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Motion sickness is very common in road transport. To guarantee ride comfort and user experience, there is an urgent need for effective solutions to motion sickness mitigation in semi- and fully-automated vehicles. Considering both effectiveness and user-friendliness, a vibration cue system is proposed to inform passengers of the upcoming vehicle movement through tactile stimulation. By integrating the motion planning results from automated driving algorithms, the vibration cueing timing and patterns are optimized with the theory of motion anticipation. Using a cushion-based prototype of vibration cue system, 20 participants were invited to evaluate this solution in two conditions of driving simulator experiments. Results show that with the proposed vibration cue system, it could also help participants to comprehend the cues and to generate motion anticipation. The participants’ motion sickness degrees were significantly lowered. This research may serve as one foundation for the detailed system development in practical applications.(This article has been accepted for publication in Ergonomics, published by Taylor & Francis.)

The garnet-type electrolyte Li6.4La3Zr1.4Ta0.6O12 (LLZTO) has been widely researched for its high ionic conductivity and excellent stability against the Li anode. However, the garnet electrolyte is susceptible to CO2 and H2O in air to form a Li2CO3 insulating layer leading to poor wettability with the Li anode, which hinders its practical application. Herein, we introduced a simple method to effectively reduce the Li2CO3 layer on the garnet electrolyte surface by laser cleaning and made the garnet surface back with lithiophilicity. The resulting Li/garnet interfacial resistance decreased to 76.4 Ω·cm2 at 30 °C and 3.1 Ω·cm2 at 80 °C. The assembled Li symmetric cell with the as-laser-treated electrolyte steadily cycled for 300 h under 0.1 and 0.2 mA·cm-2 at 80 °C. The solid-state battery coupled with the composite LiFePO4 cathode and the Li anode exhibited stable long-term cycling performance for over 100 cycles with a capacity retention of 84.8%. This work provided a novel method to reduce the surface inert layer and make the garnet electrolyte reveal the intrinsic lithiophilicity by laser cleaning process with high efficiency, which helped address the challenges for the application of garnet-based solid-state batteries.

Backgrounds Hemodynamics plays an important role in the natural history of the process of rupture and recurrence of intracranial aneurysms. This study aimed to investigate the role of hemodynamics for recurrence in a vertebral artery dissecting aneurysm (VADA). Methods A patient with a ruptured VADA firstly treated by low-profile visualized intraluminal support (LVIS)-assisted coiling, and was implanted with a Pipeline Embolization Device (PED) after aneurysm recurrence. Finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics simulations were conducted in 6 serial imaging procedures, and the calculated hemodynamics was correlated with aneurysm recurrence. Results Wall shear stress (WSS) was not effectively suppressed, resulting in aneurysm recurrence with initial entry tear to occur above the protuberance after 7 months of LVIS stent-assisted coiling. With the implantation of PED, WSS, inflow stream and velocity at the aneurysm neck significantly decreased. During the 3-month follow-up after PED deployment, there was significant shrinkage of the sac and the blood flow in the sac was reduced considerably. The 27-month follow-up after PED deployment indicated the aneurysm was stable. Conclusions The present case study suggests that insufficient suppression of high WSS and high inflow velocity at the neck of the parent artery, especially near the posterior inferior cerebellar artery, might be associated with aneurysm recurrence.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common types of dementia among the elderly. Previous studies had revealed that the dysregulation of lncRNAs played important roles in human diseases, including AD. However, there is still a lack of comprehensive analysis of differently expressed long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in different distinct regions related to AD. In present study, we identified a total of 678, 593, 941, 1445, 1179, 466 differently expressed lncRNAs that were found in entorhinal cortex (EC), middle temporal gyrus(MTG), hippocampus (HIP), superior frontal gyrus (SFG), posterior cingulate (PC), cortex and primary visual cortex (VCX) AD samples, respectively. Furthermore, we constructed lncRNA-mRNA co-expression networks in AD to explore the potential roles of these lncRNAs. Differentially expressed (DE) lncRNAs were involved in regulating metabolic process, respiratory electron transport chain and ATP metabolic process showed by GO analysis. Interestingly, KEGG analysis revealed these lncRNAs were associated with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease. Four lncRNAs (LOC100507557, LOC101929787, NEAT1, and JAZF1-AS1) were identified as key lncRNAs in AD progression and dysregulated in different distinct regions related to AD. Our study has uncovered several key lncRNAs in AD, which would give novel underlying therapeutic and prognostic targets for AD.

