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Novel Sm3+-activated YCa 4 O(BO 3) 3 (YCOB) phosphors with high color purity, excellent thermal stability and high luminescence quantum efficiency were developed. Upon 405 nm excitation, all samples displayed strong orange-red emissions. The crystal structure and luminescence characteristics of YCOB in relation to Sm3+ concentrations were explored. The optimal doping concentration was found to be 5% mol with remarkable color purity of 97.73%. The concentration quenching mechanism in YCOB host lattices was dominated by dipole-dipole interaction. Meanwhile, temperature-dependent luminescence spectra revealed that the investigated phosphors have excellent thermal stability. Impressively, it was calculated that the internal quantum efficiency of synthesized phosphors was as high as 76.54%. To further verify the practicability of synthesized phosphors, both red light-emitting diodes and white light-emitting diodes were fabricated using YCOB: 5%Sm3+ phosphors, and they exhibited bright red and white light, respectively. These results suggest that the novel YCOB: Sm3+ phosphors with high quantum efficiency and luminescent stability were promising for red-backlight display and indoor illumination. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, with the large-scale outbreak of the global financial crisis and public safety incidents (such as COVID-19), high-performance computing has been widely applied to risk prediction, vaccine development, and other fields. In scenarios where high-performance computing infrastructure responds to the instantaneous explosion of computing demands, a crucial issue is to provide large-scale flexible allocation and adjustment of computing capability by rapidly constructing computing clusters. Existing large-scale computing cluster deployment solutions usually utilize source code deployment or other deployment tools. The great challenge of existing deployment methods is to reduce excessive image distribution time and refrain from configuration defects. In this article, we design an intelligent distributed registry deployment (IDRD) architecture based on the OpenStack cloud platform, which adaptively places distributed image repositories using the containerized deployment of multiple registries. We propose a server load priority algorithm to solve multiple registries placement problems in IDRD. Furthermore, we devise a clustering algorithm based on demand density that can optimize the global performance of IDRD and improve large-scale cluster load balancing capabilities, which has been implemented in the TianHe Supercomputing environment. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that IDRD can effectively reduce 30% − 50% of the distribution time of component images and significantly improve the efficiency of large-scale cluster deployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The excavated information will become obsolete when the data changes in dynamic graphs. To compute the up-to-date results, the graph algorithm has to re-compute the entire data from scratch, which will consume huge computation time and resources. To reduce the cost of such calculations, this paper proposes a model called IncGraph to support incremental iterative computation over dynamic graphs. Different from the way of traditional iteration, IncGraph executes the graph algorithm through reusing the results of the previous graph and performs computation on the part of the graph that has changed. IncGraph has two critical components: (1) an incremental iterative computation model that consists of two steps: an incremental step to calculate the results on the changed vertices of the graph, and a merge step to calculate the results on the entire graph by using the results of the previous graph and the incremental step; and (2) an incremental update method to accelerate the iterative process within the iterative graph algorithm. We implement IncGraph model on GraphX and evaluate its performance by using several representative iterative graph algorithms: PageRank, Connected components, and Single Source Shortest Path. The results show that compared with the traditional iteration, when adding the 100k of vertices in different size data sets, the performance optimization ratio of IncGraph is 31.79 percent averagely, and 50.2 percent maximum; and when the percentage of added vertices varied from 0.01 to 10 percent in different data sets, the performance optimization ratio of IncGraph varied from 19.9 to 66.1 percent. Moreover, the result errors of IncGraph is small and can be neglected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the rapid growth computation requirements in big data and artificial intelligence area, CPU-GPU heterogeneous clusters can provide more powerful computing capacity compared to CPU clusters. The high parallel computing capabilities of GPUs greatly accelerate computation-intensive applications. And the number of GPUs on single computing node is scalable, which greatly improves the computing capacity of the cluster under the condition of limited cluster size. However, there is a lack of the effective load-balancing scheduling model in multi-GPU hardware environment. This article proposes AEML, an acceleration engine for multi-GPU load-balancing in distributed heterogeneous environment. AEML can effectively integrate GPUs into distributed processing framework and achieve great load-balance among multiple heterogeneous GPUs. We propose a heterogeneous task execution model based on multiple GPUs and multiple streams (MGMS), which can effectively balance the workload of multiple GPUs. MGMS model utilizes four core techniques: a fine-grained task mapping mechanism, a device resource unified management scheme, a novel resource-aware GPU task scheduling strategy, and a feedback-based streams adjustment scheme. The implementation of AEML system is based on Spark 3.0.0 and NVIDIA CUDA 10.0. We comprehensively evaluate the performance of AEML with multiple typical benchmarks. Experimental results show that AEML can fully exploit the computing power of GPUs and achieve great load-balance among multiple heterogeneous GPUs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper systematically investigated the effects of alkali activator modulus (AM), alkali dosage (AD), and water-fly ash ratio (W/FA) on the pore volume, pore size distribution, pore volume fractal dimension (D v), and pore surface fractal dimension (D s) of fly ash-based geopolymer (FABGs) by orthogonal test and mercury intrusion porosimetry test. D v and D s of FABG can be calculated by the Menger sponge model and Zhang and Li's models, respectively. The relationship between multiple synthesis parameters and pore characteristics of FABGs was detailedly studied through range analysis and correlation detection analysis, which provides a basic understanding of the influence of multiple parameters on the pore characteristics of FABG, as well as the relationship between pore characteristics and mechanical properties. The results show that AM has the greatest effect on the volume proportion of gel pores and transition pores, and AD and W/FA have the greatest effect on the volume proportion of capillary pores and large pores, respectively. W/FA has the greatest effect on the porosity, and the porosity and the most probable aperture increase with the increment of W/FA and decrease with a rise in AD. It is worth noting that AM, AD, and W/FA have little effect on the D v of larger pores, but have a greater on the D v of smaller pores, with the influence order of AD-W/FA-AM. D s of the large pores and capillary pores range between 2.70–2.90, and the D s of the transition pores and gel pores are mostly greater than 3.00, which suggests that there may be more ink-bottle pores in transition pores and gel pores. In addition, there was a strong linear relationship between the porosity and compressive strength of FABGs, and the compressive strength of FABGs showed a decreasing trend with