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Abstract This study investigates whether duration of working hours affect residents’ preferences for the micro-features of Small Urban Green Spaces (SUGS), and explores differences across genders and visitation purposes. Little is known about this subject, yet it is crucial for creating more equitable green spaces. In phase 1, participants (n = 209; 30.9 ± 6.73 years, 59.3%male) were categorized by average daily working hours (0–8 h, 8–10 h, 10 h+), and rated 41 micro-feature images on their importance for visiting SUGS. Phase 2 included the top ten features ranked from phase 1, with participants (n = 256; 30.8 ± 5.12 years, 35.2% female) completing the Kano model survey to identify and explain the importance of features and different types of needs. Findings reveal a clear trend: extended work hours pivot resident preferences towards green space attributes promoting physical activity. For residents of 0–8 h valued aesthetic elements like sculptures and vegetation, while lighting became paramount for those with 8–10 h, and for those working over 10 h prioritized facilities for active engagement, such as playground equipment and slow runway. These distinctions provide valuable guidance for designing SUGS with diverse feature combinations that cater to the needs of residential areas with varying socio-economic backgrounds and occupational lifestyles, thereby enhancing urban livability.

Abstract The first-order antisymmetric (A1) mode lamb wave resonator (LWR) based on Z-cut LiNbO3 thin films has attracted significant attention and is widely believed to be a candidate for next-generation reconfigurable filters with high frequency and large bandwidth (BW). However, it is challenging for traditional interdigitated electrodes (IDTs) based LWR filters to meet the requirement of a clean frequency spectrum response and enough out-of-band (OoB) rejection. To solve the problem, we propose LWRs with checker-shaped IDTs for the design of filters that meet the Wi-Fi 6E standard. By taking advantage of checker-shaped IDTs with unparalleled boundaries, the fabricated 6-GHz resonators successfully suppress higher-order A1 spurious modes, demonstrating a spurious-free impedance response and a high figure-of-merit (FOM) up to 104. Based on the demonstrated checker-shaped electrode design, the filter features a center frequency (f 0 ) of more than 6 GHz, a 3 dB BW exceeding 620 MHz, and an excellent OoB rejection >25 dB, consistent with the acoustic-electric-electromagnetic (EM) multi-physics simulations. Furthermore, through the capacitance-inductance matching network technology, the filter’s voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) is successfully reduced below 2, showing an excellent 50 Ω impedance matching. This study lays a foundation for ultra-high-frequency and ultra-wideband filters for the Wi-Fi 6/6E application.

The continuous global escalation of soil salinization areas presents severe challenges to the stability and growth of agricultural development across the world. In-depth research on sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.), an important economic and sugar crop with salt tolerance characteristics, is crucial for to determine its salt-tolerance mechanisms, which has important practical implications for production. This review summarizes the multifaceted effects of salt stress on sugar beet, ranging from individual plant responses to cellular and molecular adaptations. Sugar beet exhibits robust salt-tolerance mechanisms, including osmotic regulation, ion balance management, and the compartmentalization of toxic ions. Omics technologies, including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, post-translational modification omics and metabolomics, have played crucial roles in elucidating these mechanisms. Key genes and pathways involved in salt tolerance in sugar beet have been identified, paving the way for targeted breeding strategies and biotechnological advancements. Understanding these mechanisms not only enhances our knowledge of sugar beet’s adaptation strategies but also provides insights for improving salt tolerance in other crops. Future studies should focus on analyzing gene expression changes in sugar beet under salt stress to gain insight into the molecular aspects of its salt-tolerance mechanisms. Meanwhile, the effects of different environmental conditions on sugar beet adaptation strategies should also be investigated to improve their growth potential in salinized soils.