Objective. This research attempted to explore the neuroprotective effect of choline and establish evidence for future dietary recommendations and nutritional interventions to maintain a proper cognitive function among elders aged >60 years in the US. Method. This cross-sectional study retrieved data of 2,393 eligible elderly participants from the 2011-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Combining dietary and supplement choline intake, total choline intake was evaluated using the 24-hour dietary recall method and the dietary supplement questionnaire. Total choline intake was categorized into tertiles, which ranged at 399.50 mg/day (T3). The Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease (CERAD) Word Learning subtest, Animal Fluency (AF) test, and Digit Symbol Substitution test (DSST) was used to measure cognitive function. Participants who scored the lowest 25th percentile in each cognitive test were classified in the low cognitive function (LC) group. Logistic regression models were implemented to examine the association between total choline intake and the incidence of LC. Results. In the CERAD test, the risk of LC was significantly lower in T2 than T1 (OR: 0.668, 95% CI: 0.493-0.904, and P = 0.006 ) when adjusted for age, gender, BMI, alcohol consumption, and hypertension. Similarly, T2 was associated with a significantly lower risk of LC when assessed by the AF test (OR: 0.606, 95% CI: 0.580-0.724, and P < 0.001 ) and DSST (0.584, 95% CI: 0.515-0.661, and P < 0.001 ). In all three cognitive measures, the T3 of the total choline intake was not associated with cognitive function compared to T1. Conclusion. Total choline intake at 187.06-399.50 mg/day reduces the risk of LC by approximately 50% compared to intake at

The application of Li-ion conducting garnet electrolytes is challenged by their large interfacial resistance with the metallic lithium anode and the relative small critical current density at which the lithium dendrites short-circuit the battery. Both of these challenges are closely related to the morphology and the structure of the garnet membranes. Here, we prepared four polycrystalline garnet Li

Background: Self-expanding devices, such as the Enterprise VRD (EP-VRD) have widely used for stent-assisted coiling treatment in wided-necked aneuryms while some thromboembolic complications were reported due to its incomplete stent apposition (ISA). We report our experiences on the novel Enterprise2 (EP-VRD2) stent in vivo in the treatment of intracranial and cranial cervical junction aneurysms.Methods: Twenty-five consecutive patients with intracranial or cranial cervical junction aneurysms were treated with EP-VRD2 stents retrospectively collected in our institution. We use the ‘jailing' technique in all cases and deployed the stent by using pushing over the outer curve technique. The 3- or 6-monthS follow-up was done regularly by DSA.Results: Twenty-five EP-VRD2 stents were implanted to treat 21 aneurysms at the siphon segment of internal carotid artery (ICA), one at the petrous segment, two at the cervical segment, one at the verteral artery with five accompanied with stenosis. Two patients had kinking during the procedure and were solved by microwire or microcatheter massaging. Four patients with a larger arc angle and a smaller radius of the parent vessel was detected ISA. No patient underwent the ischemic event after the operation. Twenty-three of 25 patients were evaluated after 3- or 6-months by DSA, 22 showed complete occlusion (RROC1), one slight re-stenosis in the follow-up within those five patients with stenosis. A length of 23 mm seemed associated with ISA (p < 0.01).Conclusion: The EP-VRD2 performed well in our small patient series; however, ISA could still occur with a sharp angle of the parent vessel.

