This article presents a new design of supporting tethers through the concept of force distribution. The transmitted force applied on tethers will be distributed on the new tether design area resulting in low acoustic energy transferred to anchor boundaries and stored energy enhancement. This technique achieves an anchor quality factor of 175,000 compared to 58,000 obtained from con-ventional tether design representing 3-fold enhancement. Also, the unloaded quality factor of the proposed design improved from 23,750 to 27,442 representing 1.2-fold improvements.

There are unsolved problems related to inflation, gravity, dark matter, dark energy, missing antimatter, and the birth of the universe. Some of them can be better answered by assuming the existence of aether and hypoatoms. Both were created during the inflation in the very early universe. While aether forms vacuum, hypoatoms, composed of both matter and antimatter and believed to be neutrinos, form all observable matter. In vacuum, aether exists between the particle-antiparticle dark matter form and the dark energy form in a dynamic equilibrium: A + A-bar = gamma + gamma. The same reaction stabilizes hypoatoms and generates a 3-dimensional sink flow of aether that causes gravity. Based on the hypoatom structure, the singularity does not exist inside a black hole; the core of the black hole is a hypoatom star or neutrino star. By gaining enough mass, ca. 3 X 10²² M_sun, to exceed neutrino degeneracy pressure, the black hole collapses or annihilates into the singularity, thus turning itself into a white hole or a Big Bang. The universe is anisotropic. Its center, or where the Big Bang happened, is at 0.66^+0.03_-0.01 times the radius of the observable universe at Galactic coordinates (l, b) = (286⁺¹⁰_-10, -43⁺⁷_-6). If we look from the Local Group to the center of the universe, the universe is rotating clockwise.

To improve the wear resistance of polyimide (PI), surface modification was developed. In this study, the tribological properties of graphene (GN), graphene oxide (GO), and KH550-grafted graphene oxide (K5-GO) modified PI were evaluated by molecular dynamics (MD) at the atomic level. The findings indicated that the addition of nanomaterials can significantly enhance the friction performance of PI. The friction coefficient of PI composites decreased from 0.253 to 0.232, 0.136, and 0.079 after coating GN, GO and K5-GO, respectively. Among them, the K5-GO/PI exhibited the best surface wear resistance. Importantly, the mechanism behind the modification of PI was thoroughly revealed by observing the wear state, analyzing the changes of interfacial interactions, interfacial temperature, and relative concentration.

It is generally believed that the universe emerged from the Big Bang, before which space and time did not exist. However, Penrose proposed his theory of conformal cyclic cosmology, in which an aeon existed preceding this universe. Based on the cosmological principle, the universe is homogeneous and isotropic, expanding without center, but recently more and more deviations have been observed. By studying the fundamental particles and reactions of nature, we initiated a model that the Big Bang is the result of the collapse of a neutrino star within a black hole. We therefore re-analyze the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and find that the Center of the universe where the Big Bang occurred was at 0.66 ^+0.03 _-0.01 times the radius of the surface of last scattering away from the Local Supercluster (LS) and at Galactic coordinates (l, b) = (286^o +/- 10^o, -43^{o +7} _-6). If we look from the LS to the Center, the universe is spinning clockwise. Our findings are supported by Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology, low-variance circle sets in the CMB, and many other independent observational evidence of cosmic inhomogeneities, spatial anisotropies, and time variations.

The critical period (CP) phenomenon in language development ranks among the 125 conundrums facing scientists in the 21st century, according to Science. While the phenomenon itself has been noncontroversial in first language acquisition, it still warrants an adequate explanation. Predicated on language acquisition as a complex process, questions among the first to be raised include: How do children accomplish this remarkable feat in such a short amount of time? And how do nature and nurture come together to influence language learning? In second language acquisition, however, both the notion of CP, albeit popular, and its empirical evidence have remained contested to this date - among the questions, whether the observed evidence counts as CP-specific and/or whether or not it warrants an isomorphic attribution to maturational constraints. Entwined in this debate are two well-established facets of inter-learner differential attainment. The first is that there exists a stark difference in ultimate attainment between younger and older learners. A second facet is the vast differences in ultimate attainment among older learners. In this article, adopting a social physics approach, we mathematically establish both the relationship between nature and nurture contributions and the presence of a critical period, and, at once, tender a parsimonious and probable theory for the twin phenomena of inter-learner differential attainment.

The BKL singularity inside a rotating black hole would be a neutrino star. Once its mass exceeds the limit that neutrino degeneracy pressure could support (larger than 3×10²² M_⊙), the neutrino star singularity would collapse, raising the temperature to the maximum and dropping the entropy to the minimum to initiate a Big Bang. From the cosmic microwave background, we find where the Big Bang occurred at about 0.66 times the radius of the surface of last scattering away from us and at Galactic coordinates (l, b) ≃ (286°,-43°). As it expands, the clockwise spinning universe has been veering towards the ellipsoidal. These findings are consistent with independent observations of cosmic inhomogeneities, spatial anisotropies, and time variations.

We perform new measurements of the expansion rate and the sound horizon at the end of the baryon decoupling and derive constraints on cosmic key parameters in the framework of the ΛCDM model, flat wCDM model, the ΛCDM+ΩK model and the phenomenological emergent dark energy (PEDE) model. We keep rd and H0 completely free and use the recent dark energy spectroscopic instrument (DESI) Year 1 and dark energy survey (DES) Year 6 BAO measurements in the effective redshift range 0.3<z<2.33 combined with the compressed form of the Pantheon sample of Type Ia supernovae, the latest 33 observational H(z) measurements based on the differential age method, and the recent H0 measurement from SH0ES 2022 as an additional Gaussian prior. Combining BAO data with the observational H(z) measurements, and the Pantheon SNe Ia data, we get H0=69.65±1.07 km s−1 Mpc−1, rd=147.71±2.18 Mpc in ΛCDM model, H0=70.06±1.07 km s−1 Mpc−1, rd=147.39±2.50 Mpc in PEDE model. The spatial curvature is Ωk=0.025±0.026 and the dark energy equation of state is w=−1.016±0.056, consistent with a cosmological constant. We apply the Akaike information and the Bayesian information criterion test to compare the four models, and see that PEDE model performs better.

In this paper, we introduce the evolve-then-filter (EF) regularization method for reduced order modeling of convection-dominated stochastic systems. The standard Galerkin projection reduced order model (G-ROM) yield numerical oscillations in a convection-dominated regime. The evolve-then-filter reduced order model (EF-ROM) aims at the numerical stabilization of the standard G-ROM, which uses explicit ROM spatial filter to regularize various terms in the reduced order model (ROM). Our numerical results based on a stochastic Burgers equation with linear multiplicative noise. It shows that the EF-ROM is significantly better results than G-ROM.

This paper studies the maximum reliability of multi-hop relay UAV, in which UAV provides wireless services for remote users without direct communication link on the ground as a coded cooperative relay. In this paper, the analytical expressions of total power loss and total bit error rate are derived as reliability measures. Firstly, based on the environmental statistical parameters, a LOS probability model is proposed. Then the problem of minimizing the bit error rate of static and mobile UAVs is studied. The goal is to minimize the total bit error rate by jointly optimizing the height, elevation, power and path loss, and subject to the maximum allowable path loss con-straints, transmission power allocation constraints and UAV height and elevation constraints. At the same time the total path loss is minimized to achieve maximum ground communication cov-erage. However, the formulated joint optimization problem is non-convex and generally difficult to solve. Therefore, we decomposed the problem into two subproblems and proposed an effective joint optimization iteration algorithm. Finally, the simulation results are given, and the analysis shows that the optimal height of different reliability measures is slightly different, and using the mobility of UAVs can improve the reliability of communication performance.

In order to study the effects of irradiation on the physicochemical properties and digestion behavior of chickpea protein, chickpea protein concentrate (CPC) was treated with electron beam irradiation (EBI) at doses of 5, 10, 15 and 20 kGy, respectively. After irradiation, protein solubility first increased at 10 kGy and 15 kGy, and then decreased at higher dose of 20 kGy. This was supported by SDS-PAGE where the intensity of major protein bands first increased and then decreased. Increased does of EBI generally led to greater oxidative modification of proteins in CPC, indicated by reduced sulfhydryls and increased carbonyls. In addition, protein structure was modified by EBI shown by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis where α-helix generally decreased and β-sheet increased. Although the protein digestibility was not significantly affected by EBI, the peptidomic analysis of the digests revealed significant difference among CPC irradiated with varying doses. A total of 337 peptides were identified from CPC irradiated with 0 kGy, 10 kGy and 20 kGy, respectively, with 18 overlapping peptides and 60, 29 and 40 peptides specific to the groups of 0, 10 and 20 kGy respectively. Theoretical calculation showed that the distribution of peptide length, hydrophobicity, net charge, and C-terminal residues were affected by irradiation. The 2, 2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) radical scavenging activity showed a marginal decrease with increasing dose of irradiation. In conclusion, EBI led to oxidative modification and structural changes of the chickpea protein, which subsequently affected the physicochemical properties of peptides obtained from in-vitro digestion of CPC despite of similar digestibility.

As the core of intelligent manufacturing, CPS has serious security issues, especially for the communication security of its terminal M2M. In this paper, blockchain technology is introduced to address such a security problem of communications between different types of machines in CPS. According to the principles of blockchain technology, we design a blockchain for secure M2M communications. As a communication system of M2M consists of public network areas, equipment areas and private areas, we design a sophisticated blockchain structure between the public area and private area. For validating our design, we take cotton spinning production as a case study to demonstrate our solution to M2M communication problems under the CPS framework.

[Background] Previous research achievements of the service-oriented tourist city network have often focused on the analysis of its geographical distribution and service role of the important cities instead of the connections and hierarchical tendencies between the whole city in a large region.[Method]Using big data approaches on the regional connections of 38 tourism organizations including famous hotels, air passenger transport, tourism service agencies across 63 most important tourist cities in China. Fuzzy c-means clustering analysis is used to define 8 city arena clusters. [Results]According to the distributions of connectivity between 63 cities, these eight clusters play different service functional roles in the urban tourism network at four hierarchies. With their “center-edge” memberships, these arena clusters are formed by the interweaving process of regional and hierarchical tourism service connections. The results include the analysis of the various service-oriented tourist city in China and point out the geography “gap” faced by network. [Conclusion] Service-oriented tourist cities need to find their hierarchies and positioning in the network scientifically to avoid blind development, to make regional urban tourism sustainable development.

Considering the spectrum shortage problem of IoT devices, we introduce a collaborative spectrum sensing (CSS) framework in this paper to identify available spectrum resources, so that IoT devices can access it and meanwhile avoid causing harmful interference to the normal communication of the primary user (PU). However, in the process of the PU’s signal detection in IoT devices, the issue about the stopping time and decision cost arises. To this end, we propose a distributed cognitive IoT model, which includes two IoT devices independently using sequential decision rules to detect the PU. On this basis, we define the stopping time and cost function for IoT devices, and formulate an average cost optimization problem in CSS. To solve this problem, we further regard the optimal stopping time problem as a finite horizon problem, and solve the threshold of the optimal decision rule by dynamic programming. At last, numerical simulation results demonstrate the correctness of our proposal in terms of the global false alarm and miss detection probability, and it always achieves minimal average cost under various cost of each observation taken and thresholds.

