In this paper, we design two inertial-type subgradient extragradient algorithms with line-search process for solving the pseudomonotone variational inequality problems (VIPs) and common fixed-point problem (CFPP) of finite Bregman relatively nonexpansive mapping and a Bregman relatively demicontractive mapping in p-uniformly convex and uniformly smooth Banach spaces, which are more general than Hilbert spaces. Under mild conditions, we derive weak and strong convergence of the suggested algorithms to a common solution of the VIPs and CFPP, respectively. Additionally, an illustrated example is furnished to back up the feasibility and implementability of our proposed methods.

In response to the structural optimization problem of PCB stator coreless disc motors, the orthogonal response surface method was used to optimize the motor structure, determine the basic parameters of the motor preliminarily, and conduct orthogonal experiments on the motor parameters based on the optimization design objectives, The optimization factors were the quantity of magnetic pole of the motor rotor, the ratio of main/auxiliary pole size, the thicknessof the permanent magnet, and the air gap length.The motor torque，the amplitude of magnetic density of the air gap and waveform distortion rateare used as optimization objectives. The motor parameters that make the motor torque reach the maximum, the air gap magnetic density maximum, and the waveform distortion rate minimum. Due to the use of PCB plates instead of motor stator cores in PCB coreless disc motors,The service life of the PCB board during motor operation will be reduced with the temperature rise generated by the stator winding To solve this problem, the response surface analysis of the motor is carried out to reduce the temperature rise of the stator windings during the operation of the motor. PCB board and stator winding are the main factors affecting the temperature rise of the motor.Taking the thickness of the PCB board, the hole diameter on the board, and the uneven width of the stator winding as optimization factors, the motor parameters with the lowest temperature rise of the motor winding are obtained. Simulation analysis is conducted using Ansys/Maxwell software, and the results prove the feasibility of optimization.

In a p-uniformly convex and uniformly smooth Banach space, let the pair of variational inequality and fixed point problems (VIFPPs) consist of two variational inequality problems (VIPs) involving two uniformly continuous and pseudomonotone mappings and two fixed point problems implicating two uniformly continuous and Bregman relatively asymptotically nonexpansive mappings. This article designs two parallel subgradient-like extragradient algorithms with inertial effect for solving this pair of VIFPPs, where each algorithm consists of two parts which are of symmetric structure mutually. Under mild registrations, we prove weak and strong convergence of the suggested algorithms to a common solution of this pair of VIFPPs, respectively. Lastly, an illustrative example is furnished to verify the applicability and implementability of our proposed approaches.

Diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the most frequent type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in adulthood, remains challenging clinical issues. Despite enhanced remission rates can be achieved, there are one-third of patients who will not respond to current treatment or will relapse with resistant disease, necessitating ongoing efforts on effective treatment strategies and agents. The vacuole H+-ATPase inhibitor bafilomycin A1 is broadly used to block late stage of autophagy flux at high concentration. In this study, we show that, to our surprise, bafilomycin A1 effectively inhibited and killed DLBCL cells at nanomolar concentrations (5nM). Bafilomycin A1 targeted cell cycle regulators cyclin D1 and cyclin E2 to induce cell cycle arrest in G0/G1 phase. Meanwhile, it induced caspase-dependent apoptosis with concomitant cleaved caspase-3 and Parp. Furthermore, we found that bafilomycin A1 inhibited autophagy flux at both early and late stages of the autophagy flux through activating ERK and mammalian target of rapamycin signaling, as well as by inhibiting the degradation of autolysosomes. We speculated that bafilomycin A1 as autophagy inhibitor might enhance the effect of DLBCL chemotherapeutic drug rituximab. Accordingly, our results provided evidence that the combination of bafilomycin A1 with rituximab enhanced the inhibition of DLBCL cells notably. Taken together, our data suggest that bafilomycin A1 may be a promising candidate drug in the therapy of diffuse large B cell lymphoma.

Background: Cancer patients require cross-professional care during the diagnosis and treatment periods. Therefore, methods for effectively carrying out case management are essential to tumor care. Purpose: To investigate the effects of using the community software LINE Official Ac-count on oral cancer case management. Methods: An experimental design was used; 100 patients were randomly divided into two groups by using a computer-generated random number table. The experimental group used LINE Official Account, which gave them self-care information, timely messages, and one-on-one health-care consultations. The control group followed standard healthcare practices. Results: The experimental group was satisfied with the self-care information provided by LINE Official Account (86.9%), patients regularly checked the self-care information (89.4%) and would check the information when receiving a push notification (54.3%). Ten patients used the one-on-one consultation(20.0%). LINE Official Account had a significant effect on the rate of participation in support groups. Generalized estimating equations indicated a significant difference between the two groups regarding the overall quality of life over 7 days (P = 0.023). Conclusion: Community software applications used in oncological case management can improve self-management and empower, also enable tracking of long-term follow-up effectiveness and reinforce the case manager’s role as a family therapist. Therefore, this study recommends that case manager systems be incorporated into mobile applications to increase the sustainable management, accessibility, effectiveness, and satisfaction of oncological management systems. This study also provides the value of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with Good Health and Well-being, and decreased social withdrawal among patients with oral cancer.

The metastasis of lung cancer can spread to the lymph nodes around the lungs. Metastasis, rather than the primary cancer, judges patients survival. Wherefore, a more detailed study on transcriptome of metastatic lung adenocarcinoma including primary carcinoma was carried out. LUAD RNA-seq data and the corresponding clinical information were available from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), which included 522 cases but only 515 cases have transcriptome data. Differential expression analyses between cases and controls, between primary cancer and metastasis subgroup, or between TNM stages, were respectively carried out using edgeR package. Then, the Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to verify the gradient changes of cancer metastasis or staging with the differential expression genes. The survival analyses were calculated using the Kaplan-Meier algorithm and log-rank test. The functional predictions for the differentially expressed genes were porformed with the Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (GO/KEGG). Single gene set enrichment analysis (single GSEA) was run to explore the biological pathways associated with the expressions of RN7SL494P gene based on the Molecular Signatures Database (MSigDB). 406 and 439 differentially expressed genes were identified respectively in lymph node metastasis or TNM stages. 112/296 intersection genes were associated with nodal metastasis and/or staging, among them only 25 genes were associated with the nodal metastasis, 13 genes were associated with the staging with gradient changes. Only one gene (RN7SL494P) was found to be associated with prognosis. But RN7SL494P was not found joining any biological functions or processes or cellular components with GO/KEGG analyses. Finally, single GSEA enrichment and pathway analyses showed that RN7SL494P might be involving in cancer development process and poor outcome in lung adenocarcinoma. These findings highlight the potential applications of RN7SL494P as a promising molecular predictor not only in nodal metastasis but prognosis evalution in lung adenocarcinoma patients.

For a fiber optic gyroscope, thermal deformation of the fiber coil can introduce additional ther-mal-induced phase errors, commonly referred to as thermal errors. Thermal error compensation techniques are effective means of addressing this issue. The principle behind these techniques involves real-time sensing of thermal errors and correcting them within the output signal. Since it is challenging to directly separate thermal errors from the output signal of the fiber optic gyro-scope, it is necessary to predict thermal errors based on temperature. To establish a mathematical model between temperature and thermal errors, this paper measured synchronized data of phase errors and angular velocity for the fiber coil under different temperature conditions and aimed to model it using data-driven methods. Due to the difficulty of conducting tests and the limited number of data samples, an algorithm called TD-model modeling is proposed to address the issue of overfitting, which can reduce the model's generalization ability. First, a theoretical analysis of the phase errors caused by thermal deformation of the fiber coil is performed. Subsequently, the critical parameters, such as the thermal expansion coefficient, are determined, and a theoretical model is established. Finally, the theoretical analysis model is incorporated as a regularization term and combined with the test data to jointly participate in the regression of model coefficients. Through experimental comparative analysis, it is shown that, relative to ordinary regression models, the TD-model effectively mitigates overfitting caused by the limited number of samples, leading to a 58% improvement in predictive accuracy.

Cloud computing has become a widespread technology due to ICT advancements. It allows businesses to move and take advantage of the pay-as-you-go price model. Enterprises pay for what they use and don't have to buy, setup, or maintain resources. However, outsourcing core resources such as storage, servers, operating systems, and software applications from a third party needs careful decisions to take advantage of cloud facilities. Choice of appropriate service provider, deployment and service model must be aligned with business needs and goals. In this paper, we will present cloud computing benefits, cloud deployment methods, services, state-of-the-art migration methods, tools and techniques and will conclude with the role of SDN in cloud computing.

Cannabinoid metabolites have been reported to be more potent than the parent compounds. Among them, Ajulemic acid (AJA) is a synthetic analogue of Δ9-THC-11-oic which will be a good template structure for discovery of more potent analogues. Herein, we optimized the key allylic oxidation step to introduce the C-11 hydroxy group with high yield. And a series of compounds were prepared with this condition applied including HU-210, 11-Nor-Δ8-Tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid and Δ9-THC-COOH.

Three new species of the Sequester group of Pteromalus (Habrocytus) (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae: Pteromalinae), Pteromalus (Habrocytus) boleensis Yan et Li sp. nov., Pteromalus (Habrocytus) longepedicelus Yan et Li sp. nov., and Pteromalus (Habrocytus) robustus Yan et Li sp. nov. are described and illustrated based on adult morphology and molecular data from Xinjiang, China. The DNA barcodes (ITS2) of Pteromalus (Habrocytus) boleensis sp. nov. and Pteromalus (Habrocytus) robustus sp. nov. have been generated and compared with all existing sequences of the Sequester species group. The results of morphological taxonomy and molecular identification are consistent. A key to all known species of the Sequester group in the world is provided.

HU is the Hypergeometrical Universe Theory (HU)[1-8], proposed in 2006, where the Universe is a Lightspeed Expanding Hyperspherical Hypersurface and Gravitation is an absolute-velocity-dependent, epoch-dependent force. Here we introduce the Big Pop Cosmogenesis and show our calculations associated with the Equation of State of the Universe. This article is the first in a series of articles[9-22] supporting the paradigm shift.

Dye wastewater containing bisphenol A (BPA) and dyes as pollutants have not been adequately studied. Our previous study revealed that thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) nanofiber membranes (NFMs) modified by the addition of polyethyleneimine (PEI) and polydopamine (PDA) satisfactorily adsorb dyes. Herein, we first optimized the synthesis conditions for such membranes, noting a PEI:PDA monomer ratio of 2:2 and a deposition time of 48 h to be optimal. Experiments using these membranes revealed that binary systems containing BPA and the dyes (Congo red (CR), Eosin yellow (EY), or sunset yellow (SY)) exhibit three adsorption behaviors. CR and BPA compete with each other for adsorption sites, decreasing the maximum adsorption capacity (Qmax) for CR 208.3 mg/g (in a monomeric system) to 182.4 mg/g, whereas for BPA, it decreased from 26.7 to 22.8 mg/g. The adsorption rates for CR and BPA decreased from 0.002 min−1 and 0.331 min−1 in the monomeric systems to 8.37 × 10−4 min−1 and 0.072 min−1, respectively, in the binary CR–BPA system, exhibiting antagonistic effects. When EY and BPA coexist, Qmax for EY increased from 60.0 (monomeric) to 71.9 mg/g, whereas that for BPA increased from 35.6 to 43.2 mg/g, showing a synergistic effect due to the possible bridging effect. The adsorption sites for SY and BPA are independent of each other. Thus, PDA/PEI TPU NFMs exhibit the potential for removal of dye–BPA composites, whereas binary systems containing BPA with different dyes are adsorbed differently.

The environmental policy is compelling industries to treat their wastewater to a level that can be released into the domestic sewer system or even for reuse. However, many industrial branches are lacking space for traditional wastewater plant. Hence, electrokinetics wastewater treatment is a viable alternative as it is fast and does not require large space. However, the electrokinetics wastewater treatment is still mostly tested in the laboratory. In the current study, a prototype of electrokinetics wastewater treatment industrial-size device has been designed, constructed and tested under real conditions. In this paper the device is described and the results obtained from the operation of the device are presented and discussed.

Xanthogranulomatous orchitis is a chronic, non-neoplastic inflammation that is quite rare. In this paper, we discuss the case of a 79-year-old male patient who presented with bilateral scrotum swelling and dysuria that persisted for two weeks. Despite two weeks of anti-infection treatment, the patient's symptoms persisted, leading to a decision to perform transurethral prostate resection and bilateral orchiectomy after careful consideration. After the surgery, the postoperative pathology indicated that the patient had xanthogranulomatous orchitis on the left side and acute positive orchitis with hemorrhage on the right side. Fortunately, three months after the procedure, the patient experienced no negative events and was pleased with the postoperative results.

