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In this article, I argue that ‘dishonesty’ should be unified and defined in the law of trusts. I argue: (1) the UK Supreme Court in Ivey v Genting Casinos was correct to reject the Ghosh test for dishonesty and to endorse the Royal Brunei test for all legal contexts; (2) the present law on trustee exemption clauses is inconsistent with Ivey, and Walker v Stones must accordingly be overruled; (3) the subjective factors relevant to dishonesty are reducible to a person’s intentions and beliefs; and (4) ‘dishonest’ assistance of a breach of trust should be defined more precisely in terms of what knowledge is required to hold a defendant liable.

Ascorbic acid (AA) plays an important role in many physiological and biochemical processes. Herein, a novel, rapid and label-free fluorescence strategy was proposed to detect ascorbic acid based on the in situ formation of copper nanoclusters (CuNCs). When reducing ascorbic acid was present, the Cu(II) ions in 3-(N-morpholino) propanesulfonic acid (MOPS) buffer were transformed into CuNCs and showed high fluorescence. The excitation and emission peaks of CuNCs were 340 nm and 580 nm, respectively. The fluorescence intensity was proportional to the concentration of ascorbic acid. Under optimized conditions, the linear range of ascorbic acid detection is 50 to 1000 μM, and the detection limit is 41.94 μM. In addition, this method is successfully applied to the determination of ascorbic acid in real samples (serum samples and vitamin C tablets) and has shown satisfactory results. Besides the simple operation and good detection capability, the signal response of this method to ascorbic acid is fast and can reach maximum saturation in a few minutes. There is no background interference due to the in situ formation of the signal unit (CuNCs). Therefore, the proposed strategy has a strong potential to detect ascorbic acid in medical diagnosis and food safety due to its excellent analytical sensitivity and high selectivity.

Venture capital led by Bitcoin and gold has become increasingly popular in the past several years, so the research of cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin) becomes deeper and deeper. Many researchers have studied the collaborative investment of bitcoin and gold, which is an expective portfolio. In this paper, the authors constructed a systematic model, achieving the combination among prediction, making strategies, solving profits, and evaluation. All the study in this paper is based on the given data and constructed model with accurate references.In this paper, the authors selected the long short-term memory model (LSTM) as the basis, then designed two models called the gold price prediction model (GPPM) and the Bitcoin price prediction model (BPPM) to estimate the price of both gold and Bitcoin, standing as a trader, not a “god economist”. The error analysis shows a good performance of GPPM and BPPM, and it gives the authors confidence to make strategies and calculate final profits (investment worth).Unambiguously, the final goal of this question is to maximize the total assets (profits), so the author set up a single objective optimization model (SOOM) called the trading strategy model (TSM). The total constraint conditions are divided into six directions, including the basic trading conditions, the evaluation of financial risk, and the difference between gold and Bitcoin. Additionally, the costumers with different trading risk tolerance will acquire different assets finally, which indicates that the prudent policy generally can lead to a better result. After calculation, the asset on 2021/9/10 is about 1.59×108 USD, a considerable number.The evaluation of TSM has two parts, one is the disturbance test. This test randomly sets that several days’ trading does not occur, then has a comparison between the original model prices and the prices after disturbance. The result proves that the strategy predicted by TSM is the best strategy. The result of the sensitivity test in section 4 finds the polynomial relationship between the assets and the transaction costs. Under current conditions, the final assets will decrease by 4.2% if the transaction costs of gold increase by 1%, and will increase by 2.1% if the transaction costs of bitcoin increase by 1%.Finally, the authors wrote a memorandum for different customers & traders. We sincerely hope the memorandum can help them in the near future.

