CO2 geological sequestration in coal seams can achieve the dual objectives of CO2 emission reduction and enhanced coalbed methane production, making it a highly promising carbon capture and storage technology. However, the injection of CO2 into coal reservoirs in the form of supercritical fluid (ScCO2) leads to complex physicochemical reactions with the coal seam, altering the properties of the coal reservoir and impacting the effectiveness of CO2 sequestration and methane production enhancement.In this paper, theoretical calculations based on ReaxFF-MD were conducted to study the interaction mechanism between ScCO2 and the macromolecular structure of both low-rank and high-rank coal, to address the limitations of experimental methods. The reaction of ScCO2 with low-rank coal and high-rank coal exhibits significant differences. At swelling stage, the low-rank coal experiences a decrease in aromatic structure and aliphatic structure, high-rank coal shows an increase in aromatic structure and a decrease in aliphatic structure, while swelling phenomenon is more pronounced in high-rank coal. At dissolution stage, low-rank coal is initially decomposed into two secondary molecular fragments, and then recombine to form new molecular structure, the aromatic structure increased and the aliphatic structure decreased. In contrast, high-rank coal occurs stretches-breakage-movement-reconnection, a reduction in aromatic structure and an increase in aliphatic structure.The primary reasons for these variations lie in distinct molecular structure compositions and the properties of ScCO2, leading to different reaction pathways of functional group and aromatic structure. The reaction pathways of functional groups and aromatic structures in coal can be summarized as follows: the breakage of the O-H bond in hydroxyl groups, the breakage of the C-OH bond in carboxyl groups, transformation of aliphatic structures into smaller hydrocarbon compounds or formation of long-chain alkenes, and various pathways involving broken, rearrangement, recombination of aromatic structures. In low-rank coal, there is a higher abundance of oxygen-containing functional groups and aliphatic structures. The breakage of O-H and C-OH chemical bonds results in the formation of free radical ions, while some aliphatic structures detach to produce hydrocarbons. Additionally, some of these aliphatic structures combine with carbonyl groups and free radical ions to generate new aromatic structures. Conversely, in high-rank coal, the lower content of oxygen-containing functional groups and aliphatic structures, along with stronger intramolecular forces, results in fewer chemical bond breakages and makes it less conducive to the formation of new aromatic structures.These results elucidate the specific deformations of different chemical groups, offering a molecular-level understanding of the interaction between CO2 and coal.

Three new compounds (1, 11 and 12), together with 32 known ones, were isolated from the root bark of Morus alba L. using various chromatographic methods. The structures of the undescribed compounds were elucidated based on 1D, 2D NMR and HRESIMS data analysis, while the known ones were identified by comparison of their spectroscopic data with those reported in the literature. All the isolates were evaluated for their cytotoxic activities against human gastric cancer HGC27 cells by CCK-8 assay. Among them, compounds 5, 8, 10 and 30 exhibited cytotoxic activities on HGC27 cells with IC50 values of 10.24 ± 0.89 μM, 28.94 ± 0.72 μM, 6.08 ± 0.34 μM and 33.76 ± 2.64 μM, respectively. Furthermore, compound 10 was confirmed to reduce proliferation ability, increase apoptosis rate and inhibit cell migration pathway by annexin V/PI double staining experiment, transwell experiment and western blot analysis.

We investigated the response of leaf photosynthetic capacity to climate warming and its variation among provenances of Larix gmelinii (Dahurian larch). Seedlings of 11 L. gmelinii provenances were transplanted into two common gardens with different climate conditions (control and warming climate). We measured the leaf photosynthetic capacity and explored its influencing factors. The warming treatment significantly increased the maximum net photosynthetic rate (Pmax-a), photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency (PNUE), maximum carboxylation rate (Vcmax), maximum electron transport rate (Jmax), triose phosphate utilization rate (TPU), mesophyll conductance (gm), leaf nitrogen content (Narea), and chlorophyll content (Chlm). The Pmax-a was significantly positively associated with Vcmax, Jmax, TPU, gm, and Narea, and the slope of the correlations between Pmax-a and Vcmax, Jmax, and TPU was steeper in the warming treatment. The responses of Pmax-a, PNUE, Vcmax, Jmax, TPU, Narea, and Chlm to warming differed among provenances. The effects of warming on Pmax-a, Vcmax, Jmax, and TPU increased and then decreased as the aridity index of the original site increased. Overall, the warming treatment improved the photosynthetic capacity of L. gmelinii, but the extent of the improvement varied among provenances. These findings provide insights into the mechanisms underlying the responses of L. gmelinii to climate warming.

China is facing huge pressure on CO2 emissions reduction. The heavy industry accounts for over 60% of China’s total energy consumption, and thus lead to a large number of energy-related carbon emissions. This paper adopts the Log Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) method based on the extended Kaya identity to explore the influencing factors of CO2 emissions from China’s heavy industry; we calculate the trend of decoupling by presenting a theoretical framework for decoupling. The results show that labor productivity, energy intensity, and industry scale are the main factors affecting CO2 emissions in the heavy industry. The improvement of labor productivity is the main cause of the increase in CO2 emissions, while the decline in energy intensity leads to CO2 emissions reduction, and the industry scale has different effects in different periods. Results from the decoupling analysis show that efforts made on carbon emission reduction, to a certain extent, achieved the desired outcome but still need to be strengthened.

This paper aims to build up a preference function to evaluate the public benefits of the type of agricultural farming, biodiversity, water provisions, land use type, ecotourism modes, and a monetary attribute (environmental trust fund and willingness to contribute) associated with an ecosystem service and land use program in a forest park. This study used the choice experiments to build a random utility model, analyze the average preference for the above land use attributes based on the conditional logit and used a latent class model to test the resident’s heterogeneous preferences for land use planning in the forest park. We also estimated the welfare derived from various land use programs. The empirical result had shown that: (1) increasing organic farming area, maintaining the status quo of species biodiversity, increasing the surface water provision, increasing the area of custom flora, increasing the wetland area, and setting up an integrated framework for ecotourism increase the public’s preference for the land use program; (2) we found that farmer and non-farmer haven’t the same land use preferences; (3) the ecotourism development program incorporating biodiversity, organic farming, ethnobotany, and wetland area with integrated ecotourism are more preferred than other land use program scenarios.

Quantitative analysis of human gait is critical for early discovery, progressive tracking, and rehabilitation of neurological and musculoskeletal disorders, such as Parkinson’s Disease, stroke, and Cerebral Palsy. Gait analysis typically involves estimating gait characteristics, such as spatio-temporal gait parameters and gait health indicators (e.g., step time, length, symmetry, and balance). Traditional methods of gait analysis involve the use of cameras, wearables, and force plates, but are limited in operational requirements when applied in daily life - such as direct line-of-sight, carrying devices, and dense deployment. This paper introduces a novel approach for gait analysis by passively sensing footstep-induced floor vibrations during walking using vibration sensors mounted on the floor surface. Our approach is non-intrusive, scalable, and perceived as more privacy-friendly, making it suitable for continuous gait health monitoring in daily life. We developed a floor vibration-based gait analysis framework to estimate various gait parameters that are used as standard metrics in medical practices, including temporal parameters (step, stride, stance, swing, double-support, single-support time) and spatial parameters (step length, width, angle, stride length), and extracts gait health indicators (cadence/walking speed, left-right symmetry, gait balance, initial contact types). The main challenge is that floor vibrations are distinct across different floor types. To address this challenge, our approach develops floor-adaptive algorithms to extract floor-specific features and is designed to be generalizable to various settings, including homes, hospitals, and eldercare facilities. We evaluate our approach through real-world walking experiments with 20 adults with 12,231 labeled gait cycles across concrete and wooden floors. Our results show 90.5% (RMSE 0.08s), 71.3% (RMSE 0.38m), and 92.3% (RMSPE 7.7%) accuracy in estimating temporal, spatial parameters, and gait health indicators, respectively.

Two isotropic pitches were prepared by air blowing and nitrogen distillation method using ethylene tar (ET) as a raw material. And correspondent carbon fibers were obtained through conventional melt spinning, stabilization and carbonization. The structures and properties of resultant pitches and fibers were characterized and their differences were discussed in this work. The results showed that introduction of the oxygen by air blowing method could quickly increase the yield and softening point of pitch. Moreover, the air blown pitch (ABP) composed of linear methylene chains of aromatic molecules while the nitrogen distilled pitch (NDP) mainly contained polycondensed aromatic rings, which was due to the oxygen containing functional groups existed in ABP could impede order stack of pitch molecules and form methylene bridge structure, instead of aromatic condensed structure like NDP. Meanwhile, the spinnability of ABP was not decreased even containing 2.31 wt% oxygen. In contrast, ABP had narrower molecular weight distribution, which contributed to better stabilization properties and higher tensile strength of carbon fiber. The tensile strength of carbon fibers from ABP was reached to 860 MPa with fiber diameter of about 10 μm, which was higher than that of NDP-derived carbon fibers of 640 MPa.

Recent prolonged dry periods and lack of irrigation water have severely affected the productivity of coffee farms’ in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. This paper analyzes the efficiency of irrigation water use for Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora) in Lam Dong province, Highlands, Vietnam. A Cobb-Douglas production function was used to determine coffee productivity’s response to the application of irrigation water and other production factors using data collected from 194 farmers while the Technical Efficiency (TE) and Irrigation Water Use Efficiency (IWUE) were analyzed using a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model. The correlation of different factors to IWUE was determined using the Tobit model. The production function analysis using Cobb-Douglas shows that the volume of irrigation water, amount of working capital, labor and farm size significantly influence coffee productivity. It also shows that indigenous farmers are more efficient in utilizing irrigation water than the (mostly Kinh) migrant farmers. The Tobit result, on the other hand. indicates that farmers’ experience, education level, distance of farm to water source, security of access to water source, extension contact and credit access significantly affect IWUE. The study findings further suggest that mitigating water shortages in coffee farms require sub-regional and national policy support such as better access to credit and extension services, training, land management and household-level effort to improve farming practices, through the application of appropriate technologies and traditional knowledge.