Radar emitter signal deinterleaving based on pulse description words (PDWs) is a challenging task in the field of electronic warfare because of the parameter sparsity and uncertainty of PDWs. In this paper, a modulation-hypothesis-augmented Transformer model is proposed to identify emitters from a single PDW with an end-to-end manner. Firstly, the pulse features are enriched by the modulation hypothesis mechanism to generate I/Q complex signals from PDWs. Secondly, a multiple-parameter embedding method is proposed to expand the signal discriminative features and to enhance the identification capability of emitters. Moreover, a novel Transformer deep learning model, named PulseFormer and composed of spectral convolution, multi-layer perceptron, and self-attention based basic blocks, is proposed for discriminative feature extraction, emitter identification, and signal deinterleaving. Experimental results on synthesized PDW dataset show that the proposed method performs better on emitter signal deinterleaving in complex environments without relying on the pulse repetition interval (PRI). Compared with other deep learning methods, the PulseFormer performs better in noisy environments.

Scandium aluminum nitride (ScAlN) has recently emerged as an attractive material for integrated photonics due to its favorable nonlinear optical properties and compatibility with complementary metal–oxide semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication. Despite the promising and versatile material properties, it is still an outstanding challenge to realize low-loss photonic circuits on thin-film ScAlN-on-insulator wafers. Here, we present a systematic study on the material quality of sputtered thin-film Sc0.1Al0.9N produced in a CMOS-compatible 200 mm line, including its crystallinity, roughness, and second-order optical nonlinearity, and developed an optimized fabrication process to yield 400 nm thick, fully etched waveguides. With surface polishing and annealing, we achieve micro-ring resonators with an intrinsic quality factor as high as 1.47 × 105, corresponding to a propagation loss of 2.4 dB/cm. These results serve as a critical step toward developing future large-scale, low-loss photonic integrated circuits based on ScAlN.

REBa2Cu3O7-x (REBCO) coated conductor has emerged as a promising material for the development of ultra-high-field (UHF) magnets. However, the presence of screening-current induced strain within this tape-shaped conductor impacts the operational stability of REBCO coils. We focused on the design of an all-superconducting 36 T / 40 mm UHF magnet, which included a 16 T insert magnet consisting of two nested REBCO coils. In this study, the screening-current induced strain in the 16 T magnet was numerically studied using the coupled electromagnetic-mechanical model, which considered the tilting angle of REBCO tapes and the strain dependency of the critical current. We calculated the screening-current induced strain of each pancake individually and compared these results with those calculated by the sequential model. According to the coupled model, the maximum hoop strain was 0.52%, relatively lower than that calculated by sequential model. The most dangerous pancake was estimated to be the outermost pancake of each coils. Additionally, we varied the critical current value of the REBCO tapes and studied the relationship between the critical current value and screening-current induced strain. This work provides a feasible way to calculate the screening-current effect in large-scale HTS magnets.

Abstract Thin ferroelectric layers are capable of generating large dielectric and electromechanical responses at relatively low voltages, thus can be utilized in various applications including energy storage, energy harvesting, sensors, and actuators. Among ferroelectrics, relaxor ferroelectrics (1 − x)Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3 − xPbTiO3 are particularly interesting due to their superior dielectric and piezoelectric properties. However, dielectric and piezoelectric responses of the ferroelectric thin films are significantly suppressed relative to their bulk counterparts. The physical mechanism of the properties degradation still remains elusive, which greatly hinders their technological applications. Herein, this work systematically investigates the dielectric nonlinearity and the relationship between composition and intrinsic/extrinsic contributions of high‐quality (1 − x)Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3 − xPbTiO3 epitaxial thin films (x = 0, 0.1, 0.32) fabricated by pulsed laser deposition. Through the Rayleigh analysis, it is found that the suppression of domain wall motion by substrate clamping is the main cause of thin film performance degradation and is further confirmed by continuous application of background dc bias to extract the dielectric response's intrinsic and extrinsic contributions. This work will pave the way for practical applications of (1 − x)Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3 − xPbTiO3 thin films in energy storage and electromechanical devices.