Modern warehouse management has entered the era of information intelligence, which requires the establishment of a set of accurate, reasonable and efficient warehouse management methods, to improve the efficiency of workers. In this paper, a series of TSP (Traveling salesman problem) algorithms are used to further optimize the process efficiency of goods removal from the warehouse. Based on Freudian algorithm, the distance problem between cargo grid and recheck station was solved in the first problem. Founded on the genetic algorithm in TSP, specific application problems were solved in two, three and four questions. For problem 1, by observing the relation between the coordinates given and the actual route, all the coordinates of cargo grid were divided into two kinds: odd and even columns, and the two kinds of coordinates were processed, respectively. After coordinate processing, the distance matrix between each lattice can be obtained by using Freudian algorithm. At the same time, due to the small number of recheck stations and their regular distribution, the distance matrix between each recheck station and each cargo grid can be obtained by manually classifying the coordinates of the recheck stations and applying Freud algorithm again. Output all the matrices in the same EXCEL table, the distance matrix between the 3013 elements can be obtained. (See Appendix 1 for the distance matrix and Appendix 1 for the algorithm). For problem 2, this problem is a unidirectional TSP problem by macro analysis. Firstly, the distance matrix of the required point was called from the solution of problem 1, which was imported into LINGO program to establish 0-1 decision variables, and the objective function is established to solve according to the principles of single-direction connection and loop-breaking, to obtain the connection sequence and loop distance. Select the cargo lattice back to the initial recheck station and connect it with the nearest recheck station, to complete the task of breaking the ring, solving the connection sequence and the total distance length. The outbound time can be divided into three parts: (1) journey time; (2) Pick up time; (3) Packing time, group calculation, sum can get the result. The total distance is 382.5m (about 1254.92 ft) and the total minimum time is 462 seconds (about 7 and a half minutes). For problem 3, distance matrix of the required point was called from the solution of problem 1, and imported into LINGO program, afterwards, 0-1 decision variable and objective function were established according to the principles of single-direction connection and loop-breaking to solve, and then the connection sequence and loop distance was obtained. Select the cargo lattice back to the initial recheck station and connect it with the nearest recheck station, to complete the task of breaking the ring, solving the connection sequence and the total distance length. Compared with Question 2, Question 3 specifies the available recheck station and the total time needed to complete the shipment. During the calculation of each task order, it was classified and discussed (double-starting point operation), and the overall optimization was carried out according to the starting point and end point of each task order, and the total shortest time was 2288.6 seconds (about 38 minutes) (See the attachment for the results of this question). For question 4, queuing theory is needed. To reduce the total outbound time, it is necessary to give priority to orders with abbreviated time. Firstly, the shortest outbound time of 49 task orders should be calculated, and the time should be arranged in order from short to long. After that, according to the order of the task list, nine pickers pick goods in a certain order. Hence, a variable should be introduced to preserve the status of the recheck table and the remaining time currently occupied.

Tetracyclines (TC) are a common antibiotic for using in livestock breeding and healthcare; however, due to the inappropriate application of TCs, more than 75% of TCs are excreted and released into the environment in an active form through human and animal urine and feces, which results in high levels of TCs in the ecological system, causing adverse effects on the food safety and human health. Thus, the high-performance monitoring of TC pollution is necessary. In this work, a highly sensitive fluorescent aptasensor was developed that was based on graphene oxide (GO) regulation of low background signal and target-induced fluorescence restoration. In the absence of analyte, the DNA probe (TC aptamer) was adsorbed completely by GO and failed to enhance the fluorescence of SYBR gold (SG), thereby resulting in a low background signal. When the TC-included samples were added, the DNA probe formed an aptamer-TC complex, thereby separating from the surface of the GO and inducing the fluorescence of SG. Under optimal conditions, the proposed strategy could detect TC concentrations of less than 6.2 × 10−3 ng mL−1, which is four orders of magnitude better than the detection limit of the “turn off” mode (53.9511 ng mL−1). Moreover, this aptasensor has been used to detect TC from milk samples and wastewater samples, and its satisfactory performances demonstrate that the proposed strategy can be applied in practice for TC monitor in food safety and environmental protection. Therefore, we believe that this work is meaningful in pollution monitoring, environment restoration and emergency treatment.