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.

The aim of this study was to investigate the physicochemical characterization and biological activities of chitosan (CH) based composite films with the incorporation of chestnut flower essential oil (CFEO). The composite films were prepared by casting method and characterized in terms of structural, morphological and mechanical properties via FT-IR, XRD, UV, SEM and TGA. The results proved the significantly increased water vapor permeability (WVP), heat resistance, antibacterial and antioxidant capabilities of CH-CFEO films. The incorporation of CH and CFEO enhanced the UV blocking, which made the film shield almost all UV light. Films with the tensile strength of 6.37 ± 0.41 MPa and elongation at break of 22.57 ± 0.35% were got with 6 mg mL-1 CFEO. Subsequently, the fruit preservation experiments also confirmed that the composite films could effectively extend the shelf life of bananas through their excellent water vapor and oxygen barrier. These desirable performances enable our newly developed composite films to be a remarkable packaging material to solve the fresh fruit preservation dilemma.

This paper draws upon the theory of turbulence in physics to explore the similarities and differences between volatility in financial markets and turbulent phenomena at a statistical physics level. By analogizing the dynamics of financial markets with fluid turbulence, we have developed an innovative analytical framework aimed at deepening the understanding of the complexity inherent in financial markets. Our research methodology includes a comparative analysis of simulated time series data for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index and fully developed turbulent velocity time series. We focus on the similarities in key statistical physical properties, including probability distributions, correlation structures, and power spectral densities. Furthermore, we have established a model of capital flow in financial markets and proposed corresponding solutions. Through computational simulations and data analysis, we find that while financial market volatility shares some statistical characteristics with turbulent phenomena, significant differences exist in the shapes of probability distributions and the temporal scales of correlations. This suggests that although financial markets exhibit patterns akin to turbulence, the behavior of this complex, multi-variable driven system does not completely correspond to natural turbulence, highlighting the limitations of directly applying turbulence theory to financial market analysis. Our study offers a new perspective for the theories of financial markets and the field of econophysics, providing fresh insights into the complexity of financial markets and contributing to the prevention and management of financial risk.

A series of novel N-n-butyl-1,8-naphthalimide derivatives were synthesized via a three-step reaction involving nucleophilic substitution and acylation. All of the compounds were characterized by IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, MS, and elemental analysis, and the crystal structure of N-n-butyl-4-[N’,N’-bis(2`,4`-dichlorobenzoyl)ethylamino]-1,8-naphthalimide was determined. The π-π stacking interactions and hydrogen bonds between the two molecular core planes (naphthalimide ring) and the van der Waals forces between the flexible n-butyl groups resulted in a 3D long-chain structure. The UV-vis and fluorescence properties of the title compounds were investigated. The results indicated that the monosubstituted 1,8-naphthalimide derivatives bearing an electron-donating group on the benzene ring or a structure with a larger conjugative effect exhibited enhanced fluorescence properties.

In recent years, it has been found in engineering practice that the service life of cemented carbide shield machine tools used in uneven soft and hard strata is substantially reduced. The study found that thermal stress is the main reason for the failure of cemented carbide shield tunneling tools when shield tunneling is carried out in uneven soft and hard soil. To maintain the hardness of cemented carbide, improving the thermal conductivity of the shield machine tool is of great importance for prolonging its service life and reducing engineering costs. In this paper, graphene and carbon nanotubes were mixed with WC-Co powder and sintered by SPS (Spark Plasma Sintering). The morphology was observed by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). A Rockwell hardness tester and bending strength tester were used to test hardness, bending strength and thermal conductivity. The results show that adding trace graphene or carbon nanotubes can increase the bending strength of the cemented carbide by approximately 50% while keeping the hardness of the cemented carbide unchanged. The thermal conductivity of the cemented carbide can be increased by 10% with the addition of 0.12% graphene alone.

With the development of nuclear technology application, radiation safety has been widely concerned, and there is an urgent need for novel shielding materials. Among the various options available, non-lead organic composite shielding material has emerged as a promising solution in the field of radiation shielding due to its high strength, easy processing, and light weight. In this study, tungsten/epoxy resin (W/EP) composite samples with tungsten weight fraction from 0% to 60% were prepared. The shielding and mechanical properties of W/EP composites were investigated. The results show that the results showed that the higher the tungsten content, the greater the shielding capacity of W/EP composites, particularly for low-energy gamma ray (γ) shielding. However, the addition of tungsten reduces the impact strength and tensile properties of the material. Overall, for 300 keV γ-ray, W/EP with 30% tungsten content has comparable shielding capacity to ordinary concrete. W/EP composite materials can serve as shielding materials for low-energy γ-rays.

The stability of the filling roof as an important bearing unit in the stope of the access stope in the filling mining method is of great significance to guarantee the safe and efficient production of the mine. Arrangement of mining approach in downward cemented filling stope is the key factor af-fecting stability of filling body roof. Based on combination of laboratory test, theoretical analysis and numerical simulation, the influence of different mining approach arrangement on stability of filling body roof is analyzed. The weak filling surface is formed between adjacent mining paths. The mechanical strength of the weak filling surface is significantly reduced by laboratory experiments. The relationship between distribution of the weak filling surface, azimuth angle and stability of filling roof is further studied by numerical simulation. The results show that the stability of the filler roof is the best when the upper and lower stratified mining approach is arranged vertically.

In recent years, due to the low energy utilization of the whole life-cycle of buildings and the di-minished indoor and outdoor comfort of buildings and the impact on the surrounding environ-ment caused by the carbon emissions of the building life-cycle, the establishment of a whole life- cycle carbon emission model for buildings to improve their energy utilization at all stages of their life-cycle has received unprecedented attention. In China, the construction industry has become a major carbon emitter, and traditional houses, as a green development building type, are an effec-tive way to achieve carbon neutrality in buildings, but the existing green building evaluation system lacks quantitative indicators of carbon emissions in the building life-cycle. The exclusive evaluation indexes for regional and characteristic buildings, such as traditional houses, are ne-glected; This study explored the formula for calculating the life-cycle carbon emissions model of traditional residential houses under a carbon emission intervention and used real measurements of the physical environment and comparative analysis of the limitations of existing local stand-ards; The results showed that the carbon emission calculation formulas for each stage of the life-cycle of traditional residential houses must be established by combining the selection of local building materials, and the materials for sustainable energy and carbon sinks of green systems. Based on the results of indoor and outdoor heat and humidity environmental tests of residential houses and an analysis of the limitations of existing evaluation indexes due to locality, four im-portant factors affecting locality green buildings in terms of energy utilization, site ecology and landscape, land saving and material saving were extracted; on this basis, the whole life-cycle carbon emission model of traditional residential houses is constructed by combining the existing green building evaluation standards with the carbon emission indexes of the life-cycle of tradi-tional residential houses.

In-depth insights into the profound impacts of climate change and human activities on water resources are garnered through the dynamic changes in surface water, a crucial aspect of effective water resource management and the preservation of aquatic ecosystems. This paper introduces an innovative approach employing the random forest algorithm for the systematic extraction and monitoring of surface water at large regional or national scales. This method integrates spectral bands, spectral indices, and digital elevation model data, offering a novel perspective on this critical task. A data filling model is proposed to mitigate the impact of missing data due to cloud cover. Leveraging the capabilities of the Google Earth Engine (GEE), detailed information on surface water dynamics during the rainy and dry seasons in the Yangtze River Basin (YRB) from 1991 to 2021 is extracted using Landsat time series imagery. The analysis encompasses spatial-temporal variation characteristics and trends, with a specific focus on the intricate interplay between the areal extent of surface water and hydro-meteorological factors in each sub-basin of the YRB. Importantly, this includes considerations of potential groundwater contributions to surface water. Key findings from our research include: (1) Achieving a remarkable overall accuracy of 0.96 ± 0.03 in obtaining reliable surface water datasets with the support of GEE. (2) Identifying significant trends, such as a noteworthy increase in rainy season surface water bodies (+248.0 km2·yr−1) and a concerning decrease in surface ice/snow cover during both rainy and dry seasons, with change rates of −39.7 km2·yr−1 and −651.3 km2·yr−1, respectively. (3) Uncovering the driving mechanisms behind these changes, revealing positive correlations between the areal extent of rainy season surface water bodies and precipitation, as well as negative correlations between surface ice/snow cover area and average surface skin temperature. It is crucial to note that these driving factors exhibit variation among secondary river systems, underscoring the complexity of surface water dynamics. Furthermore, comparative analyses with existing surface water products are conducted, contributing to a deeper understanding of the advantages and uncertainties inherent in our proposed extraction method. The proposed method for large-scale surface water extraction not only enhances the monitoring of spatio-temporal surface water dynamics in the YRB but also provides valuable insights for the sustainable utilization and protection of water resources, considering the potential role of groundwater in supplementing surface water.