Abstract: In the Western of Mekong Delta belong to Vietnam a amount of alluvium sediments flows from upstream China to Vietnam, they are going from the river branches to in the Mekong Delta, then get out the Western Sea of Vietnam. This sediments accumulated gradually elevation the new land. The increase elevation of the land creates a fertile coastal plain where mangrove forests with a rich ecosystem of plants and animals. Over time, these forests change, with different plant species succeeding each other. This aims of this study to finding plant species in the forest, classification of forest types based on ecological regions, assessement the biodiversity of tree species, and compare the abundance communities, measuring the growth of the forest in these regions. In 2023, a comprehensive survey was conducted by using a systematic approach. The number of survey plots have done depend on the density of the forest, Base on the width of the forest range, the number of survey plots from 500m to 1,000m set up 1-2 plots, sub region set up from 10 to 15 plots. In total, 68 plots have done established in the erea, the area of plot is 100 square meters (10m x 10m). Using the statistical software in forestry to survey and analysis data. The result provided a complete picture of the tree species composition, distribution, and community structure characteristics in each ecological sub-region. The result of survey showed in the sub-region 1 have seven species as Sonneracia ovate, Rhzophora apiculata, Excoecaria agallochha, Avicennia officinalis, Avicennia alba, Agricerasvcoculatum, Bruguiera gymnorhiza. In the sub region 2 have eleven species as Sonneracia caseolaris, Annona reticulata, Lumnitzera littorea, Lumnizera racemosa, Rhizophora apiculata, Excoecaria agallocha, Avicennia officinalis, Avicennia alba, Hibiscus tillacerus, Bruguiera gymorhiza, Aericeras comiculatum. In the sub region 3 have eight as Sonratia caseolaris, Rhizophora mucronata, Rhizophora apiculata, Excoecaria agallocha, Avicennia marine, Avicennia alba, Bruguiera gymorhiza. In the region 4 have ten species as Sonneracia caseolaris, Sonneracia ovate, Lumnizera racemosa, Rhizophoa apiculata, Excoecaria agallocha, Avicennia marina, Avicennia officinalis, Aviecnnia alba, Bruguiera gymorhiza, Bruguiera cylindrica The total species of the mangrove forest in the Western Mekong Delta have 16 species from 11 plant families have been identified. Among these species have 6 dominant species include Avicennia oficinali),Avicennia alba, Rhizophora apiculata, Excoecaria agallocha, Someratia caseolaris, and Bruguiera yipamoriza. Two species easy grow on the new land are Avicennia officinalis Avicennia alba this findings show they can develope on the original new land for the shore of the Western Mekong Delta. The surveyed results also calculated the average of the height, diameter (D1.3), canopy, health of the nature mangrove tree for each sub region and total region. From these results showed the division of foresty structure, the structure of height, diameter (D1.3), canopy, vitality of the sub region and total region in the Western Mekong Delta.

Objective: This study aimed to demonstrate the availability of portable devices for nasal FeNO measurement, which could replace exhaled NO measurement based on the continuous aspiration of multiple flow measurement systems. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study. The healthy subjects without rhinosinusis disorders (control group) and those with diagnosed allergic rhinitis (AR group) were enrolled in the study. They underwent nasal and bronchial FeNO measurements by both fixed flow NObreath® connected to nasal mask and multiple flows HypAir FeNO®. Results: A total of 153 people were recruited including 63 healthy subjects and 90 subjects with AR. There were no statistically significant differences in anthropometric characteristics between the two groups (P > 0.05). There were a significant increase in FeNO values in the AR group compared to the control group; concentrations of nasal and bronchial FeNO mearsured by NObreath® were 76.0 ± 50.7 ppb (vs 36.0 ± 28.1 ppb, P < 0.01) and 32.3 ± 15.4 ppb (vs 9.2 ± 5.6 ppb, P < 0.001), and those mearsured by NObreath® Hypair FeNO® were 1796.9 ± 523.3 ppb (vs 400.2 ± 123.1 ppb, P < 0.001) and 37.3 ± 23.0 ppb (vs 17.4 ± 18.3 ppb, P < 0.01). A weak correlation between the values measured by NObreath® and Hypair FeNO® devices was observed (r = 0.023 and r = 0.089, respectively; p < 0.05). Conclusions: The handheld NObreath® device is effective in measuring FeNO concentrations in both normal subjects and AR patients. The advantages in price and size, creating a compact, low-cost device that is convenient for use and research.

Medicinal mushrooms have got much attention from biologists in the last decades. Leucocalocybe mongolica Imai remains one of the famous clinical and edible mushrooms used in traditional Chinese medicine and Mongolian medicine to treat various diseases. It also commonly consumes in Chinese and Mongolian daily dishes. Numerous biochemical components exist in L. mongolica, especially in the fruiting bodies include; polysaccharides, sterol, lectins, laccase, amino acids, terpenes, volatile compounds, and so on. These biomedical components possess a lot of medicinal properties and provide diverse therapeutical effects for human health, such as anti-tumor activity, antiproliferative activity, anti-diabetes properties, hypotensive effect, hepatoprotective effect, antioxidant activity, cardioprotective effect, and so on. However, this review's main objectives are to illustrate some basics about the bioactive components in L. mongolica and its pharmacological effects on the human body. In addition to giving forward some suggestions for future research on this medicinal mushroom.

In mathematics, one always aims to obtain new frameworks from specific ones. This also stratified to the regality of graphs, where one can produce numerous new graphs from a specific set of graphs. In this work we define some classes of pyramid graphs created by a gear graph and we derive straightforward formulas of the complexity of these graphs, using linear algebra matrix analysis techniques and employing knowledges of Chebyshev polynomials.

In order to clarify the individual role of freezing and frozen storage on the quality of fish, fillets of large-mouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) were subjected to different freezing rates (freezing with -18 °C (A), -60 °C (B), -60 °C with forced air circulation at 2 m/s (C), respectively) followed by frozen storage at -18 °C for 30 and 90 days. Another 2 groups were frozen with -60 °C, followed by storage at -40 °C (D) and -60 °C (E), respectively. Results showed that water-holding and TVBN were mainly affected by storage time. No significant changes were found in free thiol content among treatments. A greater freezing rate and lower storage temperature generally led to lower TBARS. GC×GC-TOFMS revealed a total of 66 volatile compounds which were related to lipid oxidation. PLS-DA showed that fresh samples were separated from the frozen-thawed ones, and fillets in group D &amp; E were relatively close to fresh fillets in the composition of oxidation-related volatiles. In conclusion, freezing rate and storage temperature had significant impact on lipid oxidation and protein denaturation in the fillets of large-mouth bass, while protein oxidation was more affected by freezing rate.

Background: The proportion of dietary protein may play a key role in the development of obesity in children and adolescents. Methods: Cross-sectional data of 4,336 children and adolescents from the National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES) during 2011 to March 2020 were analyzed. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals, and restriction cubic spline was uesd to explore nonlinear relationships of dietary protein energy supply ratio and obesity in children and adolescents. Results:In the adjusted logistic regression model, for every 1% increase in dietary protein energy ratio in children and adolescents, the increased risk of obesity was 4% (OR=1.04,95%CI:1.01-1.08). The restrictive cubic spline showed a nonlinear relationship between dietary protein energy ratio and obesity in children aged 6-11 years (P <0.05). The dietary protein energy supply ratio was included in the logistic regression model after converting to quartiles into categorical variables. The adjusted OR of children aged 6-11 years was 2.08 (95%CI:1.34, 3.23,P <0.01) for the highest quartile of dietary protein energy supply ratio compared with the lowest quartile. Conclusion: In American children, dietary protein energy supply ratios was positively correlated with obesity, independent of individual characteristics and energy.

In order to comprehensively evaluate the employee satisfaction of mine occupational health and safety management system, an analytic method based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and 2- tuple linguistic model was established. Firstly, based on the establishment of 5 first- grade indicators and 20 second- grade ones, the weight of each indicator is calculated and validated by method of FAHP and root mean square model. Secondly, a path based on the time-ordered Weighted Averaging Operator (T-OWA) model is constructed. Finally, the model is validated by empirical analysis. The results demonstrate that the employee satisfaction of the mine occupational health and safety management system is of the “general” rank. The method including the comprehensive evaluation of employee satisfaction and the quantitative analysis of language evaluation information ensures the authenticity of the language evaluation information.

The inverse finite element method (iFEM) is a novel method for reconstructing the full-field displacement of structures by discrete measurement strain. In practical engineering applications, the accuracy of iFEM is reduced due to the positional offset of strain sensors during installation, and errors in structural installation. Therefore, coarse and fine two-stage calibration (CFTSC) method is proposed to enhance the accuracy of the reconstruction of structures. Firstly, the coarse calibration is based on a single-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm to optimize the displacement-strain transformation matrix related to the sensor position. Secondly, as selecting different training data can affect the training effect of self-constructed fuzzy networks, this paper proposes to screen the appropriate training data based on residual analysis. Finally, the experiments of the wing integrated antenna structure verify the efficient of the method on the reconstruction accuracy of the structural body displacement field.

Randomized block Kaczmarz Method and randomized extended block Kaczmarz Method are proposed for solving matrix equation AXB=C, where the matrix A and B may be full rank or rank deficient. These methods are iterative methods without matrix multiplication, and are especially suitable for solving large-scale matrix equations. It is theoretically proved these methods converge to the solution or least square solution of the matrix equation. The numerical results show that these methods are more efficient than the existing algorithms for high-dimensional matrix equations.

A large amount of raw data collected by satellites is processed by the production chain to obtain a large amount of product data, of which the secure exchange and storage is of interest to researchers in the field of remote sensing information science. Authentic, secure data is a critical foundation for data analysis and decision-making. And traditional centralized cloud computing systems are vulnerable to attacks, and once the central server is successfully attacked, all data will be lost. Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is an innovative computer technology that can ensure information security, traceability and tamper-proof, and can be applied to the field of remote sensing. Although there are many advantages to using DLT in remote sensing applications, there are some obstacles and limitations to its application. Remote sensing data has the characteristics of large data volume, spatiotemporal nature, global and so on, and it is difficult to store and interconnect remote sensing data in the blockchain. To address these issues, this paper proposes a trustworthy and decentralized system using blockchain. The novelty of this paper is to propose a multi-level blockchain architecture in which the system collects remote sensing data and stores it in the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) network, after generating the IPFS hash, the network rehashes the value again and uploads it on the Ethereum chain for public query. Distributed data storage improves data security, supports the secure exchange of information, and improves the efficiency of data management.

Pavement friction plays a crucial role in ensuring the safety of road networks. Accurately assessing friction levels is vital for effective pavement maintenance and management strategies employed by state highway agencies. Traditionally, friction evaluations have been conducted on a case-by-case basis, focusing on specific road sections. However, this approach fails to provide a comprehensive assessment of friction conditions across the entire road network. This paper introduces a hybrid clustering algorithm, namely the combination of density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) and Gaussian mixture model (GMM), to perform pavement friction performance rating across a statewide road network. A large, safety-oriented dataset is first generated by integrating network friction and vehicle crash data based on the attributes contributing possibly to friction related crashes. One-, two-, and multi-dimensional clustering analyses, respectively, are then performed to rate pavement friction. The Chi-square test is further employed to validate and identify the practical ratings. It is shown that by effectively capturing the hidden, intricate patterns within the integrated, complex dataset and prioritizing friction-related safety attributes, the hybrid clustering algorithm can produce pavement friction ratings that align effectively with the current practices of the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) in friction management.

Electric vehicles can effectively make use of the time-of-use electricity price to reduce the charging cost, meanwhile using the grid power to preheat the battery before departure is particularly important for improving the vehicle mileage and reducing the use cost.In this paper, a dynamic programming algorithm is used to optimize the battery AC charging-preheating strategy to minimize the total cost of battery charging and preheating, with the charging current and battery preheating power consumption as the control variables. The cost difference between the optimized control strategy and the conventional preheating strategy was analyzed under different ambient temperatures (-20℃~ 0℃) and different target travel time (7:00 ~ 12:00). The simulation results show that the optimized control strategy makes the battery SOC and temperature reach the set value at the user's target departure time, and the total cost of the grid is the lowest. Compared with the conventional preheating strategy, the optimized control strategy can utilize the power grid energy in the valley price area, reduce the opening time of water heating PTC in the flat and the peak price zones, and the cost utilization rate can reach 18.41% ~ 73.96%, and the cost-saving effect is significant.

Industrial nameplates serve as a means of conveying critical information and parameters. In this work, we propose a novel approach for rectifying industrial nameplate pictures utilizing a probabilistic Hough transform. Our method effectively corrects for distortions and clipping, and features a collection of challenging nameplate pictures for analysis. To determine the corners of the nameplate, we employ a progressive probability Hough transform, which not only enhances detection accuracy but also possesses the ability to handle complex industrial scenarios. The results of our approach are clear and readable nameplate text, as demonstrated through experiments that show improved accuracy in model identification compared to other methods.

Background: The lymph nodes staging system can predict the prognosis of gastric signet ring cell carcinoma (SRCC), but the optimal system for early and advanced SRCC remains unknown. Methods: This study retrospectively analyzed 693 SRCC patients who underwent radical resection in the Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital. The predicted performance of three lymph node staging systems, including pN staging, lymph node metastasis rate (LNR), and log odds of positive lymph nodes (LODDS), was compared using the receiver characteristic operating curve (ROC). The kaplan⁃meier method and the log⁃rank test analyze the overall survival of patients. The Cox risk regression model identifies independent risk factors associated with patient outcomes. The nomogram was made by R studio. Results: The 693 SRCC included 165 early SRCC and 528 advanced SRCC. ROC showed that LODDS had better predictive performance than pN and LNR in predicting prognosis regardless of early or advanced SRCC. LODDS can be used to predict the prognosis of early and advanced SRCC and was an independent risk factor associated with patient outcomes (P=0.002, P<0.001). Furthermore, the nomogram constructed by LODDS and clinicopathological features had good predictive performance. Conclusion: LODDS showed a clear prognostic superiority over both pN and LNR in early and advanced SRCC.