A large amount of tetracycline (TC) persists in water, soil, food, and feed due to the overuse of antibiotics, causing serious environmental problems such as damage to ecosystems and posing risks to human health. Thus, there is an urgent need to find a method to detect TC that is practical, rapid, sensitive, and offers ready visualization of TC levels so that adequate remediation measures can be immediately implemented. Herein, we report a fluorescent and colorimetric dual-mode nanosensor for the detection of TC based on reduced state carbon dots (r-CDs). In the presence of TC, the emission fluorescence of r-CDs was quenched by the Forster resonance energy transfer mechanism to achieve high-sensitivity detection of TC with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 1.73 nM. Moreover, TC was also detected by r-CDs via a noticeable color change of the solution (from colorless to red) with the naked eye, having an LOD of 0.46 μM. Furthermore, r-CDs have excellent selectivity and sensitivity in detecting TC in wastewater, and therefore, have practical applications in wastewater treatment. The fluorescent and colorimetric dual-mode proposed in this work may offer a unique idea for the detection of TC, with great prospects for environmental wastewater applications.

Objective. The urea-to-albumin ratio (UAR), as a new marker of the systemic inflammatory response, is associated with the mortality in pneumonia patients. However, the association between the UAR and in-hospital mortality in severe pneumonia (SP) has received little attention. Methods. In this single-center retrospective cohort study, 212 SP patients in intensive care unit (ICU) from June 1, 2016, to June 1st, 2020, with baseline UAR were enrolled. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality. The association of UAR with in-hospital mortality was assessed using a multivariable-adjusted Cox model. Results. Of 212 patients, the median age was 73.0 (61.0, 82.8) years, 70.8% of patients were male, and the APACHE II score was 20.0 (16.0, 26.0). During the hospital period, 101 (47.6%) patients died. In-hospital mortality rates for the lower and higher UAR were 16 (27.6%) and 85 (55.2%), respectively P < 0.001 . Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed that survival rates were significantly different between the two groups (log rank = 13.71, P < 0.001 ). After adjusted for confounding factors, the higher UAR group was significantly associated with a hazard ratio (HR) for in-hospital mortality of 2.234 (95% confidence interval: 1.146–4.356, P = 0.018 ). Besides, this pattern persisted in subgroup analyses considering sex (HR = 9.380; 95% CI: 2.248–39.138; P = 0.002 ). Conclusions. Higher UAR levels at the commencement of admission to ICU may be independently associated with increased in-hospital mortality in SP patients.

Water pollution arising from heavy metal ions continues to be a major environmental problem, which represents a serious threat to human beings and animals worldwide. New materials that can simultaneously detect and remove these toxic ions are urgently required. Herein, nitrogen and sulfur co-doped molybdenum selenide nanosheets (N, S-MoSe

Based on the optimization theory, this paper studies the mathematical modeling problem related to the ordering and transportation of raw materials. The paper starts with reasonable assumptions, based on which the following factors are used as index: “average supply”, “order completion rate”, “average order value” and “standard deviation of supply” of each supplier, and the weight of each index is determined by using entropy weight method. On the premise of reasonable weight, the distance method of good-bad solutions (TOPSIS) is used to evaluate and rank each supplier, and finally, the most important supplier is selected. Then, a 0-1 programming model is established, in which “minimum order price” and “minimum loss” are taken as the objective functions, and the two-week inventory of the enterprise is combined with factors such as the loss rate of the forwarder, using MATLAB programming TOPSIS algorithm to solve the model to obtain the optimal ordering and transshipment plan. Considering the possibility that the enterprise needs low utilization of raw materials A and C, a bi-objective programming model is established to determine the weekly ordering and transshipment plan within the target weeks. On the other hand, when the number of suppliers is sufficient, the capacity of the forwarders limits the expansion of the capacity of the enterprise. Therefore, combined with the existing data, a linear programming model with the maximum production capacity as the objective function is established to obtain the maximum production capacity and formulate ordering and transshipment schemes. Finally, the solution process and results are summarized and analyzed.

Porcine circovirus type 3 (PCV3) is a new member of Circovirus, which could cause various symptoms in infected pigs. It has been reported in many countries and detected from various animals. This study retrospectively analyzed serum samples that were randomly collected from 1,499 clinically healthy cattle in Shandong province from 2011 to 2018. The PCV3 DNA was detected in 28.95% (434/1,499) of samples. Twenty-seven cap genes of PCV3 were sequenced and compared with seventy reference sequences. They were in several different branches, but all belonged to PCV3b. The results indicated that PCV3 was prevalent in health cattle in Shandong province of China. Though infected cattle did not show any clinical symptoms, they could be a reservoir for the virus and probably transferred them back to pigs.

