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The fat mass and obesity-associated protein (FTO) is an RNA demethylase required for catalytic demethylation of N6-methyladenosine (m6A); it is highly expressed and functions as an oncogene in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Currently, the overarching objective of targeting FTO is to precisely inhibit the catalytic activity. Meanwhile, whether FTO degradation also exerts antileukemic effects remains unknown. Herein, we designed the first FTO-targeting proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) degrader QP73 using our FTO inhibitor Dac85—which potently inhibits FTO demethylation in AML cell lines—as a warhead. Notably, QP73 significantly induced FTO degradation in a time-, dose-, and ubiquitin–proteasome system-dependent manner and had superior antiproliferative activities to the FTO inhibitor Dac85 in various AML cell lines. Moreover, QP73 treatment significantly increased m6A modification on mRNA, promoted myeloid differentiation, and induced apoptosis of AML cells. Quantitative proteomics analysis showed that QP73 induced complete FTO degradation, upregulating RARA and ASB2 abundance and downregulating CEBPA, MYC, PFKP, and LDHB levels in AML cells. Lastly, QP73 exhibited antileukemic activity by increasing m6A modification and decreasing FTO levels in xenograft AML tumors. This proof-of-concept study shows that FTO-targeting PROTAC degraders can regulate the FTO signaling pathway and have potential antileukemia applications.

RFPA2D was used to simulate the crack propagation, failure mode, and fractal characteristics of composite strata with prefabricated cracks and holes under the uniaxial compression test. The crack propagation process was analyzed when the crack inclination angle and rock inclination angle changed. And it was concluded that: when the rock inclination angle is 0° and the crack inclination angle changes, the cracks are classified into X-type cracks and Y-type cracks. When the crack inclination angle is 0° and the rock inclination angle changes, the failure modes of the model specimens are divided into the through-cut failure mode of soft rock and the failure mode along the soft rock. The variation law of fractal dimension of cracks in the composite rock stratum with holes calculated by Matlab is the same as that of the compressive strength of the model specimen, and the fitting between fractal dimension and compressive strength has a significant linear relationship.

In this letter, we propose a novel and straightforward scheme for Q-band (33–50 GHz) millimeter-wave signal generation enabled by a Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM)-based joint algorithm, which combines probabilistic shaping (PS) and precoding technology, to enhance the anti-interference ability of the transmission system. Based on the proposed scheme, we experimentally demonstrate the generation and transmission of 1.4-Gbaud 46-GHz PS-16-quadrature-amplitude-modulation (PS-16QAM) vector signals, showcasing improved bit-error-ratio (BER) in both standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) and wireless transmission cases. The proposed scheme exhibits a clear advantage in terms of nonlinear interference suppression and satisfies the hard-decision forward-error-correction (HD-FEC) threshold with a BER of 3.8 × 10−3 in radio-over-fiber (RoF) systems.

In the field of maritime traffic management, overcoming the challenges of low prediction accuracy and computational inefficiency in ship trajectory prediction is crucial for collision avoidance. This paper presents an advanced solution using a deep bidirectional long- and short-term memory network (BILSTM) and the Optuna hyperparameter automatic optimized framework. Utilizing automatic identification system (AIS) data to analyze ship navigation patterns, the study applies Optuna to fine-tune the hyperparameters of the BILSTM network to improve prediction accuracy and efficiency. The developed Optuna–BILSTM model shows a remarkable 7% increase in prediction accuracy over traditional back propagation (BP) neural networks and standard BILSTM models. These results not only improve ship navigation and safety but also have significant implications for the development of autonomous ship collision avoidance systems, marking a significant step toward safer and more efficient maritime traffic management.

In order to investigate the effects of film mulching and water-saving methods on soil inorganic nitrogen, nitrogen content of rice organs, nitrogen-phosphorus metering ratio, and nutrient limitation during rice yield formation, two water-saving irrigation methods and black biodegradable film mulching were adopted. The effects of water-saving film mulching on NH4+-N and NO3−-N in 0 to 60 cm soil, nitrogen accumulation and ratio, and nitrogen-phosphorus metering ratio in rice organs were analyzed. The nitrogen-phosphorus-limiting state of rice growth under water-saving film mulching was determined. The results showed that water-saving and film mulching methods could weaken the leaching of NH4+-N and NO3−-N and enhance the nitrogen uptake of rice. The water-saving method of mulching could reduce the metering ratio of nitrogen and phosphorus in rice organs. The panicle maturity process had been in a state of nitrogen limitation, and the effect was gradually enhanced. The nitrogen and phosphorus metering ratio of panicles was positively correlated with NH4+-N accumulation in the 0 to 60 cm soil layer and nitrogen accumulation of rice organs, and negatively correlated with soil NO3−-N accumulation under film mulching and water-saving methods. The correlation between stems and leaves’ nitrogen and phosphorus metering ratios and influencing factors was basically opposite to that of panicles’ nitrogen and phosphorus metering ratio. This study can provide a reference for the formulation of a fertilization system under film mulching in the black soil region of northeast China.