This paper focuses on improving the tracking accuracy for servo systems and increasing the contouring performance of precision machining. The dynamic friction during precision machining is analyzed using the LuGre model. The dynamic and static parameters in the friction model are efficiently and accurately identified using the improved Drosophila Swarm Algorithm based on cross-mutation. The friction tracking error can be deduced by the friction state space and an expression is derived. To compensate for the tracking error caused by friction, a feedforward compensation control is designed to avoid signal lag in traditional friction controllers. Furthermore, the factors of multi-axis parameter mismatching that impact the machining profile accuracy are analyzed for multi-axis control. An adaptive cross-coupled control-based pre-compensation strategy of contour error is designed to reduce both the tracking error and the contour error. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated through several experiments, which demonstrate a remarkable improvement in tracking performance and contour accuracy.

Owing to the reduction of rupture instability and the avoidance of wrinkle defect, hydrodynamic deep drawing (HDD) process is gradually becoming attractive for fabricating lightweight and complicated products. Meanwhile, since metallic material presents anisotropic deformation behavior, it is necessary to select an appropriate constitutive model for the prediction of plastic deformation behavior of applied material with high precision. In the present research, several anisotropic yield criteria namely, Hill’48, Yld2000-2d and BBC2005 are implemented to investigate the effect of yield functions on the prediction accuracy of the critical process window and deformation behavior for HDD process of 2024 and 5754 aluminum alloys. Material constants in the yield criteria are determined by applying uniaxial and equi-biaxial tension tests and optimizing an error-function by using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. Furthermore, the process window diagram is computed utilizing the stress analytical model combined material properties with workpiece geometrical features. Numerical simulation results of predicted material anisotropic parameters, process window and HDD deformation for aluminum alloys are compared with the experimental data. Through the comparison of diverse yield criteria based on materials anisotropic coefficients, critical process window prediction, earing profile, and thickness distribution, it is revealed that the Yld2000-2d and the BBC2005 yield criteria can offer more precise models of material behavior in planar anisotropy properties for HDD process of 2024 and 5754 aluminum alloys.

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in cattle raised in North America. At the feedlot, cattle are subject to metaphylactic treatment with macrolides to prevent BRD, a practice that may promote antimicrobial resistance and has resulted in an urgent need for novel strategies. Mannheimia haemolytica is one of the major bacterial agents of BRD. The inhibitory effects of two amphipathic, α-helical (PRW4, WRL3) and one β-sheet (WK2) antimicrobial peptides were evaluated against multidrug-resistant (MDR) M. haemolytica isolated from Alberta feedlots. WK2 was not cytotoxic against bovine turbinate (BT) cells by the MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay. All three peptides inhibited M. haemolytica, with WK2, being the most efficacious against multiple isolates. At 8-16 µg/ml, WK2 was bactericidal against Mh 330 in broth and at 32 µg/ml in the presence of BT cells, reduced the population by 3 logs CFU/ml without causing cytotoxic effects. The membrane integrity of Mh 330 was examined using NPN (1-N-phenylnaphthylamine), and ONPG (o-Nitrophenyl β-D-galactopyranoside) with both the inner and outer membranes being compromised. Thus, WK2 may be a viable alternative to the use of macrolides as part of BRD prevention and treatment strategies.

Local binary pattern is one of the visual descriptors and can be used as a powerful feature extractor for texture classification. In this paper, a novel representation for face recognition is proposed, called it Bilateral Line Local Binary Patterns (BL-LBP). This scheme is an extension of Line Local Binary Patterns descriptors in the statistical learning subspace. The present bilateral descriptors are fused with an ensemble learning of calibrated SVM models. The performance of this scheme is evaluated using 5 standard face databases. It is found that it is robust against illumination variation, diverse facial expressions and head pose variations and its recognition accuracy reaches 98 percent, running on a mobile device with a processing speed of 63 ms per face. Results suggest that our proposed method can be very useful for the vision systems that have limited resources where the computational cost is critical.

In this study, we evaluated how gut microbes associated with hepatopancreatic and gonadal expression genes impact on growth traits in different sex of M. rosenbergii. By comparing the relative abundance of gut microbes between the male (high weight gain, HiWG) and female (low weight gain, LoWG) animals, we have shown that at the phyla, family and genera level, the abundance of microbes existed significantly difference between both group. At the genera level, the abundance of Candidatus Hepatoplasma and unidentified Chloroplast lower in the LoWG animals than in the HiWG animals, and Lactobacillus and Ligilactobacillus have opposed trend. The abundance of Candidatus Hepatoplasma and unclassfied Chloroplast was associated with the growth traits in the HiWG group. The Lolium perenne microbial species belong to unclassfied Chloroplast genera have tight association with Ralstonia pickettii, both might association on Geobacter anodirecteducens abundance, which correlation with the expression of glutathione peroxidase and collagen, which were highly expressed in the hepatopancreas and gonads of HiWG group animals of M. rosenbergii and might promote growth and development. These associations were not detected in the female LoWG group.

The latest emergence of a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) had caused an outbreak of respiratory virus infections in Wuhan, China, and other countries so that the world health organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 epidemic as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on January 31, 2020. At present, it is the fact that we have identified the bats as the host, the route of respiratory droplets, contact, and aerosol can accelerate the transmission from person to person. However, it is not well known about the intermediator and other approaches. Identifying and characterizing the origin and host(s) of COVID-19 can help us to evaluate the potential risk of COVID-19 for transmission among humans or cross-species.

With the focus of great concern of the sustainable development, its evaluation system has become an important operational strategy and practical values. For the purpose of obtaining the stronger indicators and the larger contribution ones, evaluation indicators screening is carried out using interval estimation model, which takes location of production and service facilities of company A as an example. And the weight value of each indicator is further explored, which can provide an direction of decision-making. The result shows that this screening method provides a more scientific evaluation method for enterprise location, decision-making basis for sustainable development of enterprises, and a solid foundation for the construction of the post-evaluation system. The present work implies that this screening method is affected, to different degrees, by the ability, knowledge reserve of the evaluators, which should be more systematic and standardized, and the concept of sustainable development should be strengthened.

The migration paths and distribution driving factors of heavy metals in dry and windy area polluted by their production in the North China need a further research. To address this research gap, we collected 675 soil samples, 72 atmospheric deposition samples and 20 water samples around a production area and measured its heavy metal concentrations. Results showed that the Cu, Zn, As and Pb in 0-10 cm soil layer showed a fan-shaped distribution, which was consistent with their atmospheric deposition fluxes. It indicated the distribution patterns of these heavy metals were driven by strong winds in studied area. Although Cr concentrated to the production area in the 0-10 cm soil layer, principal component analysis showed that this migration was through wind as well. The concentration of Cd in the river increased from 0.257 mg/L to 0.460 mg/L along water flowing, and caused the same distribution trend in soil near the river from upstream to downstream. Unlike the above, surface runoff should drive the Cd migration. The concentration of Pb in the river was over threshold of pollution, and also led to an accumulation in the 5-10 cm soil layer. It suggested that the migration of Pb was through both wind and surface runoff. Six studied heavy metals showed different migration behaviors, and specific control strategies for individual heavy metal should be concerned.

In response to the issue of vehicle escape guidance, this manuscript proposes a unified intelligent control strategy synthesizing optimal guidance and Meta Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). Optimal control with minor energy consumption is introduced to meet terminal latitude, longitude and altitude. Maneuvering escape is realized by adding longitudinal and lateral direction maneuver overloads. Maneuver command decision model is calculated based on Soft-Actor-Critic (SAC) networks. Meta learning is introduced to enhance autonomous escape capability, which improves generalization performance to time-varying scenarios not encountered in the training process. In order to obtain training samples at a faster speed, this manuscript uses the prediction method to solve reward values, which avoiding a large number of numerical integration. The simulation results manifest that the proposed intelligent strategy can achieve high precise guidance and effective escape.

The surface velocity of the Amery Ice Shelf (AIS) is vital to assessing its stability and mass balance. Previous studies have shown that the AIS basin has a stable multi-year average surface velocity. However, spatiotemporal variations in the surface velocity of the AIS and the underlying physical mechanism remain poorly understood. This study combined offset tracking and DInSAR methods to extract the monthly average surface velocity of the AIS and obtained the inter-annual surface velocity from the ITS_LIVE product. An uneven spatial distribution in inter-annual variation of the surface velocity was observed between 2000–2022, although the magnitude of variation was small at less than 20.5 m/yr. The increase and decrease in surface velocity on the eastern and western-central sides of the AIS, respectively, could be attributed to the change in the thickness of the AIS. There was clear seasonal variation in monthly average surface velocity at the eastern side of the AIS between 2017–2021, which could be attributed to variations in the area and thickness of fast-ice and also to variations in ocean temperature. This study suggested that changes in fast-ice and ocean temperature are the main factors driving spatiotemporal variation in the surface velocity of the AIS.

The combination of neural network and beamforming has been proved to be very effective in multi-channel speech separation. But its performance faces a challenge in complex environment. In this paper, an iteratively refined multi-channel speech separation method is proposed for the challenge, where the proposed is composed of initial separation and iterative separation. In initial separation, the time-frequency domain dual-path recurrent neural network neural network (TFDPRNN), minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamformer and post-separation (also TFDPRNN) are cascaded for obtaining the first additional input in iterative separation. In iterative separation, the MVDR beamformer and post-separation are iteratively used, where the output of the MVDR beamformer is used as an additional input of the post-separation network and the final output comes from post-separation module. This iteration of the beamformer and post-separation is fully employed for promoting their individual optimization, which ultimately improves the overall performance of speech separation in multi-speaker scenarios. Experiments on the spatialized version of the WSJ0-2mix corpus show that our proposed method is significantly better than the current popular methods. In addition, the method also has a good effect on the dereverberation task.

With increasing demand from unmanned driving and robotics, more attention has been paid to point cloud-based 3D object accurate detection technology. However, due to the sparseness and irregularity of the point cloud, the most critical problem is how to utilize the relevant features more efficiently. In this paper, we proposed a point-based object detection enhancement network to improve the detection accuracy in the 3D scenes understanding based on the distance features. Firstly, the distance features are extracted from the raw point sets and fused with the raw features about reflectivity of the point cloud to maximizing the use of information in point cloud. Secondly, we enhanced the distance features and raw features that we collectively refer to them as self-features of the key points in Set Abstraction (SA) layers with the self-attention mechanism, so that the foreground points can be better distinguished from the background points. Finally, we revised the group aggregation module in SA layers to enhance the feature aggregation effect of key points. We conducted experiments on the KITTI dataset and nuScenes dataset and the results show the enhancement method proposed in this paper has excellent performance.

Efforts to enhance quality control (QC) practices in chip seal construction have predominantly relied on single surface frictional metrics such as mean profile depth (MPD) or friction number. These metrics assess chip seal quality by targeting issues such as aggregate loss or excessive bleeding, which may yield low friction numbers or texture depths. However, aggregate loss particularly due to snowplow operations doesn't always result in slippery conditions and may lead to uneven surfaces. The correlation between higher MPD or friction number and superior chip seal quality isn't straightforward. This research introduces an innovative machine learning-based approach to enhance chip seal QC. Using a hybrid DBSCAN-Isolation Forest model, anomaly detection is conducted on a dataset comprising 183,794 20-meter MPD measurements from actual chip seal projects across six districts in Indiana. This results in typical 20 m-segment MPD ranges of [0.9, 1.9], [0.6, 2.1], [0.3, 1.3], [1.0, 1.7], [0.6, 1.9], and [1.0, 2.3] for the respective six districts in Indiana. A two-step QC procedure tailored for chip seal evaluation is proposed. The first step calculates outlier percentages across 1-mile segments, with an established limit of 25% outlier segments per wheel track. The second step assesses unqualified rates across projects, setting a threshold of 50% for 1-mile unqualified wheel track segments. While the results are data-specific, this framework offers pavement construction practitioners a foundational QC standard for chip seal projects.

Oriented object detection is a challenging task in scene text detection and remote sensing image analysis, which has attracted extensive attention in recent years with the development of deep learning. Currently, mainstream oriented object detectors are based on preset anchor boxes. This method increases the computational load of the network and cause a large amount of anchor box redundancy. To solve this problem, we propose anchor-free oriented object detection based on the Gaussian centerness(AOGC), a single-stage anchor-free detection method. Our method uses contextual attention FPN(CAFPN) to obtain the contextual information of the target. Then we design a label assignment method for oriented objects. Finally, we develop a Gaussian kernel-based centerness branch, which can effectively determine the significance of different anchors. AOGC achieves mAP of 74.30% on the DOTA-1.0 datasets and 89.80% on the HRSC2016 datasets, respectively. AOGC exhibits superior performance to other methods in oriented anchor-free object detection methods.

