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Cryptosporidium spp. are protozoa commonly found in domestic and wild animals. Limited information is available on Cryptosporidium in deer worldwide. In this study, 201 fecal samples were collected from Alpine musk deer on three farms in Gansu Province, China. Detection and subtyping of Cryptosporidium were performed by PCR and sequence analysis of the SSU rRNA and gp60 genes. The prevalence of Cryptosporidium infection in Alpine musk deer was 3.9% (8/201), with infection rates of 1.0% (1/100), 2.8% (1/36), and 9.2% (6/65) in three different farms. All positive samples for Cryptosporidium were from adult deer. Two Cryptosporidium species were identified, including C. parvum (n = 2) and C. xiaoi (n = 6). The C. parvum isolates were subtyped as IIdA15G1, while the C. xiaoi isolates were subtyped as XXIIIa (n = 2) and XXIIIg (n = 4). The IIdA15G1 subtype of C. parvum was found for the first time in deer. These results provide important insights into the identity and human infectious potential of Cryptosporidium in farmed Alpine musk deer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes an H∞$$ {H}_{\infty } $$ optimal leader‐follower consensus control protocol with finite‐time prescribed performance for nonlinear multiagent systems suffering from the actuator fault based on the zero‐sum game framework. First, to guarantee the specified performance of the system within a finite time frame, a novel error transformation function (ETF) is constructed. The ETF proposed in this paper can adjust the mapping range of error transformation to achieve better error convergence performance, thereby enhancing the flexibility of the controller design. Then, to compensate for the negative impact of actuator fault, an error‐related item is separated from the optimal performance index function to design an online fault estimator, which can obtain a better error estimation accuracy. Furthermore, to lessen the need for difficult‐to‐verify persistent excitation signal in adaptive dynamic programming algorithm, both historical and real‐time data are applied to adjust the updating law of neural network weight. Moreover, it demonstrates that the signals within the closed‐loop system are bounded and the expected finite‐time prescribed performance can be ensured in the presence of faults. Finally, a numerical example of multiple single‐link robots manipulator system is executed to validate the efficacy of the developed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quasi‐one‐dimensional (quasi‐1D) van der Waals crystal fibrous red phosphorus (RP) exhibits pronounced in‐plane optical anisotropy, positioning it as a potential candidate for polarization‐related micro‐nano devices. Unfortunately, a comprehensive investigation into the complex refractive index of fibrous RP and the structure–activity relationship connecting the distinctive quasi‐1D structure with optical anisotropy is currently deficient. Herein, we have collectively determined the complex refractive index of the fibrous RP flakes within the ab‐plane through Kramers–Kronig (KK) analysis and theoretical calculation. Notably, the maximum birefringence of fibrous RP reaches 0.642@475 nm with an absolute extinction coefficient of only 0.08, superior to the reported traditional optical crystals and the emerging low‐dimensional materials as well. The remarkable birefringence can be attributed to the synergistic influence of the large electronic dipole polarizability, anisotropic electron density distribution and the distortion of stereochemically active lone pair (SCALP). This work demonstrates the potential of fibrous RP for polarization‐sensitive devices, illuminating possibilities to exploit novel giant birefringent crystals based on the structure–activity relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concentration plays an essential role in generating hydroxyl radicals in irradiated nanoenhancer suspensions. In this paper, we used coumarin-3-carboxylic acid as a hydroxyl radical-specific probe to investigate the hydroxyl radical production of different concentration nanodiamonds (NDs) and CeO2 NPs in phosphate-buffered saline under x-ray irradiation. NDs significantly enhanced hydroxyl radical production, and the maximum enhancement of hydroxyl radical production was observed at a concentration of 10 µg/ml, with an enhanced factor of 1.398 ± 0.262. CeO2 NPs can increase and scavenge hydroxyl radicals at different concentration ranges, with the lowest and highest enhanced factors of 0.623 ± 0.069 and 1.738 ± 0.264, respectively. We tested the hydrodynamic diameter at various concentrations to explore the concentration effect further. We found that with increasing concentration, there might be factors, such as hydroxyl radical recombination and nanoparticle agglomeration, that lead to changes in the enhancement factor. Based on the data from previous and present studies, the experimental results indicate that the concentration factor is essential for hydroxyl radical generation in nanoenhancer suspensions under ionizing radiation. We also provide possible mechanisms for enhancing hydroxyl radical production by nanoenhancers in water under ionizing radiation and the decrease in enhancement factor at high concentrations of nanoenhancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the capability of plain Vision Transformers (ViTs) for semantic segmentation using the encoder–decoder framework and introduce SegViTv2. In this study, we introduce a novel Attention-to-Mask (ATM) module to design a lightweight decoder effective for plain ViT. The proposed ATM converts the global attention map into semantic masks for high-quality segmentation results. Our decoder outperforms popular decoder UPerNet using various ViT backbones while consuming only about 5 % of the computational cost. For the encoder, we address the concern of the relatively high computational cost in the ViT-based encoders and propose a Shrunk++ structure that incorporates edge-aware query-based down-sampling (EQD) and query-based up-sampling (QU) modules. The Shrunk++ structure reduces the computational cost of the encoder by up to 50 % while maintaining competitive performance. Furthermore, we propose to adapt SegViT for continual semantic segmentation, demonstrating nearly zero forgetting of previously learned knowledge. Experiments show that our proposed SegViTv2 surpasses recent segmentation methods on three popular benchmarks including ADE20k, COCO-Stuff-10k and PASCAL-Context datasets. The code is available through the following link: https://github.com/zbwxp/SegVit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zirconia-toughened alumina (ZTA) ceramics have attracted much attention in the medical field as joint replacement materials due to their good mechanical properties and biocompatibility. However, the flexural strength of conventional ZTA is still slightly insufficient in traditional preparation techniques. In this study, by improving the slurry system, the effects of the solid content of the slurry, additives, and the pH of the slurry on the slurry system were investigated. ZTA powders with a uniform particle size distribution, high degree of sphericity and high flowability were prepared by spray granulation. The mechanical properties, microstructure and biocompatibility of the ZTA pressing were investigated after degreasing and sintering processes. The results showed that the hardness of the prepared ZTA ceramics was 1658.24 ± 28.04 H V, the fracture toughness was 4.016 ± 0.027 MPa m1/2, and the biaxial bending strength was 501.43 ± 21.44 MPa, and the three-point bending strength reached 635 MPa. The ZTA ceramics also possessed good biocompatibility and a low haemolysis rate, which aligns with the requirements of clinical biomedical implant materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zirconium carbide (ZrC) ceramics are promising candidates for high-temperature structural components and nuclear reactors. However, their poor sinterability has limited widespread application. This study explored the sintering and densification of ZrC-based ceramics with graphite or B 4 C additive using ultrafast high-temperature sintering (UHS). A nearly fully dense ZrC ceramic (> 98%) could be obtained by adding 2.5 wt% B 4 C additive via ultrafast high-temperature sintering at 2300 °C within 3 min. Additionally, the results revealed that adding graphite into ZrC was beneficial to reduce the grain size but detrimental to densification. Compared to ZrC ceramics sintered using conventional pressureless sintering (PLS) at 2400 °C for 60 min, ZrC-based ceramics with 2.5 wt% B 4 C sintered via UHS at 2400 °C for 30 s exhibited higher relative densities, smaller grain sizes, and greater Vickers hardness due to faster heating rates and shorter sintering processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern China faces water scarcity, restricting water usage in place across Inner Mongolia's western region. The integrated irrigation and fertilization model for sugar beet is undergoing rapid development and application in production. However, there is a concerning trend in production where the frequency of irrigation and fertilization is being increased blindly, resulting