Functional connectivity (FC) is a potential candidate that can increase the performance of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) in the elderly because of its compensatory role in neural circuits. However, it is difficult to decode FC by current machine learning techniques because of a lack of its physiological understanding. To investigate the suitability of FC in BCI for the elderly, we propose the decoding of lower- and higher-order FCs using a convolutional neural network (CNN) in six cognitive-motor tasks. The layer-wise relevance propagation (LRP) method describes how age-related changes in FCs impact BCI applications for the elderly compared to younger adults. Seventeen younger (24.5±2.7 years) and twelve older (72.5±3.2 years) adults were recruited to perform tasks related to hand-force control with or without mental calculation. CNN yielded a six-class classification accuracy of 75.3% in the elderly, exceeding the 70.7% accuracy for the younger adults. In the elderly, the proposed method increases the classification accuracy by 88.3% compared to the filter-bank common spatial pattern (FBCSP). LRP results revealed that both lower- and higher-order FCs were dominantly overactivated in the prefrontal lobe depending on task type. These findings suggest a promising application of multi-order FC with deep learning on BCI systems for the elderly.

Here, satellite images from 2006 to 2022 were collected to assess changes in the sandbar topography of the Nakdong River Estuary region, southeast of South Korea. The employed method of satellite image acquisition involves capturing images at the same time each year to facilitate a comparison of topographical changes over time. The shorelines of the islands in the study area, including Jinwoo Island, Shinja Island, and Doyo Sandbar, were analyzed. Shoreline analysis was performed using the digital shoreline analysis system (DSAS) package in ArcGIS. The results indicate that Jinwoo Island is expanding at 6.46 m/year in the direction of Nulcha Island. The western side of Shinja Island is expanding at 4.76 m/year, whereas the eastern side is retreating at a rate of 24.41 m/year. In the case of the Doyo Sandbar, the southern shoreline is retreating at a rate of 14.69 m/year; however, the speed is gradually decreasing. Marked topographical changes are evident in the Nakdong River Estuary, and the interlinked barrier islands undergo deposition and erosion, leading to alterations in the shoreline. These findings serve as foundational data for predicting and addressing environmental and social issues arising in the Nakdong River Estuary region due to climate change.

The proper hydrogenation of Hyper-coal (HPC) using 1, 2, 3, 4-tetrahydroquinoline (THQ) was able to decrease the oxygen content and adjust the molecular structure of HPC for preparing the spinnable pitch with high softening point (SP). The spinnable pitch prepared from the THQ-soluble (QS) fraction of HPC as a precursor consisted more naphthenic carbon groups than that prepared from the 1-methylnaphthalene (1-MN) soluble (MNS) fraction of HPC. The HPC-QS derived pitch showed excellent spinnability even the SP of 260°C, and the tensile strength of the resultant carbon fiber was up to 1350 MPa with a diameter around 8 µm by only heat treatment at 800°C for 5 min.

The inhibition of alpha-glucosidase and alpha-amylase is one of clinic strategies for remedy the type II diabetes. Herbal medicines are reported to alleviate hyperglycemia. However, the constituents from those sources whether are targeted to the alpha-glucosidase and alpha-amylase still unexplored. This study attempted to select the compounds for efficacy of hypoglycemia via cellular and mouse levels. The results illustrated that the cytotoxicity in all tested compounds at various concentrations except the concentration of 16-hydroxy-cleroda-3,13-dine-16,15-olide (HCD) at 30 µM were not significant difference (p > 0.05) when compared with the untreated control. Acarbose (reference drug), Antroquinonol, Catechin, Quercetin, Actinodaphnine, Curcumin, HCD, Docosanol, Tetracosanol, Berberine, and Rutin could effectively inhibit the alpha-glucosidase activity of Caco-2 cells when compared with the control (maltose). The compounds (Curcumin, HCD, Tetracosanol, Antroquinonol, Berberine, Catechin, Actinodaphnine, and Rutin) could reduce blood sugar level at 30 min in tested mice. The effects of tested compounds on area under curve (AUC) were significant (p < 0.05) among Acarbose, Tetracosanol, Antroquinonol, Catechin, Actinodaphnine, and Rutin along with Berberine and Quercetin. In in vitro (alpha-glucosidase) with in vivo (alpha-amylase) experiments suggest that bioactive compounds can be a potential inhibitor candidate of alpha-glucosidase and alpha-amylase for the alleviation of type II diabetes.

We still do not have satisfactory answers about the inflationary and accelerating expansions of the universe, the missing mass problem, and the origins of the four fundamental forces and the quantum phenomena. Here, we introduce a new model of matter and space and a postulate on a constant of motion, and then show that an equation of motion derived from the constant of motion could provide new understandings of the above problems. For example, we show that there is a natural inflation scenario and that the co-moving distance to the closest accelerating supernova is clearly given as $c/(\sqrt{3} H)$ ($\sim$8.1 billion ly). In addition, we show that, in a system including a proton and an electron, the equation of motion has eight acceleration terms, some of which are suspected to be responsible for the four fundamental forces and the galaxy rotation anomaly. From further discussion, we conjecture that in order to understand the gravitational and strong interactions and the quantum phenomena, it is necessary to consider the expansion of the universe. The lensing mass distribution is explained, based on another postulate on a method of representing superposition.

Fe-(9, 19, 28, 37)wt.% Cr alloys were corroded at 700 and 800 ^oC for 70 h under 1 atm of N₂, 1 atm of N₂/3.2%H₂O-mixed gas, and 1 atm of N₂/3.1%H₂O/2.42%H₂S-mixed gas. The corrosion rate of Fe-9Cr alloy increased with the addition of H₂O, and furthermore with the addition of H₂S in N₂ gas. Fe-9Cr alloy was always nonprotective. In contrast, Fe-(19, 28, 37) wt.%Cr alloys were protective in N₂ and N₂/H₂O-mixed gas because of formation of the Cr₂O₃ layer. They were, however, nonprotective in N₂/H₂O/H₂S-mixed gas because sulfidation dominated to form the outer FeS layer and the inner Cr₂S₃ layer containing some FeCr₂S₄.

A bridged 9,10-dihydro-9-oxa-10-phosphaphenanthrene-10-oxide (DOPO) derivative (PN-DOPO) in combination with aluminum phosphates coated sepiolite (Sep@AlPO4) was used to improve the flame retardancy, thermal stability and mechanical properties of poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO)/poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) blends. The synergistic effects of PN-DOPO and Sep@AlPO4 on the fire resistance, thermal decomposition behavior and mechanical properties of PEO/PBAT composites were investigated systematically. The results indicated that 5 wt % Sep@AlPO4 combined with 10 wt% PN-DOPO into PEO/PBAT achieved a V-1 rating in UL-94 test and the LOI value increased to 23.7%, meanwhile, the peak-heat release rate (p-HRR), av-HRR and total heat release (THR) values of PEO/PBAT/PN10%/Sep5% composites decreased by 35.6%, 11.0% and 23.0% compared with those of PEO/PBAT, respectively. The thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results confirmed that PN-DOPO/Sep@AlPO4 could enhance the initial thermal stability and char yield of PEO/PBAT matrix, and TGA/Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (TGA-FTIR) results revealed that the composites exhibited the absorption peaks of phosphorous-containing groups and an increase in gas-phase volatiles during the thermal decomposition process. The digital photographs and morphological structures of char residues demonstrated that PN-DOPO and Sep@AlPO4 mixtures benefited to the formation of a more continuous and dense carbon layer on the composites surface during combustion. Rheological behavior revealed that a higher storage modulus, loss modulus and complex viscosity of PEO/PBAT/PN-DOPO/Sep@AlPO4 composites could also promote the cross-linking structure during burning. Furthermore, the PEO/PBAT/PN-DOPO/Sep@AlPO4 composites exhibited excellent mechanical properties in terms of elongation at break and flexural performance than the PEO/PBAT system. All the results demonstrated that PEO/PBAT system modified by the combination of PN-DOPO and Sep@AlPO4 not only exhibited excellent synergistic effect on the flame retardance, but also had good improvement on thermal stability and mechanical properties, indicating the potential application in areas requiring fire safety.

Amid escalating urbanization, devising rational commercial space layouts is a critical challenge. Leveraging machine learning, this study uses a Back-propagation (BP) neural network to optimize commercial spaces in Weinan City's central urban area. The results indicate an increased number of commercial facilities with a trend of multi-centered agglomeration and outward expansion. Based on these findings, we propose a strategic framework for rational commercial space development emphasizing aggregation centers, development axes, and spatial guidelines. This strategy provides valuable insights for urban planners in small and medium-sized cities in the Yellow River Basin and metropolitan areas, ultimately showcasing the power of machine learning in enhancing urban planning.

Sracocystis cruzi in cattle (Bos taurus) and Sarcocystis poephagicanis in yaks (Bos grunniens) are morphologically indistinguishable. However, the relationship of the two parasites is still un-clear. Here, muscular tissues of the two domestic animals collected from abattoirs in China were examined for sarcocysts of S. cruzi and S. poephagicanis. The sarcocysts isolated from the samples were processed for light microscopy (LM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and DNA analysis. Sarcocysts of S. cruzi and S. poephagicanis were found in 405 of 950 (42.6%) cattle and 304 of 320 (95.0%) yaks, respectively. By LM and TEM, the sarcocysts of the two parasites showed similar morphologically characteristics. The thin-walled sarcocysts had hair-like protrusions on the surface. Ultrastructures exhibited the primary cyst wall contained irregularly folded, hirsute or bone-like protrusions. Four genetic markers, 18S rDNA, 28S rDNA, mitochondrial cox1, and apicoplast rpl6 of the two parasites were sequenced and analyzed. The sequences of the four loci presented an interspecific identity of 97.9−98.6%, 97.2−98.1%, 89.5−90.4%, and 96.9−97.2%, respec-tively. Phylogenetic analysis using 28S rDNA and cox1 sequences indicated that both species were placed into a group encompassing Sarcocystis spp. in ruminants with canid as known or putative definitive hosts. Sarcocystis cruzi and S. poephagicanis should represent separated species, and cox1 and rpl6 was suitable for distinguishing between them.