The distribution and variation of top-of-atmosphere longwave cloud radiative forcing (LCRFTOA) has drawn a significant amout of attention due to its importance in understanding the energy budget. Advancements in sensor and data processing technology, as well as a new generation of geostationary satellites, such as the FengYun-4A (FY-4A), allow for high spatial resolutions that are crucial for real-time radiation monitoring. Nevertheless, there is a distinct lack of official top-of-atmosphere outgoing longwave radiation products under clear-sky conditions (OLRclear). Consequently, this study addresses the challenge of constructing LCRFTOA data with high spatiotemporal resolution over the full disk region of FY-4A. After simulating the influence of atmospheric parameters on OLRclear based on SBDART radiation transfer model (RTM), we developed a model for estimating OLRclear using infrared channels from the advanced geosynchronous radiation imager (AGRI) onboard the FY-4A satellite. The OLRclear results showed an RMSE of 5.05 W/m2 and MBE of 1.59 W/m2 compared to ERA5. Besides, the calculated LCRFTOA results were validated against instantaneous, daily average, and monthly average ERA5 and CERES LCRFTOA products, supporting the validity of the algorithm proposed in this paper. Finally, the changes in LCRFTOA due to variaty cloud heights (high, medium, and low cloud) were analyzed. This study provides the basis for comprehensive studies on the characteristics of top-of atmosphere radiation.

Based on NCEP FNL 1°*1° analysis data and Xinjiang meteorological bureau area numerical operation prediction, a local precipitation event in southern Xinjiang on June 26 was analyzed, and the results showed that the water vapor involved in this process originated from the northwestern Gangetic Plain and was transported along the Indus River plain and over the northwestern end of the mountains. Driven by the Iranian low-pressure trough, water vapor at 500 hPa was transported across the northwestern end of the Gangdise Mountains, past Georgoli Peak, and northwest over the Kunlun Mountains to arrive in southern Xinjiang.

pH is the major factor that makes producers in aquaponics frustrated, since the main three organisms (aquatic animal, plant, and microbes) in the system with different preferences. Yet, amending the growing environment with additional C is a potential method to improve the growth of shrimp and plants as well as the establishment of microbe. A detailed study of the effects of pH and additional C on aquaponics under saline conditions has not been investigated. In this study, the effect of pH and additional C on the growth performance of shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) and five edible plants in marine aquaponic systems using the nutrient film technique (NFT) was evaluated. The results indicated that at both pH 6.5 treatments, plants grew better; nevertheless, the growth performance of plants in pH 7.5 with additional C was improved and showed a similar yield to lower pH treatments. On the other hand, shrimp growth was little affected by pH and additional C. A higher impact of imbalanced ionic composition on shrimp performance may have contributed to this trend. Hence, we suggest that only if the ionic composition is managed can make RO water a suitable source of water for shrimp-based aquaponic. In spite of this, more research is required.

Based on acoustic fluid elements, dynamic analysis was performed on liquid sloshing modes and liquid-filled containers considering the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) effect. The liquid sloshing modes in two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) containers were analyzed, and the results were compared with liquid sloshing modes measured in tests and theoretically calculated modes. This thus verifies correctness of the simulation method based on acoustic fluid elements. Cylindrical liquid-filled containers with different water levels were subjected to modal analysis and dynamic and time-historical analysis. Results show that the finite element analysis (FEA) based on acoustic fluid elements can accurately simulate liquid sloshing modes in liquid-filled containers and vibration characteristics of these containers with different liquid levels. The vibration frequency of liquid-filled containers declines obviously with rising liquid level. The liquid level significantly affects distributions of the maximum displacement, maximum acceleration, and maximum von Mises stress on the sidewall of liquid-filled containers. Numerical simulations based on acoustic fluid elements provides an effective and reliable method for dynamic analysis of liquid-filled containers considering the FSI effect.

Within the family Solanaceae, Withania is a small genus belonging to the Solanoideae subfamily. Here, we report the de novo assembled, complete, plastomed genome sequences of W. coagulans, W. adpressa, and W. riebeckii. The length of these genomes ranged from 154,198 base pairs (bp) to 154,361 bp and contained a pair of inverted repeats (IRa and IRb) of 25,027--25,071 bp that were separated by a large single-copy (LSC) region of 85,675--85,760 bp and a small single-copy (SSC) region of 18,457--18,469 bp. We analyzed the structural organization, gene content and order, guanine-cytosine content, codon usage, RNA-editing sites, microsatellites, oligonucleotide and tandem repeats, and substitutions of Withania plastid genomes, which revealed close resemblance among the species. Both the substitution and insertion and deletion analyses confirmed that the IR region was significantly conserved compared with the LSC and SSC regions. Further comparative analysis among the Withania species highlighted 30 divergent hotspots that could potentially be used for molecular marker development, phylogenetic analysis, and species identification.

Degraded soils causing from natural and human affects are universal in arid and semi-arid regions all over the world. Bentonite and humic acid (BHA) are increasingly being tested to remediate these degraded lands with potential benefits on crop production and soil health. The objective of this paper was to determine the residual effects four to five years after a one-time BHA application at six rates on (i) dynamic changes in soil properties, and (ii) oat crop productivity parameters, in a dryland farming ecosystem. With increasing rates of one-time BHA application, soil profile water storage displayed a piecewise linear increase plus plateau, whereas soil electrical conductivity, pH and bulk density were all reduced significantly (P < 0.05) in the 0-20 cm and 20-60 cm layers. The improved soil environments gave rise to an increased activity of soil enzymes urease, invertase and catalase that respectively reached the peak values of 97%, 37% and 32% at the rates of 21 to 24 Mg BHA ha-1. These conversely boosted soil nutrient turnover, leading to a 40% higher soil available P. Compared with the control treatment, application of BHA at the estimated optimum rate (roughly 24 Mg ha-1) increased grain yield by 20%, protein yield by 62%, water use efficiency by 41%, and partial factor productivity of N by 20%. Results of this study showed for the first time that a one-time BHA application would be a new and effective strategy to combat land degradation, drought, and promote a sustainable soil micro-ecological environment in dryland agroecosystem under a varying climate scenario.

Aiming at the removal of radioactive cobalt ions from water by graphene oxide (GO), the adsorption mechanism of Co2+ on graphene oxide was analyzed using the quantum chemical calculation software Gaussian 16 based on the density functional theory. The influence of material structure factors such as carboxyl group, hydroxyl group, epoxy group and graphene sheet as well as external environmental factors such as pH, temperature and interfering ions on the adsorption effect was determined, and the influence of external environment was verified through experiments. Through calculation and experiment, it was found that the existence of oxygen-containing functional groups on graphene oxide can improve the adsorption efficiency of the materialappropriately,and increasing pH under acidic conditions was also helpful to improve the adsorption effect, and the material had certain selectivity for Co2+, the adsorption capacity and selectivity could be further improved when it was modified by increasing hydroxyl group.

: This paper proposes a reem-shape phononic crystal for the performance enhancement of TPoS resonators. The proposed phononic crystal offers an ultra-wide acoustic band gap that prevents energy leakage through the supporting substrate on its placement at the anchoring boundary, resulting in significant improvements in the resonator quality factor. Simulated results show reem-shape Phononic crystals generate a band gap up to 175MHz with BG of 90% and enhance the anchor quality factor from 180,000 to 6,000,000 and unloaded quality factor from 133,000 to 160,000 representing 33.3-fold and 1.2-fold improvements respectively.

A double Roman dominating function on a graph G is a function f : V(G) → {0, 1, 2, 3} 2 with the condition that every vertex u for which f(u) = 0 is adjacent to at least one vertex v for 3 which f(v) = 3 or two vertices v1 and v2 for which f(v1) = f(v2) = 2, and every vertex u for which 4 f(u) = 1 is adjacent to at least one vertex v for which f(v) ≥ 2. The weight of a double Roman dominating function f is the value w(f) = ∑u∈V(G) 5 f(u). The minimum weight over all double 6 Roman dominating functions on a graph G is called the double Roman domination number γdR(G) 7 of G. In this paper we determine the exact value of the double Roman domination number of the 8 generalized Petersen graphs P(n, 2) by using a discharging approach.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), a progressive and debilitating condition, is reported to be the most common type of dementia, with at least 55 million people believed to be currently affected. Many causation hypotheses of AD exist, yet the intriguing link between viral infection and its possible contribution to the known etiology of AD has become an attractive focal point of research for the field and a challenging study task. In this review, we will explore the historical perspective and milestones that led the field to investigate the viral connection to AD. Specifically, several viruses such as Herpes Simplex Virus 1 (HSV-1), Zika virus (ZIKV), and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), along with several others mentioned, include the various viruses presently considered within the field. We delve into the strong evidence implicating these viruses in the development of AD. We will also extend beyond these mere associations by carefully analyzing the potential mechanisms by which viruses may contribute to AD pathology. This includes but is not limited to direct neuronal infections, dysregulation of immune responses, and the impact on protein processing. Controversies and challenges of the viral-AD relationship emerge as we tease out these potential mechanisms considered. Looking forward, we emphasize the future directions the field should take to tackle the remaining unanswered questions and the glaring research gaps that persist. Overall, this review aims to provide a comprehensive survey of the past, present, and future of the potential link between viral infections and their association with AD development.

This paper investigates the roll parameter estimation of periodic disturbances where the amplitude, frequency, offset, and phase are hardly recognized in real practice. The key problem is to make an estimation that could eliminate the unknown disturbance parameters. An adaptive mechanism applies these four parameters to the globally exponential convergence using linear second-order filters and parameter estimation errors. Then, a backstepping controller is employed to make an exponential convergence to zero of the state variables. Moreover, reservoir computing is used to forecast chaotic roll motions to support predictability using Lyapunov exponents and the Poincaré map. Numerical simulations are demonstrated to validate the dynamical behaviors and efficacy of the proposed control scheme with machine learning.

The generalization of Farey graphs and extended Farey graphs are all originated from Farey graph and scale-free and small-world simultaneously. We propose a labeling of the vertices for it that allows determining all the shortest paths routing between any two vertices only based on their labels. The maximum number of shortest paths between any two vertices is huge as the product of two Fibonacci numbers, however, the label-based routing algorithm runs in linear time O(n). The existence of an efficient routing protocol for Farey-type models should help the understanding of several physical dynamic processes on it.

The plate embedded with acoustic black hole (ABH) indentations is potential for structural vibration and noise control. This work focuses on the mid- and low-frequency performance of plates embedded with the array of ABH for energy focalization and vibration &amp; noise suppression. Plates embedded with two-dimensional ABHs are modelled with detailed Finite Element (FE) models, and the power flow method is introduced to analyze the energy propagation characteristics arising from ABH effect. Then the distribution of average vibration power density along ABH radius is studied. Next, the energy dissipation effects of the plate model embedded with ABH array with two types of damping layers are investigated. Finally, the sound pressure levels of the ABH structure are calculated and discussed. This work is helpful to understand the characteristics of plates embedded with ABH array in reducing vibration and noise radiation. Results show the tremendous potential of ABH array for vibration and noise control.

The flow behavior of Fe-6.5wt.%Si alloys during hot compression was investigated at temperatures 650–950 °C and strain rates 0.01–10 s^-1. The results showed that the flow stress depended distinctly on the deformation temperatures and strain rates. The flow stress and work hardening rate increased with the decrease of temperature and the increase of strain rate. The activation energy under all the deformation conditions was calculated to be 410 kJ/mol. The constitutive equation with hyperbolic sine function and Zener–Hollomon parameter was developed. The peak stress, critical stress, and steady-state stress could be represented as σ=A+Bln(Z/A). Dynamic recrystallization occurred under the deformation conditions where the values of Z were lower than 10²⁰. Processing maps were established to optimize the processing parameters. The power dissipation efficiency decreased in the high temperature and low strain rate region, increased in the high temperature and high strain rate region, and remained unchanged in other regions with the increase of true strain. Furthermore, the unstable area expanded. The true strain of 0.7 was the optimum reduction according to the processing map. Based on the analysis of surface quality, microstructures, and ordered structures, the optimized processing parameters for the Fe-6.5wt.%Si alloys were the temperature and strain rate of higher than 900 °C and 0.01–10 s^-1, respectively, or 800–900 °C and lower than 0.4 s^-1, respectively.

