emissions, but it reduces the profit of the manufacturer and the retailer. A subsidy can make up for their loss by the carbon tax. Moreover, an allied decision of the chain's members can help them gain economic benefits, while an independent decision can improve environmental benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reliability assessment concerning the drivetrain system is important for integrated dynamic analysis of large-scale floating wind turbines (FWTs). An open, modular, and adaptable baseline wind turbine controller is implemented and evaluated in this paper to work with the DTU 10 MW reference wind turbines supported by a proposed Tension Leg Platform (TLP). Higher natural frequency of the controller can account for the coupling effects between the blade pitch control and the platform motions that contributing to poor performances of the FWT and negative damped pitch motions. Through simulations by FAST code, the baseline controller is evaluated by comparing the conventional pitch-to-feather strategy and the active pitch-to-stall strategy. The controller is detuned with different control frequencies and the active stall control strategy is tailored for the proposed TLPFWT. The results suggest that system instabilities induced by higher control frequency decreases fast as the growth of wind speed and the stall controller can lead to around twice platform motions and structure force as large as baseline controller in a wide range of frequency, whereas the rotor performance is fine. The DRC working with FAST proves applicable and different control algorithms and the integrated dynamic effects with other floating foundations can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personalized neoantigen vaccines are capable of eliciting vigorous T-cell responses and have been demonstrated to achieve striking therapeutic effects against cancer. Here we performed comprehensive mutanome analysis of the mouse Lewis lung cancer cells to identify tumor neoantigens followed by prediction of their MHC affinity and immunogenicity. We adopted a strategy that enables us to select neoantigens that were predicted to have high affinity to both MHC I and MHC II. Ten neoantigens were selected to synthesize peptide vaccines and tested in vivo for immunogenicity. Four neoantigen peptide vaccines were found to elicit robust immune reactivity and were further examined for tumor inhibition in mice with xenografted LLC tumors. Two neoantigen peptide vaccines showed significant inhibition on tumor growth and prolonged the survival of tumor-bearing mice. Our studies explored the neoantigen peptide vaccines to treat lung cancer and provide rationale for the optimization of tumor neoantigen selection for therapeutic vaccines. • Comprehensive mutanome analysis efficiently reveals tumor-specific neoantigens. • Balancing both MHCI and MHCII affinity is effective and efficient for the selection of neoantigens. • Neoantigen peptide vaccines can elicit robust immune reactivity and significantly inhibit LLC tumor growth in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ferrate has recently been used to reduce waste-activated sludge (WAS), but solid potassium ferrate is costly. Hence, the lower cost composite ferrate solution (CFS), which contains Fe6+, ClO−, and OH−, was prepared to disintegrate WAS in this study. Effect and mechanism of sludge disintegration treated by CFS were investigated. Results showed that CFS could effectively destroy the sludge flocs and extracellular polymeric substances, resulting in the reduction of the median particle size and the release of proteins, polysaccharides, and metal cations such as Ca2+, Mg2+, and Zn2+. Sludge cell structure had been completely disrupted, and the intracellular material released, which led to the increase in the concentrations of the soluble chemical oxygen demand, total phosphorus (TP), soluble phosphorus (SP), total nitrogen (TN), nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N), and ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N). As a result, the mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) and mixed liquor volatile suspended solids (MLVSS) decreased, and the sludge settleability improved. At an optimum ferrate dosage of 50 mg Fe/g SS, the MLSS and MLVSS were reduced by 59% and 73%, respectively; the sludge settleability was improved by ∼72% setting velocity to 79% sludge volume index. TP and SP were transformed into a solid form with Fe(III) formed in situ at higher CFS dosages. During the process, part of the nitrogen escaped from the system as volatile-free ammonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sludge reduction has been a key issue in waste activated sludge (WAS) treatment. In this study, composite ferrate solution (CFS) has been used to disintegrate WAS. The results showed that CFS could effectively disrupt sludge flocs and cells and caused the release of intracellular matter such as SCOD, cations and organic acids. These results showed that the sludge disintegration process could be divided into a rapid reaction stage (0–2 h) and