Despite a broad range of mobile AR applications available to date, the majority still primarily use surface gestures, i.e., gesturing on the touch screen surface of the device and do not utilise the affordance of three-dimensional user interaction that AR interfaces support. In this research, we compared two methods of gesture interaction for mobile AR applications: Surface Gestures and Motion Gestures, which take advantage of the spatial information of the mobile device. We have conducted two user studies: an elicitation study (n = 21) and a validation study (n = 10). The first study elicited two sets of 504 gestures, surface and motion gestures, for 12 everyday mobile AR tasks. The two sets of gestures were classified and compared in terms of goodness, ease of use, and engagement. As expected, the participants’ elicited surface gestures are familiar and easy to use, while motion gestures were found more engaging. Using design patterns derived from the elicited motion gestures, we proposed a novel interaction technique called “TMR” (Touch-Move-Release). Through validation study we found that the TMR motion gesture enhanced engagement and provided a better game experience. In contrast, the surface gesture provided higher precision resulting in higher accuracy and was easier to use. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings and give our design recommendations for using the elicited gestures.

Gene fusions involving the ERG transcription factor and point mutations in the ubiquitin ligase adaptor SPOP are two truncal mutations that are mutually exclusively present in prostate cancer. Here, the authors show that mutations in SPOP render prostate tumor cells sensitive to antiandrogen therapy and that the presence of ERG promotes sensitivity to high dose of androgen and SPOP inhibition.

This research explores augmented perception by investigating the effects of spatial scale manipulation in Virtual Reality (VR) to simulate multiple levels of virtual eye height (EH) and virtual interpupillary distance (IPD) of the VR users in the design context. We have developed a multiscale VR system for design applications, which supports a dynamic scaling of the VR user’s EH and IPD to simulate different perspectives of multiple user’s groups such as children or persons with disabilities. We strongly believe that VR can improve the empathy of VR users toward the individual sharing or simulating the experience. We conducted a user study comprising two within-subjects designed experiments for design-related tasks with seventeen participants who took on a designer’s role. In the first experiment, the participants performed hazards identification and risks assessment tasks in a virtual environment (VE) while experiencing four different end-user perspectives: a two-year-old child, an eight-year-old child, an adult, and an adult in a wheelchair. We hypothesized that experiencing different perspectives would lead to different design outcomes and found significant differences in the perceived level of risks, the number of identified hazards, and the average height of hazards found. The second experiment had the participants scale six virtual chairs to a suitable scale for different target end-user groups. The participants experienced three perspectives: a two-year-old child, an eight-year-old child, and an adult. We found that when the designer’s perspective matched that of the intended end-user of the product, it yielded significantly lower variance among the designs across participants and more precise scales suitable for the end-user. We also found that the EH and IPD positively correlate with the resulting scales. The key contribution of this work is the evidence to support that spatial scale manipulation of EH and IPD could be a critical tool in the design process to improve the designer’s empathy by allowing them to experience the end-user perspectives. This could influence their design, making a safer or functionally suitable design for various end-user groups with different needs.

A $5\times60$ Gb/s low-density parity-check (LDPC) coded WDM-PON using 8-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM8) signals with probabilistic shaping (PS) over 20-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) with direct detection is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Each optical carrier at the optical line terminal (OLT) carries a 20-Gbaud probabilistically-shaped LDPC-coded PS-PAM8 signal from a conventional uniform PAM16 signal following a designed approximate Gaussian distribution (AGD). A LDPC-based bit-interleaved coded modulation scheme with iterative decoding (BICM-ID) is utilized to recover the inherently overlapped symbols due to the proposed PS mapping. Combining decision-directed least-mean-squares (DD-LMS) and constant modulus algorithm (CMA), a blind feedback pre-equalizer is adopted to reduce the frequency loss of the signal owing to imperfect electro-optical components in experiment. As for experimental verification and application, 1.48-dB superior receiver power sensitivity and 1.7-dB launch fiber power optimization are gained respectively by using LDPC-coded PS-PAM8 signals in WDM-PON, which can bring higher spectral efficiency and power loss budget for the optical distribution networks.