This work investigated the influence of current density, plating solution flow rate, and nozzle outlet-cathode distance on the properties of Ni-diamond composite coatings. A multi-physics field simulation is employed to analyze the interplay between current density, plating solution flow rate, and nozzle outlet-cathode distance on the flow field and electric field distribution. Additionally, particle tracing simulations were incorporated into the model to evaluate the incorporation efficiency of diamond particles during composite electrodeposition. Experimental validation of the findings shows a significant increase in the diamond particle content of the coating. This combined approach provides valuable insights for optimizing the jet electrodeposition process for Ni-diamond composite coatings with superior properties.

F-box protein is a key protein of the SCF E3 ubiquitin ligase complex, responsible for substrate recognition and degradation through specific interactions. Previous studies have shown that F-box proteins play crucial roles in Cryptococcus sexual reproduction. However, the molecular mechanism by which F-box proteins regulate sexual reproduction in C. neoformans is unclear. In the study, we discovered the AICAR transformylase/IMP cyclohydrolase Ade16 as a substrate of Fbp1. Through protein interaction, protein stability, and in vivo ubiquitination experiments, we demonstrated that Ade16 is a substrate for Fbp1. To examine the role of ADE16 in C. neoformans, we constructed the iADE16 strains and ADE16OE strains to analyze the function of Ade16. Our results revealed that the iADE16 strains had a smaller capsule and showed growth defects under NaCl, while the ADE16OE strains were sensitive to SDS but not to Congo red, which is consistent with the stress phenotype of the fbp1Δ strains, indicating that the intracellular protein expression level after ADE16 overexpression was similar to that after FBP1 deletion. Interestingly, although iADE16 strains can produce basidiospores normally, ADE16OE strains can produce mating mycelia but not basidiospores after mating, which is consistent with the fbp1Δmutant strains, suggesting that Fbp1 is likely to regulate the sexual reproduction of C. neoformans through the modulation of Ade16. Fungal nuclei development assay showed that the nuclei of the ADE16OE strains failed to fuse in the bilateral mating, indicating that Ade16 plays a crucial role in the regulation of meiosis during mating. In summary, our findings have revealed a new determinant factor involved in fungal development related to the post-translational regulation of AICAR transformylase/IMP cyclohydrolase.

Abstract: Interrupted-sampling repeater jamming (ISRJ) is a kind of intra-pulse coherent decep-tion jamming that can generate false target peaks in the range profile and interfere with the de-tection and tracking of real targets. In this paper, an anti-ISRJ method based on the intra-pulse orthogonal waveform is proposed, which can recognize common interference signals by com-paring sub-signal matched filtering results. For some special scenes where real targets cannot be directly differentiated from false targets, a new recognition method based on the energy discon-tinuity of the interference signal in the time domain is proposed in this paper. The method pro-posed in this paper can recognize real and false targets in all ISRJ modes without any prior in-formation, such as jammer parameters, with a small amount of calculation, which is suitable for actual radar systems. Simulation experiments using different interference parameters show that although this method has a 3dB loss of pulse compression gain, it can completely suppress dif-ferent kinds of ISRJ interference when the SNR before pulse compression is higher than -20dB, with 100 % target detection probability.

Tungsten carbide (WC) was well known as a wear-resistant material. Iron-based pow-der was suitable for remanufacturing of cast iron engine parts. To improve the wear resistance of the remanufactured iron-based cast iron engine parts, WC-Co was intro-duced into iron-based powders to prepare composite coatings for cast iron engine components. In this work, FeAlC-x(WC-Co) composite coatings were prepared by plasma transfer arc on compacted graphite cast iron. The influences of WC-Co con-tents in the Fe-AlC-x(WC-Co) composite coatings on the microstructure and properties of the composite coatings were investigated. The composite coatings contained γ-Fe, α-Fe, WC and Fe3W3C mainly. The microhardness of FeAlC-x(WC-Co) composite coatings had the highest hardness of 814 HV0.2, the-lowest coefficient of 0.5 and the lest wear mass loss of 1.3mg when the weight content of WC-Co in the composite coating was 20wt%. As compared with the FeAlC coating, FeAlC-x(WC-Co) composite coating achieved the effect of reducing friction and wear resistance simultaneously, which resulted from the self-lubricating effect of graphite and high wear-resistance of carbides in the claddings.

The 2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline (2-AP) is the most important volatile in determining the aroma of fragrant rice, however, the transcriptional regulation mechanism of 2-AP biosynthesis in fragrant rice is still unclear. In this study, the Osp5cs1 knockout mutant lines and OsP5CS1 over-expression lines were constructed by genetic transformation of indica rice cultivar i.e., ‘Zhonghua11’, which was knocked out OsBADH2 to produce fragrance in aromatic rice. The OsP5CS1 gene was also identified as a key gene in the 2-AP biosynthesis pathway of aromatic rice. The OsP5CS1 promoter was used as bait, and the transcription factor OsbZIP60-like was screened by yeast one-hybrid assays. The transcription factor OsbZIP60-like specifically bound to the OsP5CS1 gene. The dual luciferase reporting system found that OsbZIP60-like transcription factor promoted the transcriptional activation of OsP5CS1. Compared with the wild type, the OsP5CS1 gene expression was significantly down-regulated in Osbzip60-like mutant, and resulted in substantial reduction in 2-AP biosynthesis. Moreover, the OsP5CS1 gene expression was significantly up-regulated in OsbZIP60-like over-expressed plants, and the 2-AP concentrations were also increased whereas the Osbzip60-like mutants were found to be sensitive to Zn deficiency. Overall, the OsbZIP60-like transcription factor promoted the 2-AP accumulation. This study provides a theoretical basis for the transcriptional regulation mechanism of 2-AP biosynthesis and explores the function of OsbZIP transcription factor in fragrant rice.

As major natural disasters in grassland areas, fires and dust events seriously threaten human safety, property, and animal husbandry. Furthermore, these phenomena may be mutually reinforcing, which can lead to more severe cascading disasters. However, few studies have been on the mechanisms of grassland fire and dust events disaster chain. Therefore, we selected Dornod aimag (province), a typical temperate grassland, as the study area and analyzed the spatiotemporal variation patterns of grassland fires and dust weather, as well as the effect of grassland fires on dust weather based on MCD64A1 Burnt Area data and SYNOP dust data. The mechanism of grassland fires on dust weather was further investigated using the MOD13A3 vegetation index product and ERA5 wind speed, wind direction, and precipitation data. The results revealed that grassland fires and dust weather varied spatially across the study area. Furthermore, grassland fires occurred mainly in spring (April to May), summer (June), and autumn (October), while dust weather mainly occurred in spring (March to May). Moreover, autumn, winter, and spring cumulative grassland fires (both days and area) substantially affected the spring total dust weather days and dust storm days, particularly the spring cumulative dust storm days. Additionally, higher precipitation in the summer of 2014 resulted in higher vegetation coverage and more fuel in the autumn and winter of 2014, and even in the spring of 2015. As a result, the cumulative grassland fire days was higher, and the area was larger from September 2014 to April 2015, leading to a considerable increase in the cumulative dust storm days in May 2015. This study has important implications for disaster prevention and mitigation, ecological and environmental protection, and sustainable development in grasslands.

In swarm-robotics foraging, the purpose of task allocation is to adjust the number of active foraging robots dynamically based on the task demands and changing environment. It is a difficult challenge to generate self-organized foraging behavior in which each robot can adapt to environmental changes. To complete the foraging task efficiently, this paper presents a novel self-organized task allocation strategy known as the dynamic response threshold model (DRTM). To adjust the behavior of the active foraging robots, the proposed DRTM newly introduces the traffic flow density, which can be used to evaluate the robot density. First, the traffic flow density and the amount of obstacle avoidance are used to adjust the threshold which determines the tendency of a robot to respond to a stimulus in the environment. Then, each individual robot uses the threshold and external stimulus to calculate the foraging probability that determines whether or not to go foraging. Simulation and physical experiments are carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The experimental results show that the DRTM is superior to and more efficient than the adaptive response threshold model (ARTM) in swarm foraging.

Globally, weeds interfere with agricultural production activities and have a very serious impact on agriculture and animal husbandry. Identifying a safe and reliable weed control strategy might increase yield, production net income, and improve crop quality. A field experiment was carried out to explore the effects of weeds interference frequency on the yield and quality of Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch in an arid and semi-arid area of northwest China. The experiment consisted of seven treatments and were (1) no weeding, marked as WF0; (2)-(7) artificial weeding by hoe once every 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 weeks after emergence, marked as WF1, WF2, WF4, WF6, WF8 and WF10, respectively. We found that the higher weeding frequency had a higher the plant height, photosynthesis, yield and quality. The highest yield was obtained in the WF1 treatment, while the cost of weeding was the highest among all treatments. The concentration of liquiritin and glycyrrhizic acid were increased by 53.24% and 36.57%, with the highest nitrogen metabolism enzymatic activities and quality in WF4 treatment. WF4 treatment exhibited the largest increases in the net income among all treatments in both growing seasons, with respective increases up to 71.39 % and 78.81%. These findings suggested that weeding once every 4 weeks would be an effective and sustainable measure to control weeds in an arid and semi-arid area.

Conductive hydrogels combine the properties of both hydrogels and electrical conductivity, making them soft, flexible, and biocompatible. These properties enable them to conform to irregular surfaces, stretch and bend without losing their electrical conductivity, and interface with biological systems. Conductive hydrogels can be utilized as conductive traces, electrodes, or as a matrix for flexible electronics. Exciting applications in sensors, tissue engineering and human-machine interaction have been demonstrated worldwide. This review comprehensively covers the progress in this field, focusing on several main aspects: functional materials, performance improvement strategies, and wearable applications in human-related areas. Furthermore, the major approaches and challenges for improving their mechanical properties, conductivity, and long-term stability are systematically summarized.

This study probes the probabilistic features of major fire hazards in enclosed spaces to establish their importance to the occurrence of fires onboard ro-ro passenger ships and in turn to raise effective operational countermeasures. Distinct from the previous studies, the present research employs Bayesian Network (BN) analysis to determine the probabilities of fire hazards more effectively. The findings of the research include five critical basic events (BE) identified namely, vehicle engine fire (fuel system fault), vehicle electric fire (electrical equipment defect or short circuit), used car electrical fire, reefer units electrical fire (electrical appliances defects or short circuit), and cargo spontaneous combustion. Additionally, the risk of fire for lithium - ion battery powered vehicles is also highlighted in the process of BN analysis, which prompts the authors to propose preventive measures for mitigating the possibility of fire occurrence on this type of electric vehicles. It is hoped that these measures can be essential justifications for establishing relevant rules regarding carrying LIB vehicles in enclosed spaces on international level.

Dendrite growth and parasitic reactions with liquid electrolyte are the two key factors that restrict the practical application of the lithium metal anode. Herein, a bis(benzene sulfonyl)imide based single-ion polymer artificial layer for lithium metal anode is successfully constructed, which is prepared via blending the as-prepared copolymer of lithiated 4, 4’-dicarboxyl bis(benzene sulfonyl)imide and 4,4’-diaminodiphenyl ether on the surface of lithium foil. This single-ion polymer artificial layer enables compact structure with unique continuous aggregated Li+ clusters, thus reducing the direct contact between lithium metal and electrolyte, and ensuring Li+ transport fast and homogeneous simultaneously. Based on which, the coulombic efficiency of the Li|Cu half-cell is effectively improved, and the cycle stability of the Li|Li symmetric cell can be prolonged from 160 h to 240 h. Surficial morphology and elemental valence analysis confirm that the bis(benzene sulfonyl)imide based single-ion polymer artificial layer effectively facilitates the Li+ uniform deposition and suppresses parasitic reactions between lithium metal anode and liquid electrolyte in the LFP|Li full-cell. This strategy provides a new perspective to achieve steady lithium metal anode, which can be a promising candidate in practical application.

In order to improve the adaptability of broilers to low-temperature environments and their ability to resist acute cold stress (ACS), 240 one-day-old broilers were selected and randomly divided into three groups. The control treatment (CC) was raised at the conventional feeding temperature from 1-43 days (d), the cold stimulation treatments (CS) were kept at 3 °C below the temperature of CC at 1-d intervals for 3 and 6 hours from 15 to 35 d, namely CS3 and CS6, respectively. Then all broilers were kept at 20 °C from 36 to 43 d. ACS was then carried out at 44 d, and the ambient temperature was dropped to 10 °C for 6 hours. The study investigated the production perfor-mance, as well as levels of intestinal barrier genes (including Claudin-1, E-cadherin, Occludin, ZO-1, ZO-2 and Mucin2), secretory IgA in duodenum and jejunum, and immunoglobulins (IgA and IgG) in serum. The results showed that IMCS could increase the daily weight gain and decrease the feed conversion ratio. During the IMCS, the expression levels of intestinal barrier genes were up-regulated and the content of secretory IgA was increased. When IMCS ceased for one week, the level of immunoglobulins in serum stabilized, and the expression levels of Occludin, ZO-2 and Mucin2 still maintained high levels. After ACS, broilers that received IMCS training maintained the high levels of intestinal barrier genes and secretory IgA.