Since the last IAEA-FEC in 2021, significant progress on the development of long pulse steady state scenario and its related key physics and technologies have been achieved, including the reproducible 403 s long-pulse steady-state H-mode plasma with pure radio frequency (RF) power heating. A thousand-second time scale (∼1056 s) fully non-inductive plasma with high injected energy up to 1.73 GJ has also been achieved. The EAST operational regime of high β _P has been significantly extended ( H _98y2 > 1.3, β _P ∼ 4.0, β _N ∼ 2.4 and n _e / n _GW ∼ 1.0) using RF and neutral beam injection (NBI). The full edge localized mode suppression using the n = 4 resonant magnetic perturbations has been achieved in ITER-like standard type-I ELMy H-mode plasmas with q _95 ≈ 3.1 on EAST, extrapolating favorably to the ITER baseline scenario. The sustained large ELM control and stable partial detachment have been achieved with Ne seeding. The underlying physics of plasma-beta effect for error field penetration, where toroidal effect dominates, is disclosed by comparing the results in cylindrical theory and MARS-Q simulation in EAST. Breakdown and plasma initiation at low toroidal electric fields (

Maximizing the electromechanical response is crucial for developing piezoelectric devices. Here, the authors demonstrate a giant electric-field-induced strain and its origin in alkali niobate epitaxial thin films with self-assembled planar faults.

Boron (B) deficiency severely affects the quality of sugar beet production, and the employment of nutrient-efficient varieties for cultivation is a crucial way to solve environmental and resource-based problems. However, the aspect of leaf photosynthetic performance among B-efficient sugar beet cultivars remains uncertain. The B deficient and B-sufficient treatments were conducted in the experiment using KWS1197 (B-efficient) and KWS0143 (B-inefficient) sugar beet cultivars as study materials. The objective of the present study was to determine the impacts of B deficiency on leaf phenotype, photosynthetic capacity, chloroplast structure, and photochemical efficiency of the contrasting B-efficiency sugar beet cultivars. The results indicated that the growth of sugar beet leaves were dramatically restricted, the net photosynthetic rate was significantly decreased, and the energy flux, quantum yield, and flux ratio of PSII reaction centers were adversely affected under B deficiency. Compared to the KWS0143 cultivar, the average leaf area ratio of the KWS1197 cultivar experienced less impact, and its leaf mass ratio (LMR) increased by 26.82% under B deficiency, whereas for the KWS0143 cultivar, the increase was only 2.50%. Meanwhile, the light energy capture and utilization capacity of PSII reaction centers and the proportion of absorbed light energy used for electron transfer were higher by 3.42% under B deficiency; KWS1197 cultivar managed to alleviate the photo-oxidative damage, which results from excessive absorbed energy (ABS/RC), by increasing the dissipated energy (DIo/RC). Therefore, in response to B deprivation, the KWS1197 cultivar demonstrated greater adaptability in terms of morphological indices and photosynthetic functions, which not only explains the improved performance but also renders the measured parameters as the key features for varietal selection, providing a theoretical basis for the utilization of efficient sugar beet cultivars in future.