Nucleoid-associated proteins (NAPs) play an architectural role by bending, bridging, and wrapping the DNA along with a regulatory role of controlling various transcriptional units in the cell. Previews reviews have highlighted the role of HU and its paralog IHF plays in intracellular function as a transcriptional regulator, nucleoid bending protein and sometimes also moonlights in other functions. This review highlights along with the canonical functions of HU and IHF which affects genes responsible for translational machineries, cell wall biosynthesis, aerobic respiration and virulence ; other non-canonical roles which HU plays outside the cellular milieu, notably in acting as an adhesin and playing role in host-cell adhesion, its role in biofilm architecture and its association with cationic low complexity region, resembling histone like H1 proteins. HU and IHF thus has evolved as a hub protein performing a vast type of functions which makes it a important drug target for antibacterial therapy.

Real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) is the most classic and widely used technology for evaluating the expression level of target gene. In order to select the proper internal reference genes for RT-qPCR analysis in Amorphophallus konjac (Araceae), eight candidate internal reference genes, including 25S ribosomal RNA gene (25S rRNA), 18S ribosomal RNA gene (18S rRNA), actin gene (ACT), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene (GAPDH), Ubiquitin gene (UBQ), β-tubulin gene (β-TUB), eukaryotic elongation factor 1-αgene(eEF-1α), and eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4α-1 gene (eIF-4α) were selected and tested the corresponding expression level in different tissues at different growing stages. The results showed that 25S rRNA, 18S rRNA, and ACT at the reproductive periods, eEF-1α and eIF-4α at the nutritional periods, and eEF-1α, UBQ, and ACT at different leaf developmental periods had a stable level of gene expression, respectively. These results might be useful for the study of gene function in A. konjac.

Cancer immunotherapy targeting immune checkpoints has exhibited promising clinical outcomes in many cancers, but it offers only limited benefits for pancreatic cancer (PC). Cancer stem cells (CSCs), a minor subpopulation of cancer cells, play important roles in tumor initiation, progression, and drug resistance. Accumulating evidence suggests that CSCs employ immunosuppressive effect to evade the immune recognition. However, clinical implications of the associations among CD8+ T cells infiltration, programmed death receptor ligand-1 (PD-L1) expression, and CSCs existence are poorly understood in PC. Immunostaining and quantitative analysis were performed to assess CD8+ T cells infiltration, PD-L1 expression, and their relationship with CD44+/CD133+ CSCs and disease progression in PC. CD8+ T cells infiltration was associated with better survival while PD-L1 expression was correlated with PC recurrence. Both the low CD8+ T cells infiltration/high PD-L1 expression group and the high CD8+ T cells infiltration/high PD-L1 expression group show high levels of CD44+/CD133+ CSCs, but patients with low CD8+ T cells infiltration/high PD-L1 expression had worse survival and higher recurrence risk than those with high CD8+ T cells infiltration/high PD-L1 expression. Moreover, CD8+ T cells infiltration could reduce unfavorable prognostic effect of high co-expression of PD-L1 and CD44/CD133. Our study highlights an interaction among CD8+ T cells infiltration, PD-L1 expression, and CD44+/CD133+ CSCs existence, which contributes to PC progression and immune evasion.

(1) Background: Previous systematic review suggested a beneficial effect of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. However, poor quality of eligible studies impaired the reliability and validity of findings. Moreover, additional potential studies with good quality published in Chinese language have been published recently. The aim of the present systematic review was to investigate the value of PMR training in preventing and alleviating nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy among cancer patients. (2) Methods: We assigned two independent investigators to search all potential studies in PubMed, Cochrane Controlled Register of Trial (CENTRAL), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), China Biomedical Literature database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang data. We used data extraction sheet extracted all essential information, and used the Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool to appraise the quality of eligible studies. Finally, we qualitatively summarized the results of all included studies. (3) Results: Six studies enrolling 288 patients were considered to meet our selection criteria finally. Of these 6 studies, three were labeled as moderate quality, and the remaining studies were low quality. All included studies consistently suggested that PMR has a positive impact on nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy among cancer patients especially alleviating the incidence, frequency and degree of delayed nausea and vomiting. (4) Conclusions: Independent studies indicated that PMR was a beneficial approach to prevent and alleviate nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy among cancer patients. However, further studies considering other types of primary tumors should be designed in order to increase the generality of PMR because studies included in the present systematic review mainly enrolled lung cancer and breast cancer.

Sinojackia Hu. comprises five to eight Chinese endemic species with high ornamental and medicinal value. However, the generic limits, interspecific relationships and evolutionary history of the genus remain unresolved. In this study, we newly sequenced and assembled three plastomes of S. oblongicarpa and compared them with those of the other congeneric species to explore the taxonomic delimitation of the species and the evolutionary history of the genus. Plastomes structure of Sinojackia species were extremely conserved in terms of number of genes, sequence length and GC content. Codon usage patterns revealed that natural selection may be the main factor shaping codon usage bias. Our phylogenetic tree shows that Sinojackia is monophyletic and can be divided into two clades. Sinojackia oblongicarpa as a distinct species is supported for it is distantly related to S. sarcocarpa. The evolutionary analysis of morphological features indicates that woody mesocarp is an ancestral feature, while mesocarp undeveloped, spongy and fleshy are the later derived. Sinojackia originated in Central-Southeast China during the early Miocene. In this period, it experienced elevated diversification and migrated from the Central-Southeast China to Hunan Province and Sichuan Province with the development of the Asian monsoon and East Asian flora. Sinojackia experienced elevated diversification at intraspecies levels that mainly occurred in the Quaternary. Glacial-interglacial interactions with the monsoon climate may provide favorable expansion conditions for Sinojackia on a small-scale.

An adaptive operation strategy for on-demand control of DMFC system is proposed as an alternative method to enhance the voltage stability. Based on a single-cell DMFC stack, a newly simplified semi-empirical model is developed from the uniform-designed experimental results to describe the I-V relationship. Integrated with this model, the multi-objective optimization method is utilized to develop an adaptive operation strategy. Although the voltage instability is frequently encountered in unoptimized operations, the voltage deviation is successfully decreased to a required level by adaptive operations with operational adjustments. Moreover, the adaptive operations are also found to be able to extend the range of operating current density or to decrease the voltage deviation according to ones requirements. Numerical simulations are implemented to investigate the underlying mechanisms of the proposed adaptive operation strategy, and experimental adaptive operations are also performed on another DMFC system to validate the adaptive operation strategy. Preliminary experimental study shows a rapid response of DMFC system to the operational adjustment, which further validates the effectiveness and feasibility of the adaptive operation strategy in practical applications. The proposed strategy contributes to a guideline for the better control of output voltage from operating DMFC systems.

The degree of ore rock fragmentation of mine blasting is an important index for evaluating the effect of engineering blasting. In order to study the effect of millisecond delayed blasting on the internal fragmentation of the ore rock, LS-DYNA numerical simulation software was used to obtain the damage characteristics of the ore rock in the blasting area using the RHT model. The Mohr-Coulomb strength damage criterion was applied to analyze the internal stress state of the ore rock, and the effects of 25ms, 50ms and 75ms delay time conditions on ore rock fragmentation were studied. The results show that, within a certain range of delay time, the degree of rock fragmentation increases with the increase of delay time. The stress state in the ore rock due to blasting is strengthened with the increase of delay time in the direction of the blast hole, which shows that the stress concentration is strengthened from the excavation face to the interior of the ore rock. The damage and the degree of fragmentation show a characteristic relationship of 25ms＜50ms＜75ms, which is verified by carrying out blasting experiments on site.

Background: The present retrospective study was designed to evaluate the relative diagnostic utility of breast-specific gamma imaging (BSGI) and breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as means of evaluating female breast cancer patients in China. Methods: A total of 229 malignant breast cancer patients underwent ultrasound, mammography, BSGI, and MRI between January 2015 and December 2018 for initial tumor staging. Of these patients, 73 were subsequently treated via definitive breast surgery following neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC), of whom 17 exhibited a complete pathologic response (pCR) to NAC. Results: BSGI and MRI were associated with respective 76.8% and 69.6% sensitivity values as a means of detecting residual tumors following NAC, while both of these approaches exhibited comparable specificity in this diagnostic context (58.8% vs 70.6%, P=0.473). Conclusion: These results demonstrate that BSGI is a useful auxiliary approach to evaluating pCR to NAC treatment.

It is always a difficult task to assign the peaks recorded from vibrational spectrum. Herein we explored a new pathway of density functional theory (DFT) simulation to present three kinds of spectra of ice XIV and can be referenced as inelastic neutron scattering (INS), IR, and Raman experimental spectrum. The INS spectrum is proportional to phonon density of states (PDOS) while the photon scattering signals reflect the normal vibration frequencies near the Brillouin zone (BZ) center. Based on good agreements with experimental data, we identified the relative frequency and made scientific assignments by normal vibration modes analysis. The debating two hydrogen bond (H-bond) peaks among ice phases from INS have been discussed and the dynamic process of H-bond vibrations were found to be classified into two basic modes. we deduce that two H-bond modes are a general rule among ice family and more works are ongoing to investigate this subject.

Semi-continuous data are very common in the social science and economics. In this paper, a Bayesian variable selection procedure is developed to assess the influence of exogenous factors including observed and unobserved on the semi-continuous data. Our formulation is based on the two-part latent variable model with polytomous response. We consider two schemes for the penalties of regression coefficients and factor loadings: the Bayesian spike and slab bimodal prior and the Bayesian lasso prior. Within the Bayesian framework, we implement Markov Chains Monte Carlo sampling method to conduct posterior inference. To facilitate posterior sampling, we recast the logistic model in part one as the norm-like mixture model. Gibbs sampler is designed to draw observations from the posterior. Our empirical results show that with suitable hyper-parameters, the spike and slab bimodal method slightly outperforms the Bayesian lasso in the current analysis. Finally, a real example related to the China household finance survey is analyzed to illustrate the application of the methodology.. .

Objectives To determine the effects of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (ω-3 PUFA) from animal and plant sources on glucolipid metabolism and lipoprotein subfractions in type 2 diabetic patients with dyslipidemia. Methods Participants were recruited from the diabetes clinic at the Guanlin Hospital, Yixing City in Jiangsu province, China, from March 2017 through June 2017. Ninety participants were randomly assigned to take 3g/day fish oil (FO, containing EPA and DHA), 3g/day perilla oil (PO, containing ALA), or 3g/day blend oil containing fish oil and linseed oil (BO, containing EPA, DHA and ALA) for 3 months. The levels of serum glucose, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), C-peptide, triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), non-HDL, apolipoprotein A1 (Apo A1), apolipoprotein B (Apo B), lipoprotein a (Lp(a)), and free fatty acids were determined at baseline and after the 3 months. In addition, four fatty acids in serum and red blood cells membranes (RBCm) were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The Lipoprint System was used to determine the lipoprotein subfractions. Results All 90 participants completed the final 3-month follow-up at the end of the study. After three months of intervention, blood glucose and HbA1c levels in the PO group were significantly lower than those at the baseline (p < 0.05). On the other hand, in the BO group, the HbA1c, non-HDL, Apo A1 and Lp(a) levels were significantly lower, while the C-peptide levels were significantly higher after intervention compared to the baseline (p < 0.05). In the FO group, the HbA1c and TG levels were significantly lower after the intervention compared to the baseline (p < 0.05). In addition, at the end of the study, there was significant increase in the levels of DPA and DHA in serum and RBCm of the FO group (p < 0.05), while in the BO group, there was significant increase in the levels of EPA, DPA and DHA in RBCm (p < 0.05). Finally, the FO group had the highest levels of large HDL subfractions compared to the BO and PO groups, but had the lowest levels of small HDL subfractions among the three groups. Conclusion For patients with diabetes, plant-derived ω-3 PUFAs are more effective at controlling blood glucose than animal-derived ω-3 PUFAs. However, animal-derived ω-3 PUFAs play a critical role in controlling blood lipids. Particularly, fish oil can effectively increase the beneficial large HDL subfractions and reduce the nonbeneficial small HDL subfractions. Both the animal- and plant-derived ω - 3 PUFAs have practical value in improving glucose and lipids metabolism in T2DM patients with dyslipidemia.

In this paper, we propose an unsupervised blind restoration model for images in hybrid degradation scenes. The proposed model encodes the content information and degradation information of images and then uses the attention module to disentangle the two kinds of information. It can improve the ability of disentangled presentation learning for a generative adversarial network (GAN) to restore the images in hybrid degradation scenes, enhance the detailed features of restored image and remove the artifact combining the adversarial loss, cycle-consistency loss, and perception loss. The experimental results on the DIV2K dataset and medical images show that the proposed method outperforms existing unsupervised image restoration algorithms in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity (SSIM), and subjective visual evaluation.