This article utilized electrodeposition technology to fabricate Zn and Zn-Y₂O₃-Al₂O₃ composite coatings on Q235 steel plates. The composite coatings were obtained by adding Y₂O₃/Al₂O₃ nanoparticles (0, 5, 10, and 15 g/L) to acidic chloride solutions. This study then examined the impact of these nanoparticles on the microstructure, morphology, microhardness, hydrophobicity, and corrosion resistance of the composite coatings. The results indicate that the addition of the nanoparticles increased the nucleation sites on the surface of the coating, thereby refining the grain size and reducing the roughness of the coating surface. When 10g/L of Y₂O₃ and 10g/L of Al₂O₃ nanoparticles were added, the hardness of the composite coating (369 Hv) was 2.49 times higher than that of the pure Zn coating (148 Hv), which was attributed to the dispersion strengthening and grain refinement effects of the nanoparticles. The corrosion resistance of the Zn and Zn-Y₂O₃-Al₂O₃ composite coatings was studied using linear sweep voltammetry and AC impedance spectroscopy. The addition of the nanoparticles improved the corrosion resistance of the composite coating, and the composite coating prepared in an electrolyte containing 10 g/L of Y₂O₃ and 10 g/L of Al₂O₃ nanoparticles exhibited the best corrosion resistance. Meanwhile, the composite coating exhibited good hydrophobicity, with a contact angle of 120.9°, 1.94 times that of the pure Zn coating (62.2°). The Zn-Y₂O₃-Al₂O₃ nanocomposite coating material has significant potential advantages in the field of steel corrosion.

Displacement mapping is a computer graphics technique that enables the design of components with regularly or randomly textured surfaces that can be quickly materialized on a three-dimensional (3D) printer when needed. This approach is in principle more flexible, faster and more economical compared to conventional texturing methods, but the accuracy of the texture depends heavily on the parameters used. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how to produce a surface-textured part using polygonal (mesh) modeling software and a photopolymerizable resin, and to develop a universal methodology to predict the dimensional accuracy of the model file log combined with a resin 3D printer. The printed components were characterized on a scanning confocal microscope. In the setup used in this study, the mesh size had to be reduced to 10% of the smallest feature size and the textured layer had to be heavily (x4) overexposed to achieve the desired accuracy. As a practical application, two functional stamps with a regular (honeycomb) and a random texture, respectively, were successfully manufactured. The insights gained will be of great benefit in quickly and cost-effectively producing components with innovative patterns and textures for a variety of hobby, industrial and biomedical applications.

This study examines the Willingness-To-Pay (WTP) of consumers and the determinants of eco-labeling for the organic cocoa powder produced in the Dong Nai UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (DNBR), Southern Vietnam. Eco-labels are designed according to Tiers of eco-labeling for biosphere reserves (BR) introduced by UNESCO include BR Destination (Tier 1), BR Quality Label (Tier 2), and Professional Certification Label (Tier 3). Questionnaires are delivered to 203 customers in the DNBR and nearby places, such as Dong Nai and HCMC. This study employs a hybrid approach using descriptive statistics, ANOVA test, and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that gender and educational level have a positive effect on consumers' preferences. Customers are willing to pay more for cocoa powder with an eco-label than one with an organic label. Perceived food safety and product knowledge lower customers’ WTP, whereas agricultural environment and pricing concerns increase it. Tier 2 is suggested for labeling cocoa powder in the DNBR. The DNBR Management Board, together with the federal and provincial governments, should all follow a similar certification process. Increased eco-label awareness is crucial for the future of environmentally responsible shopping and responsible business practices.

Currently, peptic ulcers are widely studied as an infectious disease caused by Helicobacter pylori primarily due to 3 supporting evidences, and this etiology may explain the other 3 observations, but cannot confront the challenges of the 15 major characteristics and the other 75 observations/phenomena of peptic ulcers. To address the challenges, a recently published Complex Causal Relationship with its accompanying methodologies was applied to analyze existing data. Peptic ulcers are identified as a psychosomatic disease triggered by psychological stress, where Helicobacter pylori plays a secondary role in only the late phase of ulceration. This new etiology elucidated all the 15 major characteristics and 81 observations/phenomena of peptic ulcers in a series of 6 articles. This sixth article focuses exclusively on the controversies surrounding the role of Helicobacter pylori in peptic ulcers. In-depth analyses find that all the 3 evidences supporting “peptic ulcers are an infectious disease caused by Helicobacter pylori” are deceiving, and 2 of the 3 explainable observations may have been misinterpreted. Meanwhile, the definitions of ‘etiological factor’ and ‘causality’ do not support ‘H. pylori infection is an etiological factor of peptic ulcers’, and existing literatures have presented a controversial view on the role of Helicobacter pylori in peptic ulcers. Interestingly, if “peptic ulcers are an infectious disease caused by Helicobacter pylori” is considered an illusion, all the characteristics of the disease, along with all the clinical, epidemiological, and laboratory observations/phenomena, can be fully understood. This illusion has misguided peptic ulcer research over the past 36 years with little progress in the field, and that may represent a widespread situation in modern medical research, resulting in a direct interference with the true understanding of disease. Evidently, keeping the concept “illusion” in mind may help remove a huge obstacle that impedes medical advance, thereby facilitating the in-depth study of disease.

The collaboration of multimodal transport documents is the foundation for conducting multimodal transport operations. Blockchain technology can effectively address trust issues and information sharing difficulties in current multimodal transport document collaboration. However, in current blockchain-based electronic document research, the bottleneck problem lies in the collaboration of multiparty in multimodal transport under the "one-bill coverage system". We design a blockchain platform architecture for multimodal transport, reshaping collaboration processes for different modes of transport based on the blockchain platform. It proposes a collaboration model for multimodal transport under the "one-bill coverage system" and performs model solving and case analysis. The obtained collaboration strategies are embedded into the platform's application layer. Finally, using Solidity language, it writes smart contracts related to multimodal transport under the "one-bill coverage system " and deploys and executes them on the Remix platform.

The power converter is the significant device in a wind power system. Wind turbine will be shut down and off grid immediately with the occurrence of the IGBT module open-circuit fault of power converter, which will seriously impact the stability of grid and even threaten personal safety. However, in the existing diagnosis strategies of power converter, there are few single and double IGBT modules open-circuit fault diagnosis methods producing negative results including erroneous judgment, omissive judgment and low accuracy. In this paper, a novel method to diagnose the single and double IGBT modules open-circuit faults of the permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) wind turbine grid-side converter (GSC) is proposed. Above all, collecting the three-phase current varying with wind speed of 22 failure states including a normal state of PMSG wind turbine GSC as the original signal data. Afterward, the original signal data are decomposed by using variational mode decomposition (VMD) to obtain the mode coefficient series, which are analyzed by the proposed method base on fault trend feature for extracting the trend feature vectors. Finally, the trend feature vectors are used as the input of deep belief network (DBN) for decision-making and obtaining the classification results. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method can diagnose the single and double IGBT modules open-circuit faults of GSC, and the accuracy is higher than the benchmark models.

The effective Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system can improve the reliability, safety and economic benefits of microgrid operation. In this research, the lower central controller and upper WEB monitoring system are connected by the SCADA system which is as the hub of microgrid intelligent monitoring platform. This system contains a set of specific functions programmed by Java as a middleware which can provide control and communication between the central controller and the upper monitoring system. The system realizes the real-time data acquisition and storage, the control instructions parsing and transmitting, the microgrid security and stability, the load balancing and resource recovery of the microgrid. All that functions have been tested and verified in the actual operation.

A overview on application of CO2 in the ironmaking and steelmaking process is presented. Study on resource utilization of CO2 is significant for the reduction of CO2 emissions and the coping with global warming. The paper introduces the research progress of CO2 utilization in the sintering, Blast Furnace, Converter, secondary refining, Continuous Casting and smelting process of stainless steel in recent years in China. According to the foreign and domestic research and application status, the paper analyzes the feasibility and metallurgical effects of the CO2 utilization in the ferrous metallurgy process. The paper mainly introduces such new techniques as 1) flue gas circulating sintering, 2) blowing CO2 through Blast Furnace tuyere and CO2 as a pulverized coal carrier gas, 3) top and bottom blowing CO2 in the converter, 4) Ladle Furnace and Electric Arc Furnace bottom blowing CO2, 5) CO2 as Continuous Casting shielding gas, 6) CO2 for stainless steel smelting, and 7) CO2 circulation combustion. CO2 has a very wide application prospect in ferrous metallurgy process and the quantity of CO2 utilization is expected to be 100kg per ton of steel. It will effectively facilitate the progress of metallurgical technology and strongly promote the energy conservation of metallurgical industry.

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are largely hand-crafted, which leads to inefficiency in the constructed network. Various other algorithms have been proposed to address this issue, but the inefficiencies resulting from human intervention have not been addressed. Our proposed EvolveNet algorithm is a task-agnostic evolutionary search algorithm that can find optimal depth and width scales automatically in an efficient way. The optimal configurations are not found using grid search, instead evolved from an existing network. This eliminates inefficiencies that emanate from hand-crafting, thus reducing the drop in accuracy. The proposed algorithm is a framework to search through a large search space of subnetworks until a suitable configuration is found. Extensive experiments on the ImageNet dataset demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method by outperforming the state-of-the-art methods.