This sugar beet acts as a soil remediator in areas where there are high levels of boron (B) in the soil, since it has a high requirement of boron (B) for growth, and has strong resistance to high B levels. Although B toxicity in different plants has been widely researched, little is known about the response of photosystem II (PSII) activity in sugar beet leaves to B toxicity at present.To clarify the growth and photosynthetic physiological response of sugar beet to B toxicity, the effects of different concentrations of H3BO3 (0.05, 1.5, 2.5,3.5 mM) on the growth, photosynthetic characteristics and antioxidant defense system of sugar beet seedlings were investigated by hydroponic experiments. In the present study, high B stress inhibited the growth of sugar beet and significantly decreased the biomass of the plants. There was a remarkable increase in the accumulation of B in the shoots, which affected photosynthesis and decreased the photosynthetic pigments. As B toxicity increased, leaf PSII activities and maximum photochemical efficiency of PSII (Fv/Fm) showed a tendency to decrease; at the same time, the photosynthetic performance index based on absorbed light energy (PIABS) decreased as well. Meanwhile, the energy allocation parameters of the PSII reaction center were changed, the light energy utilization capacity and the energy used for electron transfer were reduced and the thermal dissipation was increased at the same time. Furthermore, B toxicity decreased catalase (CAT) activity, increased peroxidase (POD) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities, and increased malondialdehyde (MDA) accumulation. According to the results obtained in this study, high B concentrations reduced the rate of photosynthesis and fluorescence, thus weakened antioxidant defense systems, and therefore inhibited the growth of sugar beet plants. Thus, in high B areas, sugar beet possesses excellent tolerance to high B levels and has a high B translocation capacity, so it can be used as a phytoremediation tool. This study provides a basis for the feasibility of sugar beet resistant to high B environments.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a syndrome that occurs in the preclinical stage of Alzheimer’s disease. Early intervention can be effective in preventing Alzheimer’s disease, but further research is needed on intervention methods. To identify interventions that are more suitable for Chinese characteristics and to investigate the effects of motor–cognitive intervention on the cognitive functions of older adults with MCI, we screened 103 community-dwelling older adults with MCI aged 65 years and older in Qingdao, Shandong, China; divided them into an intervention group and a control group; and administered a motor–cognitive intervention to the intervention group for 12 weeks. The study used the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) to assess the initial cognitive level of the MCI participants and detect the effects of the intervention. We found that the cognitive abilities of the intervention group were significantly improved at the end of the intervention, as well as at the end of the follow-up, compared with the control group. The results of the current study suggest that the motor–cognitive intervention we used may improve the cognition of older people with MCI in the Chinese community.

Fomesafen is the most widely used herbicide in the soybean field. However, there are urgent practical challenges with the long-term persistence of fomesafen in soil and its effects on the subsequent crops in agricultural production. Therefore, pot experiments were conducted to study the effects of fomesafen residues (0–0.05 mg kg–1) on growth, photosynthetic characteristics, and the antioxidant defense system of sugar beet seedlings. The results showed that with the increase of fomesafen residues, the phytotoxicity index increased, while the plant height, leaf area, root length, root volume, and dry weight of sugar beet decreased. Photosynthetic pigment content, net photosynthetic rate (Pn), maximum photosynthetic efficiency (Fv/Fm), and actual photosynthetic efficiency (Y(II)) declined with a dose-dependent manner of fomesafen, but the intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci) and non-photochemical quenching coefficient (NPQ) increased under fomesafen. On the other hand, the residues of fomesafen increased the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) and membrane permeability by aggravating oxidative stress and triggering the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), and polyphenol oxidase (PPO). In addition, sugar beet seedlings were significantly sensitive to fomesafen as the concentration of fomesafen in the soil was up to 0.025 mg kg–1. In conclusion, the present study showed that fomesafen residues in the soil could affect the morphophysiology and photosynthetic performance of sugar beet. This study is beneficial for understanding the effects of the herbicide fomesafen residues on non-target crops.

Phase boundary engineering through chemical alloying and phase control is a traditional approach to enhancing piezoelectric properties. Here, the authors design a strategy in alkali niobate films, utilizing alkali vacancies without alloying to form nanopillars enclosed.