Photoelectrochemical systems have the potential to contribute to de-carbonation of the energy system because solar energy can be directly converted to hydrogen which can be burnt without the release of greenhouse gases. However, meaningful deployment of photoelectrochemical (PEC) technology in the global energy system, even when highly efficient scaled up devices become available, shall only be a reality when their safe and reliable operation can be guaranteed over serveral years of service life. The first part of the review discusses the importance of hermetic sealing of up scaled PEC device provided by the casing and sealing joints from a reliability and risk perspective. The second part of the review presents a survey of fully functional devices and early demonstrators and uses this to establish the extent to which the state of the art in PEC device design address the issue of hermetic sealing. The survey revealed that current material choices and sealing techniques are still unsuitable for scale –up and commercialization. Accordingly, we examined possible synergies with related photovoltaic and electrochemical devices that have been commericalised and derived therefrom, recommendations for future research routes that could accelerate the development of hermetic sealings of PEC devices.

With the development of deep learning, several Graph Neural Networks (GNN)-based approaches have been utilized for text classification. However, GNNs encounter challenges in capturing contextual text information within a document sequence. To address this, a novel text classification model RB-GAT is proposed by combining RoBERTa-BiGRU embedding and a multi-head Graph ATtention Network (GAT). First, the pre-trained RoBERTa model is exploited to learn word and text embeddings in different contexts. Second, the Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit (BiGRU) is employed to capture long-term dependencies and bidirectional sentence information from the text context. Next, the multi-head graph attention network is applied to analyze this information, which serves as a node feature for the document. Finally, the classification results are generated through a Softmax layer. Experimental results on three benchmark datasets demonstrate that our method can achieve an accuracy of 71.48%, 98.45%, and 80.32% on Ohsumed, R8, and MR, which is superior to the existing nine text classification approaches.

The study of mechanical properties of rock mass can be effectively carried out through rock-like material model test. The similarity of mechanical properties between rock-like material and protolith is dependent on the appropriate selection of composition and content of rock-like materials. In this research, X-Ray diffraction test was conducted to analyze the composition of deep rock, which confirmed silica, quartz, and dolomite as the primary components of deep sandstone. An orthogonal design test was used to execute the ratio test of rock-like material. River sand was used as an aggregate, cement as a binder, gypsum powder as a regulator, and polystyrene foam (EPS) as rock damage simulation material. The influencing factors considered in the orthogonal mechanical tests were the proportion of aggregate and binder, ratio of binder and regulator, quantity of damage simulation material, and size of damage simulation material. Three levels were set for each factor, and mechanical parameters such as compressive strength, tensile strength, elastic modulus, axial strain, and Poisson's ratio were tested for each group of samples. The changes of those parameters with the levels of the above four factors were studied. The study revealed that adjusting the size of polystyrene foam (EPS) can adjust the values of elastic modulus, tensile strength, and Poisson's ratio of rock-like material. Similarly, changing the ratio of binder and regulator can adjust the values of axial strain and compressive strength of rock-like material. The rock-like material developed in the study can simulate the mechanical properties of different rock masses such as granite, sandstone, shale, and limestone.

The Ni-Co-Cr-W-Mo system is critical for the design of nickel-based super-alloys. This system stabilizes different topologically close packed (TCP) phases in many of the commercially super-alloys with high W and Mo contents. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and thermodynamic calculations are applied to investigate the thermodynamics of the precipitates in two different W content Ni-Co-Cr-W-Mo super-alloys. Computational thermodynamics verified experimental observation of the f u phase formation as a function of temperature and alloy chemistry, but the kinetics for the precipitation of M6C phase do not agree with the experimental findings. The major precipitates of alloy 1 at temperatures 700 and 750 °C during long time exposure are M23C6, γ′ phase, and MC, and alloy 2 are M23C6, γ′ phase, MC, M6C and u phase. The W addition is found to promote the precipitation of M6C and u phase during exposure. The M6C has higher W and lower Ni content than that of u phase, meanwhile, M6C is an unstable phase would transform into M12C after 5000 h exposure at 750 °C. A great quantity of needle-like u phases precipitated after exposure at 750 °C for 5000h, which have no effect on the impact property of alloy 2.

Continuous cropping of Platycodon produces problems that significantly impact its yield and quality making it a pressing issue that requires immediate attention. In this study, the sandwich method is employed to evaluate the allelopathic activity of different plant parts (leaves, stems, and roots) of Platycodon. The inhibitory effects of the various Platycodon plant parts were quantified based on their effects on lettuce seedlings growth by Sandwich method, with the following average inhibition percentages at 1 mg/ml (agar) of : leaves (79.4%, 61.8%), stems (58.0%, 45.7%), and roots (53.4%, 49.3%) for lettuce radicals and hypocotyls, respectively. At a concentration of 5 mg/ml, the inhibitory effects were as follow: leaves (91.9%, 72.2%), stems (79.5%, 60.3%), and roots (71.4%, 65.2%). Also, by employing the Plant Box method, it was determined that Platycodon root exudation. The growth inhibition rates of lettuce seedling roots and hypocotyls were 45.5% and 18.9%, respectively. The effect of activated carbon on the adsorption of allelopathic substances was investigated, and the results of the sandwich method with a concentration of 1 mg/ml showed the following growth inhibitory effects on lettuce seedlings and hypocotyls: roots (27.8%, 25.7%), leaves (13.3%, 25.7%), and stem (9.07%, 13.6%). The Plant Box method revealed average rates of inhibition of -16.7% and -4.70% on the growth of lettuce seedlings and hypocotyls, respectively. The results of this study demonstrated that activated carbon has a mitigating effect on the allelopathic inhibition associated with the different plant parts and root exudation of Platycodon, thus may provide a potential solution for overcoming obstacles associated with continuous cropping of Platycodon.

In modern security situations, tracking multiple human objects in real-time within challenging urban environments is a critical capability for enhancing situational awareness, minimizing response time, and increasing overall operational effectiveness. Tracking multiple entities enables informed decision-making, risk mitigation, and the safeguarding of civil-military operations to ensure safety and mission success. This paper presents a multi-modal electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) and radio frequency (RF) fused sensing (MEIRFS) platform for real-time human object detection, recognition, classification, and tracking in challenging environments. By utilizing different sensors in a complementary manner, the robustness of the sensing system is enhanced, enabling reliable detection and recognition results across various situations. Specifically designed Radar tag and thermal tag can be used to discriminate friendly and non-friendly objects. The system incorporates deep learning-based image fusion and human object recognition and tracking (HORT) algorithms to ensure accurate situation assessment. After integrating into an all-terrain robot, multiple ground tests were conducted to verify the consistent HORT in various environments. The MEIRFS sensor system has been designed to meet the Size, Weight, Power, and Cost (SWaP-C) requirements for installation on autonomous ground and aerial vehicles.

The most recent outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus, named as COVID-19, caused pneumonia epidemic in Wuhan with 2,121 deaths cases as of February 20^th 2020. Identification of effective antiviral agents to combat the novel coronavirus is urgently needed. Citrus fruit peel or wild citrus are rich in flavonoid, and is clinically documented for roles in relief of cough and promotion of digestive health. Therefore, citrus fruits are assumed to possess antivirus activities or enhance the host immunity. A previous study found that hesperetin could act as a high potent inhibitor of SARS-CoV 3CLpro. We determined six flavonoid compounds content of in three citrus species by using LC-MS technique. The content of naringin and naringenin was at higher levels in pummelo. Hesperetin and hesperidin were highly accumulated in mandarin and sweet orange. The subsequent in vitro and in vivo experiments indicated that naringin could inhibit the expression of the proinflammatory cytokines (COX-2, iNOS, IL-1β and IL-6) induced by LPS in Raw macrophage cell line, and may restrain cytokine through inhibiting HMGB1 expression in a mouse model. The results revealed that naringin may have a potential application for preventing cytokine storm. We simulated molecular docking to predict the binding affinity of those flavonoids to bind Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE 2), which is a receptor of the coronavirus. Consideration of the potential anti-coronavirus and anti-inflammatory activity of flavonoids, the citrus fruit or its derived phytochemicals are promising in the use of prevention and treatment of 2019-nCoV infection.

Grasping the spatial and temporal patterns of forest fires, along with the key factors that drive them and the ability to forecast such events accurately, is essential for the successful management of forests. In China's southern region, forest fires significantly endanger the ecological system, public safety, and economic well-being. Through the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and LightGBM (Light Gradient Boosting Machine) model, this study investigates the determinants of fire incidents and formulates a predictive model for forest fire occurrences, alongside a zoning strategy, within the Central-South area. The results indicate: (i) Spatially, fire points exhibit significant clustering and autocorrelation characteristics; (ii) The Central-South Forest Fire Prediction Model shows exceptional accuracy, reliability, and predictive power, with high performance metrics across training and validation sets, including over 85% accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 scores, along with AUC values above 89%, underscoring its efficacy in forecasting forest fires and distinguishing between fire events; (iii) Throughout the year, forest fire risks in the Central-South region of China vary by region and season, with risk spikes from March to May in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei, and Hainan. From June to August, localized risks are observed in Heyuan and Huangshi, while from September to November, an increase in risk is noted in Guangdong (Meizhou, Heyuan, Shaoguan), Guangxi (Nanning, Hezhou, Yulin), and Hunan (Binzhou, Yongzhou, Hengyang) due to cooler, drier conditions and leaf litter accumulation. From December to February, the risk continues in specific areas across Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, and Hubei.

The external and internal structures of male and female adults of Culicoides grisescens Edwards, were examined with scanning electron microscope (SEM) and tissue section techniques. Specimens were collected from Qilian Mountain National Park in Qinghai Province, China. The ultrastructure and morphology of compound eyes, antenna, maxillary palpus, spermathecae, genitalia and other structural characteristics of both male and female adults of C. grisescens are described. Internal structures of the species are described, including histological sections of the digestive, nervous, respiratory, and reproductive systems. This paper provides visual and descriptive details for the systematic taxonomic study of Ceratopogonidae.

The Cauto River Basin (CRB), the heartland of Cuban agriculture, has been hit hard by drought and water shortage. In response to this pressing issue, this study provides a comprehensive as-sessment of water supply, demand and balance within the Cauto River Basin, considering the baseline and projected socio-economic and climatic conditions by coupling of SWAT and WEAP models. The obtained results reveal that the annual flow in the CRB is projected to slightly de-crease (2.5%) in which the reduction in the rainy season (3.1%) is higher than that in the dry sea-son (1.3%). Total water demand in the baseline scenario is around 1.194 billion m3, dominated by agriculture (96%), with rice crop requiring nearly half. For the future scenario of 2050, the study shows a 16.6% surge in demand to 1.394 billion m3, driven by climate change and agricultural expansion. However, domestic use decreases by 10% due to population reduction. Water deficit in the future is projected to increase by 52% from 172.4 to 262.7 million m3 due to rising water demand and declining water supply. This study shows that integrating a hydrological model into a water allocation model is a promising approach to estimate the water supply, demand and balance, which is a crucial component of water resources management.

The nanocomposites with reversible cross-linking covalent bonds were prepared by reacting furfurylamine (FA)-modified diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) and furfuryl-functionalized aniline trimer-modified graphene (TFAT-G) with bismaleimide (BMI) via Diels-Alder (DA) reaction. The successful synthesis of the TFAT modifier is confirmed by NMR hydrogen spectroscopy and IR spectroscopy tests. The structure and properties of TFAT-G epoxy nanocomposites are characterized by SEM, DSC, tensile and resistivity CES. The results show that TFAT-G was uniformly dispersed in the resin, and 1wt% TFAT-G composites increase to 233% for tensile strength, 63% for elongation at break, 66.1% for modulus and 7.8℃ for Tg. Overall, the graphene/self-healing resin nanocomposites have both good self-healing function and electrical conductivity by adding 1% modified graphene and still maintain the original 83% strength and 89% electrical conductivity after one cycle of heating repair.