Surface initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) is one of the most versatile technique to modify the surface properties of material. Recent developed metal free SI-ATRP makes such technique more widely applicable. Herein photo-induced metal-free SI-ATRP of methacrylates, such as methyl methacrylate, N-isopropanyl acrylamide, and N,N- dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate, on the surface of SBA-15 was reported to fabricate organic-inorganic hybrid materials. SBA-15 based polymeric composite with adjustable graft ratio was obtained. The structure evolution during the SI-ATRP modification of SBA-15 was monitored and verified by FT-IR, XPS, TGA, BET, and TEM. The obtained polymeric composite showed enhanced adsorption ability for the model compound toluene in aqueous. This procedure provides a low cost, ready availability, and facile modification way to synthesize the polymeric composites without the contamination of metal.

When overhead lines are impacted by lightning, the traveling wave of the fault contains a wealth of fault information. The accurate extraction of feature quantities from transient components and their classification is fundamental to the identification of lightning faults. The extraction process may involve modal aliasing, optimal wavelet base issues, and inconsistencies between the lightning strike distance and the fault point, which have the potential to impact the effectiveness of recognition. This paper presents a method for identifying lightning strike faults by utilizing Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence enhanced Variational Mode Decomposition (VMD) and Symmetric Geometry Mode Decomposition (SGMD) improved with Permutation Entropy (PE) to address the aforementioned issues. A model of a 220 kV overhead line is constructed using real faults to replicate scenarios of winding strike, counterstrike, and short-circuit. The three-phase voltage is chosen and then sub-jected to Karenbaren decoupling in order to transform it into zero mode, line mode 1, and line mode 2. The zero mode voltage is decomposed using KL-VMD and PE-SGMD methods, and lightning identification criteria are developed based on various transient energy ratios. The research findings demonstrate that the criteria effectively differentiate between winding strike, counterstrike, and short-circuit faults, thus confirming the accuracy and efficacy of the lightning fault identification criteria utilizing KL-VMD and PE-SGMD.

Brain metastasis (BrM), involving the spread of cells from a primary tumor through the blood circulation system to the brain microvasculature, eventually progresses despite multiple treatments and remains a substantial contributor to major mortality in patients with advanced- stage cancer. Molecular signatures and immune cellular components of the tumor microenvironment (TME) are emerging as essential regulators involved in establishing an organ-specific metastasis (colonization) and therapeutic response. A comprehensive understanding of detailed characterization and the immune landscape in context of process of BrM formation will greatly expand the horizon of treatments available to target these deadly diseases. In this review, we provide a comprehensive picture of the complex interactions between tumor cells and immune cellular components participated in the BrM process. Based on this knowledge, we will discuss opportunities and challenges for therapeutic strategies against BrM.

Structurally clear compounds have advantages for quality control in plant biostimulant production and application processes. Humic acid (HA) is a biostimulant that significantly affects plant growth, and soil-dwelling Protaetia brevitarsis larva (PBL) can rapidly convert agricultural waste into HA. In this study, we use PBL as a model to investigate HA formation and screen for HA-related structurally clear plant biostimulant compounds. The dephasing magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (13C DD–MAS NMR) analysis indicated HA structural changes during PBL digestion; the metabolic profile detected seven HA-related aromatic ring-containing compounds. Plant experiments identified six compounds with stimulating effects, with piperic acid being reported for the first time in this study. Thus, this study not only provides insights into the insect-mediated transformation of HA but also illustrates a new strategy for discovering structurally clear plant biostimulant compounds.

The effect of reprocessing on the quasi-static uniaxial tensile behavior of two commercial polypropylene (PP) based composites is experimentally investigated and modeled. In particular, the studied materials consist of an unfilled high-impact PP and a talc-filled high-impact PP. These PP composites are subjected to repeated processing cycles including a grinding step and an extrusion step to simulate recycling at the laboratory level, the selected reprocessing numbers for this study being 0, 3, 6, 9 and 12. Because the repeated reprocessing leads to thermo-mechanical degradation by chain scission mechanisms, the tensile behavior of the two materials exhibits a continuous decrease of elastic modulus and failure strain with increasing number of reprocessing. A physically consistent three-dimensional constitutive model is used to predict the tensile response of non-recycled materials with strain rate dependence. For the recycled materials, the reprocessing effect is accounted by incorporating the reprocessing sensitive coefficient into the constitutive model for Young’s modulus, failure strain, softening and hardening equations. Our predictions of true stress - true strain curves for non-recycled and recycled 108MF97 and 7510 are in a good agreement with experimental data.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the institutional investors which can affect financial performance for corporate sustainability on the income smoothing. Therefore, this study focus on the connection between the nature of stock rights and income smoothing in China. For this study, hypotheses were established on the relationship each state-controlled companies, income smoothing, and information equilibrium of individual investors, and empirical analysis was conducted through related variables. The analysis results are summarized in three categories as follows. First, this research finds that state-controlled firms (CONTs) prefer income smoothing activities compared to non-state-controlled firms for the long-term sustainable development of firms using data from 2011 to 2019. Second, this study found out that Institutional investors support the behavior of CONTs to smooth their earnings because this behavior is seen as an attempt by CONTs to convey valuable private information to other investors. Third, we was able to discover that institutional investors' monitoring effect is predominantly driven by pressure-resistant institutional investors. This research complements the lack of empirical research on income smoothing and enable to give a guideline that the type of stock rights is a critical key determinant of participation in income smoothing activities for stable growth and sustainability in the future.

This article summarizes Chinese framework for regulating artificial intelligence and integrates evolutionary game theory with cost-benefit analysis to establish a model and simulation. This framework is employed to analyze the behavioral trends among three distinct entities: governmental bodies, third-party independent institutions, and AI companies within the context of regulatory relationship. The findings indicate that: (1) The cost-benefit dynamics within the regulatory legal nexus significantly influence the behaviors of these entities; (2) Under the condition of normalized government regulation approaching full enforcement, the behavioral choices of third-party independent institutions and AI companies exhibit cyclical fluctuations.The paper draws two principal conclusions: (1) The regulatory framework need to be tailored to the specific risks presented by AI and the relative costs and benefits of legal enforcement in different jurisdictions. (2) From a cost-benefit standpoint, government intervention in AI regulation ought to be circumscribed, with government regulation focusing on critical legal risks. Other aspects of regulatory control should be delegated to cooperative legal framework that allows the participation of the independent third-party institution,which brings a nuanced and specialized approach to the governance of AI.

Classical enzyme kinetics are summarized and linked with modern discoveries here. The time course of sequential catalytic events by biological macromolecular enzyme is analyzed at the molecular level; the relationships between catalytic efficiency (turnover number), catalytic rate/velocity, the amount of time taken and physical/biochemical conditions of the system are discussed. This writing tries to connect the microscopic molecular behavior of enzyme to kinetic data obtained in experiment, and the hypothesis proposed here provide an interpretation to previous experimental observations and can be testified by future experiments.

The present work investigates primarily the morphology evolution of the body-centered-cubic (BCC)/B2 phases in AlxNiCoFeCr high-entropy alloys (HEAs) with increasing Al content, which has been neglected so far. There exist two types of microscopic morphologies of BCC and B2 phases in this HEA series: one is the weave-like morphology induced by the spinodal decomposition, and the other is the microstructure of a spherical disordered BCC precipitation on the ordered B2 matrix that appears in HEAs with a much higher Al content. The shape of coherent precipitates is found to be closely related to the lattice misfit between BCC and B2 phases, which is sensitive to Al. The mechanical properties, including the compressive yielding strength and microhardness of the AlxNiCoFeCr HEAs, are also discussed in light of the concept of the valence electron concentration (VEC).

M-polynomial of different molecular structures helps to calculate many topological indices. A topological index of graph G is a numerical parameter related to G which characterizes its molecular topology and is usually graph invariant. In the field of quantitative structure-activity (QSAR) quantitative structure-activity structure-property (QSPR) research, theoretical properties of the chemical compounds and their molecular topological indices such as the Zagreb indices, Randic index, Symmetric division index, Harmonic index, Inverse sum index, Augmented Zagreb index, multiple Zagreb indices etc. are correlated. In this report, we compute closed forms of M-polynomial, first Zagreb polynomial and second Zagreb polynomial of Octagonal network. From the M-polynomial we recover some degree-based topological indices for Octagonal network. Moreover, we give a graphical representation of our results.

The quantified residence time distribution (RTD) provides a numerical characterization of mixing in the continue casting tundish, thus allowing the engineer to better understand the metallurgical performance of the reactor. This paper describes a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) modelling study for analyzing the flow pattern and the residence time distribution in a five-strand tundish. Two passive scalar transport equations are applied to separately calculate the E-curve and F-curve in the tundish. The numerical modelling results are compared to the water modelling results for the validation of the mathematical model. The volume fraction of different flow regions (plug, mixed and dead) and the intermixing time during the ladle changeover are calculated to study the effects of the flow control device (FCD) on the tundish performance. The result shows that a combination of the U-baffle with deflector holes and the turbulence inhibitor has three major effects on the flow characteristics in the tundish: i) reduce the extent of the dead volume; ii) evenly distribute the liquid streams to each strand and iii) shorten the intermixing time during the ladle changeover operation.