the increase of porosity. Compared with D v , there is a stronger correlation between D s and compressive strength, indicating that the roughness of the pore surface and the pore size distribution have a greater influence on the compressive strength of FABGs. • The influence order of synthesis parameters on the porosity of FABGs was W/FA-AD-AM. • AM, AD and W/FA have the greatest effect on the volume proportion of gel and transition pore, capillary pore and large pore. • The pore surface fractal dimensions of the large pores and capillary pores range between 2.70-2.90. • There was a strong linear relationship between the porosity and compressive strength of FABGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the localized method of approximate particular solutions using polynomial basis functions is proposed to solve plate bending problems with complex domains. The closed-form particular solutions of fourth-order differential equations can be reduced to the linear combination of the particular solutions of Helmholtz and modified Helmholtz equations. To alleviate the difficulty of solving overdetermined fourth-order plate bending problems using the localized collocation method, additional ghost points outside the computational domain are introduced to improve the stability and accuracy. Three examples are illustrated to validate the feasibility of the proposed localized MAPS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scheduling plays an important role in improving the performance of big data-parallel processing. Spark is an in-memory parallel computing framework that uses a multi-threaded model in task scheduling. Most Spark task scheduling processes do not take the memory into account, but the number of concurrent task threads determined by the user. It emerges as a potential limitation for the performance. To overcome the limitations in the Spark-core source code, this paper proposes a dynamic Spark memory-aware task scheduler (DMATS), which not only treats memory and network I/O as a computational resource but also dynamically adjusts concurrency when scheduling tasks. Specifically, we first analyze the RDD based Spark execution engine to obtain the amount of task processing data and propose an algorithm for estimating the initial adaptive task concurrency, which is integrated with the known task input information and the executor memory. Then, a dynamic adjustment algorithm is proposed to change the concurrency dynamically through feedback information to optimally utilize the limited memory resources. We implement a dynamic memory-aware task scheduling (DMATS) in Spark 2.3.4 and evaluate performance with two typical benchmarks, shuffle-light and shuffle-heavy. The results show that the algorithm not only reduces the execution time by 43.64%, but also significantly improves resource utilization. Experiments also show that our proposed method has advantages compared with other similar works such as WASP. • Memory resources are considered in Spark task scheduling processes. • We propose dynamic and static scheduling adjustment methods based on memory-aware. • The entire implementation is embedded in the Spark-core process, light and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Mechanical properties of geopolymer composite with recycled aggregate were investigated. • Effects of GGBFS incorporation and recycled aggregate replacement were investigated. • Improvements in physical-mechanical properties were achieved with GGBFS inclusion. • Recycled aggregate adversely affected the mechanical properties of geopolymer composites. • Relationships between the compressive strength and other mechanical properties are proposed. The properties of fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) combination based geopolymer composites containing recycled aggregate are investigated in this study, which obtained from construction and demolition wastes. The effects of recycled aggregate replacement and GGBFS inclusion on the physical and mechanical properties of geopolymer composites were investigated in this study. The scanning electron microscopic (SEM) were conducted to provide a thorough insight into the characterization of microstructures. The results reveal that using recycled aggregate has an insignificant impact on workability and setting time, while it causes a reduction in physical and mechanical properties. The inclusion of GGBFS reduces workability and setting time. However, improved physical and mechanical properties can be achieved in the geopolymer composites after the incorporation of GGBFS, and this effect is more prominent in the geopolymer composites containing recycled aggregates. The water absorption and sorptivity exhibit a strong correlation with the volume of permeable voids of geopolymer composites. Besides, very good relationships were established between the compressive strength and other mechanical properties, and these relationships fitted reasonably well with the other predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative filtering (CF), one of the most famous methods for building recommendation systems, recommends relevant items to users or predicting ratings of users' unknown items. Matrix factorization (MF) models are well-known model to deal with predicting the rating problem. However, the recommendation system based on matrix factorization is hard to keep up with the rapidly changing real-world data. When ratings on new users or new items come, the static model can not fit well on new data. As a consequence, if the current thing does not apply, the prediction accuracy will lose. In addition, it is a significant computation cost to rebuild the model on the whole data. To capture these changes, in this paper, we construct an online-and-offline Collaborative Filtering with a multi-method model to improve the traditional CF method, called Online SGD with Offline Knowledge (OSGDO for short). Besides, we propose a real-time incremental recommendation framework on Apache Flink, which is a scalable stream and batch data processing platform. Meanwhile, we implement our proposed method on our proposed framework. Our method proves to be good at online training when new observations arrive. And the results of experiments show that the dynamic training process we proposed is more efficient than rebuild the model on all the data. At the same time, our algorithm performs well in practice and can achieve impressive accuracy quickly when it is tested with the well-known data sets of MoviesLens and Netflix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tribology, as a classical physical science, plays a key role in the understanding of long-term performance of pavements, especially that of hydraulic cement concrete pavement. Recent studies have indicated that graphene oxide (GO) can be used as a promising nano-sized additive to improve the mechanical properties and durability performances of cement composites. However, the effects of admixing GO on the tribological properties of ordinary portland cement (OPC) concrete and related mechanisms are still unclear. In this study, we tested the compressive strength and scratch properties of OPC mixtures to investigate their possible correlations with the abrasion resistance. Results reveal that the addition of GO (up to 0.1% by weight of cement) can increase the compressive strength at the macro level and scratch depth at the micro level, both of which could be related to the abrasion resistance of OPC concrete. XRD and SEM/EDS analyses were also conducted to help explain the beneficial effects of GO in OPC concrete. The mechanisms underlying the improved performance are mainly through accelerated hydration of cement and nano-reinforcements induced by the admixed GO. GO can provide nucleation sites for hydration, which facilitates the consumption of cement clinker and production of hydration products. This work helps achieve a mechanistic understanding of the tribology of concrete containing GO, at both macro and micro levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of La3(1−x)Ga5MO14:xSm3+ (M = Si or Ge) orange-red phosphors with high color purity, low correlated color temperature, and good thermal stability were successfully synthesized via a high-temperature solid-phase technique. The phase structure and morphology of La3Ga5SiO14(LGSi):xSm3+ and La3Ga5GeO14(LGGe):xSm3+ were investigated. Sm3+-doped LGSi and LGGe phosphors emitted orange-red light under an excitation of 403 nm, and the optimal doping concentrations were 3 mol% and 2 mol% with excellent color purities of 98.46% and 98.25%, respectively. The concentration quenching mechanism of both the samples was dominated by dipole–dipole interaction, and the effect of Si4+ and Ge4+ on luminescence performance was discussed. The internal quantum efficiencies of LGSi:0.03Sm3+ and LGGe:0.02Sm3+ were calculated to be 27.14% and 56.07%, respectively. The CIE and CCT values indicated that the luminescence of the prepared phosphors was in the orange-red region. Additionally, a white light-emitting diode (w-LED) was fabricated with LGGe:0.02Sm3+ phosphors, which was capable of emitting bright and warm white light and exhibiting a high color rendering index (CRI) of 87.17 and an appropriate correlated color temperature (CCT) of 6108 K. These results indicated that the prepared phosphors with excellent luminescent performances have potential application in indoor illumination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Increasing the recycled aggregate replacement ratio increases the mass loss rate. • Sensitivity of drying shrinkage increases with higher recycled aggregate replacement. • The drying shrinkage strain of GRACs develops rapidly in the early stage. • Higher slag content and curing temperature reduce drying shrinkage of GRACs. In this work, the drying shrinkage behavior of geopolymeric recycled aggregate concrete (GRAC) was studied with attention devoted to the mass loss, drying shrinkage strain, and sensitivity of drying shrinkage to water loss. The GRACs were prepared based on different fly ash/slag ratios and various dosages of recycled aggregate. Also, two types of curing regimes were employed, including ambient and heat curing. Additionally, the drying shrinkage strain development of GRACs was fast in the first 28 days and then slowed down with time. Recycled aggregate dosage increased the dry shrinkage strain while increasing the slag content and curing temperature reduced the drying shrinkage strain. Analogously, the sensitivity of drying shrinkage to the mass loss was raised under high recycled aggregate replacement ratios, whereas decreased when the slag content increased or heat curing was employed. Based on the test results, a prediction model was established for the drying shrinkage of GRACs, in which the factors of recycled aggregate replacement ratio, slag content, and curing regime were involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring semantic textual similarity (STS) lies at the core of many applications in natural language processing (NLP). Recently, most models have considered semantic information or syntactic information, but seldom an unified model to make full use of these two kinds of information. Based on the knowledge from the trained word vectors, this paper proposes a semantic-embedded dependency tree (SEDT) model based on word2vec and glove, which can be treated as a syntactic-semantic representation. In consideration of the words in a sentence for the contribution of the semantic are different, this model extends the semantic-embedded dependency tree model to an enhanced semantic-embedded dependency tree (ESEDT). And a modified partial tree kernel (MPTK) is proposed to automatically extract the syntactic-semantic patterns in this tree. Because the syntactic information, semantic knowledge, and the contribution distribution of the word attention model are all considered in this model, it can measure more comprehensive sentence semantics to improve the accuracy of STS results. Finally, SEDT/E-SEDT is applied to SemEval semantic textual similarity tasks and evaluate its performance through two widely used benchmarks: the Pearson correlation coefficient and the Spearman correlation coefficient. The experimental results show that SEDT/E-SEDT can effectively improve the accuracies of sentence similarity judgments. Compared with the other similar methods to calculate the semantic similarity, such as some neural network models, SEDT/E-SEDT can obtain better performance on most dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Industrial solid wastes are inducing severe environmental problems, but the problem can be overcame by reusing them as construction materials. The sulfate resistances of sustainable concrete incorporating various solid waste materials, including waste glass powder (WGP), coal gangue powder (CGP) and fly ash (FA) were investigated in this study. Concrete mixes with different water to binder (w/b) ratios and containing various solid waste materials as partial replacement of Portland cement by ratios of 10%, 20%, and 30% were prepared. These mixes were immersed in the 5% Na 2 SO 4 solution for a total period of 22 months. The sulfate attack resistances were evaluated extensively based on visual appearance, mass change, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity, mineralogy, and microstructure. The results indicate that regardless of the type and content of solid waste materials, the replacement of cement by solid waste materials exhibit a positive impact on the sulfate attack resistance. Under the same substitution level, WGP appear to be the most effective in offsetting the destructive effect of sulfate attack, followed by CGP and FA. Therefore, sustainable concrete incorporating solid waste materials can not only promote the recycling of solid waste, but also provide high sulfate attack resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • AAMs are attractive combination of mechanical strength, durability and reduced carbon footprint. • Multifunctional AAMs are intelligent systems based on functional properties and abilities. • The multifunctional properties are achieved by functional components or raw materials source. • Some properties, mechanism and application of multifunctional AAMs deserve fundamental investigations. Abstract The stream of research on alkali-activated materials (AAMs) has expanded rapidly during the last decades owing to the potential as a viable alternative to cement-based materials. In addition to the load-carrying function, AAMs have been integrated with other functions to develop advanced construction materials, namely multifunctional AAMs. Multifunctional AAMs are intelligent systems not only serve a basic structural function but also exhibit other functional properties or have the abilities to react upon external stimuli or disturbances. Materials of this kind have tremendous potential to enhance the mechanical performance and durability of structure, improve the reliability and longevity of infrastructure, as well as reduce life-cycle service and maintenance cost. These multifunctional properties are mainly achieved through materials composition design, incorporation of functional elements, or microstructure modification. This paper presents an overview on designs and properties of multifunctional AAMs covering the smart functions, mechanical functions, and electrical functions, and with special attention to their definition, principles, and current progress. Furthermore, the challenges in the research of multifunctional AAMs have been discussed, as well as the future directions to increase the innovation and engineering application of these materials and structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It remains a big challenge to introduce artificial extrinsic defects into colloidal crystals, which is critical for them to function as photonic crystals. The introduction of smart defects capable of responding to external stimuli is even harder. Here poly( N -isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) microgel colloidal crystals doped with poly( N -isopropylacrylamide- co -acrylic acid) (P(NIPAM-AAc)) microgel were obtained by self-assembly of the two microgels with the same size. The crystalline structure was then stabilized in situ by photo-initiated polymerization of the vinyl groups on surface of the PNIPAM microgel. Defect state can be facilely induced and then erased reversibly by changing pH or temperature, taking advantage of the different response of the two microgels to external stimuli. The defect state can be induced and erased repeatedly. In addition, the response of the doped crystals is fast because of their inherent porous structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To advance the understanding of tornado-like loading on low-rise buildings, a model of a building was tested in a tornado-like vortex generated by a large-scale tornado simulator. In the tests, the model translated with the middle section of the simulator floor through the vortex, and the pressures acting on the models were measured. The orientation of the model and the path, direction, and speed of the translation relative to the vortex were varied to simulate the scenarios of a tornado passing over or close to a building of various orientations in two opposite directions at multiple speeds. The pressure measurements were used to interpret the variation of the surface pressures on the model along the paths of the translations and investigate the dependence of the characteristics of the surface pressures on the orientation of the model and the path, speed, and direction of the translation in the context of the velocity and pressure fields of the vortex. In addition, the pressure measurements were also used to estimate the horizontal and vertical forces acting on the model. The characteristics of the resultant forces and the dependence of these characteristics on the same factors that affect the pressure characteristics were also investigated. • A low-rise building model was tested in a tornado-like vortex generated in a tornado simulator. • The pressures and resultant forces on the building model are characterized. • The characteristics of the loading are interpreted in the context of the features of the tornado-like vortex. • The dependence of the loading characteristics on the orientation of the model is evaluated. • The dependence of the loading characteristics on the translation path, speed, and direction of the model is evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, flower-like stannous sulfide (SnS) nanomaterials are synthesized using a hydrothermal method and used as sensitive materials for cataluminescence (CTL)-based detection of diethyl ether. Gas sensors based on SnS nanomaterials are prepared, and the SnS nanomaterials exhibit excellent gas-sensitive behavior towards ether. High sensitivity to ether is achieved at a relatively low operating temperature (153 °C) compared to other common sensors. The response time is 3 s and the recovery time is 8 s. The CTL intensity shows a good linear relationship (R2 = 0.9931) with a detection limit of 0.15 ppm and the concentration of ether in the range of 1.5–60 ppm. The proposed CTL sensor shows good selectivity towards ether. In addition, a highly stable signal is obtained with a relative standard deviation of 1.5%. This study indicates that the SnS-based sensor has excellent gas-sensitive performance and shows potential for applications in the detection of ether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tornado-like vortices are simulated in a large-scale Ward-type simulator to further advance the understanding of such flows, and to facilitate future studies of tornado wind loading on structures. Measurements of the velocity fields near the simulator floor and the resulting floor surface pressures are interpreted to reveal the mean and fluctuating characteristics of the flow as well as the characteristics of the static-pressure deficit. We focus on the manner in which the swirl ratio and the radial Reynolds number affect these characteristics. The transition of the tornado-like flow from a single-celled vortex to a dual-celled vortex with increasing swirl ratio and the impact of this transition on the flow field and the surface-pressure deficit are closely examined. The mean characteristics of the surface-pressure deficit caused by tornado-like vortices simulated at a number of swirl ratios compare well with the corresponding characteristics recorded during full-scale tornadoes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many low molecular weight and polymeric additives are found to be able to shift the phase transition temperature of poly( N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM), however, a large change can only be observed at a high concentration of the additive. Particularly, poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), a polymeric additive, can only induce a very small change in the phase transition temperature of PNIPAM, even at a high concentration. Unexpectedly, it is found that a low concentration of PVA can dramatically reduce the volume phase transition temperature (VPTT) of the surface layer of poly( N-isopropylacrylamide- co-2-acrylamido-phenylboronic acid) (P(NIPAM-2-AAPBA)) microgel. The concentration of PVA is about three orders of magnitude lower than the required concentration for other additives to achieve a comparable decrease in phase transition temperature of PNIPAM. The lowered VPTT cannot be explained by a change in the ionization degree of the PBA groups, or cross-link density, or hydrophilicity-hydrophobicity balance of the gel. Instead, it is proposed that the adsorption of PVA chains onto the P(NIPAM-2-AAPBA) microgel spheres shortens the distance between the PVA and PNIPAM chains, allowing they influence the thermal behavior of PNIPAM more effectively and hence dramatically reducing the phase transition temperature of the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A strategy was developed for the synthesis of highly ordered 2D arrays of Ag-PNIPAM hybrid microgel. The highly ordered 2D arrays of PNIPAM microgel were prepared by dispersing PNIPAM microgel on a charge-reversible substrate. The microgel spheres self-assembled into a 3D colloidal crystal, and the first 111 plane was fixed in situ onto the substrate as a result of spontaneous charge reversal of the substrate, leaving a high-quality 2D array of PNIPAM microgel. Ag nanoparticles were then synthesized in situ inside the microgel spheres by introduction of Ag ions into the microgel spheres and reduction with sodium borohydride. The resulting 2D arrays are highly ordered. The inter-particle distance in the array can be tuned. In addition, the method allows the synthesis of large size arrays and the use of nonplanar substrate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chromatographic fractionation of the 95% EtOH extract of the roots of Stellera chamaejasme yielded 20 sesquiterpenoids of four different types, guaiane-, carotane-, sesquicarane-, and alpiniane-types. Among them, sesquistrachanoids A−F were previously undescribed ones, whose structures including absolute configurations were elucidated by spectroscopic methods, the Mo 2 (OAc) 4 -induced ECD experiment, and analysis of experimental and calculated 1D NMR and ECD data. Sesquistrachanoid A is a 2,3- seco -guaiane-type sesquiterpenoid with a α -pyrone core and sesquistrachanoid B is the first example of 8,9- seco -guaiane-type sesquiterpenoid featured with an 1,8- δ -lactone core. Sesquistrachanoid C is a guaiane sesquiterpenoid characterized by a peroxide bridge between C-8 and C-10. All sesquiterpenoids were evaluated for their neuroprotective effects on cell damage induced by sodium nitroprusside in PC-12 cells. The bioassay results showed that six compounds at 10 μM could restore the cell viability, being comparable to that of the positive control edaravone. The mechanistic study on the most