Permeability has an important effect on drug absorption. In this study, the effect of different concentrations of sodium sulfobutyl ether-β-cyclodextrin (SBE-β-CD) on the absorption of ranitidine was investigated to examine the mechanism of permeability changes. The results of parallel artificial membrane permeability assay (PAMPA) showed that increasing the concentration of sodium sulfobutyl ether-β-cyclodextrin, 0, 0.12% (w/v), 0.36% (w/v) and 3.6% (w/v), respectively, the apparent permeability coefficient of ranitidine decreased to 4.62×10-5 , 4.5×10-5 , 3.61×10-5 and 1.08×10-5 in Caco-2 cells, respectively. The same results were obtained from oral pharmacokinetic study in rats; Further studies indicated that SBE-β-CD significantly increased the zeta potential of ranitidine. SBE-β-CD interacted with ranitidine charges to form a complex that reduced ranitidine permeability, and SBE-β-CD should be chosen with caution for drugs with poor permeability.

Cost-efficient catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and methanol oxidization reaction (MOR) is of great importance for industrial application. The alloying of platinum with cheap transition metal offers a great opportunity to reduce cost and enhance the electro-catalytic performance. Herein, we report a simple and green route to synthesize porous Pt-Cu catalysts, where Pt-Cu solid particles were first produced by using cuprous chloride (CuCl) nanoparticles as the template, followed by a dealloying treatment to obtain final porous product. The porous alloy nanoparticles show higher catalytic activity and superior stability for HER and methanol oxidation reaction, which is beneficial from the porous structure and synergetic effect between Pt and Cu.

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) were synthesized and applied for the selective extraction of oblongifolin C (OC) from fruit extracts of Garcinia yunnanensis Hu. A series of experiments and computational approaches were employed to improve the efficiency of screening for optimal MIP systems in the study. The molar ratio (1:4) was chosen at last based on the comparison of the binding energy of the complexes between the template (OC) and functional monomers using density functional theory (DFT) at the RI-PBE-D3-gCP/def2-TZVP level of theory. The binding characterization and the molecular recognition mechanism of MIPs were further explained using the molecular modeling method and NMR and IR spectra data. The reusability of this approach was demonstrated in over 20 batch rebinding experiments. 140.5 mg of OC (>95% purity) was obtained from the 5 g extracts with 2 g of MIPs with the best binding properties through gradient elution program from 35% to 70% methanol-water solution. At the same time, another structural analog, 46.5 mg of guttiferone K (GK) (>88% purity), was also obtained by the gradient elution procedure. Our results showed that the structural analogs could be separated from the crude extracts by the molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) using a gradient elution procedure for the first time.

Heart regeneration after myocardial infarction remains challenging in reconstruction of blood resupply system. Here, we find that in zebrafish heart after resection of the ventricular apex, the local myocardial cells and the clotted blood cells undergo cell remodeling process via cytoplasmic exocytosis and nuclear reorganization within revascularization-based blastema. The regenerative processes are visualized by spatiotemporal expression of three blastema representative factors (alpha-SMA- which marks for fibrogenesis, Flk1for angiogenesis/hematopoiesis, and Pax3a for remusculogensis)，and two histone modifications (H3K9Ac and H3K9Me3 mark for chromatin remodeling). Using the cultured zebrafish embryonic fibroblasts we identify blastema fraction components and show that Krt5 peptide could link cytoskeleton network and BMP4 signaling pathway to regulate the transcription and chromatin accessibility at the blastema representative genes and bmp4 genes. Our study provides new mechanistic insights into the epithelial-dependent and revascularization-based blastema regeneration for potential myocardial infarction therapy.

Since the implementation of the Materials Genome Project by the Obama administration in the United States, the development of various computational materials databases has fundamentally expanded the choices of industries such as materials and energy. In the field of thermoelectric materials, the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT quantifies the performance of the material. From the viewpoint of calculations for vast materials, the ZT values are not easily obtained due to their computational complexity. Here, we show how to build a database of thermoelectric materials based on first-principles calculations for the electronic and heat transport of materials. Firstly, the initial structures are classified according to the values of bandgap and other basic properties using the clustering algorithm K-means in machine learning, and high-throughput first principles calculations are carried out for narrow-bandgap semiconductors which exhibiting potential thermoelectric application. The present framework of calculations mainly includes deformation potential module, electrical transport performance module, mechanical and thermodynamic properties module. We have also set up a search webpage for the calculated database of thermoelectric materials, providing searching and viewing the related physical properties of materials. Our work may inspire the construction of more computational databases of first-principle thermoelectric materials and accelerate research progress in the field of thermoelectrics.

With the development of modern industry, the issue of water pollution has garnered increasing attention. Photocatalysis, as a novel green environmental technology that is resource-efficient, environmentally friendly, and highly promising, has found extensive applications in the field of organic pollutant treatment. However, common semiconductor materials exhibit relatively low photocatalytic efficiency in the visible light range or inefficient separation of photogenerated charges, resulting in their limited ability to harness solar energy effectively. Consequently, the development of new photocatalysts has become a pivotal focus in current photocatalysis research to enhance solar energy utilization. This revision provides a brief explanation of the photocatalytic mechanism of the AgIO3/CTF heterojunction photocatalyst. Due to the Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect, Ag nanoparticles demonstrate significant absorption in the visible light region, playing a crucial role in the highly efficient photocatalytic reduction of organic pollutants.

Laser shock peening as an innovative surface treatment technology can effectively improve the fatigue life, sur-face hardness, corrosion resistance, and residual compressive stress. Compared with the laser shock peening, the warm laser shock peening (WLSP) is a new surface treatment technology to improve materials’ surface performances, which takes advantage of thermal mechanical effects on stress strengthening and micro-structure strengthening, results in more stable distribution of the residual compressive stress under heating and cyclic loading process. In this paper, the microstructure of GH4169 nickel super-alloy processed by WLSP technology with differ-ent laser parameters were investigated. The proliferation and tangling of dislocations in GH4169 were observed and the dislocation density increased after WLSP treatment. The influences of different treatment by LSP and WLSP on the microhardness distribution of the surface and along cross-sectional depth were investi-gated. The microstructure evolution of the GH4169 alloy being shocked with WLSP were studied by TEM. The effect of temperature on the stability of high temperature microstructure and properties of GH4169 alloy WLP was investigated.

The task of unsupervised anomalous sound detection (ASD) is challenging for detecting anomalous sounds from a large audio database without any annotated anomalous training data. Many unsupervised methods were proposed, but previous works have confirmed that the classification-based models far exceeds the unsupervised models in ASD. In this paper, we adopt two classification-based anomaly detection models: (1) Outlier classifier is to distinguish anomalous sounds or outliers from the normal; (2) ID classifier identifies anomalies using both the confidence of classification and the similarity of hidden embeddings. We conduct experiments in task 2 of DCASE 2020 challenge, and our ensemble method achieves an averaged area under the curve (AUC) of 95.82% and averaged partial AUC (pAUC) of 92.32%, which outperforms the state-of-the-art models.

The group delay response of chirped fiber Bragg gratings (CFBG) written in polarization-maintaining fiber can be measured using the beat spectrum of the reflections from the two polarization axis, with a resolution and reproducibility better than 50 fs. The method is theoretically described, and we analyze the effect of group delay ripples (GDR) on the performance of a stretcher-compressor pair used in chirped pulse amplification systems. Ripples with a spectral period of the order of the pulse bandwidth are the most deleterious. Those are readily captured with our method, despite the limit on resolution due to the fiber polarization beat length. As a rule of thumb, the GDR should not exceed half the pulse duration. The reconstructed phase of the CFBG is also used to predict the pulse compression performance for a given device. Measurement of GDR as low as 161 fs is experimentally demonstrated.

Ginkgolic acids (GA) have been reported to exhibit anticancer properties, however, the mechanisms remain unclear. This study aims to investigate the mechanisms of GA C13:0 that was isolated from Ginkgo biloba exocarp (GBE) for anti-proliferation, pro-apoptosis and anti-migration effects in human MCF-7 and mouse 4T-1 breast cancer cells. The cytotoxic effect, apoptosis induction and migration inhibition were measured using MTT, TUNEL and Wound healing assays. The expression of mRNA and protein were determined using qPCR and Western blot. Our results showed that no cytotoxicity was found at concentrations of C13:0 below 100µM. The effects of GA C13:0 was further demonstrated by up-regulation of the Bax/Bcl-2 apoptosis pathway and the expression of Apaf-1 protein in the mitochondria. In addition, GA C13:0 also suppressed cell migration and epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) with the increase of E-cadherin expression accompanied by the decrease of Snail, MMP-2, MMP-9 and Vimentin expression. Moreover, GA C13:0 induced cytochrome P450 (CYP) 1B1 expression in aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) pathway. Notably, the up-regulation of CYP1B1 also might play a pivotal regulatory role in mitochondrial and EMT pathways in MCF-7 and 4T-1 cells. Our results may have implications for the development of anticancer agents containing GA as functional additives.

Based on the data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen of China from 2011 to 2018 and the digital inclusive finance index of Peking University (2011-2018), this paper empirically tests the impact of digital finance development on corporate social responsibility in various provinces of China and its impact mechanism. The results show that: (1) the development of digital finance helps to promote the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility; (2) the influence mechanism of the development of digital finance to promote the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility lies in that it reduces the cost of debt financing and leads to the improvement of corporate social responsibility.(3) Further research shows that the positive relationship between digital finance and corporate social responsibility is more significant in private enterprises. At the same time, the impact is more significant in areas with poor market environment. The above research shows that the development of digital finance has a significant positive effect, which will improve the level of corporate social responsibility.

Reducing the hardness of hard water is of great concern nowadays due to some adverse effects on water pipes, boilers and soap consumption. Using the method of biomineralization to precipitate calcium and magnesium ions to become carbonate minerals was one of the most important innovations for reducing the hardness of hard water. The present study sought to explore the physical and chemical conditions of carbonates bio-precipitation and the potential use of Bacillus licheniformis SRB2 strain (GenBank: KM884945.1) isolated from sludge sample of Moshui River (Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China) in reducing the hardness of hard waters by the induction of carbonate minerals. In this study, B. licheniformis SRB2 strain was identified based on the morphological, biochemical and 16S rDNA gene sequence homology analysis. The carbonate minerals induced by B. licheniformis bacteria in the liquid culture medium with 3% NaCl and Mg/Ca molar ratio of 0, 6, 8, 10 and 12 were investigated. The culture medium was inoculated with the bacterial liquid seed was set as the experimental group and the other culture medium was inoculated with the same volume of distilled water was set as the control group. The mineral phases, micromorphologies, and crystal structures were analyzed using X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive X-ray detector, high resolution transmission electron microscopy and selected area electron diffraction. The bacterial concentrations and pH values of the solution were measured by a spectrophotometer and a pH meter, respectively. The urease secreted by B. licheniformis SRB2 was found to greatly increase the pH values of the liquid medium, which favored the formation of calcium carbonate.As a result, Mg²⁺ and Ca²⁺ ion concentrations decreased greatly due to the biomineralization of calcium carbonate and nesquehonite minerals in the presence of B. licheniformis SRB2 bacterium. There were only few calcium carbonates and no nesquehonite minerals in the control groups. It was also found that the minerals of nesquehonite induced by B. licheniformis SRB2 had a phenomenon of preferred orientation. What was more, even though Mg²⁺ ions inhibited the precipitation of Ca²⁺ ions, but under the action of B. licheniformis SRB2 bacteria, the inhibition effect was significantly declined. The bio-precipitation of calcium carbonate and nesquehonite minerals may represent a new method of pretreatment for the hardness reduction of hard water. The accomplished study is of certain interest for interpretation of the carbonates biomineralization in natural environment, and maybe also has a certain application value in the former processing of hard water

This work compared the performance of three methods for constructing a regional ensemble prediction system (EPS) for wind speed forecasts: dynamical downscaling, breeding of growth modes (BGM), and blending method. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model was used to downscale the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) EPS. In addition, as the BGM method needs observation data for generating scaling factors, an alternative method for generating scaling factors was proposed to eliminate dependence on observation data. One-month tests between October 1st and October 30th, 2020, were implemented to evaluate the performance of three methods in the Gansu province of China. The results demonstrate that the blending method outperforms the other two methods. Furthermore, the difference in performance is evident mainly in early forecast lead time and becomes negligible as forecast time increases.