a slow reaction stage (2–24 h). It was determined that at a CFS dosage of 50 mg Fe/g SS and a reaction time of 24 h, the sludge reduction was 55.4% and SV and SVI were reduced by 12.1% and 46.4%, respectively. The Fe(VI), ClO − and OH − in CFS all played important roles in sludge decomposition, but they did not have synergistic effects. The small-particle sludge, in situ formed Fe 3+ and released Ca 2+ could improve the sludge settleability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Comparative analysis on variable stiffness composite cylindrical shells are conducted. • A numerical modeling method is proposed to achieve variable stiffness property. • Preloading effects on stiffness and buckling strength are investigated. • Boundary constraints and curvilinear fiber paths are analyzed to explore the design space. Composite cylindrical shell has been utilized in marine shipping industry as a reliable auxiliary wind propulsion device that can reduce fuel consumption. However, due to the special boundary constraints and complex loading cases, the vibration and buckling responses of such devices differ significantly from traditional cylindrical shells. The present research deals with the vibration and buckling behavior of composite cylindrical shells utilizing the promising variable stiffness (VS) concept. The effects of the preloading states and the design constraints were analyzed to explore the effectiveness of VS concept in cylindrical shell structures. Compared to constant stiffness (CS) composite cylindrical shells, VS cylindrical shells are less sensitive to variation in preloading states and geometric imperfections, and the buckling strength can be improved under some combination of loading sates. The effect of boundary constraints on stiffness and bucking strength is less prominent own to VS properties, in that stress concentrations near the end of the cylindrical shell structures can be smoothed out, and the strain distributions are spaced more evenly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By taking the importance of seepage parameters into account during the suction process, a comparison analysis of seepage field between bucket foundations with (C-BF) and without multiple subdivisions inside (N-BF) is performed in this paper, with the consideration of tilt adjustment as well as the complexity in underwater soil. Scaled model experiments were conducted at first to acquire the excess pore water pressure μ e , and then the law of three-dimensional heat conduction was used to simulate the seepage field and the parameters of the two models. The results of simulations were compared with those of the model experiment, and it is shown that the computational results agree well with those of experiments; N-BF is more sensitive to the tilting of the bucket body than C-BF; the layered soil can protect the seepage filled with limited hydraulic gradient and seepage flux; basically the seepage field variations with the same internal structure under different working conditions have their own regularities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cytokine interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) is an evolutionarily conserved molecule that was originally identified in the immune system. Nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) plays a critical role in the activation of immune cells by upregulating the expression of many cytokines. In this study, we investigated the localization and expression level of IL-1β, its functional membrane receptor type I (IL-1R1) and NF-κB in the skin of Rana dybowskii during the breeding period and pre-hibernation. Histologically, the skin of Rana dybowskii consists of epidermis and dermis, and four kinds of cells were identified in the epidermis during the breeding period and pre-hibernation, while the dermis was composed of homogenous gel, mucous glands and granular glands. IL-1β, IL-1R1 and NF-κB were immunolocalized in the epithelial and glandular cells in both periods. Western blotting showed that there was no significant difference in the expression of IL-1β between the breeding period and pre-hibernation, whereas IL-1R1 and NF-κB were significantly higher in the pre-hibernation compared to the breeding period. These results suggested that IL-1β and NF-κB may collectively play important roles in the skin immune system of Rana dybowskii during the breeding period and pre-hibernation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese brown frog ( Rana dybowskii ) has one special physiological phenomenon, which is that its oviduct expands prior to hibernation rather than in the breeding period. In this study, we investigated the immunolocalization and expression levels of prostaglandin-E2 (PGE2), cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 and COX-2, as well as one of its receptor subtypes 4 (EP4) in the oviduct of Rana dybowskii during the pre-hibernation and breeding period. PGE2, COX-1, COX-2 and EP4 have been observed in glandular and epithelial cells in the breeding period, whereas only in the epithelial cells during the