in the wastage of valuable water and fertilizer resources. Limiting water and fertilizer usage is an effective approach to improve sugar beet production efficiency. Sugar beets are a significant sugar crop in China. A split-plot design was employed to examine the impact of reducing water and fertilizer use on sucrose metabolism in sugar beet root. Our study was performed at the Ulanqab Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences in Inner Mongolia from 2022 to 2023. Three levels of fertilization and irrigation were utilized. We investigated the interactions between irrigation and fertilization on sucrose accumulation in sugar beet root. We examined key enzyme activities involved in sucrose metabolism alongside their gene expression levels. The findings suggested that reducing irrigation by 15%, fertilization by 10%, or both irrigation by 15% and fertilization by 10%, increased sucrose concentrations of sugar beets compared to the control group administered conventional water and fertilizer. Over the two-year period, the average sucrose concentration increased by 0.45, 0.57, and 0.65 degrees, respectively, under each treatment. Subsequent research verified that appropriately reducing water and fertilizer can regulate the expression of enzyme genes, thus influencing enzyme activity. Moreover, due to the higher efficiency of enzyme synthesis compared to decomposition, it contributed to an increase in net enzyme activity. These findings suggest that an appropriate reduction of water and fertilizer can improve sucrose synthesis rates and increase the sucrose concentration in sugar beets, providing a theoretical basis for environmentally friendly generation and enhanced efficiency in sugar beet growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cu-Be alloys exhibit excellent comprehensive performance in electrics, thermotics, and mechanics, and hence, they attract much attention. Among them, low-Be copper alloys are more environmentally friendly and promising. This study explores the effects of different Ni contents and heat treatment parameters on the properties, microstructures, and precipitates of Cu-0.2 wt% Be-x wt% Ni (0 < x < 2.0) alloys. The experimental results demonstrate that the fast cooling rate of cast alloys during solidification contributes to retention of the solute atoms in the copper matrix, which is beneficial for subsequent solid solution treatment. Furthermore, solid solution treatment slightly reduces the electrical conductivities, microhardness values, and compressive yield strengths of Cu-0.2 wt% Be-1.0/1.6 wt% Ni alloys. The optimal solution temperature and time are about 925 ℃ and 60 min, respectively. Aging treatment significantly increases the electrical conductivities, microhardness values, and compressive yield strengths of Cu-0.2 wt% Be-1.0/1.6 wt% Ni alloys. The best aging temperature is around 450 ℃. However, the properties of Cu-0.2 wt%Be-0.4 wt%Ni alloys remain unaffected by solution and aging treatments. Around x = 1.0, Cu-0.2 wt% Be-x wt% Ni alloys possess the best comprehensive properties, which are about 72%IACS of electrical conductivity, 241 HV of microhardness, and 281MPa of compressive yield strength, respectively. TEM and EDS analyses reveal that the precipitate evolution of Cu-0.2 wt% Be-1.0 wt% Ni alloys with aging time is GP zones → γ″ → γ′. Notably, a distinct double-peak age strengthening phenomenon emerges with Cu-0.2 wt% Be-1.0/1.6 wt% Ni alloys. The precipitation of plenty of GP zones at the early stage of aging should account for the first strengthening peak, and the strengthening mechanism transformation of the γ″ or γ′ phase from shear to Orowan should induce the second strengthening peak. This work may help to design new low-Be copper alloys and their preparation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atomization is an indispensable process for achieving high-efficiency conversion in various energy applications. This study proposes a novel and simplified method to predict the droplet diameter distribution along the spray direction during atomization by swirl nozzles. The method considers the droplet breakup and coalescence and consists of three sub-models, i.e., the primary breakup model, the secondary breakup model, and the velocity model. The prediction method is verified by droplet sizing experiments using typical swirl nozzles. Combining the experimental results, the atomization process from fluid to droplets is analyzed in-depth. Results show that the present method can predict the droplet diameter distribution along the spray direction, with an average error of droplet diameter of approximately 7.7%. The effects of the orifice diameter and water supply pressure of nozzles on droplet diameter distribution are discussed. The droplet diameter decreases in the whole spray field as the water supply pressure rises. When the orifice diameter increases, the mass flow rate and Sauter mean diameter increase in the near-orifice region. However, the droplet diameter difference in nozzles reduces as the position is far away from the orifice. The proposed method can aid the design of some critical energy devices containing the atomization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to the presence of Mn-Br bonds, the conduction band electrons of BiOBr are directed towards MnCo 2 O 4 , where they recombine with valence band holes, thereby preserving the robust redox activity of the photogenerated carriers and activating peroxymonosulfate in synergy with Mn and Co. [Display omitted] • Synthesis of smartly-designed BiOBr/MnCo 2 O 4 photocatalysts with abundant interface Mn-Br bonds. • Mn-Br bonds as electron transport bridge facilitate charge-flow steering. • The exposure of the {1 1 0} facets exhibited more Mn atom-anchored sites for easy anchoring of BiOBr. • The prepared BM-25 catalyst had a marigold-like morphology with good adsorption properties. • The constructed BM-25 exhibited brilliant photocatalytic activity. Precise charge transfer modification and efficient activation of peroxymonosulfate are effective methods for increasing photocatalytic efficiency. Here, BiOBr/MnCo 2 O 4 photocatalysts with abundant Mn-Br bonds were generated by immobilizing the exposed {1 1 0} facets of BiOBr in the marigold-like MnCo 2 O 4. The prepared BiOBr/MnCo 2 O 4 retained the marigold-like morphology of MnCo 2 O 4 while exhibiting good adsorption properties and interface contact effects. More importantly, the interfacial Mn-Br bond between MnCo 2 O 4 and BiOBr functioned as charge transport bridges, allowing for a directional transfer channel and lowering the potential energy barrier for interfacial charge transfer. In addition, the exposure of the {1 1 0} facets exhibited more Mn atom-anchored sites for easy anchoring of BiOBr, significantly solving the stability problem of the bismuth material. Compared to MnCo 2 O 4 + BiOBr, which did not form Mn-Br bonds, the MnCo 2 O 4 /BiOBr heterojunction had more efficient photocatalytic activity (1.3 times) and stability. This suggested that using electronic bridges for directional charge transfer was an efficient way to improve photocatalytic efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enterocytozoon bieneusi is responsible for opportunistic infections leading to gastrointestinal diseases in humans and animals worldwide. A total of 334 fresh fecal samples were collected from wild Altai marmots (Marmota baibacina) in Xinjiang, China, and E. bieneusi was screened via PCR amplification of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the small submit ribosomal RNA (SSU rRNA). The results indicated that 22.8% (76/334) of the wild Altai marmot fecal samples were positive for E. bieneusi, and the highest positive rate was detected in Akqi (51.9%, 27/52), with a significant difference from other sampling sites (p < 0.01). Four known genotypes (BEB6, CHG3, GX2, and YAK1) and three novel genotypes (XJHT2 to XJHT4) were identified in the present study. Genotype XJHT3 was dominant and detected in 48 fecal samples. In the phylogenetic analysis, the novel genotypes XJHT2 and XJHT3 were clustered in Group 1 together with the known genotype YAK1, while genotypes CHG3 and BEB6 were clustered in Group 2. The novel genotype XJHT4 was clustered together with other rodent-derived genotypes and generated a novel Group 14. These data confirmed the host specificity and adaptation of E. bieneusi in rodents. These findings enrich our understanding of the prevalence and genetic diversity of E. bieneusi in wild Altai marmots in Xinjiang, China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Endovascular embolization of arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) in the brain usually requires injecting liquid embolic agents (LEAs) to reduce blood flow through the malformation. In clinical procedures, the feeding artery into which the LEAs are injected, and the amount of LEAs needs to be carefully planned preoperatively. Computational fluid dynamics can simulate the injecting process of LEAs in nidus and evaluate the therapeutic effects of different procedures preoperatively. Applying a porous media model avoided the difficulties of geometric modeling of AVMs, and the complex vascular network structure within the nidus