Effective oral care is important to maintain a high quality of life. Therefore, plaque control can prevent the development and recurrence of periodontitis. Brushing with a toothbrush and toothpaste is a common way to remove plaque; however, excessive brushing or brushing with abrasive toothpaste can cause wear and tear on the dental crown. Hence, we aimed to quantitatively compare the plaque-removal efficiency and tooth wear of toothbrushes using bioelectric effect (BE) with those of mechanical electric toothbrushes. To generate the BE signal, an electronic circuit was developed and embedded in a toothbrush. Further, typodonts were coated with cultured artificial plaques and placed in a brushing simulator. A toothpaste slurry was applied, and the typodonts were eluted with tap water after brushing. The plaques of the typodonts were captured, and the images were quantified. For the tooth wear experiment, polymethyl methacrylate disk resin blocks were brushed twice a day, and the thickness of the samples was measured. Subsequently, statistical differences between the experimental toothbrushes and typical toothbrushes were analyzed. The BE toothbrush had a higher plaque-removal efficiency and could minimize tooth wear. This study suggests that the application of BE may be a new solution for oral care.

On 17 October 1947, Niels Bohr was made a knight of the Order of the Elephant by the King of Denmark in view of his outstanding achievements and contributions to science. Bohr designed his own coat of arms that featured a pattern of Yin and Yang (Tai Chi symbol) to symbolize the wave-particle complementarity. However, Bohr’s Yin-Yang diagram (YYD) was neither drawn based on the principles of quantum mechanics, nor did it originate from the traditional Taoist YYD. Scientists still have doubts about the legitimacy of using YYD as the icon of the wave-particle complementarity, because the YYD belonging to quantum mechanics itself is unknown so far. This article reports the YYDs existing in quantum mechanics and justifies the role of YYD in the wave-particle duality by showing that any system, whether classical or quantum, has an ideal YYD as long as it satisfies Bohr’s principle of complementarity (BPC). The deviation of a deformed YYD from the ideal YYD indicates the extent to which a real system satisfies BPC. This article constructs the quantum YYD by the complex quantum trajectory of a particle tunneling via a step barrier, which displays the continuous transition between the wave behavior and the particle behavior. It appears that the YYD designed by Bohr in his coat of arms resembles the YYD generated by tunneling motion, not only in appearance but also in the governing equation.

A new design scheme is proposed for twisting the walls of a microchannel, and its performance is demonstrated numerically. The numerical study was carried out for a T-shaped microchannel with twist angles in the range of 0 to 34π. The Reynolds number range was 0.15 to 6. The T-shaped microchannel consists of two inlet branches and an outlet branch. The mixing performance was analyzed in terms of the degree of mixing and relative mixing cost. All numerical results show that the twisting scheme is an effective way to enhance the mixing in a T-shaped microchannel. The mixing enhancement is realized by the swirling of two fluids in the cross section and is more prominent as the Reynolds number decreases. The twist angle was optimized to maximize the DOM, which increases with the length of the outlet branch. The twist angle was also optimized in terms of the relative mixing. The two optimum twisting angles are generally not coincident. The optimum twist angle shows a dependence on the length of the outlet branch but it is not affected much by the Reynolds number.

According to the characteristics of the sustainable development of subway traffic, the establishment process of an evaluation index system is determined, and the evaluation method and basis are defined. The evaluation index system is established from the aspects of subway traffic sustainability, economic sustainability and urban coordination sustainability. The comprehensive evaluation method of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) model is used to calculate the weights of comprehensive evaluation indexes at each level. Finally, the sustainable development model of Shijiazhuang subway traffic is evaluated. The results show that the proposed evaluation system and model reflect the degree of sustainable development of subway traffic and can be used for reference in the evaluation of regional subway traffic sustainable development.

Aiming at the problems of high labor intensity and high cost of manual picking, high loss rate of mechanical picking seeds, low mechanization level and difficult to guarantee the quality of picking plates in the process of picking plates of edible sunflower. Based on the principle of manual plate taking, a plate taking control system for sunflower harvesting table was designed. Through the research and analysis of the principle of taking the plate of the edible sunflower harvesting table. According to the actual operation requirements, the overall scheme of the sunflower plate control system is determined, and the control strategy of imitating artificial low loss harvesting is designed. To reduce the grain loss in the process of taking the plate and improve the control accuracy of the system on the movement speed and displacement of the key components in the process of taking the plate, a trapezoidal acceleration and deceleration control algorithm is designed as the control algorithm of taking the plate. To verify the working performance of the plate control system, with the absolute error, relative error and total loss rate of the harvest as objectives. The bench and field verification experiments were both carried out. The bench experiment showed that the speed error of the plate parts was not more than 0.028 m/s. In the bench experiments of the device, the maximum positioning error was 1.25 mm, the average relative error is only 0.94 %, and the grain loss rate was not more than 2.26 %. It result showed that the system algorithm was reliable, the positioning accuracy was high, and the taking plate operation can be completed well. The field verification experiment showed that the forward speed of the unit was in the range of 0.4~0.8 m/s, and the total loss rate of harvest was less than 5 %. When the forward speed is 0.6 m/s, the minimum harvest loss rate is 2.32 %, and which indicated the control system meets the requirements of sunflower harvesting operation.

Recently, methods to detect DoS and spoofing attacks that occur on in-vehicle networks using CAN Protocol are being studied through deep learning models such as CNN, RNN, and LSTM. These studies have produced significant results in the field of In-Vehicle Network attack detection using deep learning models. In addition, significant results are being achieved through research on applying time series-based deep learning models such as LSTM to detect DoS attacks and replay attacks occurring in in-drone networks by expanding them to drones using the UAVCAN protocol. In this paper, we conducted an experiment to detect in-drone network attacks through non-time series analysis using machine learning models and deep learning models, and through appropriate learning for each attack type, it can also be analyzed through non-time series analysis. The results showed that it was possible to detect attacks.

State transition in the multiple-levels system has the great potential applications in the quantum technology. In this article we employ a deterministic approach in complex space to analyze the dynamics of the 1s-2p electron transition in the hydrogen atom. The electron’s spin motion is embodied in the framework of quantum Hamilton mechanics that allows us to examine the transition dynamics more precisely. The transition is driven by an oscillating electric field in the z-direction. The electron’s transition process can be visualized by monitoring its motion in the complex space. The quantum potential and the total energy proposed in this paper provide new indices to observe the dynamic changes of electrons in the transition process.

Mucosal vaccines can target specific mucosal surfaces, such as the respiratory, genital, or intestinal mucosa. Conventional systemic immunization, such as intramuscular injections, do not provide mucosal immunity, including IgA, nor do they prevent pathogens from entering the mucous membranes. Nasal immunization protects mucosal membranes, but nasal antigen presentation appears to entail adjuvant to stimulate immunogenicity. Current treatments for mucosal diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and allergic dermatitis only aimed to temporarily relieve symptoms. Moreover, these treatments not only have drug resistance or side effects, but the disease can recur, leading to switching to other treatments. Therefore, there is a need to develop safe and effective treatments that provide better long-term outcomes to reduce the risk of recurrence. Regulatory T (Treg) cells have been used to suppress inflammation. To find advances in mucosal treatment, we investigated the therapeutic effects of intranasal pep27 mutant immunization. Here, a new method of Treg induction through intranasal immunization without adjuvant has been developed to potentially overcome allergies and mucosal inflammation of the lung-gut axis in animal models. The implementation of the pep27 mutant for these therapies should be preceded by studies of Treg resilience through clinical translational studies of dietary changes.

Aging is associated with muscle atrophy and fatty infiltration of skeletal muscle. The multifidus muscle stabilizes the lumbar spine and undergoes adipose accumulation with age, leading to functional decline in the elderly. Therefore, quantitative assessment of the multifidus muscle can be beneficial for the elderly when formulating treatment strategies and reducing future complications. Fifty-seven patients (mean age, 73.89 ± 6.09; 23 male patients) who underwent lumbar Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were prospectively recruited. The cross-sectional area (CSA) of the multifidus from the L2-S1 level and the CSA of the L4-5 level psoas muscle were measured. The functional CSA (fCSA) of the multifidus muscle was measured by excluding the fat infiltration area from the multifidus CSA. The CSA to fCSA ratio was obtained by multiplying 100 by the value obtained by dividing CSA by the fCSA. Pfrrmann classification was used to evaluate the degree of disc degeneration. The functional disability measurements were the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), Berg Balance Scale (BBS), grip strength, and functional reach test (FRT). Pearson's correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between the functional disability measurements and the multifidus muscle. The CSA to fCSA ratio value was relatively constant at each spine level and showed a significant correlation with the SPPB, grip strength, FRT, and psoas index (p&lt;0.05). However, degree of disc and multifidus muscle degeneration were not statistically significant. So, age-related changes play a significant role in developing back muscle fatty infiltration than disc dgeneration. Moreover, Grip strength showed a stronger relationship with the quality of the multifidus muscle than other functional disability measurements.