pre-hibernation. Consistently, the protein levels of COX-2 and EP4 were higher in the pre-hibernation as compared to the breeding period, but the diversity of COX-1 was not obvious. In addition, oviductal PGE2 concentration was also significantly higher in the pre-hibernation. These results suggested that prostaglandin-E2 may play an important autocrine or paracrine role in oviductal cell proliferation and differentiation of Rana dybowskii during pre-hibernation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present OURS , a precision-oriented MATLAB tool for computing O ver- and U nder- approximations of R eachable S ets for analytic time-invariant differential equations. The main theoretical framework behind OURS is introduced, including the concept of evolution function, whose zero sub-level sets are used to describe reachable sets, and a series representation of evolution function. Especially, using the partial sums of this series, OURS finds over- and under-approximations of evolution function at time-instants: it consecutively estimates each remainder of the corresponding partial sum of the series with interval arithmetics until one remainder satisfies the designated precision, and then builds over- and under-approximations with this remainder. The structure of OURS is also presented, such as the forms of inputs and outputs, and technical implementations of the crucial steps inside. Moreover, we compare OURS with two other existing methods on some benchmarks. Finally, OURS is additionally extended to deal with a class of time-invariant differential systems with disturbances described by uncertain parameters. The performance of OURS in dealing with parametric uncertainties is also shown by two examples with comparisons and discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We propose a factorization based clustering algorithm for business Information networks. • The method performs co-clustering on features and customers simultaneously. • The method provides a better understanding of functional roles of customers for companies. • Results on 13 real enterprise datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm. Business information networks involve diverse users and rich content and have emerged as important platforms for enabling business intelligence and business decision making. A key step in an organizations business intelligence process is to cluster users with similar interests into social audiences and discover the roles they play within a business network. In this article, we propose a novel machine-learning approach, called CBIN, that co-clusters business information networks to discover and understand these audiences. The CBIN framework is based on co-factorization. The audience clusters are discovered from a combination of network structures and rich contextual information, such as node interactions and node-content correlations. Since what defines an audience cluster is data-driven, plus they often overlap, pre-determining the number of clusters is usually very difficult. Therefore, we have based CBIN on an overlapping clustering paradigm with a hold-out strategy to discover the optimal number of clusters given the underlying data. Experiments validate an outstanding performance by CBIN compared to other state-of-the-art algorithms on 13 real-world enterprise datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the load bearing behaviors of the composite bucket foundation (CBF) which has been proposed and applied to offshore wind turbines in China. With the numerical analysis method, the soil-structure interaction and the practical project-based dimensional and property parameters are described. The load bearing behaviors of the CBF are investigated in terms of deformations (structure and soil), load bearing ratios, and geometric effects. Under the consideration of multi soil profiles and combined loading condition, the load bearing behaviors of the CBF can be concluded. Soil property can change the load bearing ratio especially when the compartment plates are involved. The lid-bearing mode is dominant for CBF when the upper layer of the soil is high in strength. Without the compartment plates, the bucket wall contributes more than the lid. The load bearing behavior is influenced by the bucket diameter, soil strength and the compartment plates. The results are of reference value to understand the load bearing behaviors and serve as a basis for optimizing the structure design for cost-reduction. • Load bearing behaviors of composite bucket foundations on layered soil. • Composite bucket foundation with and without compartments. • Compartments improve the integrity of the bucket foundation and change the dominate load bearing mode. • The lid-bearing mode is dominant for CBF when the upper layer of the soil is high in strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Intestinal barrier dysfunction is a prevalent pathogenic factor underlying various disorders. Currently there is no effective resolution. Previous studies have reported the potential anti‐inflammatory properties of lidocaine and its