Fomesafen herbicide application has become major pollution in the growth and production of crops. Spraying fomesafen on the target crops may drift out to non-target crops. In northeast China, sugar beets are always planted adjacent to soybeans. Salicylic acid (SA) plays an important role in crop growth and alleviating abiotic stress, however, the role of SA in relieving fomesafen stress in sugar beet growth has rarely been investigated. Therefore, a pot study was conducted to elucidate the effects of different concentrations (0.025, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 5, and 10 mM) of SA on morphological parameters, photosynthetic performance, and antioxidant defense system in sugar beet seedlings under fomesafen (22.5 g a.i. ha–1) stress. The results showed that fomesafen stress inhibited the growth of sugar beet seedlings, and photosynthetic performance, while increased membrane lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress. However, exogenous SA alleviated the fomesafen stress and increased plant height, biomass, photosynthetic pigment contents, net photosynthetic rate (Pn), and photochemical efficiency of PSⅡ (Fv/Fm) in sugar beet leaves. Meanwhile, exogenous SA maintained the cell membrane integrity by reducing the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) and electrolyte permeability and regulating the activities of antioxidant enzymes including superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), and polyphenol (PPO). Therefore, it is concluded that exogenous SA ameliorated the adverse effects of fomesafen on the growth of sugar beet seedlings, with a pronounced effect at 1 mM SA. The present study results may have useful implications in managing other plants that are poisoned by herbicides.

Traces of mercury ions in environmental water can harm humans and animals. Paper-based visual detection methods have been widely developed for the rapid detection of mercury ions; however, existing methods are not sensitive enough to be used in real environments. Here, we developed a novel, simple and effective visual fluorescent sensing paper-based chip for the ultrasensitive detection of mercury ions in environmental water. CdTe-quantum-dots-modified silica nanospheres were firmly absorbed by and anchored to the fiber interspaces on the paper’s surface to effectively avoid the unevenness caused by liquid evaporation. The fluorescence of quantum dots emitted at 525 nm can be selectively and efficiently quenched with mercury ions, and the ultrasensitive visual fluorescence sensing results attained using this principle can be captured using a smartphone camera. This method has a detection limit of 2.83 µg/L and a fast response time (90 s). We successfully achieved the trace spiking detection of seawater (from three regions), lake water, river water and tap water with recoveries in the range of 96.8–105.4% using this method. This method is effective, low-cost, user-friendly and has good prospects for commercial application. Additionally, the work is expected to be utilized in the automated big data collection of large numbers of environmental samples.

High temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets often work at high energy density and have slow quench propagation speed, so a quench will present a serious risk to the safety of magnets. The quench protection method based on the dump resistance can effectively reduce the current and release the energy in the HTS magnets. However, too large dump resistance may cause excessive voltage across the magnets. A quench protection system consisting of dump resistances and metal discs has been proposed. Copper discs are often embedded in HTS magnets for conducting cooling and mechanical support. In the discharging process of HTS magnets, the copper discs can absorb energy from the magnets through magnetic coupling, thus accelerating the current decay of the magnets. This quench protection method is more effective than using dump resistance alone. In this paper, the effect of different copper discs on the discharging process of HTS coils is discussed. Eight types of copper with different residual resistivity ratios (RRR) are applied. The results show that with the increase of the RRR of the copper disc, the current decay rate of the coil increases, and the energy absorbed by the copper disc from the coil increases. The role of different copper discs in the fast quench protection of the coil can be sorted as: RRR = 300 > RRR = 100 > RRR = 80 > RRR = 60 > RRR = 40 > RRR = 30 > RRR = 20 > RRR = 10. The copper disc with RRR of 300 shows the best performance in quench protection of HTS coils.

China implemented the Action Plan for the Zero Increase of Fertilizer Use in 2015, which led to a decrease in fertilizer use. However, Will fertilizer use continue to reduce? With data obtained from 2006 to 2017, the paper used the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method to analyze the scale effect, intensity effect and structural effect of fertilizer use change in China from three aspects: crops, regions and fertilizer types. Our finding suggests that (1) The intensity effect was the most critical factor affecting the decline in fertilizer use in China. (2) The sowing scale and fertilization intensity of grain, vegetables and fruits had the most significant driving effect on fertilizer reduction. (3) The three effects of each region were different in space, and the eastern region contributed most to the fertilizer decrement. (4) Nitrogen fertilizer and compound fertilizer had the most considerable influence on fertilizer reduction, especially in the sowing scale and fertilization intensity since 2009. The government should establish a fertilizer reduction management system, which includes scale control, intensity reduction, structural adjustment and other measures.