Maize (Zea mays) is one of the most important staple food and primary source of livestock feed in the world. As the consumption of maize grown on the selenium-enriched soils of Naore Valley is one of the apparent causes of selenosis in the area, this work collected and analyzed total Se, Se fractions, and Se species distributions in maize plant samples, including grains, leaves, stalks, roots, rhizosphere soils, and the most representative parent rock materials from Naore Valley, Ziyang County, China. The Se distribution in soils markedly correlated with the weathered Se-enriched bedrocks, but most of the Se in the analyzed soils is enclosed as recalcitrant residual Se and organic-sulfide bound Se. In contrast, Se in rocks had a comparatively higher bioavailability and is bounded mainly to organic matter and sulfides minerals, with very few of the Se enclosed in the residual fraction. Maize plants might take a large amount of Se from the organic-sulfide bound Se fraction in the Se-rich soils, the weathered products from bedrocks or plant litters. Total Se concentrations in the collected samples were observed in descending order soil>leaf>root>grain>stalk. The predominant Se species detected in maize plants was SeMet. Se inorganic forms, mainly Se(VI), decreased from root to grain and were possibly assimilated into organic forms. Se (IV) was barely present. The natural increases in Se concentration affected mainly leaf and root dry-weight biomass as they are the organs that coped with the highest Se accumulation. This paper offers an insight into the uptake, accumulation, and distribution of Se forms in natural Se-rich maize crops and an opportunity for shifting Se-rich soils from menaces to valuable resources for growing Se-rich agricultural products.

Subsoil tillage loosens compacted soil for better plant growth, but promotes water loss, which is a concern in areas commonly irrigated. Therefore, our objective was to determine the physiological responses of high yield spring corn (Zea mays L.) to Subsoil tillage depth when grown in the western plain irrigation area of Inner Mongolia that leads to the best water use efficiency. The experiment during 2014 and 2015 used Zhengdan958 and Xianyu335 with three differing subsoil tillage depths (30, 40, or 50 cm) as trial factor and shallow rotary as a control. Subsoil tillage increased shoot dry matter accumulation, leading to a greater shoot/root ratio. Subsoil tillage helped retain greater leaf area index in each growth stage, increase the leaf area duration, net assimilation rate, and relative growth rate, with greater effects as tillage was deeper, effectively delaying the aging of the blade. Grain yields were increased by 0.7%–8.9% on average in subsoil tillage treatments compared to conventional soil treatment shallow rotary, Water use efficiency were increased by 1.93%–18.49% on average in subsoil tillage treatment compared to shallow rotary, resulting in net income increases by 2.24% to 6.97% compared to shallow rotary. Among the three different subsoil tillage depth treatment, the grain yield, water use efficiency, and net income is the best under the treatment of subsoil tillage depth of 50 cm.

In the natural environment, sand accumulation and desertification can influence the efficiency of photovoltaic arrays. In this study, PV module output characteristics were examined under different sand particle size, varying sand densities and inclination angles, and at wind speeds of 5m/s, 10m/s, and 15m/s. Both theoretical and experimental results showed that the output power of the module declines with increasing sand density. As the sand particle size increases, the module maximum output power rises and then stabilizes. The two control variables, namely sand density and sand particle size, influence the module temperature and light transmittance distinctly. Contrary to the impact of sand density on the module filling factor curve, the module filling factor exhibits varying trends under different sand particle sizes. Additionally, the pattern of the module filling factor as a function of sand density contrasts with that of the module temperature under analogous conditions. Specifically, when the sand density on the PV module surface increases from 0 to 40g/m², there is a 32.2% reduction in maximum output power. At a wind speed of 15m/s, this reduction was found consistent across all wind speed categories. Furthermore, the trend of the module filling factor rel-ative to sand accumulation density contrasts with the module temperature trend under analogous conditions. Notably, the filling factor reached its apex at a sand accumulation density of 35g/m², which corresponded to the module temperature's nadir during the experiment.

In this study, a commercial sodium butyrate protected by a new buffer salt solution (NSB) was tested to determine whether it can be used as an antibiotic alternative in broiler production. 192 1-day-old broilers were randomly allocated to three dietary treatments: soybean meal diet (CON), antibiotic diet (ANT, basal diet + 100 mg/kg aureomycin), and NSB (basal diet + 800 mg/kg NSB). The growth performance, serum anti-inflammatory cytokines, intestinal morphology, gut barrier function, antioxidative parameters, SCFAs content, and cecal microbiota were analyzed. The result showed that NSB significantly improved ADFI, ADG (p < 0.01), and decreased FCR (p < 0.01). Serum anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 was up-regulated (p < 0.01), and pro-inflammatory TNF-α was down-regulated (p < 0.05) by NSB supplementation. H&E results showed that VH and VH: CD ratio significantly increased (p < 0.05) in the jejunum and ileum in the NSB group. Furthermore, ZO-1 (p < 0.01), claudin-1 (p < 0.01), and occludin (p < 0.05) in the jejunum and claudin-1 (p < 0.01) and mucin-2 (p < 0.05) in the ileum significantly up-regulated in the NSB group, respectively. Additionally, SOD (p < 0.05) and T-AOC/MDA ratio (p < 0.01) in the jejunum and SOD in the ileum were significantly increased (p < 0.05) in the NSB group. The MDA level also significantly increased (p < 0.01) in the ANT group in the jejunum. Propionic acid (p < 0.05) and butyric acid (p < 0.01) content significantly increased in the NSB group in the jejunum and ileum segments. The 16S rRNA sequencing results showed no significant difference (p > 0.05) in alpha and beta diversity among the groups. LEFSe analysis also indicated that Peptostreptococcaceae, Colidextribacter, Firmicutes, Oscillospira, and Erysipelatoclostridiaceae, which promote SCFA production (p < 0.05), were identified as dominant taxon-enriched bacterial genera in the NSB group. The Spearman correlation analysis revealed that Colidextribacter with ADFI, ADG, VH, claudin-1 (p < 0.05), and unclassified_f__Peptostreptococcaceae with ADFI, IL-10, and ZO-1 were positively correlated (p < 0.05). Furthermore, ADFI and ADG with IL-10, claudin-1, SOD, T-AOC, and butyric acid (p < 0.05), and similarly, ADG with VH (p < 0.05) showed a positive correlation. In conclusion, NSB enhanced the growth performance by improving jejunum and ileum morphology, serum anti-inflammatory cytokines, regulating intestinal barrier function and antioxidant capacity, SCFAs content, and cecum microbiota, showing its potential use as an alternative to antibiotics in poultry nutrition.

A Water demand per capita will rise in the Arab world as a result of climate change and population expansion. One of the most important aims in coping with population increase around the world is to conserve water supplies. As a result, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia constructed Al Wajeed Water Treatment System to meet the demands of the southern population. This research aims to assess the drinking water quality produced from the AlWajeed Water Treatment System. Monthly water samples were collected (January 2018 to January 2021) from the Al Wajeed Water Treatment Framework (4sites), extending to governorates; Bishah`s distribution system (5sites) and Tathleeth`s distribution system (7sites). Water quality criteria, such as physical, chemical, and microbiological parameters, revealed that the majority of water samples collected from the Al Wajeed Water Framework and its environs are of a good quality matched the national and international standards. Few sites showed water quality criteria, such turbidity, fluoride and total coliform did not comply with national and global standards. The obtained results explained the importance of monitoring and follow-up programs for drinking water criteria. In addition, they can help the authorities and stakeholders in the sustainable development.

Recently, deep learning models have been widely applied to modulation recognition, which have become a hot topic due to their excellent end-to-end learning capabilities. However, current methods are mostly based on uni-modal inputs, which suffer from incomplete information and local optimization. To complement the advantages of different modalities, we focus on the multi-modal fusion method. Therefore, we introduce an iterative dual-scale attentional fusion (iDAF) method to integrate multimodal data. Firstly, two feature maps with different receptive field sizes are constructed using local and global embedding layers. Secondly, the feature inputs are iterated into the Iterative Dual Scale Attention Module (iDCAM), where the two branches capture the details of high-level features and the global weights of each modal channel, respectively. The iDAF not only extracts the recognition characteristics of each specific domains, but also complements the strengths of different modalities to obtain a fruitful view. Our iDAF achieves a recognition accuracy of 93.5\% at 10dB and 0.6232 at full SNR. The comparative experiments and ablation studies effectively demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the iDAF.

Phthalate esters (PAEs) are a ubiquitous kind of environmental endocrine-disrupting chemicals, causing environmental and health issues. EstJ6 is an effective phthalate-degrading hydrolase, and its mutant with a combination of three non-conservative distal mutations has an improved activity against PAEs with unknown molecular mechanisms. Herein, we attempt to fill the significant gap between distal mutations and the activity of this enzyme using computational approaches. We find mutations result in a redistribution of enzyme’s preexisting conformational states and dynamics changes of key functional regions, especially the lid over the active site. The outward motion of the lid upon mutations should make it easier for substrates or products to enter or exit. Additionally, the stronger substrate binding affinity and conformational rearrangements of catalytic reaction-associated residues in mutant, accompanied by the strengthened communication within the protein, might contribute to the elevated catalytic efficiency. Finally, an attempt has been done to improve the thermostability of EstJ6 upon introducing a distal disulfide bond between residues A23 and A29, and the simulation results are as expected. Together, our work explored the allosteric effects caused by distal mutations, which could provide insights into the rational design of esterases for industrial applications in the future.

Water splitting technology is an efficient approach to generate hydrogen (H2) energy, which can well address the problems of environmental deterioration and energy shortage, as well as establishment of a clean and sustainable hydrogen economy powered by renewable energy sources due to the green reaction of H2 with O2. While the efficiency of H2 production by water splitting technology is intimately related with the reactions on electrode. Nowadays, the efficient electrocatalysts in water splitting reactions are the precious metal-based materials, i.e., Pt/C, RuO2 and IrO2. Ni (Co, Fe)-based layered double hydroxides (LDH) 2D materials are the typical non-precious metal-based materials in water splitting with advantages of low cost, excellent electrocatalytic performance and simple preparation methods, which exhibits a great potential for the substitution for precious metal-based materials. This review summarizes the recent progress of Ni (Co, Fe)-based LDH 2D materials for water splitting, which mainly focuses on discussing and analyzing the different strategies to modify LDH materials towards high electrocatalytic performance. We also discuss the recent achievements including their electronic structure, electrocatalytic performance, catalytic center, preparation process and catalytic mechanism. Furthermore, the characterization progress in revealing electronic structure and catalytic mechanism of LDH is highlighted in this review. Finally, we put forward some future perspectives related to design and explore advanced LDH catalysts in water splitting.

This article presents a method for extracting neural signal features to identify the imagination of left and right hand grasping movements. A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment is employed to identify four brain regions with significant activations during motor imagery(MI) and the effective connections between these regions of interest (ROIs) were calculated using Dynamic Window-level Granger Causality (DWGC). Then, a real-time fMRI(rt-fMRI) classification system for left and right hand MI is developed using the Open-NFT platform. The experimental results show that incorporating effective connections can enhance the average accuracy of real-time three-class classification (rest, left hand and right hand) by 3% in comparison to traditional multivoxel pattern classification analysis(MVPA). Moreover, it significantly improves classification accuracy during the initial stage of MI tasks while reducing the latency effects in real-time decoding. The study suggests that the effective connections obtained through the DWGC method serve as valuable features for real-time decoding of MI using fMRI. Moreover, they exhibit higher sensitivity to changes in brain states. This research offers theoretical support and technical guidance for extracting neural signal features in the context of fMRI-based studies.

The microstructures and mechanical properties of the hot-rolled Fe-6.5wt.%Si sheet are analyzed. The microstructure of the hot-rolled sheet is layered along the thickness direction. The surface exhibits fine and equiaxed grains, whereas the center part shows coarse and elongated grains with a <101> fiber texture along the rolling direction. Serrated flow behavior is observed during tensile deformation of both the hot-rolled sheet and its center samples at 350 °C; thus, the serrated flow of the hot-rolled sheet is mainly attributed to the serration of the center part. The analyses of dislocation configurations, ordered structures, and crystal orientation show that the serrated flow behavior results from the interaction of solutes with mobile dislocations. Mobile dislocations are pinned by combining parallel forest dislocations with the pipe diffusion of solution atoms. This study provides a new perspective for the deformation mechanism of the Fe-6.5wt.%Si alloy.

Inflammatory reaction after ischemia-reperfusion contributes significantly to prognosis, and microglia activation is the main resource of inflammation in nervous system. STAT5 is proving to be a highly effective anti-inflammatory therapy with great potential, and inhibition of STAT5 has demonstrated significant anti-inflammation and therapeutic effects, but rarely focus on mechanism of neuroinflammation and brain injury from ischemia-reperfusion. It is the first time to found that the anti-inflammation of dauricine is mainly through STAT5-NF-κB pathway, might act as a STAT5 inhibitor. Dauricine suppressed the inflammation cytokines Eotaxin, KC, TNF-α, IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-12β, IL-17α, and also inhibited the microglia activation. STAT5b mutant at Tyr-699 reversed the protective effect of dauricine on oxygen-glucose deprivation-reperfusion injury of neurons, and reactivated the suppression of dauricine on P-NF-κB of microglia. These results suggest that dauricine might suppress the neuroinflammation and protect the neuron from the injury of post-ischemia-reperfusion via mediating the microglia activation through STAT5-NF-κB pathway, and ss a potential therapeutic target for neuroinflammation, STAT5 needs to be raised concern in ischemic stroke.