ability to alleviate visceral hypersensitivity in individuals with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Therefore, our study will further verify the effect of lidocaine on intestinal barrier dysfunction in IBS and investigate the underlying mechanisms. Method s : In this study, we investigated the role of lidocaine by assessing visceral hypersensitivity, body weight, inflammatory factors, fluorescein isothiocyanate‐dextran 4000 (FD4) flux, tight junctions (TJs) and spleen and thymus index in rats subjected to water avoidance stress (WAS) to mimic intestinal barrier dysfunction in IBS with and without lidocaine. In vitro, we investigated the role of corticotropin‐releasing hormone receptor 2 (CRHR2) in lidocaine‐treated Caco2 cells using small interfering RNA (siRNA) targeting CRHR2. Key Results: In WAS rats, lidocaine significantly restored weight loss, damaged TJs, spleen index and thymus index and inhibited abdominal hypersensitivity as well as blood levels of markers indicating intestinal permeability, such as diamine oxidase (DAO), D‐lactic acid (D‐Lac) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Consequently, the leakage of FD4 flux from intestine was significantly attenuated in lidocaine group, and levels of intestinal inflammatory factors (IL‐1β, IFN‐γ, TNF‐α) were reduced. Interestingly, lidocaine significantly suppressed corticotropin‐releasing hormone (CRH) levels in lamina propria cells, while the CRH receptor CRHR2 was upregulated in intestinal epithelial cells. In vitro, lidocaine enhanced the expression of CRHR2 on Caco‐2 intestinal epithelial cells and restored disrupted TJs and the epithelial barrier caused by LPS. Conversely, these effects were diminished by a CRHR2 antagonist and siRNA‐CRHR2, suggesting that the protective effect of lidocaine depends on CRHR2. Conclusions and Inferences: Lidocaine ameliorates intestinal barrier dysfunction in IBS by potentially modulating the expression of CRHR2 on intestinal epithelial cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in animal manure are an environmental concern due to naturally occurring bacteria being exposed to these wastes and developing multidrug resistance. The bioconversion of manure with fly larvae is a promising alternative for recycling these wastes while attenuating ARGs. We investigated the impact of black soldier fly (BSF, Hermetia illucens) larval bioconversion of chicken manure on the persistence of associated ARGs. Compared with traditional composting or sterile larval treatments (by 48.4% or 88.7%), non‐sterile BSF larval treatments effectively reduced ARGs and integrin genes by 95.0% during 12 days, due to rapid decreases in concentrations of the genes and associated bacteria as they passed through the larval gut and were affected by intestinal microbes. After larval treatments, bacterial community composition differed significantly, with the percentage of Firmicutes possibly carrying ARGs reduced by 65.5% or more. On average, human pathogenic bacteria populations declined by 70.7%–92.9%, effectively mitigating risks of these bacteria carrying ARGs. Environmental pH, nitrogen content and antibiotic concentrations were closely related to both bacterial community composition and targeted gene attenuation in larval systems. Selective pressures of larval gut environments with intestinal microbes, larval bacteriostasis and reformulation of manure due to larval digestion contributed to ARG attenuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lithium (Li) dendrite growth is a major challenge for lithium metal anode. The construction of artificial ultrathin solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) is one of the most effective strategies for the suppression of Li dendrite and improvement of electrochemical performance. However, it is difficult to fabricate artificial SEI with precisely controllable thickness, superior mechanical properties and high ionic conductivity. Herein, a tough lithium-rich organic film (TLOF) is proposed as surface protection layer of Li metal via molecular layer deposition technique for high-performance Li metal batteries. This artificial SEI significantly enhances electrochemical performance and suppresses dendritic growth in both ester electrolyte and ether electrolyte due to its excellent toughness and relatively high ion conductivity. Furthermore, the Li–O 2 battery with Li@TLOF anode shows outstanding cycle stability for over 500 h. It is believed that the TLOF protected Li metal anode opens up new opportunities for the realization of next-generation high energy density Li metal batteries. [Display omitted] • Synthesis of tough lithium-rich organic film (RLOF) by molecular layer deposition. • Hydroquinone improves molecular chain rigidity and inhibits film crystallization. • TLOF accommodates the volume change of Li metal and suppresses the dendrite growth. • Performance of Li–O 2 battery is significantly improved by TLOF-protected Li anode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the resilience of transportation networks has received considerable research