In this article, we make the following arguments in relation to the Court of First Instance (CFI) and Court of Appeal (CA) decisions on the constitutionality of the Emergency Regulations Ordinance (Cap 241) (ERO) and the Prohibition on Face Covering Regulation (Cap 241K) (PFCR). First, the CFI should have granted a Suspension Order vis-a-vis the ERO so as to allow the police to enforce s 3(1)(a) of the PFCR — a provision the CFI deemed proportionate — until the final resolution of the appeal. Second, the CA’s reasons for upholding the constitutionality of the ERO are flawed as the CA has conflated public dangers with public emergencies, and the putative judicial safeguards identified are illusory in nature. Third, the CA in effect applied Remedial Interpretations (RI) to impugned legislation in four instances without expressly declaring the law unconstitutional: (1) RI was applied to the ERO such that the Chief Executive in Council is disempowered from amending or suspending its statutory duty to place all subsidiary legislation before the Legislative Council for vetting and repeal by resolution; (2) RI was applied to the ERO such that regulations made under the ERO cannot derogate from the Hong Kong Bill of Rights (Cap 383) unless a public emergency is officially proclaimed, the derogation is strictly required by the exigencies of the situation and non-derogable rights are unaffected; (3) RI was applied to the Public Order Ordinance (Cap 245) such that minor non- compliance with conditions issued by the police would not per se turn a procession into an unauthorised assembly; and (4) RI was applied to s 3(1)(b) of the PFCR such that the facial covering prohibition would not apply to mere passers-by present at the scene of an unauthorised assembly.

Water pollution arising from heavy metal ions continues to be a major environmental problem, which represents a serious threat to human beings and animals worldwide. New materials that can simultaneously detect and remove these toxic ions are urgently required. Herein, nitrogen and sulfur co-doped molybdenum selenide nanosheets (N, S-MoSe2) were prepared and found to be fluorescently responsive to mercury (II) with an improved adsorption capacity (208.33 mg g−1), thereby providing the possibility for the simultaneous detection and removal of mercury (II) in water samples. The great affinity was the result of the complexation of mercury (II) with Se and S atoms in N, S-MoSe2 as well as the electrostatic adsorption of cation mercury (II) on negatively charged N, S-MoSe2. Besides good sensitivity and selectivity toward mercury (II), N, S-MoSe2 displayed a relatively consistent performance under a wide pH range from 3 to 10. The removal efficiency reached 87.5% with fast adsorption kinetics, and N, S-MoSe2 could be reused after simple treatment. Thus, this work is expected to provide new material for the detection and removal of mercury (II) in an aqueous solution and offer an insight into the interaction between heavy metal ions and inorganic nanomaterials.

We disagree with the Court of First Instance’s decision in Chow Ting v Teng Yu Yan Anne to confer upon the Returning Officer (RO) the power to evaluate the authenticity of election candidates’ intentions to uphold the Basic Law and to disqualify those who are deemed disingenuous. In our view, neither the text of s 40(1)(b)(i) of the Legislative Council Ordinance (Cap 542) nor its history indicates that the RO has this power. The Court of Appeal’s decision in Chief Executive of HKSAR v President of the Legislative Council is not precedent for this position. The 2016 Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Interpretation also does not mandate this result.

With the development of carbon-based nanomaterials, carbon dots (CDs) have recently received increasing attention owing to their unique optical properties, low toxicity, facile synthesis, abundance and inexpensive precursors. Along with the demonstrated applications in bioimaging, photocatalysis, and biochemical sensing, CDs are expected to have novel applications in different environmental fields. This work aims to review the recent developments in the use of CDs for environmental pollution control and remediation, such as sensing of environmental pollutants, contaminant adsorption, membrane separation, pollutant degradation, and as antimicrobial agents. Different synthesis methods of CDs as well as properties relevant to environmental applications are also discussed. Compared with other carbon-based nanomaterials, the unique nanostructures and properties of CDs enable exceptional environmental capabilities. Moreover, the challenges and research direction for future environmental applications of CDs are also highlighted. We believe this review will provide new direction to the development of environmental pollution control and remediation using CDs.