Characterization of cancer cells and neural stem cells indicates that tumorigenicity and pluripotency are coupled cell properties determined by neural stemness, and tumorigenesis represents a process of progressive loss of original cell identity and gain of neural stemness. This reminds of a most fundamental process required for the development of the nervous system and body axis during embryogenesis, i.e., embryonic neural induction. Neural induction is that, in response to extracellular signals that are secreted by the Spemann-Mangold organizer in amphibians or the node in mammals and inhibit epidermal fate in ectoderm, the ectodermal cells lose their epidermal fate and assume the neural default fate and consequently, turn into neuroectodermal cells. They further differentiate into the nervous system and also some non-neural cells via interaction with adjacent tissues. Failure in neural induction leads to failure of embryogenesis, and ectopic neural induction due to ectopic organizer or node activity or activation of embryonic neural genes causes a formation of secondary body axis or a conjoined twin. During tumorigenesis, cells progressively lose their original cell identity and gain of neural stemness, and consequently, gain of tumorigenicity and pluripotency, due to various intra-/extracellular insults in cells of a postnatal animal. Tumorigenic cells can be induced to differentiation into normal cells and integrate into normal embryonic development within an embryo. However, they form tumors and cannot integrate into animal tissues/organs in a postnatal animal because of lack of embryonic inducing signals. Combination of studies of developmental and cancer biology indicates that neural induction drives embryogenesis in gastrulating embryos but a similar process drives tumorigenesis in a postnatal animal. Tumorigenicity is the manifestation of aberrant occurrence of pluripotent state in a postnatal animal. Pluripotency and tumorigenicity are both but different manifestations of neural stemness in pre- and postnatal stage, respectively, of animal life. The unique property of neural stemness is derived from the evolutionary advantage of neural genes and the neural-biased state of the last common unicellular ancestors of metazoan. Based on these findings, I discuss about some confusion in cancer research, propose to distinguish the causality and associations and discriminate causal and supporting factors involved in tumorigenesis, and suggest revisiting the focus of cancer research.

High density of buildings and the large traffic volume of cities give rise to narrow spaces and high passenger flows in most subway stations. When evacuation is required during an emergency, these problems may trigger issues in operational safety. Therefore, it is imperative to comprehensively assess subway station emergency evacuation times and capacities during the operating process to ensure the design is safe, science-based, and rational. To further enhance safe evacuation capacity, this paper proposes an overall evacuation time model that considers the multielement charac-teristics of subway stations in multiple segments. The evacuation route is decomposed into five stages according to the critical nodes in the evacuation process. An overall emergency evacuation time model is established based on the diversity of bottlenecks in the five stages, integrating elements such as the horizontal movement velocity of passengers, subway equipment parameters, and human density. Taking Xi’an Wulukou Subway Station as an example, this paper verifies the outcomes of the theoretical model against the Pathfinder software and conducts additional anal-yses of the evacuation conditions of stairs and exits. The results show that the error between the theoretical emergency evacuation time and simulation evacuation time was 5.4%, The emergency evacuation model established in this study boasts strong robustness and stability.

Enveloped viruses represent a significant category of pathogens that cause serious diseases in animals. These viruses express envelope glycoproteins that are singularly important during infection of host cells by mediating fusion between the viral envelope and host cell membranes. Despite low homology at protein levels, three classes of viral fusion proteins have, as of yet, been identified based on structural similarities. Their incorporation into viral particles is dependent upon their proper sub-cellular localization after being expressed and folded properly in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). However, viral protein expression can cause stress in the ER, and host cells respond to alleviate the ER stress in the form of the unfolded protein response (UPR); the effects of which have been observed potentiating or inhibiting viral infection. One important arm of UPR is to elevate the capacity of the ER-associated protein degradation (ERAD) pathway, which is comprised of host quality control machinery that ensures proper protein folding. In this review, we provide relevant details regarding viral envelope glycoproteins, UPR, ERAD, and their interactions in host cells.

Transition-metal-free synthesis of 4-pyrones via TfOH-promoted nucleophilic addition/cyclization of diynones and water has been developed. This transformation is simple, atom economical and environmentally benign, providing rapid and efficient access to substituted 4-pyrones.

We study a two-echelon supply chain made up of a supplier and a manufacturer, both of which can reduce their component/product carbon emissions. With the vertical technology spillovers, we explore the optimal decisions of centralized and decentralized supply chains with price dependent demand and propose coordination strategy for the decentralized supply chain. Considering the cost contraction effectiveness of the technology spillovers, the centralized and decentralized game theoretic models of a two-echelon supply chain are developed to investigate optimal decisions of pricing and carbon emissions reduction. Through a systematic comparison and numerical analysis, we show that the profits of both players and the entire supply chain improve with the effect of technology spillovers increasing. Carbon emissions reduction will be taken by various protective measures so that the supplier and the manufacturer who do not innovate can hardly share the results of innovating via the “free-riding” methods when the technology spillover is relatively small. We also propose a revenue-cost sharing contract through bargaining to enhance the performance of the decentralized supply chain.

In cosmology, the cosmic curvature $K$ and the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ are two most important parameters, whose values have strong influence on the behavior of the universe. By analyzing the energy-momentum tensor and equations of state of ideal gas, scalar, spinor and vector potential in detail, we find that the total mass density of all matter is always positive, and the initial total pressure is negative. Under these conditions, by qualitatively analyzing the global behavior of the dynamical equation of cosmological model, we get the following results: (i) $K= 1$, namely, the global spatial structure of the universe should be a 3-dimensional sphere $S^3$. (ii) $0\le\Lambda < 10 ^ {-24} {\rm ly} ^ {-2}$, the cosmological constant should be zero or an infinitesimal. (iii) $a(t)>0$, the initial singularity of the universe is unreachable, and the evolution of universe should be cyclic in time. This means that the initial Big Bang is impossible at all. Since the matter components considered are quite complete and the proof is very elementary and strict, these logical conclusions should be quite reliable. Obviously, these conclusions will be much helpful to correct some popular misconceptions and bring great convenience to further research other problems in cosmology such as property of dark matter and dark energy.

The description of the microscopic world in quantum mechanics is very different from that in classical physics, and there are some points of view that are contrary to intuition and logic. The first is the loss of reality, the behavior of micro particles shows randomness and hopping. The second is the loss of certainty, the conjugate physical variables of a system cannot be determined synchronously, they satisfy the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The third is the non-local correlation. The measurement of one particle in the quantum entanglement pair will change the state of the other entangled particle simultaneously. In this paper, some concepts related to quantum entanglement, such as EPR correlation, quantum entanglement correlation function, Bell's inequality and so on, are analyzed in detail. Analysis shows that the mystery and confusion in quantum theory may be caused by the logical problems in its basic framework. Bell's inequality is only a mathematical theorem, but its physical meaning is actually unclear. The Bell state of quantum entangled pair may not satisfy the dynamic equation of quantum theory, so it cannot describe the true state of microscopic particles. In this paper, the correct correlation functions of spin entanglement pair and photonic entanglement pair are strictly derived according to normal logic. Quantum theory is a more fundamental theory than classical mechanics, and they are not parallel relation in logic. However, there are still some unreasonable contents in the framework of quantum theory, which need to be improved. In order to disclose the real relationship between quantum theory and classical mechanics, we propose some experiments which show the wave-particle duality simultaneously and provide intuitionistic teaching materials for the new interpretation of quantum theory.

The radar sensor described realizes healthcare monitoring capable of detecting subject chest-wall movement caused by cardiopulmonary activities, and wirelessly estimating the respiration and heartbeat rates of the subject without attaching any devices to the body. Conventional single-tone Doppler radar can only capture Doppler signatures because of a lack of bandwidth information with noncontact sensors. In contrast, we take full advantage of impulse radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) radar to achieve low power consumption and convenient portability, with a flexible detection range and desirable accuracy. A noise reduction method based on improved ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and a vital sign separation method based on the continuous-wavelet transform (CWT) are proposed jointly to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in order to acquire accurate respiration and heartbeat rates. Experimental results illustrate that respiration and heartbeat signals can be extracted accurately under different conditions. This noncontact healthcare sensor system proves the commercial feasibility and considerable accessibility of using compact IR-UWB radar for emerging biomedical applications.

Tumorigenesis is a complex biological phenomenon that includes extensive genetic and phenotypic heterogeneities and complicated regulatory mechanisms. In the recent few years, our studies demonstrate that tumor-initiating cells are similar to neural stem/progenitor cells in regulatory networks, tumorigenicity and pluripotent differentiation potential. In the review, I will make further discussion on these observations and propose a rule of cell biology by integrating these findings with evidence from developmental biology, tumor biology and evolution, which suggests that neural stemness underlies two coupled cell properties, tumorigenicity and pluripotent differentiation potential. Tumorigenicity and phenotypic heterogeneity in tumor is a result of acquirement of neural stemness in cells. The neural stemness property of tumor-initiating cells can hopefully integrate different concepts/hypotheses underlying tumorigenesis. Neural stem cells/neural progenitors and tumor-initiating cells share regulatory networks; both exhibit neural stemness, tumorigenicity and differentiation potential; both are dependent on expression or activation of ancestral genes (the atavistic effect); both rely primarily on aerobic glycolytic metabolism; both can differentiate into various cells or tissues that are derived from three germ layers, resembling severely disorganized or more severely degenerated process of embryonic development; both are enriched in long genes with more splice variants that provide more plastic scaffolds for cell differentiation, etc. The property of neural stemness might be a key point to understand tumorigenesis and pluripotent differentiation potential, and possibly explain certain pathological observations in tumors that have been inexplicable. Therefore, behind the complexity of tumorigenesis might be a general rule of cell biology, i.e., neural stemness represents the ground state of cell tumorigenicity and pluripotent differentiation potential.

The research of object classification and part segmentation is a hot topic in computer vision. A considerable number of studies have been carried out about deep learning on 3D point clouds. However,it is challenging to achieve effective feature learning due to sparsity of point clouds. Recently, a variety of Transformers have been adopted to improve point cloud processing and display great potential. Nevertheless, large numbers of Transformer layers tend to incur huge computational and memory costs. PointNet++ is one of the most influential neural architectures for point cloud understanding. Although the accuracy of PointNet++ has been largely surpassed by recent networks, this does not mean that PointNet++ has no potential.Thus, this paper offer two major contributions that significantly improve PointNet++ performance. Firstly, we introduce a novel contextual feature extraction (CFE) block that significantly enhances the feature extraction capabilities of PointNet++ networks. Secondly, to further enhance feature fusion, we seamlessly integrate a mutual learning (ML) block into the network architecture. By embedding these two innovative blocks within each layer of the network, we not only enrich the network's functionality but also impart it with greater robustness and adaptability. The specific experiments were conducted on the S3DIS (6-fold cross-validation) and Modelnet40 datasets with 86.5% and 92.7% accuracy, respectively, which proved that our model is comparable or even better than most existing methods for classification and segmentation tasks.

The magnetic field of the earth plays an important role in the ecosystem, and the magnetic field of celestial bodies is also important in the formation of cosmic large-scale structures, but the origin and evolution of the celestial magnetic field is still an unresolved mystery. Many hypotheses to explain the origin have been proposed, but there are some insurmountable difficulties for each one. At present, the theory widely accepted in scientific society is the dynamo model, it says that, the movement of magnetofluid inside celestial bodies, which can overcome the Ohmic dissipative effect and generate persistent weak electric current and macroscopic magnetic field. However, this model needs an initial seed magnetic field, and the true values of many physical parameters inside the celestial body are difficult to obtain, and there is no stable solution to the large range of fluid motion. These are all difficulties for the dynamo model. Furthermore, it is difficult for the dynamo to explain the correlation between the dipole magnetic field and angular momentum of a celestial body. In this paper, by calculating the interaction between spin of particles and gravity of celestial body according to Clifford algebra, we find that a rotational celestial body provides a field $\Omega^\alpha$ for spins, which is similar to the magnetic field of a dipole, and the spins of charged particles within the celestial body are arranged along the flux line of $\Omega^\alpha$, then a macroscopic magnetic field is induced. The calculation shows that the strength of $\Omega^\alpha$ is proportional to the angular momentum of the celestial body, which explains the correlation between the magnetic intensity and angular momentum. The results of this paper suggest that further study of the effects of internal variables such as density, velocity, pressure and temperature of a celestial body on $\Omega^\alpha$ may provide some new insights into the origin and evolution of celestial magnetic field.

Abstract: Droughts are complex and gradually evolving conditions of extreme water deficits which can compromise livelihoods and ecological integrity, especially in fragile arid and semi-arid regions that depend on rainfed farming, such as Kitui West in south-eastern Kenya. Against the background of low ground-station density, 10 gridded rainfall products and four gridded temperature products were used to generate an ensemble of 40 calculations of the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) to assess uncertainties in the onset, duration and magnitude of past droughts. These uncertainties were driven more by variations between the rainfall products than variations between the temperature products. Remaining ambiguities in drought occurrence could be resolved by complementing the quantitative analysis with ground-based information from key informants engaged in disaster relief, effectively formulating an ensemble approach to SPEI-based drought identification to aid decision making. The reported trend towards drier conditions in Eastern Africa was confirmed for Kitui West by the majority of data products, whereas the rainfall effect on the increasingly dry conditions was more subtle than annual and seasonal declines and greater annual variation, which warrants further investigation. Nevertheless, the effects of increasing droughts are already felt on the ground and warrant decisive action.