attention. Nevertheless in the field of network traffic flow control, few control approaches target the mitigation from hyper-congestion, and the control objective has rarely touched the system resilience requirement which focuses on system recovering from hyper-congested state. This paper sheds light on a resilience-oriented network control. We firstly define the traffic resilience as the integral of deviation against optimal state from disturbance generation moment t 0 to recovery moment t f. Then, we propose a control method under hyper-congested situations by formulating the analytical problem using a two-reservoir transportation system with parabola-shaped Macroscopic Fundamental Diagrams (MFDs), using phase diagram analysis, attraction region derivation and switched controller design. Afterwards, we evaluate the system resilience performances between two classic perimeter control schemes (constant perimeter control (CPC) and state-feedback control (SFC)) and the proposed resilient control scheme. Results show that proposed controller can ensure the system to recover from hyper-congestion to the optimal state while existing studies failed to recover. This resilience is confirmed in various case study scenarios, e.g., when the level of hyper-congestion is different. More promisingly, the proposed control shows high compatibility with the form of the MFDs, e.g., the recover can be achieved under hysteresis conditions which are common for network-level traffic dynamics. These findings will help to design an intelligent transportation system with enhanced resilience. • We propose a traffic resilience measure as a control objective. • We propose a resilient control method to recover system to the optimal state from hyper-congestion. • We extend our methodology to two typical scenarios where the shape of the MFD changes under disruptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal dependency and mutual impact are two major aspects of the qualitative analysis of stock prices. Modeling the dynamic and complex nature of both the timeline and the mutual impact network is a challenging task for stock price prediction. Furthermore, if we want to capture the high-frequency changes of stock price, the time series will become extremely long, leading to a practical challenge in terms of modeling. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a novel memory-based hierarchical recurrent neural encoder (MHieR-encoder) to embed the time series of stock price into a new representation that preserves (i) the sequential dependency of the time series and (ii) the proximity relationships across stocks in the impact network. The hierarchical structure of the proposed model can easily capture the long-range dependence from an extremely long time series, including in terms of high-frequency prices. Moreover, to capture the dynamic mutual impact across stocks, the intermediate results of the impact network will be stored in the memory module to support further exploration at the training stage. The method is validated using an extremely long time series composed of the one-minute prices derived from the all the Chinese stocks. The results show that MHieR-encoder outperforms all the 8 baselines in the bull market, bear market, calm bull market and calm bear market, and significantly improves the accuracy to 52.2% in a three-class prediction: rising, falling and flat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Based on proportional‐integral‐derivative (PID)/PD controls, we in the article investigate the tracking problem of a class of second‐order time‐varying switched nonlinear systems. To start with, for tracking a given point under arbitrary switching signals, we propose a sufficient condition about PID controller parameters, which can be implicitly described as semialgebraic sets. Successively, we consider the tracking problem under average dwell time (ADT)‐based switching signals and propose an alternative sufficient condition about PID controller parameters. Especially, for tracking an equilibrium point of the system without controls, we can further simply utilize the proportional‐derivative control and similarly construct corresponding semialgebraic conditions about proportional‐derivative controller parameters under arbitrary switching signals and ADT‐based switching signals. Finally, two examples are given to show the applicability of our theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract A two-step growth process of CdZnTe(001) epilayers on GaAs(001) substrates by Close Spaced Sublimation (CSS) is proposed. The first step, or a so-called pre-growth at low temperature of 350 °C generates more compact nucleation layer than the second step growth at 430 °C, which is more efficient for accelerating grain coalescence and annihilation of defect. Both the double crystal X-ray rocking curve (DCXRC) and the photoluminescence (PL) results prove that CdZnTe film with the best crystalline quality is obtained with the combination of the first step growth at 350 °C and the second growth at 430 °C. Increasing the second step growth temperature