Acquiring a superior and stable nanostructure of carbon-based catalysts is of pivotal relevance for obtaining remarkable oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance. However, there is still no simple method to construct a satisfactory structure of carbon-based catalysts with copious and well exposed active sites, rendering the development of such a method for tuning the structure of catalysts timely and ultimately relevant. Here, we apply a facile and universal solid-state reaction to fulfil structural manipulation of carbon-based catalysts by iron, and report the successful production of a series of catalysts with distinct structures, i.e. carbon nanotubes, 3D crumpled and porous graphene nanostructures, and densely stacked graphene nanosheets. As a direct consequence of the superior nanostructure of 3D crumpled and porous graphene with Fe and N doping at the surface (Fe–N–G), the Fe–N–G catalyst produced with a modest content of Fe precursor displays the most outstanding ORR activity, even superior to that of Pt/C catalysts, and holds substantial promise as a substitute for noble-metal-containing Pt/C catalysts. We demonstrate for the first time that Fe species can be used to effectively modulate the nanostructures of carbon materials, offering new insight into the synthesis and applications of carbon materials as next-generation noble-metal-free catalysts.

Garnet-type Li

Silicon and lithium metal are promising anode materials toward high energy densities Li (ion) batteries. However, silicon and lithium generally have dramatic volume change during lithiation/delithiation cycles. With the repeated expansion/shrinkage, the internal stress fluctuations and electrode pulverization can cause high interfacial resistance and the failure of electrodes. Herein, a novel strategy is proposed to engineer the current collector by using a polydopamine-assisted electroless metallization process to prepare an elastic deformable current collector covered with a high electrical conductivity Cu nano-network surface. The deformable current collectors can not only stabilize the interfacial stress as an artificial-spring, but also improve the electrical conductivity of anodes without any binders and conductive agents. Featured with outstanding deformable structure, the well-designed current collector achieves a low surface resistance of 0.06 Ω/sq and excellent electrochemical performance when applied in the commercial Si anode batteries, solid-state batteries, and ionic liquid electrolyte batteries at room-temperature.

Clock-drawing test (CDT) is widely used but lack of a suitable scoring method. To compare the validity of six common CDT scoring methods and to find out the best one. The drawing CDT was administered in a Chinese nursing-home inhabitants living on the mainland including 110 dementia, 118 MCI (mild cognitive impairment), and 133 random normal. We calculated the sensitivity and specificity of six scoring methods and applied the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve statistic, including determining the area under the curve (AUC). (1) All six CDT scoring methods had a value of sensitivity higher than 80% and a specificity of 60% except Jouk and Tuokko. Freund got the highest sensitivity (92.73%) of that five for the testing of dementia and high sensitivity (82.20%) for MCI with an acceptable specificity (70.68%). (2) The AUC (area under the ROC curve) of all six CDT methods was over 0.8 for dementia, and for MCI, only Jouk and Tuokko were lower than 0.8. Mendez had the largest AUC of 0.872 for MCI, which closely followed by Freund with 0.859. (3) Freund predicted dementia best but had no significant difference (p > 0.05); it only had significant difference with Jouk and Tuokko (p

With the increasing demand for higher energy density Lithium-ion batteries, the battery safety issue has gained growing attention. Solid-state electrolytes (SSEs) are considered a promising solution to the volatilization and inflammable problems of the traditional liquid electrolytes. In this work, we propose a novel solvent-free modification process using stearic acid as a modifying agent for LLZTO/PEO hybrid electrolytes. Compared to the conventional solvent-casting process, the new one integrates surface modification and composite in a successive solvent-free step, so it can greatly improve the process efficiency and meet the requirement of green chemistry. Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometry (FTIR), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) observation confirm the structure of the uniform coating layer. The solvent-free modification and composite process are proved to significantly inhibit the agglomeration of LLZTO particles and the side reactions on particle surfaces in the polymer matrix by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Thermal Gravimetric-Differential Thermal Analysis (TG-DTA) characterization. Thus, the prepared electrolyte has the ionic conductivity of up to 8.3 × 10−4 S cm−1 at 70 °C. It has better electrochemical stability as well, which can achieve about 900 cycles in Li symmetric cells with a current density of 0.1 mA cm−2.