Three dimension (3D) Multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) scheme, which exploits another dimension of the spatial resource, is one of the enabling technologies for the next generation mobile communication. As the elevation angle in 3D-MIMO channel model might varies against the height of the base station transmit antenna, it has to be taken into account carefully. In this paper, the impact of antenna height on the channel characteristics of 3D MIMO channel is investigated by using the intelligent ray launching algorithm (IRLA). Three typical street scenarios, i.e., the straight street, the fork road and the cross road, are selected as benchmarks. On the basis of simulations, joint and marginal probability density functions (PDFs) of both the elevation angle of departure (EAoD) and the elevation angle of arrival (EAoA) are obtained. The elevation angle spread (AS) and the delay spread (DS) under various antenna heights are also discussed. Simulation results indicate that the PDFs of EAoD and EAoA vary characteristics under different street scenarios. Moreover, the minimum value of the DS can be achieved when the antenna height is half of the building height.

Earth observation satellites can capture images of specific areas in Earth's orbit based on user requirements. Despite the high demand for satellite imagery, satellites remain a scarce resource. When there are many observation tasks that are large and dense, they may interfere with each other due to satellite mobility. To address this issue, a multi-satellite scheduling algorithm based on a task merging mechanism has been proposed. This paper proposes a two-stage approach to the problem: task merging phase and merging task scheduling phase. The task merging phase introduces two methods based on Mean Shift and Complete Graph to generate the merging task set. In the merging task scheduling phase, a multi-satellite scheduling algorithm based on merging tasks is employed to solve the problem. Finally, certain measurement experiments suggest the effectiveness of the algorithm.

Biological neural network (BNN) is the core brain for creature to accomplish its intelligent behaviors through unique network structure and mechanisms. It also inspires controlling human-designed autonomous agents including robots to generate more advanced intelligent behaviors by mimicking the neural control mechanism of creatures at a deeper and more interactive level. Here, we constructed a whole-brain neural network model of Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), which characterizes the electrochemical processes at the level of cellular synapse. The neural network simulation integrates computational programming and visualization of neurons and synapse connections of C. elegans, containing the specific controllable circuits summarization with their dynamic characteristics within the whole network. To illustrate its particular intelligent control capability in terms of robotics, we introduce the first innovative methodology for applying the BNN model to a 12-legged robot’s movement control based on the established numerical simulation platforms. We accomplished and designed two methods and corresponding encoding processes, one involving orientation control and the other involving locomotion generation, to demonstrate the intelligent control performance of BNN. Both simulation and experiment results indicate that the robot exhibits stronger autonomy and more intelligent moving performance under the control of BNN. We then summarized the contributions for digitalizing the C. elegans’ whole-brain neural network in real-time and utilizing it to control robot in a closed loop to validate its advanced intelligence control ability in terms of a scientific robot.

Traditional methods of non-metallic materials joining for industrial uses are limited to lasers, or induction or conduction heating. The precision and efficiency for large-scale applications are difficult to be achieved at the same time. Here in this paper, we report a precise microwave welding method induced by localized surface plasmon of metallic macro-gaps under microwave excitation. The proposed method utilizes energy from well-developed commercial microwaver, and benefits from the precision of localized surface plasmon, an oscillating electron cloud excited by electromagnetic waves, which is currently under hot investigation only at micro- or nano-scales. The method is applied to the welding of polymers to solve the problems of complex processing equipment and high processing energy consumption in the traditional welding process, so as to cope with the growing energy and environmental crisis. Finite element numerical simulations are used to study the distribution characteristics of electric fields and temperature fields. The results show that the process is a high quality, efficient, low consumption and environmentally friendly green process compared to traditional polymer welding methods.

Breeding early-maturing cultivars is one of the most important objectives for pear breeding. Very early-maturing pear provides an excellent parental material for crossing, while the immature embryo and low seed germination of its hybrid progenies often limit the selection and breeding of new early-maturing pear cultivars. In this study, we choose a very early maturing pear cultivar ‘Pearl Pear’ as study object, and investigate the effects of cold stratification, culture medium and seed coat on the germination and growth of early maturing pear seeds. Our results show that cold stratification (4℃) treatment could significantly improve the germination rates of early maturing pear seeds. A 100 days of low temperature pre-treatment and germination on White medium could increase the germination rate up to 84.54%. We also observe that seed coat removal could improve the germination activity of early maturing pear seeds, and middle seed coat removal (MSR) represents an optimal method with its high germination rate and low contamination. The results of our study established an improved protocol for seed germination of early-maturing pear seeds, which will greatly facilitate the breeding of new very early-maturing pear cultivars.

Music therapy has served as complementary and alternative medicine for various neurological disorders. Five Phases Music Therapy (FPMT) employs the theory of five phases and five music scales or tones (宫Gong (do), 商Shang (ri), 角Jue (mi), 徵Zhi (so) and 羽Yu (la)) to analyze and treat mind-body illness. In Chinese Medicine (CM), the five music scales are used to connect the human body and the universe, interpret personalities and constitution and analyze the influences of climatic changes on health. FPMT has a self-contained theory and routine of practice application. Large amounts of clinical and fundamental reports have been available and clinical benefits have been obtained. However more systemic clinic research esp. evidence-based and random controlled trials must be performed to validate and optimize its routines and biological and neurological mechanism must be further explored. It’s reasonable to believe that the effective music therapy will attract more attention from the world outside China with the introduction of FPMT.

Laminopathies are a spectrum of diseases caused by LMNA mutations. In familial partial lipodystrophy of Dunnigan (FPLD), LMNA plays role in the differentiation and development of adipocytes and lipid metabolism. Changes in LMNA predict not only the differentiation of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (AD-MSCs) but also the transformation of cancer cells. Hence, our in-depth study aimed to identify the molecular connection between disordered lipid metabolism and hepatic carcinogenesis. We first discovered significant positive correlations between pLMNA and two key rate-limiting enzymes in de novo fatty acid synthesis, acetyl-CoA-carboxylase 1 (ACC1) and fatty acid synthase (FASN), in the liver tissue but not in adipose tissue of obese model rats. Moreover, LMNA knockdown (KD) in rat AD-MSCs prevented the differentiation and maturation of adipocytes. To clarify the mechanistic relationship with lipogenesis, gain- and loss-of-function experiments in which functional changes and the related molecular pathways were investigated in a normal hepatocyte line (7701 cells). Adenosine 5'-monophosphate activated protein kinase α (AMPKα) was found to be activated by abnormalities in the LMNA structure under conditions of LMNA deletion, farnesyltransferase inhibitor (FTI) treatment and LMNA mutations associated with clinical FPLD pathogenic phenotype. Active AMPKα could directly phosphorylate ACC1 and thus inhibit lipid synthesis but induced glycolysis in both HCC cells and normal cells. The HCC cells could not survive with LMNA knockout (KO) or even KD. Lonafarnib (an FTI) combined with low-glucose conditions significantly decreased the proliferation of HepG2 and MHCC cells by inhibiting glycolysis and the maturation of prelamin A.

This paper analyzes and compares models for predicting average magnet losses in interior permanent-magnet motors with fractional-slot concentrated windings due to harmonics in the armature reaction (assuming sinusoidal phase currents). Particularly, loss models adopting different formulations and solutions to the Helmholtz equation to solve for the eddy currents are compared to a simpler model relying on an assumed eddy-current distribution. Boundaries in terms of magnet dimensions and angular frequency are identified (numerically and using an identified approximate analytical expression) to aid the machine designer whether the more simple loss model is applicable or not. The assumption of a uniform flux-density variation (used in the loss models) is also investigated for the case of V-shaped and straight interior permanent magnets. Finally, predicted volumetric loss densities are exemplified for combinations of slot and pole numbers common in automotive applications.

Brassica yellows virus (BrYV) is a tentative species of the genus Polerovirus, which occurs widely and mostly damage Brassicaceae plants in East Asia. Since BrYV could not be transmitted mechanically, an insect transmission method is required for further virus research. Here, a reliable and unrestricted method was described, in which non-viruliferous aphids (Myzus persicae) acquired BrYV from transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants with virus full length genome germinated from seeds and frozen infected leaves were used to transmit the virus to healthy plants, and there was no significant difference in acquisition rate though transmission rate from frozen infected leaves was somehow lower compared to fresh infected leaves. This novel simple method could be applied to preservation of virus inocula, evaluation of variety resistance to BrYV, biological research on interaction among BrYV, aphid and host, which also provide a new idea on establishing a basic method using virus genomic transgenic plants or frozen infected leaves for other poleroviruses research.

Objective: Rett syndrome (RTT) is an X-linked neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in MeCP2, a transcription factor. MeCP2 mutations cause abnormal expression of downstream genes and eventually lead to brain dysfunction. The role of MeCP2 in brain neural development remains unclear. To further elucidate this role, a MeCP2-null rat model was created with the CRISPR/cas9 system. Method: A MeCP2-cas9 vector was constructed and then microinjected into fertilized rat ova in vitro. Two mutations by CRISPR/cas9 were confirmed to cause deletions in exon 2 of MeCP2 via DNA sequencing, and protein expression was measured by Western blotting. Transcriptome data for three brain tissues, the cerebellum, cerebral cortex and hippocampus, were obtained via next-generation sequencing. Results: MeCP2-null rats were successfully obtained, and preliminary analysis showed that the MeCP2-null rats exhibited motor dysfunction and anxious and depressed behaviour. In addition, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in the three MeCP2-null brain tissues compared to wild-type rat brain tissues. In the rat cerebellum, 388 downregulated DEGs were mainly involved in the calcium ion signalling pathway and the PI3K-Akt signalling pathway. In the cerebral cortex, 386 upregulated DEGs were primarily involved in intracellular signal transduction, protein phosphorylation and the MAPK signalling pathway. In the hippocampus, the DEGs were related to the MAPK signalling pathway. Conclusion: We constructed a MeCP2-null rat model with unique features with CRISPR/cas9 technology to study RTT and analysed DEGs in three rat brain tissues to highlight potential targets for the development of new medicines.

This proposal describes the design and development of an interoperable application that supports green open access with long-term sustainability and improved user experience of article deposit. Introduction: The lack of library resources and unfriendly repository user interface are two significant barriers that hinder green open access. Tasked to implement the open access mandate, librarians at an American research university developed a comprehensive system called Easy Deposit 2 to automate the support workflow of green open access. Implementation: Easy Deposit 2 is a web application that is able to harvest newly publications, outreach for manuscript on behalf of the library, and facilitate self-archiving to IR. It is developed and maintained by the library and integrated with the IR. Results and Discussion: The article deposit rate is about 25% with Easy Deposit 2, which increases significantly comparing to the previous period. It also serves as a local database for faculty publications with open access status. The lesson learned is that library cannot rely on a single commercial provider for publication data due to mismatched priorities. Conclusion: Recent IT developments provides new opportunities of innovation like Easy Deposit 2 in supporting open access. Academic librarians are vital in promoting "openness" in scholarly communication such as transparency and diversity in the sharing of publication data.

This study aims to identify factors associated with anxiety levels of adults living in Singapore before the pandemic and during the COVID-19 outbreak. Data were collected using a cross-sectional web-based survey conducted from July to November 2020 accruing 264 eligible participants. Ordered logistic regression was used to assess Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), ranked as minimal (0-4), mild (5-9), moderate (10-14), and severe (15-21) before the pandemic and during the pandemic. About 74% of participants were female, 50% were aged 25-34, and 50% were married. The GAD-7 level went up from pre-pandemic for both moderate (from 12.5% to 16%) and severe GAD (from 2% to 11%). Alcohol consumption (AOR 1.79, 95% CI 1.04-3.06), loneliness (AOR 1.28, 95% CI 1.05-1.54), and difficulty in switching off social media (AOR 2.21, 95% CI 1.29-3.79) predicted increased GAD-7 levels. The quality of life (AOR 0.84, 95% CI 0.79-0.90) was significantly associated with decreased GAD-7 levels. The results heighten the awareness that early initiation of mental health support is crucial for the population in addition to the various financial support measures provided by the government as they are adapting to live with the COVID-19 pandemic.

As matrix representations of magic labelings of related hypergraphs, magic squares and their various variants have been applied to many domains. Among various subclasses, trimagic squares have been investigated for over a hundred years. The existence problem for trimagic squares with singly even orders and orders 16n has been solved completely. However, very little is known for the existence of trimagic squares with other even orders except for the only three examples and three families. We construct normal trimagic squares by using product constructions, row-square magic rectangles, and trimagic pairs of orthogonal diagonal Latin squares. We give a new product construction: For positive integers p, q, and r having the same parity other than 1, 2, 3, 6, if normal p × q and r × q row-square magic rectangles exist, then a normal trimagic square with order pqr exists. As its application, we construct normal trimagic squares of orders 8q^3 and 8pqr for all odd integers q not less than 7 and p,r ∈ {7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37}. Our construction can easily be extended to construct multimagic squares.