Improving the accuracy of thermal power plant simulators is the primary goal of simulator developers. There are many fluid networks in a thermal power plant. The accuracy of the simulator is entirely dependent on the quality of the simulation of these fluid networks. Fluid network theory is a method that combines grid with fluid mechanics to study the transport state and transience of fluids. This study focused on designing a rapid modeling method to model the fluid dynamics in thermal power plants using a data driven mechanism analysis. First, the mechanism model structure of the fluid network was established based on mechanism analysis of the key devices. The mechanism model was devised using the concept of node and branch in the signal flow graph. Next, the undetermined parameters in the structure model were identified using historical data and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). In this way, the fluid network model could be developed quickly. The modeling process has been described herein, considering two specific examples.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel carrier-less amplitude/phase modulation wavelength-division-multiplexing passive optical network (CAP-WDM-PON) with its bandwidth efficiency enhanced by using a multi-band discrete Fourier transform spread (DFT-spread) discrete multi-tone (DMT) signal based on Hilbert-transformed single-sideband (HB-SSB) modulation. The DFT-spread technique is utilized to extend orthogonal subcarriers, which effectively restrain the high-peak signal formation probability, and thereby, it can significantly reduce the high peak-to-average power ratio of the DMT signal. The proposed optical line terminal (OLT) in CAP-WDM-PON suggests five downlink optical subcarriers. For each optical subcarrier, there are as many as 6×20 Gb/s SSB digital DMT channels CAP modulated on them, which can be efficiently generated by using only one set of optical transmitter hardware. The experimental results show that the proposed system is capable of accommodating 5×6 channels (20 Gb/s per channel) within an optical distribution network (ODN) loss budget of 19.4 dB, and there is a 2.4-dB ODN loss budget improvement by utilizing the DFT-spread scheme. More importantly, the proposed spectral- and bandwidth-efficient CAP-WDM-PON system requires six times less downlink optical transmitters at the OLT, which can be translated into savings in cost, power consumption, and footprint. In addition, key techniques, such as pre-equalization for high-frequency components and digital HB-SSB modulation format for generation of multi-band DMT signals, are also studied.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel seamless fiber-wireless-integration system (FWI) to deliver up to 120-Gb/s (9~15-Gbaud) polarization-division-multiplexing 16-ary quadrature-amplitude-modulation (PDM-16QAM)/40-Gb/s (5~12-Gbaud) quadrature-phase-shift-keying (PDM-QPSK) signal over 10-km/20-km single-mode fiber-28 (SMF-28) and 0.6-cm/13-m, 300-m and 1-km 2 × 2 multi-input multi-output (MIMO) wireless link at W-band, realized by antenna polarization multiplexing and photonic millimeter-wave (mm-wave) generation techniques. With reduction of system size-based hardware complexity and power consumption, it is more convenient for the system adopting antenna polarization multiplexing to be installed and maintained. For simplification of network architecture, apart from being deployed as multiplexer/de-multiplexer, two ortho-mode transducer devices are used to be a pair of panel antennas at both the transmitter and the receiver sides in the scheme of the short-haul wireless link employing PDM-16QAM signal. The bit error ratio (BER) is less than the new-generation forward-error-correction (eFEC) threshold of 2 × 10-2 with CMA algorithm for equalization.

This paper proposes a novel nonlinear partial least square (PLS) approach for dealing with the modeling problem of industrial processes with input variables in collinearity. The new method combines the external linear PLS framework with the internal extreme learning machine (ELM) function. First, PLS is used as the outer framework to extract the input and output latent variables as well as eliminating the collinearity of the original variables, and then ELM is employed to describe the nonlinear relation between pairs of latent variables. Besides, the weight updating strategy based on errors minimization is also involved to improve the prediction accuracy. Then, the pH-neutralization process is taken as a benchmark to verify the validity of the new model. Finally, this method is applied to model the NOx emission of a 1000-MW coal-fired boiler, and root-mean-square error (RMSE) values are 5.9541 for the training dataset and 6.8323 for the testing dataset. Compared with linear PLS and another two nonlinear PLS methods, smaller prediction errors is obtained. The results indicate new nonlinear PLS model can be a better choice for establishing the model of NOx emission for coal-fired boilers.