Ammonium sulfate has been utilized in agriculture; however, there is a dearth of research on its application in maize cultivation subsequent to the implementation of nitrification inhibitors or coating. This study aims to analyze the impacts of various combinations of ammonium sulfate fertilizers on soil nutrients, plant nutrient uptake, yield, and fertilizer utilization efficiency in maize cultivation to ascertain the optimal and stabilized disposal method for ammonium sulfate. A completely randomized design was employed with five treatments (AU, the control using urea; AS, treatment using ammonium sulfate; ASN, treatment using ammonium sulfate with a nitrification inhibitor; ASG, treatment using oil-coated ammonium sulfate; ASD, treatment using oil-humic acid-coated ammonium sulfate). Results showed that: (1) Compared with AU and AS, ASN, ASG and ASD decreased the leaching rates of TN, NH4+-N and NO3-N to the 10-20 cm soil layer, and more residual N was obtained in 0-10 cm soil layer. The first-order kinetic equation Nt=N0(1-e-kt) can better fit the process of nitrogen accumulation and release, and the N release rate constant is AU>CK>AS>ASH>ASN>ASD; (2) Compared with AU and AS treatments, the plant dry weight, grain dry weight, spike width, spike length, and yields of maize increased by 8.85-11.08%, 12.98-14.15%, 2.95-3.52%, 5.50-5.65%, and 43.21-51.10% under ASG treatment respectively. The impact of effective spike number on maize yield was found to be significant, as demonstrated by the path analysis conducted in this study. Furthermore, the accumulation levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium within above-ground plants significantly increased under the ASG treatment compared to the AU and AS treatments. The partial productivity of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium increased by 1.43-1.51-fold under ASG treatment, while grain nitrogen balance, grain phosphorus balance, and grain potassium balance increased by 1.41-1.58-fold, 1.51-1.95-fold, and 1.15-l.96-fold respectively. The oil-coated ammonium sulfate, therefore, exhibited the optimal slow-release effect of nutrients, thereby achieving superior performance in enhancing maize production and efficiency.

Background: The seasonal variation of peptic ulcers is a rhythmic phenomenon reported worldwide, exhibiting diverse patterns and controversies. Unfortunately, it has remained an unresolved mystery for more than 90 years. Numerous studies have found that this phenomenon was closely associated with multiple environmental factors, but the underlying mechanism has never been elucidated. Objectives: This study aims to elucidate the seasonal variation of peptic ulcers and identify the role of environmental factors in the disease. Methods: Based on a recently identified etiology of peptic ulcers, two inverse operations in calculus, differentiation and integration, are iterated to analyze the existing data. First, the fluctuation curve in the seasonal variation is differentiated twice into the monthly incidences caused by multiple individual environmental factors, and the fluctuation curve due to each individual environmental factor is generated separately. Second, the monthly incidences caused by the individual environmental factors are integrated twice to reproduce the fluctuation curves in the seasonal variation of peptic ulcers. Results: The differentiations of the fluctuation curves in the season variation reveal a parallel relationship between the psychological impacts of each individual environmental factor and the monthly incidences of peptic ulcers. The integrations of the monthly incidences caused by 3 environmental factors reproduce the fluctuation curves in 3 representative seasonal patterns of peptic ulcers but make the parallel relationships invisible. Discussion: The parallel relationships revealed a causal role of environmental factors in peptic ulcers, whereas the reproduction of the fluctuation curves elucidated that multiple environmental factors cause the seasonal variation of peptic ulcers by Superposition Mechanism. The regional differences in environmental factors result in the diverse patterns, as well as the controversy questioning the seasonality of peptic ulcers. Significantly, the data analyses exemplify the application of a new concept, Superposition Mechanism, which might be an indispensable methodological complement to life science and medicine.

Background: In 1962, Susser and Stein observed that the mortality rates of peptic ulcers in England and Wales increased markedly in the 1910s, maintained at a high level during the 1910s-1940s, and began to decline steadily since the early 1950s. They termed this epidemic pattern a birth-cohort phenomenon, but its mechanism has never been elucidated. Susser and Stein speculated that the occurrences of extraordinary social environmental factors roughly fit the fluctuations, but the role of environmental factors in peptic ulcers has never been identified. Objectives: This study aims to elucidate the mechanism of the birth-cohort phenomenon of peptic ulcers and identify the role of environmental factors in the disease. Methods: Starting from an etiology identified recently, this study uses the two inverse operations in calculus, differentiation, and integration, to analyze the existing data. First, a fluctuation curve in the birth-cohort phenomenon is differentiated into multiple annual mortality rates caused by individual environmental factors. Second, these annual mortality rates are integrated to reproduce the fluctuation curve in the birth-cohort phenomenon. Results: The differentiation reveals a parallel relationship between the psychological impacts of environmental factors and the mortality rates of peptic ulcers, whereas the integration reproduces a representative fluctuation curve in the birth-cohort phenomenon. The successive occurrences of multiple social environmental factors from the 1910s to 1940s maintained the increase in mortality rates, while the sustained improvements in living environments explained the steady decline of the mortality rates from the early 1950s. Conclusion: The parallel relationship suggests a causal role of environmental factors in peptic ulcers, whereas the reproduction of a representative fluctuation curve indicates that multiple environmental factors caused the birth-cohort phenomenon by Superposition Mechanism. Significantly, this study challenges the current reductionist approach used to study disease in modern medicine by demonstrating the effectiveness of an opposite methodological concept focused on integration.

This study aimed to select the most effective metabolites for controlling honey bee nosemosis using culture extracts from 342 entomopathogenic fungi of 24 species from 18 genera. The germination inhibitory activity of the fungal culture extract against Nosema ceranae spores was evaluated using an in vitro germination assay method. Among 89 fungal culture extracts showing germination inhibitory activity of approximately 80% or more, 44 culture extracts that maintained their inhibitory activity even at a concentration of 1% were selected. Finally, the honey bee nosemosis inhibitory activity was evaluated using the cultured extracts of 5 fungal isolates having a Nosema inhibitory activity of approximately 60% or more even when the extract was removed after treatment. As a result, the proliferation of Nosema spores was reduced by all fungal culture extract treatments. However, only the treatment of the culture extracts from Paecilomyces marquandii 364 and Pochonia bulbillosa 60 showed a reduction in honey bee mortality due to nosemosis. In particular, the extracts of these two fungal isolates also increased the survival of honey bees.

Recently, there has been considerable research on deepfake detection. However, most existing methods face challenges in adapting to the advancements in new generative models within unknown domains. In addition, the emergence of new generative models capable of producing and editing high-quality images, such as Diffusion, Consistency, and LCM, poses a challenge for traditional deepfake training models. These advancements highlight the need for adapting and evolving existing deepfake detection techniques to effectively counter the threats posed by sophisticated image manipulation technologies. In this paper, our objective is to detect deepfake videos in unknown domains using unlabeled data. Specifically, our proposed approach employs Meta Pseudo Labels (MPL) with Supervised Contrastive Learning, so-called SupCon-MPL, allowing the model to be trained on unlabeled images. MPL involves the simultaneous training of both a Teacher model and a Student model, where the Teacher model generates Pseudo Labels utilized to train the Student model. This method aims to enhance the adaptability and robustness of deepfake detection systems against emerging unknown domains. Supervised Contrastive Learning utilizes labels to compare samples within similar classes more intensively, while encouraging greater distinction from samples in dissimilar classes. This facilitates the learning of features in a diverse set of deepfake images by the model, consequently contributing to the performance of deepfake detection in unknown domains. When utilizing the ResNet50 model as the backbone, SupCon-MPL exhibited an improvement of 1.58% in accuracy compared to traditional MPL in known domain detection. Moreover, in the same generation of unknown domain detection, there was a 1.32% accuracy enhancement, while in the detection of post-generation unknown domains, there was an 8.74% increase in accuracy.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of jet-milling on lutein extraction contents of spinach powder (SP) and pulsed electric fields as a non-thermal pasteurization technology on spinach juice (SJ) to preserve lutein contents. SP particles were divided into SP-coarse (Dv50 = 315.2 μm), SP-fine (Dv50 = 125.20 μm), and SP-superfine (Dv50 = 5.59 μm) fractions and SP-superfine was added to SJ due to the highest contents of lutein extract. The PEF and thermal treatment were applied to evaluate the effects of preserving the lutein content of PEF during storage (25 days). The juice after being designated to untreated (no pasteurization), PEF1,2 (SJ treated with PEF 20 kV/cm 110 kJ/L, 150 kJ/L), Thermal1,2 (SJ treated with 90 ℃, 10 min and 121 ℃, 15 min). The sizes and surface shapes of superfine SP particles were more homogeneous and smoother than the other samples. SJ made with SP-superfine and treated by PEF had the highest lutein content and antioxidant activities among the group. Complex of jet-milling and PEF pasteurization could be great potential technologies to improve the lutein contents of lutein-enriched juice in the food industry.

The microstructure evolution during the cold rolling and subsequent annealing of Alloy 800H was investigated. Two distinct rolling methods, unidirectional rolling and cross-rolling, were intro-duced. Results show that better ductility was observed in the unidirectional rolling than in cross-rolling, whilst a higher volume fraction of large deformed grains was observed in the cross-rolled plates than in the unidirectionally rolled plates. Recrystallization occurred faster in plates from unidirectional rolling than from cross-rolling.

The construction of reinforced concrete (RC) structures inevitably consumes an excessive number of rebars, leading to significant cutting waste and carbon emissions. Extensive research has been conducted to minimize this issue and its consequences; however, these methods consistently consume a substantial number of rebars. This includes a previous study that utilizes the lap splice position optimization and special-length rebar concept without considering the lapping zone regulation. Moreover, conventional lap splices pose inherent drawbacks that could jeopardize the structural integrity of RC members. In contrast, mechanical couplers eliminate the need for rebar lapping, effectively reducing rebar consumption. This research aims to evaluate the impact of an integrated mechanical coupler and special-length-priority minimization algorithm on the reduction in rebar consumption and cutting waste in RC columns, achieving near-zero cutting waste. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, it was applied to the column rebars of an RC building. The results revealed a significant reduction in ordered rebar consumption by 18.25%, accompanied by substantial reductions in cutting waste (8.93%), carbon emissions (12.99%), and total costs (10.81%) compared with a previous study. The outcomes provide the industry with insights into further reducing rebar consumption and its related consequences. Applying the proposed algorithm to various construction projects will further amplify the corresponding benefits.