pronounced activity compound, stelleraguaianone B, demonstrated that it played a neuroprotective role by promoting the mRNA expression of antioxidant enzymes to reduce oxidative stress. Six undescribed sesquiterpenoids and 14 known ones were isolated from the roots of Stellera chamaejasme. Stelleraguaianone B (11) played a neuroprotective role by promoting the mRNA expression of antioxidant enzymes to reduce oxidative stress. [Display omitted] • Six undescribed sesquiterpenoids and 14 known ones were isolated from Stellera chamaejasme. • Sesquistrachanoid A is a 2,3- seco -guaiane with a α -pyrone core. • Sesquistrachanoid B is the first example of 8,9- seco -guaiane featured with an 1,8- δ -lactone core. • Sesquistrachanoid C is characterized by a peroxide bridge between C-8 and C-10. • Stelleraguaianone B showed the most pronounced neuroprotective activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present work, we developed the Neural Networks (NNs) for identifying unknown surface shape of inner wall in the two-dimensional pipeline based on the temperature at uniformly distributed measuring points. The steady-state governing equation is transformed into the anisotropic heat conduction equations, and the irregularly shaped inner boundary is identified by the estimation of circumferential distribution of the effective thermal conductivity of the furnace. After the unhomogenized technique for the effective thermal conductivity model, the meshless generalized finite difference method on a radial is derived to effectively solve the direct problem for training data. The NNs are introduced to calculate the effective thermal conductivity for further detection of unknown internal boundary. Several numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed solver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finally, -sulfoximine esters with alkyl substituents ( I tert i -butyl, cyclohexyl, butyl) were investigated under the standard reaction conditions and afforded the corresponding sulfoximine B 4h b - B j b in moderate yields (42-56%). Keywords: sulfoximines; S-alkylation; sulfinamides; sulfoximine esters EN sulfoximines S-alkylation sulfinamides sulfoximine esters 1829 1833 5 08/29/23 20230915 NES 230915 Graph The development of modern synthetic chemistry not only facilitates the construction of compound libraries, studies on structure-activity relationships, and developments of the synthesis process, but also considerably improves the rate of generation of small-molecule drugs and provides efficient support for the discovery of candidate drug compounds. Synthesis of Sulfoximines through Selective Sulfur Alkylation of Sulfinamides Generated In Situ from -Sulfoximine Esters The reaction then proceeds smoothly through a selective S-alkylation, rather than an N-alkylation, with readily available alkyl bromides to give the corresponding sulfoximines in reasonable yields (Scheme 1c). [Extracted from the article]

This paper proposes a novel cooperative voltage control strategy for an isolated microgrid based on the multi-agent advantage actor-critic (MA2C) algorithm. The proposed method facilitates the collaborative operation of a distributed energy system (DES) by adopting an attention mechanism to adaptively boost information processing effectiveness through the assignment of importance scores. Additionally, the algorithm we propose, executed through a centralized training and decentralized execution framework, implements secondary control and effectively restores voltage deviation. The introduction of an attention mechanism alleviates the burden of information transmission. Finally, we illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method through a DES consisting of six energy nodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A VOF model was used to study the two-phase secondary flow characteristics and the heat transfer mechanism in a helically coiled tube. According to the vapor-phase volume fraction, the helically coiled tube was divided into four sections for analysis, considering the different heat transfer characteristics in various boiling states. The heat transfer coefficient, velocity vector, and circumferential temperature distribution of the tube cross-sections were studied during boiling. The numerical results reveal that the secondary flow plays different roles in heat transfer of the four boiling states. When water boils in a helically coiled tube, the secondary flow enhances heat transfer in the subcooled and convective boiling sections, and alleviates heat transfer deterioration in the dry-out section. However, due to the secondary flow, the heat transfer coefficient drops rapidly by about 36% in the nucleate boiling section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Twelve new tigliane/rhamnofolane glycosides were isolated from Euphorbia wallichii. • The aglycones of 1 – 5 represent a rare class of 13-deoxygenated tiglianes. • The aglycones of 8 – 12 represent the first examples of 4-deoxygenated rhamnofolanes. • Euphorwallside C (3) was identified as a promising neuroprotective agent. • 3 inhibit ROS accumulation and restore the MMP via Nrf2 signaling pathway. Tigliane and rhamnofolane diterpenoids bearing glycosyl substituents are rarely found in nature. In the current study, seven new tigliane glycosides, euphorwallsides A − G (1 – 7), and five new rhamnofolane glycosides, euphorwallsides H − L (8 – 12), were isolated from the whole plants of Euphorbia wallichii. Their structures were elucidated by a combination of spectroscopic, computational, and chemical means. The aglycones of 1 – 5 represent a rare class of 13-deoxygenated tiglianes, while those of 8 – 12 represent the first examples of 4-deoxygenated rhamnofolanes. 2 , 3 , 5 , 7 , 8 , and 12 showed significant neuroprotective effects on sodium nitroprusside (SNP)-induced neuronal death in pheochromocytoma cell line PC-12 at 10 μM, being more active than the clinical drug, edaravone. Mechanistic study revealed that the most active compound, 3 , could inhibit reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation and restore the mitochondrial membrane potential via modulating the Nrf2 signaling pathway in PC-12 cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study the interaction between bluff bodies and tornado-like flow, two rectangular prisms of different depth to height ratios were tested in a two-celled tornado-like vortex generated by a Ward-type tornado simulator. The measurements are interpreted to reveal the characteristics of the mean and dynamic components of the tornado-like loading in the context of the velocity and static pressure fields of the tornado-like flow as well as the dependences of these characteristics on the radial location and the clearance of the prisms in the simulated vortex. The effects of the difference in the depth to height ratios of the prisms on the tornado-like loading are also evaluated. In addition to the fundamental understanding of tornado-like loading on bluff bodies, the study produces an experimental dataset that can serve as benchmarks for the validation and calibration of numerical methods used for the study of tornado-like loading on structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MapReduce framework is considered to be an effective resolution for huge and parallel data processing. This paper treats a massive data processing workflow as a DAG graph consisting of MapReduce jobs. In a heterogeneous computing environment, the computation speed can be different even on the same slot depending on various jobs. For this problem, this paper proposes an optimized MapReduce workflow scheduling algorithm. This algorithm comprises a job prioritizing phase and a task assignment phase. First, the jobs can be classified as I/O-intensive and computing-intensive, and the priorities of all jobs are computed according to their corresponding types. Then, the suitable slots are allocated for each block, and the MapReduce tasks in the workflow are scheduled with respect to data locality. The experimental results show that the optimized MapReduce workflow scheduling algorithm can improve the performance of task scheduling and the rationality of resources allocation in heterogeneous computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including speeding up the computation of neural networks, partition algorithm, and utilization of central processing unit (CPU) resources by mining usage patterns.