The selective catalytic reduction (SCR) decomposition of nitrogen oxide (de-NOx) process in coal-fired power plants not only displays nonlinearity, large inertia and time variation but also a lag in NOx analysis; hence, it is difficult to obtain an accurate model that can be used to control NH3 injection during changes in the operating state. In this work, a novel dynamic inferential model with delay estimation was proposed for NOx emission prediction. First, k-nearest neighbour mutual information was used to estimate the time delay of the descriptor variables, followed by reconstruction of the phase space of the model data. Second, multi-scale wavelet kernel partial least square was used to improve the prediction ability, and this was followed by verification using benchmark dataset experiments. Finally, the delay time difference method and feedback correction strategy were proposed to deal with the time variation of the SCR de-NOx process. Through the analysis of the experimental field data in the steady state, the variable state and the NOx analyser blowback process, the results proved that this dynamic model has high prediction accuracy during state changes and can realize advance prediction of the NOx emission.

As the main energy source for thermal power generation, coal generates a large amount of NOx during its incineration in boilers, and excessive NOx emissions can cause serious pollution to the air environment. Selective catalytic reduction denitrification (SCR) selects the optimal amount of ammonia to be injected for denitrification based on the measurement of NOx concentration by the automatic flue gas monitoring system. Since the automatic flue gas monitoring system has a large delay in measurement, it cannot accurately reflect the real-time changes of NOx concentration at the SCR inlet when the unit load fluctuates, leading to problems such as ammonia escape and NOx emission exceeding the standard. In response to these problems, this paper proposes an SCR inlet NOx concentration prediction algorithm based on BMIFS-LSTM. An improved mutual information feature selection algorithm (BMIFS) is used to filter out the auxiliary variables with maximum correlation and minimum redundancy with NOx concentration, and reduce the coupling and dimensionality among the variables in the data set. The dominant and auxiliary variables are then fed together into a long short-term memory neural network (LSTM) to build a prognostic model. Simulation experiments are conducted using historical operation data of a 300 MW thermal power unit. The experimental results show that the algorithm in this paper reduces the average relative error by 3.45% and the root mean square error by 1.50 compared with the algorithm without auxiliary variable extraction, which can accurately reflect the real-time changes of NOx concentration at the SCR inlet, solve the problem of delay in NOx concentration measurement, and reduce the occurrence of atmospheric pollution caused by excessive NOx emissions.

We propose a novel and simple scheme for photonic frequency eightfold millimeter wave (mm-wave) generation with optical carrier suppression based on only one single-drive Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM). According to our theoretical analysis and experimental demonstration, by adopting designed direct current bias voltage of MZM and the amplitude voltage of the radio frequency (RF) drive signal, two fourth-order optical subcarriers are generated via a single-drive MZM. Furthermore, the corresponding optical central carrier and undesired sidebands are suppressed simultaneously. Based on our proposed scheme, the generation of 72-GHz optical mm-wave by an RF signal of 9 GHz without any optical filtering is experimentally demonstrated. The radio-over-fiber system with 3.5-Gb/s OOK downstream link based on this generated 72-GHz mm-wave is also experimentally demonstrated. As we know, it is the first time to realize frequency eightfold mm-wave signal generation with simultaneous carrier suppression by using only one single-drive MZM in experiment.

Bee pollen is an important bee-product that contains larger amount of bioactive compounds. In this paper, a tyrosinase inhibitor was separated from camellia pollen by the aid of high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC), macroporous adsorptive resin chromatography and solvent fraction. The tyrosinase inhibitor was identified to be kaempferol by absorption spectrum, nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrum. The purity and recovery were 98.47% and 41.94%, respectively. The kaempferol was detected to have the IC50 of 0.05 mg/mL and mainly exists in glycoside forms. It had a concentration of 1.03 mg/g in the acidic hydrolysis of the ethanol extract (HEE), and contributed 32.41% to the total tyrosinase inhibition activity of HEE. This study demonstrates an effective procedure to purify bioactive compounds from bee pollen, and reveals kaempferol as a major tyrosinase inhibitor of camellia pollen, providing interesting information for in-depth study of bioactive compounds of pollen.

We propose a 64-quadrature-amplitude-modulation (QAM) vector radio-frequency (RF) signal generation and detection via one intensity Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) by using optical carrier suppression modulation. In order to obtain an ordinary QAM modulated RF signal after the square-law detection of the photodiode, amplitude preequalization and phase precoding technique are employed. The 1Gbaud 64QAM vector signals performed on various RF carrier frequencies from 20 to 444 GHz are experimentally demonstrated. The bit-error-rate (BER) performance of unbalanced phase precoding adopting 64QAM modulation is investigated. The digital filter based on blind Decision-Directed Least-Mean-Squares (DD-LMS) algorithm is the key digital-signal-processing, which is used to improve system performance. This concept of the generation of 64QAM-modulated vector signal can be employed in the radio-over-fiber (ROF) system.