from 430 °C to 530 °C and 600 °C deteriorate films crystalline quality due to the increase in thermal stress and Zn content. Current-voltage (I V) measurement and alpha-particle response test indicate that better crystalline quality in CZT film leads to both higher resistivity and better carrier transport property. Highlights • A two-step growth of CdZnTe(001)/GaAs(001) epilayers by CSS was proposed. • The first step growth at 350 °C was more efficient for reducing defects than at 430 °C. • The optimum second growth temperature was at 430 °C. • Zn contents, residual stress of CZT films were affected by growth temperature. • The effect of crystalline quality of CZT film on electrical property has been studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early stages of close spaced sublimation growth of CdZnTe(0 0 1)/GaAs(0 0 1) epilayer were experimentally studied under different substrate temperatures and ambient pressures. SEM, AFM, XRD, EBSD and EDS were used for the characterization of morphology, structure and composition of the films. The films were found to be (0 0 1) oriented and epitaxial in nature with zinc blende cubic structure. Deposition models were used to explain the correlation between growth condition and CdZnTe island morphology. Films grown at 350 °C and 1 × 10 2  Pa show the best uniform and smooth surface. When increasing substrate temperature to 430 °C or ambient pressure to 1 × 10 4  Pa or 3 × 10 4  Pa, islands are less compact and exhibit preferential growth along one of 〈1 1 0〉 directions, which could be resulted from the big lattice mismatch (14.0%) of Cd 0.9 Zn 0.1 Te(0 0 1)/GaAs(0 0 1) heterojunction. For the growth at 430 °C in 3 × 10 4  Pa, prior nucleation at defect site was found, and the appearance of regular 〈0 1 0〉 oriented island edges proposes that steps 〈0 1 0〉{1 0 0} are more stable for CdZnTe(0 0 1)/GaAs(0 0 1) epilayer than steps 〈1 1 0〉{1 1 1}. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published data have shown inconsistent results about the pharmacogenetics of XRCC1 gene on clinical outcomes of advanced lung cancer patients treated with platinum-based chemotherapy. This meta-analysis aimed to summarize published findings and provide more reliable association. A total of 53 eligible studies including 7433 patients were included. Patients bearing the favorable TrpTrp and TrpArg genotypes of Arg194Trp were more likely to better response rates to platinum-based chemotherapy compared to those with the unfavorable ArgArg genotype (TrpTrp+TrpArg vs. ArgArg: odds ratio (OR) = 2.02, 95% CI, 1.66-2.45). The GlnGln and GlnArg genotypes of Arg399Gln were significantly associated with the poorer response rates compared to those with the ArgArg genotype (GlnGln +GlnArg vs. ArgArg: OR = 0.68, 95% CI, 0.54-0.86). The GlnGln genotype might be more closely associated with shorter survival time and higher risks of death for patients (GlnGln vs. ArgArg: hazard ratio (HR) = 1.14, 95% CI, 0.75-1.75). Our cumulative meta-analyses indicated a distinct apparent trend toward a better response rate for Arg194Trp, but a poorer response rate in Arg399Gln. These findings indicate a predictive role of XRCC1 polymorphisms in clinical outcomes. The use of XRCC1 polymorphisms as predictive factor of clinical outcomes in personalized chemotherapy treatment requires further verification from large well-designed pharmacogenetics studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One specific physiological phenomenon of Chinese brown frog (Rana dybowskii) is that its oviduct expands prior to hibernation instead of expanding during the breeding period. In this study, we investigated the expression of P450arom and estrogen receptors α and β (ERα and ERβ) in the oviduct of Rana dybowskii during the breeding period and prehibernation. The results of the present study showed that there were significant differences in both oviductal weight and size with values markedly higher in prehibernation than in the breeding period. P450arom was observed in stromal tissue in both the breeding period and prehibernation. ERα was expressed in stromal tissue and epithelial cells in both periods, whereas ERβ could not be detected. The mean protein and mRNA levels of P450arom and ERα were significantly higher in prehibernation as compared to the breeding period. Besides, oviductal content of 17β-estradiol was also higher in prehibernation than in the breeding period. These results suggested that estrogen may play autocrine/paracrine roles mediated by ERα in regulating the oviductal hypertrophy during prehibernation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We proposed a neighbor-aware embedding algorithm for attributed graph clustering. • Embedding learning and clustering are jointly optimized in an end-to-end manner. • The embedding learning is specialized for clustering task. • The experiment results outperform state-of-the-art graph clustering methods. Node clustering aims to partition the vertices in a graph into multiple groups or communities. Existing studies have mostly focused on developing deep learning