Herein we developed a useful method for the preparation of the desired sulfilimines with readily available sulfonamides as nitrogen sources and iodobenzene as the catalyst. The reaction proceeds via the in-situ produced hypervalent iodine from catalytic simple iodobenzene under electrooxidation conditions. This oxidative coupling strategy can be employed for a wide range of aromatic sulfide and sulfonamide. The obtained sulfilimines could be easily transformed to biologically important N H free sulfoximines in good yields. [Display omitted] Sulfilimines, the aza-analogs of sulfoxides, are valuable building blocks in organic synthesis and serve as important functional groups in medicinal chemistry. Herein we reported an efficient and environmentally friendly method of preparing sulfilimines from readily available thioether and sulfonamide as substrate. The reaction proceeds via the in-situ produced hypervalent iodine from catalytic simple iodobenzene under electrooxidation conditions. A series of sulfilimines were obtained in moderate to good yields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lead poisoning remains a major environmental health threat and a persistent source of health disparities in the United States, particularly in large cities such as Chicago. However, little research has considered the rapidly changing urban environment, due to processes like gentrification, when examining risk factors for pediatric lead poisoning. In this retrospective study, spatio-temporal analysis and spatial regression models have been applied to examine the distribution of elevated blood lead levels (EBLL) in children in 77 Chicago community areas annually from 1999 to 2013. Sociodemographic and built environment variables are calculated for each year of the study to account for changing urban community characteristics. Results show that while the overall rate of children with EBLL decreased greatly from 1999 to 2013, inequality between areas still persists. Hotspots of EBLL persist over time in communities in the South and Southwest Side. Spatial regression results indicate that, over the duration of the study period, higher rates of EBLL are frequently associated with higher minority populations, older house age in the community area and greater amounts of renter occupied houses. However, our closer examination on several representative communities indicate that different community development trajectories and renovation histories are associated with varying EBLL declines. Taking a dynamic perspective when understanding EBLL over time can highlight places where improvements in EBLL are the result of population displacement versus places where improvements in EBLL are related to changing housing stock, as well as areas of a city where lead poisoning prevention efforts can have the greatest impact. • Pediatric lead poisoning in Chicago community areas decreased from 1999 to 2013. • Clusters of high pediatric lead poisoning rates persist over time and space. • Sociodemographic and built environments are associated with pediatric lead poisoning. • Changes in urban geography are associated with changes in pediatric lead poisoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the rapid growth of the biomedical literature, the model training time in biomedical named entity recognition increases sharply when dealing with large-scale training samples. How to increase the efficiency of named entity recognition in biomedical big data becomes one of the key problems in biomedical text mining. For the purposes of improving the recognition performance and reducing the training time, this paper proposes an optimization method for two-phase recognition using conditional random fields. In the first stage, each named entity boundary is detected to distinguish all real entities. In the second stage, we label the semantic class of the entity detected. To expedite the training speed, in these two phases, we implement the model training process on a parallel optimization program framework based on MapReduce. Through dividing the training set into several parts, the iterations in the training algorithm are designed as map tasks which can be executed simultaneously in a cluster, where each map function is designed to complete the calculation of a gradient vector component for each part in the training set. Our experiments show that the proposed method in this paper can achieve high performance with short training time, which has important implications for the current biological big data processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most cloud computing platforms, the virtual machine quotas are seldom changed once initialized, although the current allocated resources are not efficiently utilized. The average utilization of cloud servers in most datacenters can be improved through virtual machine placement optimization. How to dynamically forecast the resource usage becomes a key problem. This paper proposes a scheduling algorithm called virtual machine dynamic forecast scheduling (VM-DFS) to deploy virtual machines in a cloud computing environment. In this algorithm, through analysis of historical memory consumption, the most suitable physical machine can be selected to place a virtual machine according to future consumption forecast. This paper formalizes the virtual machine placement problem as a bin-packing problem, which can be solved by the first-fit decreasing scheme. Through this method, for specific virtual machine requirements of applications, we can minimize the number of physical machines. The VM-DFS algorithm is verified through the CloudSim simulator. Our experiments are carried out on different numbers of virtual machine requests. Through analysis of the experimental results, we find that VM-DFS can save 17.08 % physical machines on the average, which outperforms most of the state-of-the-art systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The effects of metal powders on the mechanical properties of UHSC with steel fibers are studied. • Hydration degree, pore structure characteristics, and micro interface morphology of UHSC are also investigated. • A statistical damage constitutive model can reasonably describe the compressive stress-strain behavior of UHSC. • The mechanical properties and microstructure of UHSC are improved by adding metal powders. In this work, the mechanical properties of ultra-high strength cement-based materials (UHSC) incorporating metal powders and steel fibers under steam curing and autoclave curing were studied, with the special attention devoted to the flexural load-deflection response and compressive stress-strain behavior. Additionally, the hydration degree, pore structure characteristics and micro interface morphology were investigated to provide a thorough insight into the enhancement mechanism of metal powders and steel fibers on UHSC. The results show that the incorporation of Fe and Cu powders could enhance the flexural performance of UHSC, including the increased flexural strength and energy absorption capacity. Under uniaxial compression, improved peak stress, secant modulus, and energy absorption capacity of UHSC could be observed after the addition of Fe powders, but this improvement was negligible after the addition of Cu powders. Moreover, the statistical damage constitutive model based on strain equivalence hypothesis and improved statistical damage theory could reasonably describe the stress-strain behavior of UHSC under uniaxial compression. Furthermore, incorporating Fe and Cu powders could ameliorate the pore structure