was reproduced. The multi-phase flow was applied to simulate the interaction between LEAs and blood. The viscosity of LEAs is determined by the concentration of its solute ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVOH). The diffusion process of the solvent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) was calculated by solving the species transport equation. The coagulation of LEAs was simulated by constructing the relationship between the concentration of EVOH and viscosity. The numerical simulation method of LEAs for injection and coagulation was tested on two patient-specific AVMs. The calculations predicted the flow direction of the LEAs in the nidus. The morphology of the injected LEAs could be well visualized by 3D rendering. Quantitative analysis was conducted, including flow rate changes at the feeding arteries and draining veins. The embolization process of AVMs with LEAs can be simulated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods to show the therapeutic effects of different embolization procedure planning, the optimal treatment plan can be determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An 8‐year‐old girl presented with white papules on the eyelid margins due to lipoid proteinosis. Microwave therapy resulted in significant reduction of the lesions. The case highlights a safe and effective treatment for eyelid lesions associated with lipoid proteinosis. In addition, we report two novel heterozygous variants in the extracellular matrix protein 1 (ECM1) gene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have become an ideal cell source for the ex vivo generation of megakaryocyte (MK) and platelet products for clinical applications. However, an ongoing challenge is to establish scalable culture systems to maximize the yield of stem cell‐derived MKs that release platelets. We defined a specific dynamic 3D manufacturing system in a baffled‐flow manner that could remarkably facilitate megakaryopoiesis and increase the yield of platelet‐producing MKs from hESCs within a 12‐day induction period. Additionally, an increased number of >16N ploidy MKs, proplatelets, and platelets were generated from induced cells harvested on Day 12 using the specific dynamic culture method. The specific dynamic culture method significantly enhanced endothelium‐to‐haematopoietic transition and early haematopoiesis. More importantly, MK fate was significantly facilitated in a specific dynamic manner during early haematopoiesis. Mechanistically, this dynamic culture significantly enhanced mitochondrial function via the oxidative phosphorylation pathway and caused differentiation skewing of hESCs toward megakaryopoiesis. This study can aid in the automatic and scalable production of MKs from stem cells using baffled‐flow bioreactors and assist in the manufacturing of hESC‐derived MK and platelet products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eu2+ was used to substitute Ca in the orthorhombic KCoO2-type layered CaTiN2 to form a Ca1−xEuxTiN2 solid solution, which showed a limited substitution around x = 0.35 with the tetragonality enhanced but the orthorhombic symmetry retained and inaccessibility for the end member EuTiN2. This was in contrast with the full solid solution Ca1−xSrxTiN2, which realized a structural transition from orthorhombic to tetragonal at x = 0.5, even though Eu2+ and Sr2+ ions have similar sizes. The Eu substitution for Ca reduced the dielectric permittivity of CaTiN2 owing to the reduced structural distortion arising from the enhanced tetragonality with the substitution. First-principle theoretical calculations on the total energies and formation energies considering the 4f electrons of Eu ions and the related magnetism were performed to understand the structural stability of the hypothetical EuTiN2. Compared with CaTiN2 and SrTiN2, EuTiN2 has much higher formation energies, making it inaccessible at high temperature. The evolutions of the experimentally observed and calculated lattice parameters of the Ca1−xEuxTiN2 solid solution showed a preference for the orthorhombic phase over the tetragonal phase for the hypothetical EuTiN2, revealing a different coordination chemistry of Eu2+–N to Eu2+–O through the comparison of the structural variations of ATiN2 and ATiO3 (A = Ca, Sr, Eu). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roof-attached vortices (RAVs), floor-attached vortices (FAVs), and complex combined submerged vortices (CSVs) excited in a closed pump sump will induce irregular pressure fluctuations that can decrease the energy efficiency of the pump and the stability of its input flow. This article presents an experimental investigation of the energy loss and pressure fluctuations induced by these vortices under various conditions. A transparent closed-loop test rig was used for high-speed visualization and pressure-fluctuation tests. The findings demonstrate that as the flow rate is increased, the head and efficiency of the pump device significantly decrease. A CSV, which is composed of an RAV and an FAV, has the highest head-loss value, reaching 0.21 m, with an efficiency decrease in up to 2.8%. The typical evolution stages of RAV are divided into newborn, developing, fully developed, and dissipative collapsing. The typical evolution stages of FAV are divided into germinating, growing, maintaining, decaying, and disappearance. The maximum diameter of the FAV core is approximately 0.05 times the maximum vortex-core scale of the RAV. Based on the proposed vortex-identification method, as the bellmouth height decreases, the strength of the FAV increases during the CSV period, and the degree of pressure fluctuation becomes more severe. In addition, regardless of the flow rate, the strength of the FAV structure is always much greater than that of the RAV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of smart devices in the 5G era of industrial IoT (IIoT) produces significant traffic data, some of which is encrypted malicious traffic, creating a significant problem for malicious traffic detection. Malicious traffic classification is one of the most efficient techniques for detecting malicious traffic. Although it is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process to gather large labeled datasets, the majority of prior studies on the classification of malicious traffic use supervised learning approaches and provide decent classification results when a substantial quantity of labeled data is available. This paper proposes a semi-supervised learning approach for classifying malicious IIoT traffic. The approach utilizes the encoder–decoder model framework to classify the traffic, even with a limited amount of labeled data available. We sample and normalize the data during the data-processing stage. In the semi-supervised model-building stage, we first pre-train a model on a large unlabeled dataset. Subsequently, we transfer the learned weights to a new model, which is then retrained using a small labeled dataset. We also offer an edge intelligence model that considers aspects such as computation latency, transmission latency, and privacy protection to improve the model's performance. To achieve the lowest total latency and to reduce the risk of privacy leakage, we first create latency and privacy-protection models for each local, edge, and cloud. Then, we optimize the total latency and overall privacy level. In the study of IIoT malicious traffic classification, experimental results demonstrate that our method reduces the model training and classification time with 97.55% accuracy; moreover, our approach boosts the privacy-protection factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PbZrO3 (PZO)‐based antiferroelectric thin films are of great interest due to their high‐power density and fast charging and discharging capability. However, the problems of low breakdown strength and inferior energy storage density of PZO films have not been well solved. In this work, the insulating MgO as the blocking interlayer is inserted into PbZrO3 films (abbreviated as P/M/P), which can inhibit the electric charge transfer and enhance the breakdown strength, as well as regulation of the polarization behavior. The results show that the maximal endurable electric field is significantly improved, and the double‐hysteresis characteristic disappeared after introducing MgO blocking interlayer. The energy storage density of P/M/P films reaches 21.97 J/cm3 under 1700 kV/cm, accompanying an ultralow efficiency of 44.01% due to the severe polarization loss. Furthermore, low‐temperature annealing is performed to suppress the polarization loss, and an energy storage density of 17.27 J/cm3 accompanying a high efficiency of 75.53% is obtained at 3100 kV/cm, still exhibiting good stability after 1 × 107 fatigue cycles. This study demonstrates that combining the insulating interlayer and the low‐temperature annealing endow the PZO‐based films significantly improved energy storage properties, having great potential to be used in the dielectric capacitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reactions of the IrV hydride [MeBDIDipp]IrH4 {BDI=(Dipp)NC(Me)CH(Me)CN(Dipp); Dipp=2,6‐iPr2C6H3} with E[N(SiMe3)2]2 (E=Sn, Pb) afforded the unusual dimeric dimetallotetrylenes ([MeBDIDipp]IrH)2(μ2‐E)2 in good yields. Moreover, ([MeBDIDipp]IrH)2(μ2‐Ge)2 was formed in situ from thermal decomposition of [MeBDIDipp]Ir(H)2Ge[N(SiMe3)2]2. These reactions are accompanied by liberation of HN(SiMe3)2 and H2 through the apparent cleavage of an E−N(SiMe3)2 bond by Ir−H. In a reversal of this process, ([MeBDIDipp]IrH)2(μ2‐E)2 reacted with excess H2 to regenerate [MeBDIDipp]IrH4. Varying the concentrations of reactants led to formation of the trimeric ([MeBDIDipp]IrH2)3(μ2‐E)3. The further scope of this synthetic route was investigated with group 15 amides, and ([MeBDIDipp]IrH)2(μ2‐Bi)2 was prepared by the reaction of [MeBDIDipp]IrH4 with Bi(NMe2)3 or Bi(OtBu)3 to afford the first example of a "naked" two‐coordinate Bi atom bound exclusively to transition metals. A viable mechanism that accounts for the formation of these products is proposed. Computational investigations of the Ir2E2 (E=Sn, Pb) compounds characterized them as open‐shell singlets with confined nonbonding lone pairs at the E centers. In contrast, Ir2Bi2 is characterized as having a closed‐shell singlet ground state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open in new tab Download slide OBJECTIVES To evaluate the impact of antiplatelet therapy on the long-term descending thoracic aorta (DTA) fate and prognosis of extensive repaired type A aortic dissection (TAAD). METHODS 1147 eligible TAAD patients from January 2010 to December 2019 were stratified into non-antiplatelet (n  = 754) and antiplatelet groups (n  = 393). The primary end points were overall survival, and DTA remodelling, including false lumen (FL) thrombosis and aortic redilation. The secondary end points were DTA reintervention or rupture and major bleeding events (MBEs). RESULTS The 5-year overall survival rates were 95.6% and 94.3% in the non-antiplatelet and antiplatelet groups (P  = 0.53), respectively. In the stent covering segment, the 1-year FL complete thrombosis rates were 92.1% and 92.4% in the non-antiplatelet and antiplatelet groups (P  = 0.27), respectively, while in the stent uncovering segment, the 5-year FL complete thrombosis rates were 47.1% and 56.5% in the non-antiplatelet and antiplatelet groups (P  = 0.12), respectively. Antiplatelet therapy was not an independent predictor of aortic redilation at the pulmonary artery bifurcation (β±SE = –0.128 ± 0.203, P  = 0.53), diaphragm (β±SE = 0.143 ± 0.152, P  = 0.35) or coeliac artery (β±SE = 0.049 ± 0.136, P  = 0.72) levels. With death as a competing risk, the cumulative incidences of DTA reintervention or rupture at 5 years were 4.6% and 4.0% in the non-antiplatelet and antiplatelet groups (sHR = 0.85, 95% CI, 0.49∼1.19; P  = 0.58), respectively, and the 5-year cumulative incidences of MBEs were 2.1% and 2.3% in the non-antiplatelet and antiplatelet groups (sHR = 0.82, 95% CI, 0.56∼2.67; P  = 0.62), respectively. CONCLUSIONS Antiplatelet therapy did not impact long-term DTA FL thrombosis, redilation, reintervention or rupture, MBEs or overall survival on extensive repaired TAAD. Thus, antiplatelet therapy can be administered as indicated on extensive repaired TAAD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chaos has been one of the most effective cryptographic sources since it was first used in image-encryption algorithms. This paper closely examines the development process of chaos-based image-encryption algorithms from various angles, including symmetric and asymmetric algorithms, block ciphers and stream ciphers, and integration with other technologies. The unique attributes of chaos, such as sensitivity to initial conditions, topological transitivity, and pseudo-randomness, are conducive to cross-referencing with other disciplines and improving image-encryption methods. Additionally, this paper covers practical application scenarios and current challenges of chaotic image encryption, thereby encouraging researchers to continue developing and complementing existing situations, and may also serve as a basis of future development prospects for chaos-based image encryption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the retrofit of the pump sump, there is a high risk of inducing the Combined Submerged Vortex (CSV), which consists of the roof-attached vortex (RAV) and floor-attached vortex (FAV). This vortex formation can lead to irregular pressure fluctuations, adversely affecting the unit's performance and compromising the stability of energy conversion. This study aims to investigate the spatiotemporal evolution of the CSV and its associated pressure fluctuation characteristics in a closed pump sump. High-speed visualization and pressure fluctuation tests are conducted on a transparent closed-loop test rig. The findings demonstrate that the spatiotemporal evolution of the CSV can be divided into three stages: developing, competing, and collapsing. The competing stage, in particular, has a significant impact on the FAV. During the CSV period, the dominant low frequencies induced by the RAV and FAV are 0.24 and 0.13 Hz, respectively, with the FAV exhibiting higher intensity than the RAV. The regions of high coherence between the RAV and FAV are primarily concentrated within the low-frequency range of 0.25–2 Hz, and the signals exhibit multiple phase differences. Furthermore, a vortex identification criterion for a closed sump is proposed based on Continuous Wavelet Transform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each year, underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) collect thousands of hours of video of unexplored ocean habitats revealing a plethora of information regarding biodiversity on Earth. However, fully utilizing this information remains a challenge as proper annotations and analysis require trained scientists' time, which is both limited and costly. To this end, we present a Dataset for Underwater Substrate and Invertebrate Analysis (DUSIA), a benchmark suite and growing large-scale dataset to train, validate, and test methods for temporally localizing four underwater substrates as well as temporally and spatially localizing 59 underwater invertebrate species. DUSIA currently includes over ten hours of footage across 25 videos captured in 1080p at 30 fps by an ROV following pre-planned transects across the ocean floor near the Channel Islands of California. Each video includes annotations indicating the start and end times of substrates across the video in addition to counts of species of interest. Some frames are annotated with precise bounding box locations for invertebrate species of interest, as seen in Fig. 1. To our knowledge, DUSIA is the first dataset of its kind for deep sea exploration, with video from a moving camera, that includes substrate annotations and invertebrate species that are present at significant depths where sunlight does not penetrate. Additionally, we present the novel context-driven object detector (CDD) where we use explicit substrate classification to influence an object detection network to simultaneously predict a substrate and species class influenced by that substrate. We also present a method for improving training on partially annotated bounding box frames. Finally, we offer a baseline method for automating the counting of invertebrate species of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avian influenza virus (AIV) poses a great threat to the poultry industry and public health. However commercial vaccines only provide limited immunity due to rapid virus mutation and rearrangement. Here, we developed an mRNA-lipid nanoparticle (mRNA-LNP) vaccine expressing AIV immunogenic protein hemagglutinin (HA) and also assessed its safety and immune-protection efficacy in vivo. Specifically, its safety was tested by inoculation of SPF chicken embryos and chicks, and there showed no clinical manifestations and pathological changes in both. As for the immune efficacy, the antibody titers, IFN-γ production levels, and viral loads in various organs were analyzed. The results showed that chickens in the mRNA-LNP-inoculated groups produced higher specific antibody titers compared with that in the control group by hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test. Meanwhile, the ELISpot assay demonstrated that the expression of IFN-γ was markedly induced in the mRNA-LNP group, and the viral loads in multiple organs were decreased. In addition, HE shows no obvious pathomorphological changes in the lungs of the mRNA-LNP-inoculated group. While, there was severe inflammatory cell infiltration in the DMEM-treated group instead. Taken together, the vaccine prepared in this study was safe and could trigger potent cellular and humoral immune response to defend against virus infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microplastics (MPs) are receiving increasing attention because of their potential harm to the environment and human health. This research aims to summarize the abundance, toxicological effects, and analysis methods of MPs, as well as present their current status and trends in scientific research. Bibliometric analysis confirmed a substantial rise in annual research papers on MPs, predominantly over the previous nine years. The central research areas relating to MPs include distribution, sources, toxic effects, analytical