approaches to learn a latent representation of nodes, based on which simple clustering methods like k -means are applied. These two-step frameworks for node clustering are difficult to manipulate and usually lead to suboptimal performance, mainly because the graph embedding is not goal-directed, i.e., designed for the specific clustering task. In this paper, we propose a clustering-directed deep learning approach, Deep Neighbor-aware Embedded Node Clustering (DNENC for short) for clustering graph data. Our method focuses on attributed graphs to sufficiently explore the two sides of information in graphs. It encodes the topological structure and node content in a graph into a compact representation via a neighbor-aware graph autoencoder, which progressively absorbs information from neighbors via a convolutional or attentional encoder. Multiple neighbor-aware encoders are stacked to build a deep architecture followed by an inner-product decoder for reconstructing the graph structure. Furthermore, soft labels are generated to supervise a self-training process, which iteratively refines the node clustering results. The self-training process is jointly learned and optimized with the graph embedding in a unified framework, to benefit both components mutually. Experimental results compared with state-of-the-art algorithms demonstrate the good performance of our framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adsorption performances on graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4) surface were investigated for organic dye pollutants by both experimental and calculation methods. For experimental investigation, adsorption thermodynamics and kinetics results were in-situ obtained and evaluated. With Δ G MB + = − 31.78 < Δ G MO − = − 17.38 kJ mol − 1 by Langmuir modeling, g-C 3 N 4 showed superior adsorption spontaneity of MB+ >MO-. With linear and exponential modeling, g-C 3 N 4 showed only adsorption process for MB+ but both diffusion and adsorption processes for MO-. For simulation insight, all MB+ molecules but only parts of MO- molecules were inclined to orient in parallel position at g-C 3 N 4 surface after optimization during low concentration. And both MB+ and MO- molecules were inclined to orient in perpendicular position at g-C 3 N 4 surface after optimization during high concentration. Combined with experimental and calculation results, a molecular-orientation and force-dominance mechanism adsorption model are proposed to explain the surface interaction processes between dyes and g-C 3 N 4. Electrostatic interaction and π-π stacking interaction were revealed to dominate for MB+ adsorption, and π-π stacking interaction and van der Waals force were revealed to dominate for MO- adsorption. This work obtained 'localized' interfacial information and elucidated in-situ intermolecular interactions at g-C 3 N 4 interface, which can provide fundamental basis for operation removal of organic dye pollutants by g-C 3 N 4. [Display omitted] • Dye pollutant adsorption on g-C 3 N 4 surface were investigated by ATRS experiment and MD simulation. • ATRS experiment obtained thermodynamics result of superior adsorption spontaneity for MB+ >MO-. • MD simulation obtained parallel and perpendicular adsorption configurations on g-C 3 N 4 surface. • Interaction process is explained by molecular-orientation and force-dominance mechanism model. • This work obtained interfacial information and intermolecular interaction at g-C 3 N 4 interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An offshore integrated meteorological mast (OIMM) featured by integrating the offshore transportation of the foundation and steel mast into one operation is proposed. The most critical technique of the OIMM is a self-floating towing operation with a reasonable subdivision inside the floating tank. To find out the towing dynamic behaviors of the OIMM with different drafts, mooring positions, towing velocities and towrope lengths in various sea conditions, the hydrodynamic analyses were carried out by using MOSES. The OIMM model in prototype scale was established in MOSES to simulate the static stability and dynamic responses induced by coupled wave and wind conditions. A small tugboat and a single towrope are employed for this towing system. The results show that the OIMM has sufficient intact stability and acceptable damage stability for its inner subdivision configuration. The towrope length exerts the most impact on fluctuation response than draft and mooring positions. Draft depths and mooring positions impact more on pitch motion than on heave motion. The normalized maximum values of motion responses are equally influenced by draft and mooring position. Coupled effects of sea states and towing speed on dynamic features are also illustrated. • The proposed OIMM integrates the offshore transportation of the foundation and steel mast into one operation. • The dynamic response of the OIMM during wet-towing transportation. • Mooring position, towing speed, draft, and towrope length are key parameters in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]