of UHSC, in which the harmful pores was converted into less harmful pores. Micro-interface morphology demonstrated that metal powders were closely bonded with cement paste, and no cracks or micro pores could be detected around the interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to accelerate the convergence and improve the calculation accuracy for parameter optimization of the Muskingum model, we propose a novel, adaptive hybrid particle swarm optimization (AHPSO) algorithm. With the decreasing of inertial weight factor proposed, this method can gradually converge to a global optimal with elite individuals obtained by hybrid PSO. In the paper, we analyzed the feasibility and the advantages of the AHPSO algorithm. Then, we verified its efficiency and superiority by application of the Muskingum model. We intensively evaluated the error fitting degree based on the comparison with four known formulas: the test method (TM), the least residual square method (LRSM), the nonlinear programming method (NPM), and the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS) method. The results show that the AHPSO has a higher precision. In addition, we compared the AHPSO algorithm with the binary-encoded genetic algorithm (BGA), the Gray genetic algorithm (GGA), the Gray-encoded accelerating genetic algorithm (GAGA) and the particle swarm optimization (PSO), and results show that AHPSO has faster convergent speed. Moreover, AHPSO has a competitive advantage compared with the above eight methods in terms of robustness. With the efficiency of this approach it can be extended to estimate parameters of other dynamic models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current works about MapReduce task scheduling with deadline constraints neither take the differences of Map and Reduce task, nor the cluster’s heterogeneity into account. This paper proposes an extensional MapReduce Task Scheduling algorithm for Deadline constraints in Hadoop platform: MTSD. It allows user specify a job’s deadline and tries to make the job be finished before the deadline. Through measuring the node’s computing capacity, a node classification algorithm is proposed in MTSD. This algorithm classifies the nodes into several levels in heterogeneous clusters. Under this algorithm, we firstly illuminate a novel data distribution model which distributes data according to the node’s capacity level respectively. The experiments show that the node classification algorithm can improved data locality observably to compare with default scheduler and it also can improve other scheduler’s locality. Secondly, we calculate the task’s average completion time which is based on the node level. It improves the precision of task’s remaining time evaluation. Finally, MTSD provides a mechanism to decide which job’s task should be scheduled by calculating the Map and Reduce task slot requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to study pressure distribution of gable roof under tornado, a multivariate adjustable tornado tower was designed for wind engineering according to the structure of tornado. The tornado tower had three variables : height of tower body, angle of direction vane and height of direction vane. Adjusting these variables, a tornado-like vortex can be simulated. Good agreements were achieved between experimental results and theoretical results in distributions of velocity, surface pressure and total pressure drop. Wind tower tests for rigid models of gable roof were carried out. In order to make the research representative, three typical roof pitches ( 15°, 30° and 60°) were used in making rigid models. The experimental results show that wind loads on the gable roof are suction, and pressure distribution is centrosymmetric when the building is located in the center of tornado. Suction on the roof becomes larger, and the windward and leeward side show more significant differences when the building is located at r = 1.0 Rm. Wind loads on the roof are much smaller than the first two conditions when the building is located at r = 3.0 Rm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malignant gliomas remain associated with poor prognosis and high morbidity because of their ability to invade the brain; furthermore, human gliomas exhibit a phenotype of accelerated brain invasion in response to anti-angiogenic drugs. Here, we study 8 human glioblastoma cell lines; U251, U87, D54 and LN229 show accelerated motility in low ambient oxygen. Src inhibition by Dasatinib abrogates this phenotype. Molecular discovery and validation studies evaluate 46 molecules related to motility or the src pathway in U251 cells. Demanding that the molecular changes induced by low ambient oxygen are reversed by Dasatinib in U251 cells, identifies neural Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (NWASP), Focal adhesion Kinase (FAK), -Catenin, and Cofilin. However, only Src-mediated NWASP phosphorylation distinguishes the four cell lines that exhibit enhanced motility in low ambient oxygen. Downregulating c-Src or NWASP by RNA interference abrogates the low-oxygen-induced enhancement in motility by in vitro assays and in organotypic brain slice cultures. The findings support the idea that c-Src and NWASP play key roles in mediating the molecular pathogenesis of low oxygen-induced accelerated brain invasion by gliomas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan province covers a unique mountainous ecosystem located on the eastern border of the Tibetan Plateau in China. We applied a popular non-invasive observational method, i.e., infrared-triggered camera trapping, to gain thousands of photographs of wildlife to monitor biodiversity over three years. Combined with data on the local abiotic factors, our integrative statistical analysis identified the key environmental drivers, i.e., temperature and vegetation, affecting the distribution and abundance of mammals and birds in the reserve. All species were classified into three main types by their tolerance of or fondness for different environmental conditions. The detectability of each species by camera trapping was quantified and ranked to provide insights on each species' relative abundance in the area. The high-altitude ecosystem of the Tibetan Plateau in China is a biodiversity hotspot that provides unique habitats for endemic and relict species along an altitudinal gradient at the eastern edge. Acquiring biodiversity information in this area, where the average altitude is over 4000 m, has been difficult but has been aided by recent developments in non-invasive technology, including infrared-triggered camera trapping. We used camera trapping to acquire a substantial number of photographic wildlife records in Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China, from 2013 to 2016. We collected information of the habitat surrounding the observation sites, resulting in a dataset covering 37 species and 12 environmental factors. We performed a multivariate statistical analysis to discern the dominant environmental factors and cluster the mammals and birds of the ecosystem in order to examine environmental factors contributing to the species' relative abundance. Species were generalized into three main types, i.e., cold-resistant, phyllophilic, and thermophilic, according to the identified key environmental drivers (i.e., temperature and vegetation) for their abundances. The mammal species with the highest relative abundance were bharal (Pseudois nayaur), Moupin pika (Ochotona thibetana), and Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana). The bird species with highest relative abundance were snow partridge (Lerwa lerwa), plain mountain finch (Leucosticte nemoricola), Chinese monal (Lophophorus lhuysii), and alpine accentor (Prunella collaris). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many studies have been conducted to characterize tornado-like flows, most of the knowledge resulting from these studies is on the mean components of the flows. This paper presents a study aimed at further understanding the turbulence in tornado-like vortices simulated in a Ward-type simulator as well as the fluctuations of the pressures on the surface beneath the simulated vortices. The focus is placed on the narrowband components that have been discovered in both the flows of two-celled vortices and the surface pressures caused by these vortices. The dependences of the characteristic frequency of the narrowband components and the spatial distributions of the standard deviations of these components in the flow and pressure fields on the swirl ratio and radial Reynolds number of the vortices are investigated. The relationship between some observed characteristics of the flow and the corresponding characteristics of the surface pressure are also interpreted to investigate the mechanism that produces the narrowband components. • Tornado-like vortices are simulated in a large-scale Ward-Type simulator. • The characteristics of the tornado-like flows and the surface pressures caused by the flows are evaluated. • Narrowband components in the flows in two-celled vortices and the surface pressures are identified and characterized. • Dependence of the characteristics of the narrowband components on swirl ratio and radial Reynolds number are evaluated. • The mechanism that produced the narrowband components is investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To establish a digital transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) model and provide morphological data for radiological diagnosis and interventional radiology to reduce portal vein pressure, 400 serial sectional images from the internal jugular vein superior margin to the lower edge of the liver were chosen from the Chinese Visible Human dataset. Surface and volume reconstructions were performed using 3D-DOCTOR 3.5 software on an ordinary personal computer. Volume and surface renderings were employed to perform data segmentation and image edge detection for reconstruction of the internal jugular vein, brachiocephalic vein, superior vena cava, heart, inferior vena cava, hepatic vein, and portal vein for computerized 3D reconstruction of the TIPS pathway and construction of a 3D visible model of different structures along it. The model can also display pathway and distribution characteristics and interactively show the spatial structural relationships between intrahepatic venous lines from any position and angle, plus complete data acquisition for any range and angle for 3D reconstruction with stereopsis and measurements using any visualization platform. The digital reconstruction of the TIPS pathway correctly reflected the complicated anatomic structural characteristics and spatial adjacency relationships between intrahepatic venous lines, providing a reference 3D morphology for image diagnostics and interventional TIPS therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pressure distributions and wind-induced responses of a large-span roof in tornadoes were studied. The impact of very high speed winds and the effect of the pressure drop when a building was hit by a tornado were investigated. Based on this, a calculating method for tornado-induced loads on closed structures was presented. The pressure coefficients on a large-span roof were obtained by CFD simulations. The wind-induced responses of the largespan roof were investigated using the time history analysis method. The numerical results show that the attack of F3 tornado lasts only 15 s. The maximum displacements reaches 2.57 m, which is much larger than 0. 48 m, the standard limit of 1/250 of the span. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: CXC chemokines may modify breast cancer cells and surrounding extracellular matrix to facilitate metastasis. CXCL7 is heparin binding, has heparanase activity, and is a ligand to CXCR2, a G-protein–linked receptor. Methods: Isogenic cell lines, malignant MCF10CA1a.cl1 cells, and premalignant MCF10AT cells were used. CXCR2 and CXCL7 expression levels were quantified by reverse transcriptionase–polymerase chain reaction and Western blot. MCF10AT cells were stably transfected with CXCL7, and matrigel invasion assays were performed. Antibody to CXCL7 was used to inhibit invasion. CXCL7 secretion by transfectants and heparanase activity were quantified by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results: CXCL7 and CXCR2 expression were significantly higher in malignant MCF10CA1a.cl1 cells than in premalignant MCF10AT cells. Secreted CXCL7, secreted heparanase activity, and invasiveness were all increased in CXCL7-transfected MCF10AT cells. CXCL7 antibody inhibited invasion of CXCL7-transfected MCF10AT cells. Conclusions: Malignant MCF10CA1a.cl1 cells express more CXCL7 and CXCR2 than premalignant MCF10AT cells. CXCL7-transfected MCF10AT cells are as invasive as malignant breast cancer cells. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Background: Foci of invasion are found in greater than 20% of excised specimens of breast ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Since lymphangiogenesis markers are associated with the potential for increased lymph node metastasis, the purpose of the current study was to determine expression of lymphangiogenesis molecular markers in a model of aggressive DCIS. Methods: From the MCF10A xenograft model, comedo type MCF10DCIS.com cells, premalignant MCF10AT, and invasive MCF10CA1a.cl1 cells were tested. Invasion was tested by Matrigel invasion assays (Becton-Dickinson, Bedford, MA). Gene expression was determined by reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction and protein expression by immunoblot, normalized to β-actin. Results: MCF10DCIS.com cells were 4-fold more invasive than MCF10AT cells (P < .01), and expressed several-fold more mRNA and protein than MCF10AT and MCF10CA1a.cl1 cells for vascular endothelial growth factor C, vascular endothelial growth factor D, and lymphatic vessel endothelial hyaluronan receptor 1 (P < .01). Conclusions: A subset of comedo-type DCIS cells are invasive, and expression of lymphangiogenesis markers is greater at the mRNA and protein levels than by invasive cancer cells (P < .01). These additional molecular markers may characterize aggressive DCIS more precisely. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: l-Proline amides were evaluated for catalyzing the direct aldol reaction of 4-nitrobenzaldehyde with chloroacetone. The presence of 30mol% (S)-pyrrolidine-2-carboxylic acid (2,4,6-trimethyl-phenyl)-amide catalyzed the direct aldol reactions of a range of aldehydes with chloroacetone to give anti-α-chloro-β-hydroxyketones with high regio-, diastereo- and enantioselectivity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this work, ceramsite was utilized to fabricate the sound-absorbing boards, in which two types of structure were considered, specifically, single-layer board with homogenous structure and double-layer board with gradient structure. The physical, mechanical and acoustic properties of these prepared ceramsite sound absorbing boards were studied, including the bulk density, compressive strength, flexural strength, softening coefficient, sound absorption coefficient and sound reduction index. The results show that the double-layer board with appropriate mixture design exhibited almost identical bulk density and mechanical strength to the single-layer board. All ceramsite sound absorbing boards had compressive and flexural strengths of more than 3 MPa and 1 MPa, respectively, and also demonstrated good water resistance. In terms of sound absorption and sound insulation properties, the overall performance of the double-layer board with reasonable gradient structure was better than that of the single-layer board. In addition, the physical structure models of ceramsite sound absorbing boards were established to illustrate the variation of mechanical properties and disclose the mechanism of sound absorption and insulation in the material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]