approaches, and adsorption of MPs with other pollutants. Airborne MPs are a primary source of microplastic pollution in remote areas. Humans may inhale and ingest MPs, leading to the accumulation of these particles in their bodies. Additionally, microplastics can have biological toxicity that poses a potential threat to human health. Standard procedures for sampling and both qualitative and quantitative analysis of microplastics in various environmental media must be established urgently to enable effective comparison of experimental conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The sensitivity of air-assisted atomizers' atomization characteristic to operation conditions among snow making process was investigated. • A transparent atomizer was designed, structured and tested for observing the two-phase flow morphologies inside atomizer. • Four mixing patterns inside mixing chamber appear in sequence by rising the air supply pressure. • The air-assisted atomizers with the mixing mode of air and water injected independently is recommended for outdoor snow-makers. Air-assisted atomizers play a crucial role in generating nuclei and promoting heterogeneous nucleation in outdoor snow-makers. The change of operation conditions for snow-makers leads to a marked variation of atomization characteristic of air-assisted atomizers, which directly influences the nuclei generating and snow-making efficiency. This paper investigates the sensitivity of air-assisted atomizers' atomization characteristic to operation conditions in snow-makers. For this purpose, a transparent device is designed, structured and tested. The water-air mixing process was presented, and the atomization behaviors of two air-assisted atomizers with different mixing modes were compared in order to find an appropriate mixing mode for outdoor snow-makers. Results show that the spray cone angle first goes up and then falls down with the increase of air-water pressure ratio, while Sauter mean diameter (SMD) decreases monotonically. The unbalanced air-water pressure ratio results in the failure of atomization because of the choking phenomenon. Inside the air-assisted atomizers, there are four stable mixing patterns in sequence, i.e., full water, churning flow, annular flow and full air. With the variation of the mixing pattern, the interaction between water and air changes, which causes different atomization characteristics under different operation conditions. Another interesting finding is that the atomizers with the mixing mode in which air and water are injected independently have remarkably better performance in avoiding choking situation and improving mass flow rate, which can be a better choice for outdoor snow-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of water in sandstone joints affects the shear characteristics of the joints, which is of considerable importance to the stability evaluations of rock slopes or tunnels subjected to water fluctuations. A series of direct shear tests with three immersion durations (30, 180, and 360 d) in water were conducted on the sandstone joint specimens collected from the reservoir area of the Three Gorges hydropower station, China. To perform duplicate tests, three-dimensional (3D) optical scanning and 3D rigid engraving were coupled to produce sandstone joints with the same surface morphology. The shear curves of the dry and immersed sandstone joints were divided into the three stages of sliding, shear-breaking, and post-peak wearing. The damaged area of the immersed joints decreased with the increased immersion duration under the same normal loading. The immersion duration did not affect the shear mode of the joints, and the peak and residual shear strengths of the sandstone joints decreased by approximately 10–28% and 2.9–26.4%, respectively, after the 360-d immersion. Experimental results pointed to the lubricant effect as the dominant mechanism for a water-induced reduction in the shear strength of the joints, followed by the chemical dissolution effect. Given the lubricant and chemical dissolution effects, a semi-empirical shear strength criterion was proposed to predict the peak shear strength of the rock joints subjected to the immersion durations. Validation against experimental shear data obtained in this study and from related literature indicated satisfactory accuracy of the proposed criterion for predicting the peak shear strength after the immersion. An engineering example of the Jianchuandong unstable rock mass located in the Three Gorges reservoir was used to demonstrate the function of wetting in lowering its safety factor. Highlights: 3D scanning and 3D engraving were coupled to produce sandstone joints. Direct shear tests with different immersion durations were conducted on joints. A novel shear strength criterion was developed considering immersion duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic flow prediction (TFP) has attracted increasing attention with the development of smart city. In the past few years, neural network-based methods have shown impressive performance for TFP. However, most of previous studies fail to explicitly and effectively model the relationship between inflows and outflows. Consequently, these methods are usually uninterpretable and inaccurate. In this paper, we propose an interpretable local flow attention (LFA) mechanism for TFP, which yields three advantages. (1) LFA is flow-aware. Different from existing works, which blend inflows and outflows in the channel dimension, we explicitly exploit the correlations between flows with a novel attention mechanism. (2) LFA is interpretable. It is formulated by the truisms of traffic flow, and the learned attention weights can well explain the flow correlations. (3) LFA is efficient. Instead of using global spatial attention as in previous studies, LFA leverages the local mode. The attention query is only performed on the local related regions. This not only reduces computational cost but also avoids false attention. Based on LFA, we further develop a novel spatiotemporal cell, named LFA-ConvLSTM (LFA-based convolutional long short-term memory), to capture the complex dynamics in traffic data. Specifically, LFA-ConvLSTM consists of three parts. (1) A ConvLSTM module is utilized to learn flow-specific features. (2) An LFA module accounts for modeling the correlations between flows. (3) A feature aggregation module fuses the above two to obtain a comprehensive feature. Extensive experiments on two real-world datasets show that our method achieves a better prediction performance. We improve the RMSE metric by 3.2%–4.6%, and the MAPE metric by 6.2%–6.7%. Our LFA-ConvLSTM is also almost 32% faster than global self-attention ConvLSTM in terms of prediction time. Furthermore, we also present some visual results to analyze the learned flow correlations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While previous studies primarily focused on the structure of the normal whole mouse lung, the whole bronchus and cytoarchitectural details of the mouse intact lung lobe have been discovered at single-cell resolution. Revealing the sophisticated lung adenocarcinoma structure at three-dimensional (3D) and single-cell level remains a fundamental and critical challenge for the pathological mechanism research of lung adenocarcinoma (LA). Methods: Fluorescence micro-optical Sectioning Tomography (fMOST) combined with PI staining were used to obtain the 3D imaging of the human LA tissue at single-cell resolution. Results: With a spatial resolution of 0.32 × 0.32 × 1.0 μm3, the dataset of human LA with single-cell precision consists of two channels, each of which contains information about the bronchi and the cytoarchitecture. The bronchial wall is thicker and the lumen is smaller in the cancer tissue, in which its original normal structure is vanished. More solid components, more clustered cancer cells with larger nucleoli, and more significant atypia are found in cancer tissue. In paracancerous tissue, the bronchial wall cells have a monolayer or bilayer structure, cluster along the wall, and are relatively dispersed. Few fibrous structures and occasional dissemination of spread through air spaces (STAS) are observed. Conclusions: Based on the human LA tissue dataset obtained by fMOST and PI staining, the bronchi and cells were reconstructed and visualized. This work provides a technical roadmap for studying the bronchus and cytoarchitectural structure and their spatial relationship in LA tissue, which may help with the understanding of the main histological structure of LA among pathologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a chromosome-level reference genome assembly of a traditional Tibetan medicinal plant, Herpetospermum pedunculosum belonging to the Cucurbitaceae family. Following a combined PacBio high-fidelity sequencing and Hi-C analysis, a final H. pedunculosum genome assembly, 804.11 Mb in length was obtained, 90.45% of which was anchored into ten pseudochromosomes with a contig N50 of 24.39 Mb. In addition, 579.55 Mb repetitive sequences and 23,924 high-confidence protein-coding genes were annotated. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that H. pedunculosum was sister to a clade formed by cucumber, zucchini, and wax gourd. Further whole-genome duplication analysis revealed no recent polyploidization event in the H. pedunculosum genome. The high-quality H. pedunculosum genome presented here will be highly useful in investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying the biosynthesis of its active compounds and adaptation strategies to the extreme environment. It will also provide great insights into comparative genomic studies of Cucurbitaceae and flowering plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eolian sand transport in the atmospheric surface layer (ASL) is a typical kind of gas–solid two-phase flow at a very high Reynolds number that fluctuates over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Based on the high-frequency time series of streamwise wind speed (u) and total saltation mass flux (q) measure at three different observation sites, the fluctuating characteristics of u and q in the near-neutral ASL have been analyzed. Our study suggests that the probability density function (PDF) of the normalized streamwise wind speed fluctuations at the height of approximately 0.5 m follows a standard normal distribution, and the PDF of the q presents a lognormal distribution in the near-neutral ASL during strong and steady wind-blown sand. The investigations on the premultiplied spectral of q and u show that, as the energy of very large-scale motions (VLSMs) increases, the influence of the VLSMs on q becomes more significant. In addition, the stochastic couplings between u and q have been analyzed by using space–time correlations and linear coherence spectrum. Our results suggest that the VLSMs have a significant effect on the low-frequency fluctuations of q in the near-neutral ASL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Saibo copper polymetallic deposit, located in the West Tianshan Sailimu-Sitaihaiquan copper lead and zinc ore belt, is a new breakthrough in medium-large copper mine. Through the thin section authentication and the thermometric analysis of fluid inclusion, it is concluded that skarnization was developed in this deposit, the mineralization stage can be divided into retrograde skarn stage (S1), quartz-sulfide stage (S2) and quartz-carbonate stage (S3). Fluid inclusions (FIs) were distinguished as liquid-rich aqueous FIs (LV-type), vapor-rich aqueous FIs (VL-type), and NaCl daughter mineral-bearing three phase FIs (S-type). The mineralization fluids indicate that the initial stage (S1 stage) is of high temperature and high salinity, with a handful of metallic matters. During the main metallogenic stage (S2 stage), the meteoric water is mixed, the temperature and salinity gradually decrease, the fluid is distinctly boiling, and a large amount of metallic matters are precipitated, and then to the S3 stage, when the temperature and salinity decrease along with the carbonation. Chalcopyrite Re−Os dating yielded a mineralization age of 379.2 ± 7.7 Ma, which corresponds well with the zircon U−Pb age (385.9 ± 1.3 Ma) of the granite porphyry. The C−H−O isotopes indicate that the ore-forming fluid was dominated by initial mixed magmatic water in the early stage and by meteoric water in the late stage, and C is derived from limestone strata metasomatized by magmatic fluids. The S and Pb isotopes indicate that the ore-forming materials are derived from the mixed crust-mantle source, of which S is almost entirely derived from the mantle, while Pb is mainly derived from the crustal material of the orogenic belt. On the whole, the Saibo copper deposit is a typical calcium skarn type deposit, which formed in the shallower setting at active continental margin in the Late Devonian period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Understanding the complex orchestrated inflammation in atopic dermatitis (AD), one of the most common chronic inflammatory diseases worldwide, is essential for therapeutic approaches. However, a comparative analysis on the single‐cell level of the inflammation signatures correlated with the severity is missing so far. Methods: We applied single‐cell RNA and T‐cell receptor (TCR) sequencing on immune cells enriched from skin biopsies and matched blood samples of AD in comparison with psoriasis (PS) patients. Results: Clonally propagated skin‐derived T cells showed disease‐specific TCR motifs shared between patients which was more pronounced in PS compared to AD. The disease‐specific T‐cell clusters were mostly of a Th2/Th22 sub‐population in AD and Th17/Tc17 in PS, and their numbers were associated with severity scores in both diseases. Herein, we provide for the first time a list that associates cell type‐specific gene expression with the severity of the two most common chronic inflammatory skin diseases. Investigating the cell signatures in the patients´ PBMCs and skin stromal cells, a systemic involvement of type‐3 inflammation was clearly detectable in PS circulating cells, while in AD inflammatory signatures were most pronounced in fibroblasts, pericytes, and keratinocytes. Compositional and functional analyses of myeloid cells revealed the activation of antiviral responses in macrophages in association with disease severity in both diseases. Conclusion: Different disease‐driving cell types and subtypes which contribute to the hallmarks of type‐2 and type‐3 inflammatory signatures and are associated with disease activities could be identified by single‐cell RNA‐seq and TCR‐seq in AD and PS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atherosclerotic stenosis of the carotid artery may lead to cerebral infarction, stroke, and other serious consequences, and it is usually treated clinically with carotid endarterectomy. By comparing the pre- and postoperative flow fields, it can be shown that the operation improves hemodynamic parameters, such as the velocity, wall shear stress, and wall pressure of the local flow field of the carotid artery. However, previous studies have rarely considered the difference between postoperative and healthy carotid flow fields, and thus, the cause of any postoperative restenosis may remain hidden. Therefore, this study constructed preoperative, postoperative, and (hypothetically) healthy carotid artery models based on the real vascular structure data of a patient and applied numerical simulations verified by physical models to compare hemodynamic parameters, such as flow rate, flow state, and wall shear. The results showed that after the operation, the maximum carotid blood flow velocity decreased from 2.8 to 1.02 m/s, the maximum wall shear stress decreased from 190 to ∼75 Pa, the wall pressure of the carotid inlet recovered from 3000 to 400 Pa, and the vortex in the distal internal carotid artery disappeared. In addition, this study also found a vortex and the low-level wall shear stress of approximately 5 Pa remained in the carotid bifurcation after the operation, which also lacked spiral flow, unlike the healthy model. Therefore, due to the morphological differences between the postoperative and healthy carotid artery, adverse hemodynamic factors and a potential risk of postoperative restenosis will remain after the procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, Bi2212 films were prepared on LaAlO 3 (100) and SrTiO 3 (100) substrates by the sol-gel method using Bi(NO 3) 3 ·5H 2 O, Sr(NO 3) 2 , Ca(NO 3) 2 ·4H 2 O and Cu(NO 3) 2 ·3H 2 O as raw materials. TritonX-100 (TX-100), fatty alcohol poly oxyethylene ether (AEO-9), poly (vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) and poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) were used as surfactants, respectively, to improve the wettability between the sol and the substrate. When glycine and glycolic acid were used as complexing agents, these surfactants were stably miscible with the sols. The effects of different surfactant sol-gel systems on the wettability of substrates as well as the crystallinity, morphology, surface roughness and electrical transport properties of Bi2212 superconducting films were investigated. The results showed that flat and continuous c -axis epitaxial Bi2212 films were obtained using all these sol-gel systems. In particular, TX-100 and AEO-9 as surfactants showed stronger wettability of the sol-gel for both substrates. In addition, the films prepared using polymer surfactants PVP and PVA sol-gel systems showed less surface roughness. The same patterns were found in all the film samples prepared using precursor sols of different complexing agents, and all the films exhibited good electrical transport properties. This work lays a certain research foundation for the preparation of thin films by aqueous solvent sol-gel method. The method also shows great potential in terms of the stability of different sol-gel systems and the improvement of the wettability of different substrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid-free drilling fluid has more advantages as a new type of drilling fluid compared with traditional drilling fluid, such as improving drilling efficiency, protecting oil and not having clay particles clog the oil and gas layer. In this study, Zn/Cu/Fe-doped magnesium–aluminum hydroxide (Mg-Al MMH) was prepared using the co-precipitation method and evaluated in solid-free drilling fluid. The inhibition mechanism of synthesized hydroxide was analyzed by X-ray diffraction, laser particle-size analysis and thermogravimetric analysis. The samples were directly used as drilling fluid base muds for performance evaluation. The results showed that the linear expansion rate of 4% M6-Fe was only 12.32% at room temperature within 2 h, that the linear expansion rate was 20.28% at 90 °C and that the anti-swelling rate was 81.16% at room temperature, indicating that it has a strong inhibition ability at both room temperature and at high temperatures. Meanwhile, the possibility of multi-mixed metal hydroxide as a drilling fluid base mud is discussed in this study. We found that 4% M6-Fe exhibited low viscosity, a high YP/PV ratio and high temperature resistance, and its apparent viscosity retention rate reached 100% rolled at 200 °C for 16 h, with a YP/PV ratio of 2.33. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to the massive growth in the storage demands of big data, cloud storage systems emerge at a historic moment, among which block-based cloud storage systems (BCSSs) are typical. Compared with traditional storage systems, BCSSs have many advantages, such as higher capacity, lower cost, and better scalability. BCSSs are also much more complex and error prone than traditional systems, and therefore, their reliability is a significant concern. Correctness is the most basic requirement for reliability. Therefore, it is of great significance to study BCSS program correctness verification to establish the theoretical basis for cloud storage systems. In this paper, we propose a novel framework based on separation logic (SL) to verify the correctness of BCSS management programs. We first construct a two-tier heap structure as the formal model of the storage architecture for BCSSs and present a modelling language based on this structure to describe the program execution. We then define assertion pairs to describe the properties of the two-tier structure. The two components of an assertion pair affect each other, producing several interesting properties. Finally, we propose a Hoare-style proof system to reason about BCSS programs and establish its soundness. We also demonstrate our proof system's uniqueness, usability, and scalability by verifying several real-world BCSS sample programs. In summary, this work presents a systematic approach that can be used to effectively solve BCSS program verification problems, and provides an SL-based logical modelling strategy, specifically to build its consistency with the actual behaviour of BCSSs. • Two-tier heap structure as a formal model of a block-based cloud storage system. • Separation logic-based assertion language with several new operators and connectives. • Hoare-style proof system to reason about BCSS management programs and its soundness. • Methods for formulation of specification rules to make them concise and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated Motor Drives (IMDs) have recently received extensive attention. In electric vehicles (EVs), electric propulsion aircraft, and ship propulsion systems, integrated motors have the great potential to replace traditional motors with the distinct merits of compact size, high power density, high efficiency, and high-cost effectiveness. This paper investigates and reviews integrated motor drives' development and critical technologies. It not only reveals the research progress of the motor structure, converter, volume optimization, heat dissipation design, and weakening electromagnetic interference of integrated motor drives but also explores in detail the applications of wide-bandgap semiconductors and the integration of LCL filters. In addition, this paper also puts forward the concept of integrated motor drive integration level and establishes a corresponding quantitative method to evaluate IMDs integration level. In the future, integrated wireless motor drives will have a broad scope of research and application. IMDs systems will play an important role in applications requiring high power density, providing solutions to motor system size and heat dissipation problems. This overview will help clarify the opportunities, challenges, and future development of IMDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) requires more professional exercise modalities to improve the efficiency of treatment. Adaptive posture-balance cardiac rehabilitation exercise (APBCRE) is an emerging, balance-based therapy from clinical experience, but lacks evidence of validity. Our study aimed to observe and assess the rehabilitation effect of APBCRE on patients with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). All participants received one-month APBCRE therapy evenly three times per week and two assessments before and after APBCRE. Each assessment included cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET), resting metabolic rate (RMR) detection, and three questionnaires about general health. The differences between two assessments were analyzed to evaluate the therapeutic effects of APBCRE. A total of 93 participants (80.65% male, 53.03 ± 12.02 years) were included in the analysis. After one-month APBCRE, oxygen uptake (VO2, 11.16 ± 2.91 to 12.85 ± 3.17 mL/min/kg, p < 0.01) at anaerobic threshold (AT), ventilation (VE, 28.87 ± 7.26 to 32.42 ± 8.50 mL/min/kg, p < 0.01) at AT, respiratory exchange ratio (RER, 0.93 ± 0.06 to 0.95 ± 0.05, p < 0.01) at AT and oxygen uptake efficiency slope (OUES, 1426.75 ± 346.30 to 1547.19 ± 403.49, p < 0.01) significantly improved in CVD patients. The ≤55-year group had more positive improvements (VO2 at AT, 23% vs. 16%; OUES, 13% vs. 6%) compared with the >55-year group. Quality of life was also increased after APBCRE (47.78 ± 16.74 to 59.27 ± 17.77, p < 0.001). This study proved that APBCRE was a potentially available exercise rehabilitation modality for patients with CVDs, which performed significant increases in physical tolerance and quality of life, especially for ≤55-year patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complexed sol-gel method has unique advantages in the preparation of multi-component functional thin films. In this paper, Bi2212 superconducting thin films were prepared by sol-gel method on SrTiO 3 (100) single crystal substrates. Glycine and glycolic acid were used as complexing agents. The thermal decomposition processes of the two sols were analyzed by contrasting thermal-thermogravimetric curves. The heat treatment processes of the different complexing agent systems were optimized to obtain films with flatter surface morphology. The phase composition of the intermediate products during the precursor heat treatment was changed by adjusting the conditions of the complexing agent and the acidity of the sol, which expanded the pure phase temperature interval of the final product. The pure phase temperature interval, morphology, surface roughness, and electrical transport properties of Bi2212 superconducting films prepared with different complexing agent sol-gel systems were investigated. When glycolic acid was used as the complexing agent, the Bi-2212 superconducting films showed the widest phase formation temperature zones of 25 K. They also had a smaller surface roughness of 10–15 nm. Other than that, all samples had good epitaxial properties, and electrical transport properties. This work provides a new idea for expanding the phase-forming temperature region of multicomponent functional ceramics. It also shows the promising potential of sol-gel method for preparing multicomponent functional films with high quality surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence from previous epidemiological studies on the effect of physical activity on the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is conflicting. We performed a two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis to verify whether physical activity is causally associated with AD. This study used two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to estimate the association between physical activity (including overall activity, sedentary behavior, walking, and moderate-intensity activity) and AD. Genetic instruments for physical activity were obtained from published genome-wide association studies (GWAS) including 91,105 individuals from UK Biobank. Summary-level GWAS data were extracted from the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project IGAP (21,982 patients with AD and 41,944 controls). Inverse Variance Weighted (IVW) was used to estimate the effect of physical activity on AD. Sensitivity analyses including weighted median, MR-Egger, MR-PRESSO, and leave-one-out analysis were used to estimate pleiotropy and heterogeneity. Mendelian randomization evidences suggested a protective relationship between walking and AD (odds ratio (OR) = 0.30, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.13–0.68, P = 0.0039). Genetically predicted overall activity, sedentary behavior, and moderate-intensity activity were not associated with AD. In summary, this study provided evidence that genetically predicted walking might associate with a reduced risk of AD. Further research into the causal association between physical activity and AD could help to explore the real relationship and provide more measures to