In fuzzy decision problems, the ordering of fuzzy numbers is the basic problem. Among which, the fuzzy preference relation is the reasonable one to represent preference relation by a fuzzy membership function. This paper studies the Nakamura’s and Kołodziejczyk’s preference relations. Eight cases of representing different level of overlapping between two triangular fuzzy numbers are considered. We analyze the ranking behaviors of all possible combinations of decomposition and intersection of two fuzzy numbers for the Nakamura’s and Kołodziejczyk’s preference relations of these test cases. The results indicate that the decomposition and intersection can affect the fuzzy preference relations, thereby the final total order relation of fuzzy numbers.

The treatment of large-area bone defects remains a challenge; however, various strategies have been developed to improve the performances of scaffolds in bone tissue engineering. In this study, poly(lactide-co-glycolide)/hydroxyapatite (PLGA/HA) scaffold was coated with Asp-Gly-Glu-Ala (DGEA)-incorporated collagen for the repair of rat skull defect. Our results indicated that the mechanical strength and hydrophilicity of PLGA/HA scaffold were clearly improved and conducive to cell adhesion and proliferation. The collagen-coated scaffold with DGEA significantly promoted the repair of skull defect. These findings indicated that a combination of collagen coating and DGEA improved scaffold properties for bone regeneration, thereby providing a new potential strategy for scaffold design.

It is proved that there exist two odd prime numbers, p_i and p_j , such that p_i + p_j = 2r + 2(r ⩾ 2), where p_n denote the n-th odd prime number, 1 ⩽ i, j ⩽ n. By the theory of generating functions, we prove that there exist two positive integers, h_i and h_j , such that h_i + h_j = r(r ⩾ 2), where h_n = (p_n − 1)/2，(p_n ⩾ 3).Then we complete the proof.

Natural vegetation restoration has become an effective and rapid way for eco-logical restoration in fragile areas. However, the response of soil microorgan-isms remains unclear. Using high-throughput sequencing methods, we evalu-ated the dynamics of soil bacterial and fungal communities during forest suc-cession (shrubland, secondary forest, and primary forest) in the karst region of Southwest China. Secondary forest had significantly higher bacterial α-diversity than the shrubland and primary forest. Soil bacterial community in the primary forest was close to the shrubland but diverged from the secondary forest, and that the fungal community could be discriminated along forest suc-cession. Also, the microbial co-occurrence network indicated that soil fungi had less but more intense relationships than bacteria in the karst forests. Further-more, soil properties (pH, SOC, TN, moisture, and AK), soil microbial biomass (MBP, and MBN), and plant factors (Shannon index of woody plants) drove the dynamics of the soil bacterial community, while soil properties (i.e., pH) mostly explained the variation of the soil fungal community along karst forest succession. Different responses of soil bacteria and fungi to forest succession in a karst region give hints for ecological restoration along forest succession in the karst region.

We tested selecting data randomly or proportionally in class imbalanced sample. Collecting data into the training and test set according to the initial ratio of QSOs, galaxies and stars were rec-ommended. We experimented using the original imbalanced data or introducing the class balance technologies: SMOTE, SMOTEENN, SMOTETomek, ADASYN, BorderlineSMOTE1, Border-lineSMOTE2, and RandomUndersampling. The SMOTEENN performed the best in the Sample 1. The LightGBM, CatBoost, XGBoost, and RF were compared when adopting the SMOTEENN using the petroMag_u, petroMag_g, petroMag_r, petroMag_i, petroMag_z, J, H, Ks, W1, W2, W3, W4 magnitudes as features. All of the precisions or recalls exceeded 0.94. The RF cost a little more time than the other three algorithms, but resulted in the best evaluating indicators. Utilizing the SMOTEENN +RF technology, the precision, recall and f1-score for QSOs (galaxies, stars) could achieve 0.98 (0.99, 0.98), 0.99 (0.96, 1.00), 0.98 (0.97, 0.99) respectively in Sample 1. Utilizing the SMOTEENN +RF technology, the precision, recall and f1-score for QSOs (galaxies, stars) could achieve 0.94 (0.96, 0.96), 0.98 (0.90, 0.97), 0.96 (0.93, 0.97) using the petroMag_u, petroMag_g, petroMag_r, petroMag_i, petroMag_z, W1, W2, W3, W4 magnitudes as features.

Positioning based on wireless signals such as mobile communication networks has become an important means to provide high-precision location services in environments where satellite signals are blocked. In complex environments such as indoor and underground, wireless signal propagation is obstructed and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) phenomena appears due to serious occlusion and reflection. The time delay caused by NLOS effects has little impact on communication system but can significantly increase positioning errors in positioning systems. Therefore, effective suppression of NLOS errors is crucial to improving 5G positioning accuracy. To address the insufficient feature extraction of existing NLOS error suppression methods, the neglect of residual NLOS measurement errors, and poor stability of position estimation results, this paper innovatively proposes a NLOS mitigation and location estimation method for 5G positioning terminals. Simulation and experimental test results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the comparative methods both theoretically and practically, achieving an average positioning accuracy of 1.85 meters in complex indoor NLOS environments. The method proposed in this paper provides a new strategy for NLOS error suppression in indoor 5G positioning, which can significantly contribute to high-precision location services based on commercial 5G networks.

This study presents a vibration control using actively tunable vibration absorbers (ATVA) to suppress vibration of a thin plate. The ATVA’s is made of a sandwich hollow structure embedded with the electrorheological fluid (ERF). ERF is considered to be one of the most important smart fluids and it is suitable to be embedded in a smart structure due to its controllable viscosity property. ERF’s apparent viscosity can be controlled in response to the electric field and the change is reversible in 10 microseconds. Therefore, the physical properties of the ERF-embedded smart structure, such as the stiffness and damping coefficients, can be changed in response to the applied electric field. A mathematical model is difficult to be obtained to describe the exact characteristics of the ERF embedded ATVA because of the nonlinearity of ERF’s viscosity. Therefore, a fuzzy modeling and experimental validations of ERF-based ATVA from stationary random vibrations of thin plates are presented in this study. Because Type-2 fuzzy sets generalize Type-1 fuzzy sets so that more modelling uncertainties can be handled, a semi-active vibration controller is proposed based on Type-2 fuzzy sets. To investigate the different performances by using different types of fuzzy controllers, the experimental measurements employing type-1 fuzzy and interval type-2 fuzzy controllers are implemented by the Compact RIO embedded system. The fuzzy modeling framework and solution methods presented in this work can be used for design, performance analysis, and optimization of ATVA from stationary random vibration of thin plates.

Copper-based nanoparticles were synthesized using the glycine–nitrate process (GNP) by using copper nitrate trihydrate [Cu(NO₃)₂‧3H₂O] as the main starting material and glycine [C₂H₅NO₂] as the complexing and incendiary agent. The as-prepared powders were characterized through X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. Using Cu(NO₃)₂.3H₂O as the oxidizer (N) and glycine as fuel (G), we obtained CuO, mixed-valence copper oxides (CuO + Cu₂O, G/N = 0.3–0.5), and metallic Cu (G/N = 0.7). The XRD and BET results indicated that increasing the glycine concentration (G/N = 0.7) and reducing particle surface area increased the yield of metallic Cu. The effects of varying reaction parameters such as catalyst activity, catalyst dose, and H₂O₂ concentration on nonylphenol-9-polyethoxylate (NP9EO) degradation were assessed. With a copper‐based catalyst in a heterogeneous system, the NP9EO and total organic carbon removal efficiencies were 83.1% and 70.6%, respectively, under optimum operating conditions (pH, 6.0; catalyst dose, 0.3 g/L; H₂O₂ concentration, 0.05 mM). The results suggested that removal efficiency increased with an increase in H₂O₂ concentration but decreased when the H₂O₂ concentration exceeded 0.0.5 mM. Furthermore, the trend of photocatalytic activity was as follows: G/N = 0.5 > G/N = 0.7 > G/N = 0.3. The G/N = 0.5 catalysts showed the highest photocatalytic activity and resulted in 94.6% NP9EO degradation in 600 min.

Achieving the dual development of rural revitalization and urbanization is an important strategic goal of China’s current modernization. Rural population and settlements are the main components of the countryside in traditional agricultural areas, and play an important role in the development of the countryside itself in terms of urban and rural land use and in the formation of urban and rural development patterns. This study analyzes the spatial and temporal changes in rural populations and settlements at the township level, as well as the degree and type of coupled development. A framework for urban–rural development relationships based on different types of coupled development is proposed, and a model of urban–rural forces is constructed to derive the spatial pattern of urban–rural development at the township level that may be formed in the future. Our study shows that the rural population and settlements in the study area are characterized by significant spatial and temporal dynamics, indicating that traditional rural areas are in a process of rapid development and change. The results of the township-level coupling measurements present four types of development in terms of the spatial pattern of urban–rural development: A-type is most likely to produce new cities or satellite towns in the Jixi–Harbin–Qiqihar area in the future; B-type is the fastest dying area in the future, located in the Harbin and Qitaihe clusters, with a tendency to merge into Harbin; C-type is the area to be focused on in the future to attract population and strictly control the growth of the rural settlement area to avoid it turning into B-type; D-type may develop regional township centers in the future in the combined area of Jiamusi City, Suihua City and Mudanjiang City. The results of the study provide experience in realizing rural revitalization according to local conditions. The new spatial pattern of urban–rural development provides an important reference for formulating land use policies, optimizing urban–rural land allocation and realizing integrated urban–rural development strategies.

Along with the rapid development and wide application of Artificial Intelligence (AI), discussions regarding AI Sustainability have emerged. Employing a systematic mapping study, this paper reviews research about AI Sustainability from diverse fields and viewpoints, including three dimensions economic, social, and environmental. Our analysis indicates a transformative shift in research focus, evolving from fragmented approaches to a more holistic understanding of AI Sustainability. This maturation is reflected in the interplay between multiple dimensions and the integration of both "AI as a tool for sustainability" and "Sustainability of AI" perspectives. As the field continues to mature, researchers should embrace a comprehensive and unbiased exploration of AI Sustainability across all dimensions and approaches, ensuring a well-rounded foundation for future advancements in this rapidly evolving domain.

Reliable methods to confirm the diagnosis of COVID-19 are essential to the successful management and containment of the virus. Current diagnostic options are limited in type, supply, and reliability. This article explores the controversial unreliability of existing diagnostic methods and maintains that more reliable diagnostic methods, combinations, and sequencing are necessary to effectively assist in reducing the occurrence of discharge of the patient on false negative test results. This reduction would in effect reduce transmission of the disease.

Cotton fiber development transition from elongation to secondary cell wall biosynthesis is a critical growth shifting phase that affects cotton fiber final length, strength and other properties. Morphological dynamic analysis indicates that an asynchronous fiber developmental pattern between two cotton species. The critical time point for Gh and Gb fiber elongation termination is, respectively, 23 and 27 days post-anthesis (dpa). The temporal changes of protein expression at three representative development periods (15–19, 19–23, 23–27 dpa) were examined in both species with iTRAQ technics. Strikingly, a large proportion of differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) was identified at 19–23 dpa in Gh or at 23–27 dpa in Gb, corresponding to their fiber developmental transition timing from elongation to secondary cell wall biosynthesis. To better understand fibers transitional development, we comparatively analyzed those DEPs in 19–23 dpa of Gh vs. in 23–27 dpa of Gb, and noted that these cotton species indeed share fundamentally similar fiber development features under the biological processes. It also showed that there have limited overlaps in both specific upregulated and downregulated proteins between the two species, suggesting specie-specific protein regulations in development. Proteomic profiling revealed dynamic changes of several key proteins and biological processes that potentially correlate with fiber development transition. During the transition, upregulated proteins mainly involved in carbohydrate/energy metabolism, oxidation-reduction, cytoskeleton, protein turnover, Ca²⁺ signaling etc, whereas important downregulated proteins mostly concentrated in phenylpropanoid and flavonoid secondary metabolism pathways. Several changed proteins in this key stage were also validated by qRT-PCR. Overall, the present study provides accurate pictures of the regulatory networks of functional proteins during the fiber developmental transition.