High-quality feature matching is a critical prerequisite in a wide range of applications. Most contemporary methods concentrate on detecting keypoints or line features for matching, which have achieved adequate results. However, in some low-texture environments where these features are both lacking, previously used approaches may result in an insufficient number of matches. Besides, in repeated-texture environments, feature matching is also a challenging task. As a matter of fact, there exist numerous irregular curves that can be detected in all kinds of images, including low-texture and repeated-texture scenes, which inspires us to move a step further and dig into the research of curves. In this paper, we propose an accurate method to match invariant features from irregular curves. Our method consists of two stages, the first of which is to match the curves as accurately as possible by an elaborate three-step matching strategy. The second is to extract the matching features with the presented self-adaptive curve fitting approach. Experiments have shown that the matching performances of our features in ordinary scenes are comparable to previous keypoints. Particularly, our features can outperform the keypoints in low-texture and repeated-texture scenes.

REBCO (Rare-earth-based barium copper oxide) conductors are appropriate materials for high-field magnet applications. Vacuum impregnation using epoxy resin is a technique widely used for stable operation of superconducting coils. However, epoxy-impregnated REBCO coils often experience critical current degradation problems. Finding a suitable impregnating material for REBCO coils is important for their application in high-field superconducting magnets. A new toughness epoxy, IR-3, was developed recently. An in-depth understanding of IR-3 on the performance of REBCO coils is critically necessary for its application. Thus, this paper explores the effects of IR-3 impregnation on the performance of REBCO coils at 77 K and 4.2 K. The test results are compared to similar coils impregnated with CTD-101 K and MY750. Meanwhile, the radial stresses at 77 K in self-field and 4.2 K under 10 T were simulated. All epoxy impregnated REBCO coils showed no decay in critical current after thermal cycles at 77 K. When charged at 4.2 K in external fields of 5 T and 10 T, the IR-3 impregnated REBCO coils avoided performance degradation problems and had superior electrical stabilities. Combing the excellent performance at low temperatures, IR-3 is a promising candidate material for impregnating high-field REBCO coils.

On 13 November 2015, a disastrous rockslide-debris avalanche occurred in the Lidong village of Liandou District, Lishui City (south-western Zhejiang, China), which overwhelmed 27 houses and killed 38 people in the village. The geological survey on the slope revealed that prior to this incident, a rupture zone existed between the highly weathered volcanic rock and the underlying weathered volcanic rock in this slope. The rupture zone has dip direction coinciding with the slope aspect and some of the existing cracks in the surface are likely extended from the surface to the rupture zone. This study summarizes the past history and main characteristics of the landslide, simulates the correlation between the safety factor of the slope and the rainfall level using a physically based triggering model, and analyses the distribution of the effective antecedent rainfall that influences landslide occurrence, showing that the landslide on 13 November 2015 was triggered by the very low intraday rainfall and the 15-day antecedent rainfall. The results demonstrate that for a potential unstable slope with increasingly wet antecedent conditions, very low daily rainfall may be able to trigger landslides on a given day, which is important for improving landslide warning systems based on the rainfall–landslide relationship.

Owing to long spin lifetime and diffusion length, graphene holds promise for spintronics, yet it does not possess intrinsic magnetic properties. Here, the authors observe experimentally a large, positive magnetoresistance at graphene nanodomain boundaries.

Understanding the causality between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth is helpful for policymakers to formulate energy, environmental and economic policies. For the first time, based on nonlinear dynamics, this paper employs multispatial convergent cross mapping (CCM) to revisit the energy-carbon-economy causation for China, India and the G7 countries using both aggregate data and per capita data. The findings indicate that there are significant differences between developing countries and developed countries. A bidirectional nexus between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth is found in China and India, but various causal relationships are identified in the G7 countries, including bidirectional, unidirectional and neutral nexus. The results confirm that the decoupling phenomenon is common in most G7 countries. By leveraging a variety of samples and a new approach, this study provides new evidence for policy authorities to formulate country-specific policies to obtain better environmental quality while achieving sustainable economic growth.