DNA templated fluorescent copper nanoclusters (DNA-CuNCs) have demonstrated enormous potential for biochemical analysis. However, most of them are focused on DNA-related sensing. Here, we designed a hairpin DNA/RNA chimeric chain for the formation of fluorescent CuNCs and further applied it to detect reverse transcription-associated ribonuclease H (RNase H). The DNA/RNA chimera templated copper nanoclusters (DNA/RNA-CuNCs) exhibited similar spectral properties with DNA-CuNCs. In the presence of RNase H, the RNA segment in chimera is hydrolyzed and release short oligonucleotides, which fail to synthsize fluorescent CuNCs. The capabilities for RNase H detection from complex samples and screening of inhibitors were verified. This strategy exhibited high sensitivity for RNase H with a detectable minimum concentration of 5.5 × 10−4 U mL-1, which is lower than the developed fluorescent methods. This work will open up new thoughts to design new template for metal nanoclusters and broaden their application in RNA-related sensing.

The infection and spread of pathogens (e.g., COVID-19) pose an enormous threat to the safety of human beings and animals all over the world. The rapid and accurate monitoring and determination of pathogens are of great significance to clinical diagnosis, food safety and environmental evaluation. In recent years, with the evolution of nanotechnology, nano-sized graphene and graphene derivatives have been frequently introduced into the construction of biosensors due to their unique physicochemical properties and biocompatibility. The combination of biomolecules with specific recognition capabilities and graphene materials provides a promising strategy to construct more stable and sensitive biosensors for the detection of pathogens. This review tracks the development of graphene biosensors for the detection of bacterial and viral pathogens, mainly including the preparation of graphene biosensors and their working mechanism. The challenges involved in this field have been discussed, and the perspective for further development has been put forward, aiming to promote the development of pathogens sensing and the contribution to epidemic prevention., Highlights • The infection and spread of pathogens threaten human health, the development of effective detection strategies is highly important and essential. • Graphene biosensor as one of effective nano-platforms is reviewed in the field of pathogen detection. • The preparation of graphene biosensors and their sensing mechanism are introduced and discussed. • The current challenges in this field and the perspective for further development are presented, which will be meaningful for pathogens sensing and epidemic prevention.

Carbon dots (CDs) have wide applications in chemical sensor, electrocatalysis, and photocatalysis, but most preparations of carbon dots need high temperature and long reaction time. In this work, a chemical oxidation and surface passivation approach was introduced to synthesize fluorescent CDs in low-temperature condition using phosphoric acid and ammonium hydroxide as the oxidant and passivator, respectively. The as-prepared CDs exhibited two emission bands at 356 nm and 440 nm with different excited wavelengths, and high quantum yield (25.51%). More important, the fluorescent CDs display good water-solubility and high biocompatibility even under broad pH range or high ionic strengths. Moreover, this high-stable fluorescent CDs was also employed as a ratiometric fluorescence probe for ascorbic acid sensing based on the inner filter effect (IFE) between ascorbic acid and CDs. This strategy represented excellent sensitivity and selectivity for ascorbic acid analysis both in buffer and biological samples, providing a valuable platform for ascorbic acid detection in clinic diagnosis.

Can the Minkowski sum of two compact convex bodies be made smoother by rotating one of them? We construct two infinitely differentiable strictly convex plane bodies such that after any generic rotation (in the Baire category sense) of one of the summands the Minkowski sum is not five times differentiable. On the other hand, if for one of the bodies the zero set of the Gaussian curvature has countable spherical image, we show that any generic rotation makes their Minkowski sum as smooth as the summands. We also improve and clarify some previous results on smoothness of the Minkowski sum., Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure, editorial changes, to appear in J. Math. Anal. Appl

This paper presents a mechanism of new word identification in Chinese text where probabilities are used to filter candidate character strings and to assign POS to the selected strings in a ruled-based system. This mechanism avoids the sparse data problem of pure statistical approaches and the over-generation problem of rule-based approaches. It improves parser coverage and provides a tool for the lexical acquisition of new words.