The garnet-type solid Li-ion conductor, Li6.4La3Zr1.4Ta0.6O12, is viewed as a promising solid-state electrolyte for the next-generation high-performance Li-ion battery because of its high ionic conductivity and stability. The previous researches, in order to avoid Li volatilization loss during solid-state reaction of sintering, mother powder with the same composition as green bodies was usually used to cover the samples, it would waste the expensive raw materials and increase the fabrication cost. In this study, a new method was proposed to prepare the Li6.4La3Zr1.4Ta0.6O12 ceramic solid-state electrolyte where the Li loss is compensated by the outside Li2CO3. Samples prepared by this method have pure garnet phase and compact micromorphology with few pores. These samples have a high Li-ion conductivity of 2.9×10−4 S/cm and a low activation energy of 0.37 eV at room temperature. The electronic conductivity is 1.08×10−8 S/cm, which can be neglected for solid-state electrolyte.

The solubilities of glutaric acid in binary cyclohexane + cyclohexanol solvent mixtures at 298.05–343.65 K, in binary cyclohexane + cyclohexanone solvent mixtures at 299.10–340.65 K, in binary cyclohexanone + cyclohexanol solvent mixtures at 299.75–343.65 K, and in ternary cyclohexanol + cyclohexanone + cyclohexane solvent mixtures at 298.15–330.95 K were studied by the dynamic method. The results show that the solubility of glutaric acid increases as temperature increases at constant solvent composition in three determined binary solvent systems. For binary cyclohexane + cyclohexanol and cyclohexane + cyclohexanone solvent mixtures, solubilities of glutaric acid decrease monotonically with the increasing mass fraction of cyclohexane in solvent mixtures at constant temperature. However, for binary cyclohexanone + cyclohexanol solvent mixtures, cyclohexanone with a mass fraction at 0.6 in solvent mixtures has the best dissolving capacity for glutaric acid at constant temperature. The experimental solubilit...

Handwritten Chinese character recognition (HCCR) is a representative large character set pattern classification task. Recently, convolutional neural networks have provided promising solutions for this challenging task. This paper adopts the modified Inception-ResNet network for handwritten Chinese character recognition, and proposes a discriminant weighting method for cross-entropy loss calculation which focuses on recognition errors in the training stage. Sparse training technique is also incorporated. Under the specific condition of utilizing the testing mini-batch mean and variance for batch normalization, the proposed method achieves improved performance on the ICDAR-2013 offline handwritten Chinese character competition dataset.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are an emerging class of RNA species that may play a critical regulatory role in gene expression control, which can serve as diagnostic biomarkers for many diseases due to their abundant, stable, and cell- or tissue-specific expression. However, the association between circRNAs and atrial fibrillation (AF) is still not clear. In this study, we used RNA sequencing data to identify and quantify the circRNAs. Differential expression analysis of the circRNAs identified 250 up- and 126 down-regulated circRNAs in AF subjects compared with healthy donors, respectively. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis of the parental genes of the dysregulated circRNAs indicated that the up-regulated parental genes may participate in the process of DNA damage under oxidative stress. Furthermore, to annotate the dysregulated circRNAs, we constructed and merged the competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, respectively. In the merged network, 130 of 246 dysregulated circRNAs were successfully characterized by more than one pathway. Notably, the five circRNAs, including chr9:15474007-15490122, chr16:75445723-75448593, hsa_circ_0007256, chr12:56563313-56563992, and hsa_circ_0003533, showed the highest significance by the enrichment analysis, and four of them were enriched in cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction. These dysregulated circRNAs may mainly participate in biological processes of inflammatory response. In conclusion, the present study identified a set of dysregulated circRNAs, and characterized their potential functions, which may be associated with inflammatory responses in AF. To our knowledge, this is the first study to uncover the association between circRNAs and AF, which not only improves our understanding of the roles of circRNAs in AF, but also provides candidates of potentially functional circRNAs for AF researchers.