Tracking maneuvering targets is a challenging problem for sensors because of the unpredictability of the target’s motion. Unlike classical statistical modeling of target maneuvers, a simultaneous optimization and feedback learning algorithm for maneuvering target tracking based on the Elman neural network (ENN) is proposed in this paper. In the feedback strategy, a scale factor is learnt to adaptively tune the dynamic model’s error covariance matrix, and in the optimization strategy, a corrected component of the state vector is learnt to refine the final state estimation. These two strategies are integrated in an ENN-based unscented Kalman filter (UKF) model called ELM-UKF. This filter can be trained online by the filter residual, innovation and gain matrix of the UKF to simultaneously achieve maneuver feedback and an optimized estimation. Monte Carlo experiments on synthesized radar data showed that our algorithm had better performance on filtering precision compared with most maneuvering target tracking algorithms.

In complex traffic scenarios, more accurate measurement and discrimination for an automotive frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar is required for intelligent robots, driverless cars and driver-assistant systems. A more accurate range estimation method based on a local resampling Fourier transform (LRFT) for a FMCW radar is developed in this paper. Radar signal correlation in the phase space sees a higher signal-noise-ratio (SNR) to achieve more accurate ranging, and the LRFT - which acts on a local neighbour as a refinement step - can achieve a more accurate target range. The rough range is estimated through conditional pulse compression (PC) and then, around the initial rough estimation, a refined estimation through the LRFT in the local region achieves greater precision. Furthermore, the LRFT algorithm is tested in numerous simulations and physical system experiments, which show that the LRFT algorithm achieves a more precise range estimation than traditional FFT-based algorithms, especially for lower bandwidth signals.

Ciclopirox olamine (CPX) is an antifungal drug that has been reported to have antitumor effects. In this study we investigated the antileukemia effects and the possible mechanisms of CPX on glucocorticoid (GC)-resistant T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) cell lines. The results indicated that CPX inhibited the growth of GC-resistant T-ALL cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner, and this effect was closely correlated with the downregulation of intracellular ferritin. CPX induced cell cycle arrest at G1 phase by upregulation of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitor of p21 and downregulation of the expressions of cyclin D, retinoblastoma protein (Rb), and phosphorylated Rb (pRb). CPX also enhanced apoptotic cell death by downregulation of anti-apoptotic proteins such as Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, and Mcl-1. More importantly, CPX demonstrated a strong synergistic antileukemia effect with GC and this effect was mediated, at least in part, by inhibition of the β-catenin-c-Myc signaling pathway. These findings suggest that CPX could be a promising antileukemia drug, and modulation of the intracellular ferritin expression might be an effective method in the treatment of ALL. Therefore, integrating CPX into the current GC-containing ALL protocols could lead to the improvement of the outcome of ALL, especially GC-resistant ALL.

This paper presents an optimized scheme of monocular ego-motion estimation to provide location and pose information for mobile robots with one fixed camera. First, a multi-scale hyper-complex wavelet phase-derived optical flow is applied to estimate micro motion of image blocks. Optical flow computation overcomes the difficulties of unreliable feature selection and feature matching of outdoor scenes; at the same time, the multi-scale strategy overcomes the problem of road surface self-similarity and local occlusions. Secondly, a support probability of flow vector is defined to evaluate the validity of the candidate image motions, and a Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) optical flow model is constructed based not only on image motion residuals but also their distribution of inliers and outliers, together with their support probabilities, to evaluate a given transform. This yields an optimized estimation of inlier parts of optical flow. Thirdly, a sampling and consensus strategy is designed to estimate the ego-motion parameters. Our model and algorithms are tested on real datasets collected from an intelligent vehicle. The experimental results demonstrate the estimated ego-motion parameters closely follow the GPS/INS ground truth in complex outdoor road scenarios.