Augment reality (AR) is crucial for immersive human-computer interaction (HCI) and vision of artificial intelligence (AI). Labeled data drove object recognition in AR. However, manual annotating data is expensive and labor-intensive, and furthermore, scanty labeled data limits the application of AR. Aiming at solving the problem of insufficient training data in AR object recognition, an automated vision data synthesis method called BAGAN is proposed in this paper based on the 3D modeling and GAN algorithm. Our approach has been validated to have better performance than other methods through image recognition task on natural image database ObjectNet3D. This study can shorten the algorithm development time of AR and expand the application scope of AR, which is of great significance to immersive interactive systems.

A marine fibrinolytic compound FGFC1 enhancing fibrinolysis was obtained involving in enzymatic kinetic parameters of reciprocal activation system with single chain urokinase type plasminogen activator and plasminogen. FGFC1, a kind of bisindole alkaloid from a metabolite of rare marine fungi Starchbotrys longispora FG216, modulated enzymatic kinetic parameters including fibrinolytic reaction rate and fibrin degradation characteristics. The enzymatic kinetics of fibrinolysis was described based on enzymatic reaction of chromogenic-substrate associated with p-nitroaniline (p-NA). While single chain urokinase-type plasminogen activator (pro-uPA) actived plasminogen, K_cat and k_cat/k_m increased significantly with increase of FGFC1 concentration. Moreover, K_cat and k_cat/k_m exhibited 26.5-fold and 22.8-fold enhanced activity at the concentration of 40 μg•mL⁻¹ of FGFC1, respectively. The results suggested that FGFC1 improved significantly the maximum catalytic efficiency and the total catalytic activity of fibrinolysis base on the reciprocal activation of pro-uPA and plasminogen. K_m increased with increasing FGFC1 concentration, which indicated that FGFC1 decreased slightly the affinity activity of pro-uPA and plasminogen versus enzyme substrate. The marine bisindole alkaloid FGFC1 enhanced fibrinolysis which was taken on enzymatic kinetic characteristics.

In this paper, the deformation behavior of S32750 duplex stainless steel during low cycle fatigue was studied by controlling number of cycles. The microstructure of the specimens under different cycles was characterized by optical microscope (OM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). Microhardness of two phases was measured by a digital microhardness instrument. The results showed that the microhardness of ferrite increases significantly after the first 4000 cycles, while the austenite shows a higher strain hardening rate after fatigue fracture, and the microhardness of ferrite and austenite increases by 23 HV and 87 HV, respectively. Two-phase kernel average misorientation (KAM) diagram showed that the continuous accumulation of plastic deformation easily leads to the initiation of cracks inside the austenite and at the phase boundaries. The evolution of dislocation morphology in two phases was obviously different. With the increase of cycle number, the dislocation in ferrite gradually transforms from dislocation bundles and dislocation array to sub-grain structure, while the dislocation in austenite gradually develops from dipole array to ordered Taylor lattice network structure.

Abstract Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder featured with motor and non-motor deficits. Using 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) induced dopamine neuron degeneration has been widely used to produce reliable animal models of the PD. However, most of previous preclinical studies focused on the motor dysfunctions, few non-motor symptoms were evaluated. So far there is a lack of comprehensive investigation of the non-motor symptoms in animal models. Objectives: In this study, we aim to use a battery of behavioral methods to evaluate the non-motor symptoms in MPTP-induced non-human primate PD models. Methods: Cognitive functions, sleep and psychiatric behaviors were evaluated in MPTP-treated cynomolgus monkeys. The tests consisted of delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS), physical activity monitor (PAM), apathy feeding task (AFT), human intruder test (HIT), novel fruit test (NFT) and predator confrontation test (PCT). In addition, we tested whether the dopamine receptor agonist pramipexole (PPX) will improve these non-motor symptoms. Results: The present results show that the MPTP-treated monkeys exhibited cognitive deficits, abnormal sleep, and anxiety-like behaviors as compared to the control monkeys. These symptoms were relieved partially by PPX. Conclusions: These results suggest that MPTP-induced PD monkeys displayed non-motor symptoms that were similar to those found in PD patients. PPX treatment showed moderate therapeutic effects on these non-motor symptoms. This battery of behavioral tests may provide a valuable model for future preclinical research.

Two novel core-shell composites SiO2@PMDA-Si-Tb, SiO2@PMDA-Si-Tb-phen with SiO2 as the core and terbium organic complex as the shell, were successfully synthesized. The terbium ion was coordinated with organic ligand forming terbium organic complex in the shell layer. The bi-functional organosilane ((HOOC)2C6H2(CONH(CH2)3Si(OCH2CH3)3)2 (abbreviated as PMDA-Si) was used as the first ligand and phen as the second ligand. Furthermore, the silica-modified SiO2@PMDA-Si-Tb@SiO2, SiO2@PMDA-Si-Tb-phen@SiO2 core-shell-shell composites were also synthesized by sol–gel chemical route. An amorphous silica shell was coated around the SiO2@PMDA-Si-Tb and SiO2@PMDA-Si-Tb-phen core-shell composites. The core-shell and core-shell-shell composites both exhibited excellent luminescence in solid state. The luminescence of core-shell-shell composites was stronger than that of core-shell composites. Meanwhile, an improved luminescence stability property for the core-shell-shell composites was found in the aqueous solution. The core-shell-shell composites exhibited bright luminescence, high stability, long lifetime, and good solubility, which may present potential applications in the field of bio-medical.

This paper proposes a radial alternating materials phononic crystal (RAM-PnC). By simulating the band gap structure of the phononic crystal, it is verified that there is a complete acoustic band gap at the resonant frequency of 175.14 MHz, which can prevent the propagation of elastic waves in a specific direction. The proposed alternately arranged radial phononic crystal structure is applied to the thin-film piezoelectric-on-silicon (TPOPS) MEMS resonator. The finite element simulation method increases the anchor quality factor (Qanchor) from 60596 to 659536011 at the operating frequency of 175.14 MHz, which is about 10,000 times higher. The motion resistance of the RAM-PnC resonator is reduced from 156.25 Ω to 48.31 Ω compared with the traditional resonator. At the same time, the insertion loss of the RAM-PnC resonator is reduced by 1.1 dB compared with the traditional resonator.

Non-timber forest products (NTFP) have contributed in various ways to the living, livelihoods, and trading of households and communities who live in rural and urban areas all over the world. This paper analyses the value chain of Jiaogulan (Gynostemma pentaphyllum) in the Cao Bang Geopark, Vietnam. 106 actors were surveyed using a semi-structured questionnaire: experts (agricultural extension officers, farmers' associations), harvesters, traders, primary processors, processors, distributors, and consumers. The results show that a map of Jiaogulan value chain, value added of households in main market channels, and impact of value added and distribution of Jiaogulan products on household income.

Cadmium (Cd) is a toxic non–essential element to plants, and its accumulation in crops has significant adverse effects on human health. The cross–talk between copper (Cu) and Cd has been reported, but the molecular mechanisms remain unknown. Here, the function of wheat Cu transporter 3D (TaCOPT3D) in Cd tolerance was investigated. The TaCOPT3D transcripts significantly accumulated in wheat roots under Cd exposure. To test whether TaCOPT3D was involved in response to Cd stress, overexpressing lines with altered expression of TaCOPT3D transporters were compared to wild–type (WT) plants. The results showed that, under 20 μM Cd treatment, TaCOPT3D–overexpression lines exhibited more biomass and lower Cd accumulation in roots, shoots, and grains compared to WT plants. In addition, the TaCOPT3D–overexpression lines demonstrated less reactive oxygen species (ROS) and a greater amount of active antioxidant enzymes under Cd conditions than WT plants. Moreover, TaCOPT3D–overexpression lines highly reduced Cd accumulation under exposure to 20 μM Cu. The regulation pathway of TaCOPT3D in response to Cd stress was investigated, and transcription factor (TF) TaWRKY22, which targeted the TaCOPT3D promoter, was identified. Therefore, TaCOPT3D can serve as a candidate gene for decreasing Cd accumulation in wheat through genetic engineering.

Antibiotic-free approaches are more important than ever to deal with the rapidly growing problem of antibiotic resistance. The blue light 460nm (BL460nm) has been shown to effectively attenuate Staphylococcus aureus to chemical and physical agents through photolysis of the bacterial virulence factor Staphyloxanthin. However, the phototherapy using BL640nm has yet to be investigated in detail for its safety in eradicating Staphylococcus aureus in vitro and in vivo. In this study, we used a LED source producing a continuous wavelength of 460 nm along with hydrogen peroxide to treat S. aureus in culturing conditions and a wound abrasion mouse model. The results proved the safety of the combined therapy when it did not modify the bacterial virulence factors or the susceptibility to the widely used antibiotics. In addition, the experimental results on the mouse skin infection model also showed that the combined therapy is safe to apply to mouse skin and that it did not cause adverse skin irritation. Furthermore, the therapy can help Staphylococcus aureus-infected wounds heal with efficacy comparable to the topical antibiotic Fucidin. The above results suggest that the combination therapy of 460nm blue light and hydrogen peroxide can be safely used as an alternative to or adjunct to antibiotics in treating S. aureus-infected wounds.

The aim of this experiment was to investigate the effects of moisture content, additives and their interactions on the fermentation quality, aerobic stability and in vitro digestibility of mixed silage of amaranth and corn meal. Amaranths and corn meal were mixed in mass ratios of 69:31, 76:24 and 84:16, and the silage water content was adjusted to 60% (W1), 65% (W2) and 70% (W3), respectively. Silage treatments included no additives (U), the addition of Lactobacillus plantarum (L), the addition of cellulase (E), and the addition of Lactobacillus plantarum + cellulase (M) mixed reagents. The results showed that pH and ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N/TN) levels were significantly lower (p < 0.05) in W1 compared to W2 and W3. At the same time, dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), in vitro dry matter digestibility (ivDMD), in vitro dry matter digestibility (ivDMD), in vitro organic matter digestibility (ivOMD), and in vitro crude protein digestibility (ivCPD) were significantly increased (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, the aerobic stability of mixed silage of seed amaranth and corn meal decreased with increasing water content. The aerobic stability of the L, E, and M treatment groups was improved by 15, 105, and 111 hours, respectively, compared to the control group at W1. pH and NH3-N/TN levels were lower in the addition of E (E and M) than in the absence of E (U and L) (3.73, 20.1 g kg−1DM vs. 3.64, 22.9 g kg−1 DM, p < 0.05).NDF and ADF were significantly lower with the addition of E than without the addition of E (598 g kg−1 DM, 145 g kg−1 DM vs. 632 g kg−1 DM, 160 g kg−1 DM, p < 0.05). However, CP, ivDMD, ivOMD, and ivCPD were significantly higher (p < 0.05). AA and NH3-N/TN were significantly reduced (p < 0.05) with the addition of L (L and M) compared to without the addition of (U and E). In conclusion, the best fermentation quality, in vitro digestibility and aerobic stability of amaranth and cornmeal mixed silage treated with Lactobacillus plantarum + cellulase (M) were achieved at 60% water content.

It is a significant task to assess the safety of the aging offshore jacket platform in order to extend the service life. This paper analyzes the multiple risk factors of an aging jacket platform in Bohai Bay, China and builds the safety evaluation index system, which includes three levels, namely, the target layer, the first-grade indicators layer and the second-grade indicators layer. The target layer consists of three first-grade indicators: ocean environments, structure status, and human and organizational factors. Each first-grade indicator is divided into three second-grade indicators. The weight of each indicator is calculated by analytic hierarchy process to weaken subjective effect. Grey clustering method is applied to estimate the failure risk of the platform in Bohai Bay qualitatively and quantitatively. The assessment standard is divided into five grades and the whitening function of each grey cluster is determined by the assessment scheme. The grey evaluation weight vector of each second-grade indicator is calculated by the table dispatching method. Through layer by layer calculation, the grey assessment value of the target layer is finally estimated by making the grey assessment weight vector single-value and the grey grade is determined according to the maximum principle. The evaluation results show quantitatively that the failure risk grade of the jacket platform in Bohai Bay is medium and the safety assessment method is reasonable and feasible.