reduce AD risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An experiment setup with the function of testing single or multi-nozzles' atomization characteristics was developed. • The atomization characteristic and mechanism of a swirl nozzle for outdoor snow-makers were revealed. • The droplet diameter distribution and SMD variation were explored when twin-nozzles cooperating at different condition. • Droplet diameter variations were explained by the theories of collision and breakup. Swirl nozzles are the core component of outdoor snow-makers for forming snow crystal artificially. A general experiment setup for simulating the atomization process at the working conditions of outdoor snow-makers was developed. Phantom high-speed camera and PW180-B laser particle size analyzer (LPSA) were used to capture the dynamic atomization process and droplet diameter distributions respectively. The atomization characteristics of a single swirl nozzle and that of twin nozzles were tested and analyzed. For single nozzle, Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) drops rapidly and then goes up gently due to the action of droplets breakup and coalescence. With the increase of the injection pressure, the SMD of the droplets decreases, and the mass flow rate of the nozzles is improved. Moreover, the spray cone angle increases rapidly and keeps a stable value. For twin nozzles, the cooperation of the swirl nozzles obviously reduces the SMDs of the atomization field because it enhances the probability of droplets collision and separation. The SMDs are determined by the cooperative distances and injection pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes Bayesian network (BN) structure searching and scoring algorithms to identify critical nodes and investigate their reliability interdependencies for a power system under great converter penetration. As more converters are integrated into the system, reliability interactions among various converters will frequently emerge and consequently introduce system reliability concerns. However, reliability causal relations have rarely been explored and demonstrated in a clear manner. Therefore, the authors apply BN structure searching and scoring algorithms to visualize the proposed converter‐based BN structure. Moreover, reliability interactions among different nodes are quantified through information entropy theory. Numerical case studies illustrate the causal reliability relationship among various nodes while considering the reliability of all integrated converters. Critical nodes are identified such that system operators can improve the converter maintenance scheduling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using zinc chloride as an additive assisted with conventional solutions of zinc acetate dihydrate and hexamethylenetetramine, the synthesis of ZnO films by chemical bath deposition was investigated and characterized by x-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscope, photoluminescence (PL) and UV-Vis spectrophotometry. ZnO films with (0002), (10 1 ̄ 2), (11 2 ̄ 2), (11 2 ̄ 0), and (10 1 ̄ 0) preferential growth orientation were prepared by changing the concentration of the introduced zinc chloride. The results of UV-Vis spectrophotometry show that the ZnO films with different preferential growth orientations have optical transmittance of more than 80% in the visible light region. Results from PL show that compared to the typical polar (0002) preferential growth orientation of ZnO, other films with different preferential growth orientations have different visible emissions. It was also confirmed that the concentration of Cl− can affect the defects and preferred orientations of ZnO films. This work enriches the fabrication of ZnO films with different preferential growth orientations and also provides new ideas for the fabrication of ZnO-based transparent nanodevices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The solubility of 4GABCL was determined for the first time. • The determination coefficients of mathematical model fitting are all greater than 0.999, which proves that the fitting effect is good. • The thermodynamic properties of mixing and dissolution were calculated using Wilson model and solubility data. The solubility of 4-guanidinobenzoic acid hydrochloride (4-GABCL) in pure solvents (H 2 O, methanol, ethanol, n-propanol, isopropanol, 1-butanol, and 1-pentanol) and two binary solvents (H 2 O + ethanol/isopropanol) were determined by the dynamic saturation method in the temperature range of 294.55 K–333.65 K under atmospheric pressure. From the measurement results, it could be observed that the solubility of 4-GABCL in both pure and binary solvents all increased with increasing temperature. The solubility order of 4-GABCL in pure solvents was ranked as follows: methanol > H 2 O > n-propanol > ethanol > n-butanol > isopropanol > n-pentanol. The solubility of 4-GABCL in binary solvents tended to increase and then decrease with increasing molar fractions of ethanol and isopropanol, and the solubility of the solute in the binary solvents was greater than that of each in the monosolvents. In addition, Ideal model, Apelblat model, λh model, Wilson model, and NRTL model had been used to correlate the solubility of 4-GABCL in pure and binary solvents. Correlated effects show that the Wilson model gives the best correlation. The influence of solvents on the solubility of 4-GABCL was further studied by KAT-LSER model. The results showed that the solubility was mainly affected by the polarizability and the self-viscosity of the solvent.The mixing and dissolution thermodynamic properties of 4-GABCL in all experimental solvents had been calculated and analyzed by using the Wilson equation and solvent data. It was determined that the mixing and dissolution of 4-GABCL were spontaneous, endothermic and entropy-driven in the study systems. Besides, the solubility order of the pure solvent is consistent with the dissolution entropy at a temperature of 318.15 k. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastic waste remains a global challenge due to the massive amounts being produced without satisfactory treatment technologies for recycling and upcycling. Photocatalytic processes are emerging as green and promising approaches to upcycle plastics into value‐added products under mild conditions using sunlight as the energy source. In this review, the recent advances in plastic conversion through photocatalysis have been comprehensively summarized. Special emphasis is placed on the photocatalytic mechanism and the selective CC and CH bond transformations of plastics to access fuels, chemicals, and materials. Finally, the challenges and the perspectives on establishing a new paradigm toward a sustainable and circular plastic economy are also put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) have been proposed as enhanced developments of neural networks (NNs) in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and successfully applied in deep learning (DL) scenarios. With the advancement of technology, the number of network layers has continuously increased, resulting in a huge number of calculations and memory accesses required in the training and inference process of DCNNs and thereby hindering their further deployment and application. Using a specific dataflow formed by reusable DCNN data in the network-on-chip (NoC), reducing the memory access pressure and improving DCNN processing efficiency has become a promising acceleration scheme for the current DCNN. In this article, a novel convolution layer (CONV) acceleration strategy based on logical PE set segmentation for row stationary (RS) dataflow is proposed to solve the problems of low flexibility and inefficient processing array utilization faced by the conventional folding mapping strategy. The simulation results show that the new mapping strategy based on PE set segmentation can achieve better processing element utilization and CONV acceleration improvement at the expense of little increase in the data movement energy consumption compared with the conventional strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid and efficient tools for early cancer detection have diagnostic and therapeutic value. Given that the DNA hairpin‐based hybridization chain reaction (HCR) is effective in detecting various biological targets, a tetrahedral framework DNA‐enhanced (TDN‐enhanced) HCR detection system (T‐probe system) is introduced for cancer‐related targets and its versatility is demonstrated by detecting intracellular target miRNA 21 and cellular membrane target nucleolin. Benefiting from the spatial confinement of the TDN, the T‐probe system demonstrates a high detection rate. It increases the reaction efficiency of nude hairpins in vitro while accurately and rapidly recognizing both membrane and intracellular cancer‐related targets in living cells. Furthermore, it exhibits superior fluorescence in vivo within 15 s of peripheral‐tumor injection and 10 min of tail‐vein injection. The T‐probe system efficiently and accurately images tumor‐related biomarkers in vitro and in vivo, thereby demonstrating great potential for clinical diagnosis and therapeutic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]