Early weaning of piglets caused excessive concentration of free radicals, which would oxidize and damage the intestinal tract of piglets, resulting in dyspepsia, low growth, diarrhea, microbiota disorders and intestinal infections. This research studied on effect of different levels of taurine in diets on intestinal oxidative damage in early weaned piglets. A total of 48 weaned piglets (6.71 ± 0.73 kg) of 28-day-old crossbred "Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire" were assigned to 4 groups with 12 replicates per group and 1 pig per replicate: piglets were fed a basal diet with 0.0% (CON), 0.2% taurine (L-Tau), 0.3% taurine (M-Tau), or 0.4% taurine (H-Tau). The animal experiment lasted for 30 days. With the increase of dietary taurine dosage, the activity of antioxidant enzymes including superoxide dismutase（SOD）,glutathione peroxidase（GPX）,catalase（CAT） and peroxidase（POD） were up-regulated (Linear, P &lt; 0.05), the mRNA abundance of antioxidant enzymes including SOD1, SOD2, GPX1 and heme oxygenase-1（HO-1）were up-regulated (P &lt; 0.05), glutathione (GSH) concentrations was up-regulated (Linear, P &lt; 0.05) , nitric oxide (NO), malondialdehyde (MDA) and oxidized glutathione (GSSG) concentrations were down-regulated (Linear, P &lt; 0.05);The villus height (VH) and villus height/ crypt depth (VH/CD) of jejunum and ileum were increased (Linear, P &lt; 0.05); The expression of tight junction proteins including zonula occludens protein 1(ZO-1), occludin (OCLN) and closure protein 1(CLDN-1) in the jejunum mucosa were up-regulated (Linear, P &lt; 0.05), the mRNA abundance of ZO-1, OCLN and CLDN-1 were up-regulated (P &lt; 0.05),and the D-lactose (D-LA) content in blood was down-regulated (Linear, P &lt; 0.05); the colonization abundance of Firmicutes was increased (Linear, P &lt; 0.05), while Proteobacteria and Spirochaetota was decreased (Linear, P &lt; 0.05); The diarrhea index decreased (Linear, P &lt; 0.05), while the feed conversion rate increased (Linear, P &lt; 0.05). Collectively, supplementation of 0.3% and 0.4% taurine in feed can significantly alleviate intestinal oxidative damage by enhancing antioxidant capacity of piglets, and improve feed utilization of piglets after repairing intestinal damage.

The composition and pattern of ecosystems are important factors determining the overall status and spatial differences of ecosystem service functions. However, under the background of differential land policies and ecological protection policies, research on the trend of ecological system pattern changes in the Fenhe River Basin is insufficient. Taking the upper and middle reaches of the Fenhe River Basin as the study area, based on long-term NDVI index and multi-period LUCC remote sensing images, this study used spatial statistics and time trend analysis methods to analyze the spatio-temporal dynamic changes of vegetation, land use, landscape pattern, and explored the impact of major driving factors on ecosystem changes. The results show that: (1) From 2010 to 2020, the vegetation cover in the upper and middle reaches of the Fenhe River Basin increased, with an annual NDVI increment of 0.003 (P<0.001). NDVI showed an increasing trend spatially, with significant statistics (P<0.001) and significant changes (P<0.05) in vegetation in high-altitude mountain areas, and the vegetation cover was mostly forests or grasslands. There was no significant change in vegetation cover in the low-lying urban agglomeration area. (2) From 2010 to 2020, the area of water bodies or wetlands in the study area significantly decreased, with 51.3% converted to arable land and 33.9% transferred to construction land, while only 2.2% remained as water bodies or wetlands. From 2015 to 2020, the trend of water body changes slowed down, with the proportions of conversion to arable land and construction land being 44.0% and 18.4% respectively, while the area of wetlands or water bodies remained at 16.3%. During the period of 2015-2020, the area of water bodies or wetlands converted to other land types increased by more than 14% compared to 2010-2015. This proportion reached more than 30% compared to the 13th Five-year Plan Period. (3) From 2010 to 2020, the spatial changes of landscape diversity (SHDI) and evenness (SHEI) of LUCC showed heterogeneous characteristics. In the high-altitude areas near the river basin boundary, the values of SHDI and SHEI were below 1.0. While in the low-altitude plain areas and urban areas with relatively frequent human activities, the values of SHDI and SHEI were above 1.0, and the values in urban areas could reach above 1.5. The evolution of ecosystem patterns in the upper and middle reaches of the Fenhe River Basin in the past decade has been clarified, providing a scientific basis for the construction and management of ecological environment governance and restoration projects in the Fenhe River Basin, and providing practical references for ecological protection and high-quality development practice in the Yellow River Basin.

The genetic diversity of coronavirus (CoV) is high, and its infection in animals has not yet been fully revealed. By RT-PCR detection of partial RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) gene of CoV, we screened a total of 502 small mammals belonging to 18 species in 12 genera and 4 orders collected in Dali and Nujiang Prefecture of Western Yunnan Province, China. The prevalence of β-CoV in Chevrieri's field mouse (Apodemus chevrieri) and Lancangjiang field mouse (A. ilex) were 3.54% (4/113) and 6.67% (6/90), respectively; the prevalence of α-CoV in White-footed Indochinese rat (Rattus nitidus) and long-tailed red-toothed shrew (Episoriculus leucops) was 75% (3/4) and 5.88% (1/17), respectively. The co-infection rates of β-CoV and α-CoV in Kachin red-backed vole (Eothenomys cachinus), Norway rat (R. norvegicus) were 2.22% (2/90), 3.85% (1/26) respectively. The identity of the partial RdRp genes obtained of 13 strains of β-CoV was 83.42%-99.23% at nucleotide level, and it is worth noting that the two strains from Kachin red-backed vole showed highly homology to BOV-36/IND/2015 from Indian bovine and DcCoV-HKU23 from one-humped camel (Camelus dromedarius) in Morocco, the nucleotide similarity between 97.86%-98.33%. Similarly, the identity of the 7 strains of α-CoV among the partial RdRp sequences was 94.00%-99.18% at nucleotide levels. The viral load in different tissues was measured by quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR). The average CoV viral load in small mammalian intestinal tissue was 1.25×106copies/g, differently, the mean CoV viral load in liver, heart, lung, spleen and kidney tissue was from 1.29×103 to 4.02×103copies/g, which revealed that CoV has extensive tropism of intestinal tissue in small mammals (P &lt; 0.0001). This result revealed the genetic diversity, epidemiology, and infective tropism of α-CoV and β-CoV in small mammals from Dali and Nujiang, which deepens the comprehending of the retention and infection of coronavirus in natural hosts.

Many corporations have now revised their value statements to showcase their commitment to sustainable development and green business due to the pressing issues of climate and environmental damage. Despite the importance of value statements that can direct companies to achieve sustainable goals, what kind of values can be perceived as organizational orientations to sustainability remains unknown. This study explores how the general public views the inclusion of sustainable components in value statements from the listed companies in Hong Kong by using Q-sort methodology (n = 30). Analyzing the final sample of 40 value statements extracted from 27 listed companies, we identified three factors related to sustainability, namely, Empowering business process management, Empowering customer-centric excellence, and Empowering sustainable progress. This study provides an additional component to the traditional triple bottom line by suggesting that internal operation of a company is an emerging idea to understand corporate sustainability.

3D Zernike moments based on 3D Zernike polynomials have been successfully applied to the field of voxelized 3D shape retrieval and have attracted more attention in biomedical image processing. As the order of 3D Zernike moments increases, both computational efficiency and numerical accuracy decrease. Due to this phenomenon, a more efficient and stable method for computing high-order 3D Zernike moments was proposed in this study. The proposed recursive formula for computing 3D Zernike radial polynomials combines the recursive calculation of spherical harmonics to develop a voxel-based algorithm for the calculation of 3D Zernike moments. The algorithm was applied to the 3D shape Michelangelo's David with a size of 150×150×150 voxels. As compared to the method without additional acceleration, the proposed method uses a group action of order sixteen orthogonal group and saving unnecessary iterations, the factor of speed-up is 56.783±3.999 when the order of Zernike moments is between 10 and 450. The proposed method also obtained an accurate reconstructed shape with the error rate (normalized mean square error) of 0.00 (4.17×10^-3) when the reconstruction was computed for all moments up to order 450.

After the end of colonial rule in 1997, the Hong Kong education system has been experiencing a policy reform on Senior Secondary Education (NSS) Curriculum commenced in September 2009 aiming to educate students as globalized Hong Kong citizens for the Western. Although previous scholars argued that it is hard to differentiate between domestic values and the Western values in account of curriculum development (Sewpaul, 2007), this study demonstrates an analysis using the dichotomy to investigate how local curriculum, especially in the post-colonial areas, embrace both the Western values and domestic values. Using content analysis on the NSS curriculum guides, this article evaluates the influence of the Western values and Chinese values in the NSS curriculum through investigating: (1) how the Western values and Chinese values was incorporated into the curriculum throughout its development (2) why some values are more significantly highlighted in the curriculum guide. Findings include that more Chinese values are involved in the curriculum documents. This may be because of the upholding of domestic values as a post-colonial city. The Western values which are academically related are greatly incorporated into the local curriculum.

The fractional reduced differential transform method is a finite iterative method based on infinite fractional expansions. The result obtained is the approximation of the real value. There are few reports on the approximate error and the applicable condition. In this paper, according to the fractional expansions, we study the factors related to the approximate errors. Our research shows that the approximate errors relate not only to fractional order but also to time $t$ and increase rapidly with time $t$. This method can only be applied within a certain time range and the time range is relevant to fractional order and fractional expansions. Then, many obtained achievements may be incorrect if the applicable conditions are not satisfied. Some examples presented in this paper verify our analysis.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that multiple intrinsic and extrinsic factors shape the structure and composition of gut microbiota in a host. The disorder of gut microbiota may trigger various host diseases. Here, we collected fecal samples from wild-caught Japanese geckos (Gekko japonicus) and captive conspecifics fed with mealworms (mealworm-fed geckos) and fruit flies (fly-fed geckos), aiming to examine dietary and sexual correlates of gut microbiota. We used the 16S rRNA gene sequencing technology to determine the composition of gut microbiota. The dominant phyla with a mean relative abundance higher than 10% were Verrucomicrobiota, Bacteroidota and Firmicutes. Gut microbial community richness was higher in mealworm-fed geckos than in fly-fed and wild geckos, and community diversity was higher in mealworm-fed geckos than in wild geckos. Neither alpha nor beta diversity of gut microbiota differed among wild, mealworm-fed and fly-fed geckos. The beta rather than alpha diversity of gut microbiota was sex-dependent. Based on the relative abundance of gut bacteria and its gene functions, we concluded that gut microbiota contributed more significantly to the host’s metabolic and immune functions. Higher diversity of gut microbiota in mealworm-fed geckos could result from higher chitin contents of insects of the order Coleoptera. This study not only provides basic information about the gut microbiota of G. japonicus, but also shows that gut microbiota correlates with dietary habit and sex in the species.

With the prevalence of smartphones, the scope of mobile applications has been significantly broadened in the past few years including almost every aspect of our daily life. Among the applications, message dissemination services play a significant role. Traditionally, users send messages to the servers, which forward them according to friend lists. This client-server architecture is efficient with the support of infrastructures, however, it restricts the application scope and may hinder the wide deployment of location-based mobile applications. This paper proposes a novel communication model called passive broadcast for local message dissemination. In this new model, each node does not maintain a connection state and data delivery is initialized by a receiver via a ’scan’ operation. The representative carriers of passive broadcast include Bluetooth and WiFi-Direct, both of which define a mandatory ‘peer discovery’ function. Passive broadcast features negligible cost for establishing and maintaining direct links and is extremely suitable for short message dissemination in proximity. Furthermore, we study the operation management in the proposed communication model with complete protocols and in-depth analysis for optimization. We prototyped our solution on commercial phones and evaluated it with extensive experiments and simulation.

In the last decades, we have witnessed a spectacular information explosion over the Internet. Millions of users are consuming the Internet through various services, such as mobile applications, and online games. The service providers, at the back-end side, are supported by state-of-art infrastructures. Targeting on providing the services at scale, virtualization is one of the emerging technologies used in data centers and cloud environments to improve the quality of services. In this project, we aim to develop a dynamic resource management scheme based on virtual containers. It collects the runtime job progress from the running tasks and allocates the resources dynamically to improve the overall system performance.

Smartphone has become one of the most revolutionary devices in the history of computing. With various kinds of applications, the scope of smartphone has been significantly broadened in the past few years including almost every aspect in our daily life. However, due to the limited on-board resources such as CPU, storage, network bandwidth and battery power, smartphones and the mobile network serving them bring new challenges that have not been encountered in the traditional computing and networking environments. This dissertation focuses on the research areas of improving the network architecture and enhancing the current applications on smartphones. It mainly investigates the areas in the following two directions for three representative categories of mobile services. - In the first direction, the dissertation aims to develop new communication models for smartphone Ad-Hoc networks to achieve efficient communication in the proximity. It is motivated by the fact that smartphone Ad-Hoc networks can help improve the current location-based services and propel new applications. Moreover, the new communication models provide complementary alternatives to the traditional infrastructure-based wireless networks. - In the second direction, the dissertation focuses on improving the other two categories of services, cloud storage services and real-time video streaming services for mobile devices. In the field of cloud storage, we introduce a cloud-assisted approach to provide a set of advanced file operations, such as encryption, decryption and compression, on smartphones. Furthermore, by utilizing the on-board Near Field Communication(NFC) module, we develop an algorithm to securely share the files between mobile devices. For the services of real-time video streaming, we propose approaches that identify a user’s status by analyzing the accelerometer data and then, dynamically adjust the buffer mechanism to save network bandwidth on smartphones.