Recently, a population-based intelligent optimization algorithm research has been combined with multiple algorithms or algorithm components in order to improve the performance and robustness of an optimization algorithm. This paper introduces the idea into real world application. Different from traditional algorithm research, this paper implements this idea as a general framework. The combination of multiple algorithms or algorithm components is regarded as a complex multi-behavior population, and a unified multi-behavior combination model is proposed. A general agent-based algorithm framework is designed to support the model, and various multi-behavior combination algorithms can be customized under the framework. Then, the paper customizes a multi-behavior combination algorithm and applies the algorithm to solve the economic load dispatch problems. The algorithm has been tested with four test systems. The test results prove that the multi-behavior combination idea is meaningful which also indicates the significance of the framework.

The differential evolution (DE) algorithm is a popular and efficient evolutionary algorithm that can be used for single objective real-parameter optimization. Its performance is greatly affected by its parameters. Generally, parameter control strategies involve determining the most suitable value for the current state; there is only a little research on parameter combination and parameter distribution which is also useful for improving algorithm performance. This paper proposes an idea to use parameter region division and parameter strategy combination to flexibly adjust the parameter distribution. Based on the idea, a group-based two-level parameter combination framework is designed to support various modes of parameter combination, and enrich the parameter distribution characteristics. Under this framework, two customized parameter combination strategies are given for a single-operation DE algorithm and a multi-operation DE algorithm. The experiments verify the effectiveness of the two strategies and it also illustrates the meaning of the framework.

During an automatic power transmission line inspection, a large number of images are collected by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to detect existing defects in transmission line components, especially insulators. However, with twin insulator strings in the inspection images, when the umbrella skirts of the rear string are obstructed by the front string, defect detection becomes difficult. To solve this problem, we propose a method to detect self-shattering defects of insulators based on spatial features contained in images. Firstly, the images are segmented according to the particular color features of glass insulators, and the main axes of insulator strings in the images are adjusted to the horizontal direction. Then, the connected regions of insulators in the images are marked. After that, the vertical lengths of the regions, the number of insulator pixels in the regions, as well as the horizontal distances between two adjacent connected regions are selected as spatial features, based on which defect discriminants are formulated. Finally, experiments are performed using the proposed formula to detect self-shattering defects in the insulators, using the spatial distribution of the connected regions to locate the defects. The experiment results indicate that the proposed method has good detection accuracy and localization precision.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel scheme to generate optical frequency-locked multicarrier by using a recirculation frequency shifter (RFS) loop based on multifrequency shifting single-sideband (MFS-SSB) modulation with improved tone-to-noise ratio (TNR) performance. Theoretical study shows that we can generate N subcarriers for each round trip without interference by using MFS-SSB, and the recirculation times are reduced to 1/N of the regular scheme based on single-frequency shifting single-sideband (SFS-SSB) modulation. Finally, the double-frequency shifting SSB modulation is carried out for demonstration in our experiments with a double-carrier source from double ECLs and single ECL with carrier suppression. Using this scheme, we successfully generate more than 95 frequency-locked subcarriers with 15-GHz frequency spacing and TNR larger than 25.3 dB and 23.3 dB, respectively. Compared with the results of a regular SFS-SSB scheme, more subcarriers with improved TNR (10 dB and 8 dB for the 95th subcarrier) are obtained.

Six novel pyrene-fused hexaarylbenzene derivatives (3a-f) were designed, synthesized, and characterized, which exhibited aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AIEE) in the aggregated state by means of THF/H2O mixtures. Techniques such as theoretical calculations, single crystal X-ray diffraction, and photophysical measurements in solution and in the solid state were employed to illustrate the tunable, variable, and sensitive AIEE features in this system. Both theoretical and experimental results revealed that the nature of the multiple photoluminescence should be taken into account when elucidating and designing the multiple photoluminescence phenomenon and molecules.

For the first time, we propose and experimentally demonstrate millimeter-wave (mm-wave) generation in the E-band (71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz) based on photonics generation technique. We also experimentally demonstrate a bidirectional full-duplex optical/wireless integration system in the E-band with 1.5-m wireless delivery, in which 2- and 2.5-Gb/s on_off keying (OOK) signals are independently carried by 74- and 84-GHz mm-wave carriers and can be implemented error-free transmission in two opposite directions at the same time. Furthermore, there is no obvious difference whether distributed feedback (DFB) laser (with linewidth less than 5 MHz) or external cavity laser (ECL) (with linewidth less than 100 kHz) is used.