Sun, wind and tides have huge potential in providing us electricity in an environmental-friendly way. However, its intermittency and non-dispatchability are major reasons preventing full-scale adoption of renewable energy generation. Energy storage will enable this adoption by enabling a constant and high-quality electricity supply from these systems. But which storage technology should be considered is one of important issues. Nowadays, great effort has been focused on various kinds of batteries to store energy, lithium-related batteries, sodium-related batteries, zinc-related batteries, aluminum-related batteries and so on. Some cathodes can be used for these batteries, such as sulfur, oxygen, layered compounds. In addition, the construction of these batteries can be changed into flexible, flow or solid-state types. There are many challenges in electrode materials, electrolytes and construction of these batteries and research related to the battery systems for energy storage is extremely active. With the myriad of technologies and their associated technological challenges, we were motivated to assemble this 2020 battery technology roadmap.

On-chip Memory-Controllers (MCs) placement is a key issue in designing Network-on-Chip (NoC) with multiple MCs. A good MC placement can efficiently decrease NoC memory-access latency. However, it is difficult to search an optimal MC placement within a feasible time period due to huge design space of MC placements and much time spent on evaluating whether an MC placement is better or not. This paper focuses on how to evaluate an MC placement quickly. As a common manner of evaluating an MC placement, network simulation manners often cost too much time. In this paper, we propose a method of fast evaluation of an MC placement. There are two contributions in this paper: the first one is to use an indicator “path-load” to approximately represent memory-access-flow transmission latency; the second one is to propose a highly-efficient method of calculating path-load to evaluate an MC placement to take the place of traditional simulation manner. To verify this method, we embed it into a traversal method to find out optimal MCs placements. Experiments show that almost all MCs placements with the minimum path load value are those placements that are of the best network performance in the same network scenarios. In a word, our proposed method can efficiently evaluate MCs placements rather than simulation manners. It can be embedded into searching algorithm to accelerate achieving optimal solutions.

The wide spectrum and propagation characteristics over the air give mmWave communication unique advantages as well as design challenges for 5G applications. To increase the system speed, capacity, and coverage, there is a need for innovation in the RF system architecture, circuit, antenna, and package in terms of implementation opportunities and constraints. The discuss mmWave spectrum characteristics, circuits, RF system architecture, and their implementation issues are discussed. Moreover, the transmitter key components, i.e., the receiver, antenna, and packaging are reviewed.

The solubilities of phthalic acid and o-toluic acid in binary acetic acid (HAc) + water and HAc + o-xylene solvent mixtures were measured by a dissolution temperature method at atmospheric pressure. The mole fractions of HAc in the corresponding solvent mixtures range from 0.00 to 1.00. The measured data show that, within the temperature range studied, the solubilities of phthalic acid and o-toluic acid increase with the increasing temperature at constant solvent composition and initially decrease with the decreasing mole fraction of HAc in HAc + o-xylene and HAc + water solvent mixtures at constant temperature, respectively. It also shows that, within the solvent composition range studied, the HAc + water solvent mixtures with the mole fraction of HAc at 0.5467 has the highest dissolving capacity for phthalic acid at constant temperature, and the highest solubility of o-toluic acid is obtained in HAc + o-xylene solvent mixtures with the mole fraction of HAc of 0.5408 at constant temperature. The experime...

Purpose: Anti-gamma-aminobutyric acid B (anti-GABAB) receptor encephalitis is a newly described type of autoimmune encephalitis. We report a case series of patients diagnosed with anti-GABAB receptor encephalitis in China, focusing on their presentations, laboratory and imaging results, and outcomes, as well as the treatment strategies which were employed. Methods: Data from patients diagnosed with anti-GABAB receptor encephalitis in the Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, from January 2014 to June 2015 were retrospectively collected and analyzed. Based on specific diagnostic criteria, seven cases were included. Results: Six of the seven patients were males, and a median age at presentation of 56 years (range: 4–71 years). Seizures were the most common initial symptom, and all patients developed symptoms of typical limbic encephalitis during their disease course. Additional types of autoantibodies were identified in four patients. After presentation, three patients were fo...