Dye/salt separation has gained increasing attention in recent years, prompting the quest for cost-effective and environmentally-friendly raw materials for synthesis high performance nanofiltration (NF) membrane for effective dye/salt separation. Herein, a high-performance loose structured NF membrane was fabricated by via a simple vacuum filtration method using a green nanomaterial, 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxide radical (TEMPO)-oxidized cellulose nanofiber (TOCNF), by sequentially filtrating larger-size and finer-size TOCNFs on a microporous substrate, followed by cross-linked with trimesoyl chloride. The resultant TCM membrane possesses a separating layer composed entirely of pure TOCNF, eliminating the need for other polymer or nanomaterials additives. TCM membranes exhibits high performance and effective dye/salt selectivity. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis shows that the TCM membrane with Fine-TOCNF layer has a tight layered structure. Further characterizations via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirm the presence of functional groups and chemical bonds of the crosslinked membrane. Notably, the optimized TCM-5 membrane exhibits a rejection rate of over 99% for various dyes (Congo red, orange yellow) and 14.2% for NaCl, showcasing a potential candidate for efficient dye wastewater treatment.

The global usage of veterinary antibiotics is significant. These antibiotics can be released into the aquatic environment and exert toxic effects on non-target organisms. To explore the physiological effects of tetracycline antibiotics on aquatic life, the growth characteristics of and toxin release from the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa (M. aeruginosa) were studied. Results showed that the toxicity order of the three target antibiotics was TC (tetracycline) > CTC (chlortetracycline hydrochloride) > OTC (oxytetracycline) in terms of inhibition occurrence time and the EC₁₀ and EC₂₅ values. Further, the target antibiotics regulated the production of MC-LR (microcystin-LR) to different degrees. CTC destroyed the M. aeruginosa cells and resulted in a decreased MC-LR release but stimulated the ability to synthesise MC-LR. OTC had a relatively weaker toxicity compared with CTC, while TC was the most toxic among the three antibiotics. Therefore, TC is friendly to the aquatic environment because it simultaneously reduced the intracellular and extracellular MC-LR content. These results aid our understanding of the effects of tetracycline antibiotics on Microcystis aeruginosa, which is important for environmental evaluation and protection. These results are also helpful for guiding the application of veterinary antibiotics in agricultural settings.

Host immunological pathways have been proposed including TH1, TH2, TH3, TH9, TH17, TH22, TH1-like, and THαβ immune reactions. Besides TH2 and TH9 immune responses which are against multicellular parasites, host immunological pathways against viruses, intracellular micro-organisms (bacteria, protozoa, and fungi), and extracellular micro-organisms can use programmed cell death pathways to trigger immune reactions or to execute effective strategies to eliminate these pathogens. These programmed cell deaths include apoptosis, autophagic death, pyroptosis, ferroptosis, necroptosis, and NETosis. Apoptosis is related to host anti-virus eradicable THαβ immunity. Autophagic death is related to host anti-virus tolerable TH3 immunity. Pyroptosis is related to host anti-intracellular micro-organism eradicable TH1 immunity. Ferroptosis is related to host anti-intracellular micro-organism tolerable TH1-like immunity. Necroptosis is related to host anti-extracellular micro-organism eradicable TH22 immunity. NETosis is related to host anti-extracellular micro-organism tolerable TH17 immunity.

The tumor microenvironment plays a pivotal role in the behavior and development of solid tumors as well as shaping the immune response against them. As the tumor cells proliferate, the space they occupy and their physical interactions with the surrounding tissue increases. The growing tumor tissue becomes a complex dynamic structure, containing connective tissue, vascular structures, and extracellular matrix that facilitates stimulation, oxygenation, and nutrition, necessary for its fast growth. Mechanical cues such as stiffness, solid stress, interstitial fluid pressure, matrix density, and microarchitecture influence cellular functions and ultimately tumor progression and metastasis. In this fight, our body is equipped with T cells as its spearhead against tumors. However, the altered biochemical and mechanical environment of the tumor niche affects T cell efficacy and leads to their exhaustion. Understanding the mechanobiological properties of the tumor microenvironment and their effects on T cells is key for developing novel adoptive tumor immunotherapies.

In this paper we re-investigated the relationship between the symmetry of inertial systems and the Lorentz transformation. We found that when we just follow the following three principles: (1)we can define the time in the whole space with a prescribed clock synchronization, (2)the time-space is uniform and the space is isotropic and (3)all the inertial systems are equivalent, then we can totally construct a general coordinate transformation to meet the symmetry of inertial systems, and with a special assumption on the speed of light, we can construct a non-Lorentz transformation between inertial systems to make the particle’s energy have a limited value, which is similar to the rainbow model. Similar to the usual Lorentz violating models, the non-Lorentz transformation in this paper lead to a new modified disperse relation. We applied the obtained disperse relation to analyze the photon’s arrival time lag effect in astronomy and found that the "maximum energy" derived in our model is somewhat related to the "maximum energy" assumed in the rainbow model.

Photovoltaic(PV) power generation is highly nonlinear and stochastic. Accurate prediction of PV power generation plays a crucial role in grid connection as well as the operation and scheduling of power plants. To predict the PV power combination model, this paper suggests a method based on Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD), Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (CEEMDAN), Nonlinear Auto-Regressive Neural Networks with Exogenous Input (NARXNN), Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) Neural Network, and Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM) algorithms. To attempt to reduce the non-smoothness of PV power, the weather variable features with the greatest effect on PV power are first identified by correlation analysis. Following this, the PV power modal decomposition is split and reorganized into a new feature matrix. Finally， a NARX is used to obtain preliminary PV power components and residual vector features， and the PV power is predicted by combining three models of LightGBM， LSTM, and NARX and then the final prediction results are obtained by combining the PV power prediction results using error inverse method weighted optimization. The prediction results demonstrate that the model put forth in this paper outperforms those of other models and validate the model's validity by utilizing real measurement data from Andre Agassi College in the United States.

This study aims to test a model linking destination image, perceived value, tourist satisfaction, and tourist loyalty. Based on a sample of 300 tourists travelling by car from the World Natural Heritage Site of Tianchi, China, a new model of destination image was explored and data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The results show that perceived value and satisfaction are direct antecedents of destination loyalty. Above all, perceived value and tourist satisfaction mediate the relationship between destination image and loyalty. Finally, this study discusses the theoretical and management implications of the findings in order to boost the tourism industry in the context of car trips.

Pancreatitis and alcoholic pancreatitis are serious health concerns, and there is an urgent need for effective treatment strategies. Alcohol is a known etiological factor for pancreatitis, including acute pancreatitis (AP) and chronic pancreatitis (CP). Excessive alcohol consumption induces many pathological stress responses; of particular note is endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and adaptive unfolded protein response (UPR). ER stress results from the accumulation of unfolded/misfolded protein in the ER and is implicated in the pathogenesis of alcoholic pancreatitis. Here we summarize the possible mechanisms by which ER stress contributes to alcoholic pancreatitis. We also discuss potential approaches targeting ER stress and UPR for developing novel therapeutic strategies for the disease.

By using the particle swarm optimization algorithm for crystal structure prediction, we reveal a newly orthorhombic Cmcm structure of HfB4, which is more energetically superior to the previously proposed YB4-, ReP4-, FeB4-, CrB4-, and MnB4-type structures in the considered pressure range. The phonon dispersion and elastic constants calculations confirm that the new phase is dynamically and mechanically stable. The calculated large shear modulus (240 GPa) and high hardness (45.7 GPa) imply that the predicted Cmcm-HfB4 is a potential superhard material. Meanwhile, the directional dependences of the Young's modulus, bulk modulus, and shear modulus for HfB4 are systematically investigated. Further analyses of the density of states and electronic localization function indicate that the strong B-B and B-Hf covalent bonds greatly contribute to its high hardness and stability.

The collapsible loess will rapidly soften and lose its bearing capacity when soaked in water. Under a mild condition (20°C), the biomimetic inorganic agent, Diammonium phosphate (DAP), reacts with calcite in the collapsible loess, producing a stronger bonding material, hydroxyapatite (HAP), to modify and stabilize the soil. Uniaxial compression, permeability tests and morphological analysis using XRD and SEM/EDX microscopy were carried out to assess the effectiveness of DAP stabilization on the collapsible loess. The results indicated that HAP improved the inter-particle bonding within loess, filled the pores within particles, reduced the permeability, and consequently mitigated collapsibility of loess. The compressive strength of DAP-treated loess increased as DAP concentration increased. Following 28-days curing, the compressive strength of the loess treated with a 3.0 mol/L DAP solution was six times greater than that of the untreated group. DAP's reinforcement effect on loess was superior to that of cement. The compressive strength of DAP-treated loess was about double that of cement-treated loess and the permeability coefficient was reduced by more than 50% at equivalent solid content. Furthermore, DAP generated 68% fewer carbon emissions compared to Portland cement. Considering eco-friendly and sustainable development, DAP offers a more competitive alternative for modification and stabilization of loess.

This article obtains data through questionnaire survey, and then uses the Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) Model to establish the Taoyuan City’s quality of life quantifying framework in a city-level community context. Statistical test results show that the reliability of overall model is high and is suitable for policy analysis. There are thirteen variables in the structural model that significantly affect the quality of life as well as eleven indicators in the measurement model that can significantly measure the quality of life. Then, half of the observations are substituted back to calculate the quality of life. Via ArcGis operation, it finds that the quality of life of Longtan District is the best as well as Dayuan District is the worst one. LISA cluster of quality of life illustrates hot spots areas are distributed in Longtan, Daxi, and Pingzhen Districts.

Pattern recognition has long been regarded as key role for crime prevention and reduction. Crime analysts and policy makers can formulate effective strategies and allocate resources with reference to spatial and temporal pattern of crime. In order the combat and prevent severe crime in New York City (NYC), this study analyzed Felony Crime data of NYC in previous 5 years (2015 2020) and discovered criminal hotspots pattern and temporal patterns with open criminal complaint data provided by New York Police Department (NYPD). This study adapt a human computer interactive appraoch to draw patterns from crime data, whereas computations and visualization are performed by Python libraries, and human to inform the decision of visualization methods, computational parameters and direction of this exploratary analysis. Density based clustering algorithms, Grid Thematic Mapping and Density Heatmap are displayed to identify hotspots and demonstrates their associations with spatial features. Timeline analysis on moments of crime occurance demonstrates seasonality where crimes are mostly commited, while aoristic analysis showed hours of day when crime is mostly committed considering their timespan. Lastly, 3D visualization improved recognition of the displacement of hotspot over time, and suggested long term hotspots in NYC in 3 D visualization. This inform strategic plans for police deployment.

The interaction between spinors and gravity is the most complicated and subtle interaction in the universe, which involves the basic problem to unified quantum theory and general relativity. By means of Clifford Algebra, a unified language and tool to describe the rules of nature, this paper systematically discusses the dynamics and properties of spinor fields in curved space-time, such as the decomposition of the spinor connection, the classical approximation of Dirac equation, the energy momentum tensor of spinors and so on. To split spinor connection into Keller connection $\Upsilon_\mu\in\Lambda^1$ and pseudo-vector potential $\Omega_\mu\in\Lambda^3$ by Clifford algebra not only makes the calculation simpler, but also highlights their different physical meanings. The representation of the new spinor connection is dependent only on the metric, but not on the Dirac matrix. Keller connection only corresponds to geometric calculations, but the potential $\Omega_\mu$ has dynamical effects, which couples with the spin of a spinor and may be the origin of the celestial magnetic field. Only in the new form of connection can we clearly define the classical concepts for the spinor field and then derive its complete classical dynamics, that is, Newton's second law of particles. To study the interaction between space-time and fermion, we need an explicit form of the energy-momentum tensor of spinor fields. However, the energy-momentum tensor is closely related to the tetrad, and the tetrad cannot be uniquely determined by the metric. This uncertainty increases the difficulty of deriving rigorous expression. In this paper, through a specific representation of tetrad, we derive the concrete energy-momentum tensor and its classical approximation. In the derivation of energy-momentum tensor, we obtain a spinor coefficient table $S^{\mu\nu}_{ab}$, which plays an important role in the interaction between spinor and gravity. From this paper we find that, Clifford algebra has irreplaceable advantages in the study of geometry and physics.