The COVID-19 pandemic over the past years has shown a great need for rapid, low-cost and on-site detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In this paper, an aptamer-based colloidal gold nanoparticle lateral flow test strip was well developed to realize the visual detection of wild type SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (SP) and multiple variants. Under the optimal reaction conditions, a low detection limit of SARS-CoV-2 S protein of 0.68 nM was acquired, and the actual detection recovery was 83.3% to 108.8% for real world samples. This suggests a potential tool for the prompt detection of SARS-CoV-2 with good sensitivity and accuracy, and a new method for the development of alternative antibody test strips for the detection of other viral targets.

Automobile proving ground is important for the research of vehicles which is used for the vehicle dynamics, durability testing, braking testing, etc. However, the roads in automobile proving ground will inevitably be damaged with the extension of the service life. In most previous researches, equipment similar to laser cross-section was used to detect pavement quality, the principle of which was to reflect pavement quality by detecting road surface roughness. This method ignores the elastic deformation of the roads itself when the vehicle is traveling on it and hardly compensate for the amendment. Therefore, this article presents a new method based on force sensor to reduce the impact of elastic deformation such as wheel tyre deformation, pavement deformation, and wheel rim deformation. In which, force sensors mounted on the wheels collect the three-dimensional dynamic load of the wheel.The presented method has been tested with two sets of cobblestone road load data, and the results show that The　incentives imposed by the test vehicle on the target road are 88.3%, 91.0%, and 92.05% of the incentives imposed by the test vehicle on the standard road in three dimensions, respectively. It is clear that the proposed method has strong potential effectiveness to be applied for lose detection of the special road application.

This study aims to investigate the effects of chest mobilization and breathing exercises on respiratory function, trunk stability, and endurance in chronic stroke patients who have contracted coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Thirty inpatients of a tertiary hospital in South Korea, who had a history of COVID-19 and were diagnosed with stroke within the last 6 months were randomly assigned to either the Chest Mobilization Exercise with Breathing Exercise (CMEBE) or Conservative Physical Therapy with Breathing Exercise (CPTBE) groups. The respiratory function, trunk stability, and endurance were measured at baseline and 6 weeks after the interventions. Both CMEBE and CPTBE groups showed improvements in respiratory function, trunk stability, and endurance after the intervention (p<0.05). However, the CMEBE group showed significantly greater improvements in forced expiratory volume in 1 second (p<0.05), trunk stability (p<0.05), and endurance (p<0.05) than the CPTBE group. No significant intergroup difference was observed in forced vital capacity and peak expiratory flow. Conclusion: The combination of chest mobilization and breathing exercises improved respiratory muscle mobility and endurance, stabilized the trunk, and enhanced balance and transfer of weight. The findings suggest that this intervention could be beneficial in improving respiratory function and endurance in stroke patients.

The purposes of this study are to analyze the groundwater quality of Ogallala Aquifer and evaluate the hydrological characteristics in the southern High Plains region of the Permian Basin, Texas. Levels of chloride, fluoride, nitrate, pH, selenium, and total dissolved solids (TDS) were analyzed through the years 1990-2016. A total of 133 wells were collected from the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) which is an open database by the US government. Statistical analysis was utilized to evaluate the groundwater quality and propose trends. The average levels of the contaminants were compared to their respective Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCL) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Potential human health risks that each contaminant possesses were described. Possible sources of each contaminant were discussed with oil/gas activities, agricultural practices, and other human actions impact its conditions. This research provides important information for groundwater quality of Ogallala aquifer and contributes on understanding the response to development in the Permian Basin, Texas.

In the current study, a two-dimensional numerical study is carried out to investigate the performance of a novel Double-chamber Parallel Flexible Valves micropump, which utilized the electrowetting-on-dielectrics (EWOD) effect to drive the microfluid flow. By observing the flow fields, the internal circulations are seen on both the left and right side of the pump. The generation of the backflow is discussed by tracking the movement of the vortices. Only slight flow fluctuation is seen in the micropump. Based on the simulation outcomes, the structural parameters including the width of the inlet/outlet, the width of the pumping channel and the diverging angle in the micropump are analyzed, the influence of these parameters on the pumping volume and the maximum pressure have been discussed. Eventually, a group of optimal parameter combinations is given according to the results to extend the operating potential of the micropump.

In the moist environment of soil-water-air, there is a problem of low accuracy in monitoring Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) using a Photoionization Detector (PID). This paper analyzes the reasons for the low accuracy of the traditional Support Vector Machine (SVM) regression method. To address the issue, the PID signal is subjected to feature extraction and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to reduce the data dimensionality. Moreover, the optimal SVM parameters are selected using a Genetic Algorithm (GA), and a combined approach of SVM regression with PCA and GA is utilized for PID signal regression analysis. And the effectiveness of the method is validated through extensive experiments and simulations. Furthermore, the influence of the sample quantity on the regression accuracy is analyzed, enabling accurate monitoring of VOCs concentration in a moist environment.

G protein-coupled receptor 15 (GPR15, also known as BOB) is an extensively studied orphan GPCR involving HIV infection, colonic inflammation and smoking-related diseases. Recently, GPR15 was deorphanized and its corresponding natural ligand demonstrated an ability of inhibiting cancer cell growth. However, no study reported the potential role of GPR15 in a pan-cancer manner. Using large-scale publicly available data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) databases, we found that GPR15 expression is significantly lower in colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) than in normal tissues. And among 33 cancer types, GPR15 expression is significantly correlated with the prognoses of COAD, neck squamous carcinoma (HNSC), lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) positively and stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) negatively. This study also revealed that commonly upregulated gene set in the high GPR15 expression group (stratified via median) of COAD, HNSC, LUAD and STAD are enriched in immune systems, indicating that GPR15 might be considered as a potential target for cancer immunotherapy. Furthermore, we modelled the 3D structure of GPR15 and conducted the structure-based virtual screening. The top 8 hits compounds were screened and then subjected to molecular dynamics (MD) simulation for stability analysis. Our study provided novel insights into the role of GPR15 in a pan-cancer manner and discovered a potential hit compound for GPR15 antagonists.

In-situ injection of steam for heating of the subsurface is an efficient method for the recovery of oil and gas from oil shale where permeability typically evolves with temperature. We reported measurements on Jimusar oil shales(Xinjiang, China) at different temperatures to 600℃ and under recreated in situ triaxial stresses to obtain permeability evolution with temperature and stress. Permeability of tight oil shales evolves with temperature to a threshold temperature and peak temperature. The threshold temperature was subjected to triaxial stresses. For Jimusar oil shale, the threshold temperature ranges from 200℃ to 250℃ at ground stress of buried depth of 500m and from 350℃ to 400℃ at buried depth of 1000m. The peak temperature was almost not subjected to triaxial stress and the range is from 450℃ to 500℃ for all Jimusar samples. Pyrolysis plays an important role in permeability evolution and fundamentally changes permeability tendency and magnitude. At high temperature permeability exhibits a little reduction due to stress effect but still remains a high level due to pyrolysis. The above results show that oil shale mass can change from tight porous media into highly permeable media and oil & gas can easily flow through oil shale stratum.

Numerous study reports on chitosan hydrogels in different forms such as films, porous structures, nanoparticles, and microspheres for biomedical applications, however, this study concentrates on their modifications with different crosslinking agents and observing their effects on drug loading and releasing capacities. Linear chitosan along with crosslinked by two major cross-linkers, i.e., genipin and disulfide have been used to formulate three different hydrogel systems. The cross-linking process is heavily impacted by the temperature and the pH conditions. Three different drugs, i.e., thymoquinone, gefitinib, and erlotinib are loaded in phosphate buffer solutions and infused with three different hydrogel systems, thus, a total of nine combinations are studied and analyzed for drug loading and releasing capabilities with Ultraviolet–visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy. This study finds thymoquinone shows the lowest loading efficacy compared to two other drugs in all three systems. Gefitinib shows stable loading and releasing regardless of crosslinking systems and genipin crosslinked system shows stable loading and releasing with all three drug molecules. These experimental results agree well with the findings of our previously published results conducted with molecular dynamics simulations.

The bridge crane is often used in a complex environment, often subject to interference of all loads. Some uncertainties factors often have an inevitable impact on its swing. So the force situation of the bridge crane during a working cycle is analyzed, and a three-dimensional dynamic mathematical model of the bridge crane is built. Through the simulation analysis of the model under the action of driving force and wind load, the change law of the swing angle of the bridge crane is studied. Then, the fuzzy control theory is used to determine the control parameter in the anti sway control process. The position, swing angle deviation and deviation rate of the bridge crane are taken as the input, and the parameter correction is obtained after the fuzzification by using the center of gravity method, the anti sway fuzzy control system of the bridge crane is designed and simulated. The research results show that the fuzzy PID anti sway controller can not only improve the adaptability of the control system, but also overcome the large overshoot, quickly restrain the swing, and effectively realize the anti sway function of the bridge crane.

Understanding the distribution in drought and floods plays an important role in disaster risk management. The present study aims to explore the trends in the standardized precipitation index and extreme precipitation days in China, as well as to estimate the economic losses they cause. We found that in the Northeast China, northern of North China and northeast of Northwest China were severely affected by drought disasters (average damaged areas were 6.44 million hectares) and the most severe drought trend was located in West China. However, in the north of East China and Central China, the northeastern of the Southwest China was severely affected by flood disasters (average damaged areas were 3.97 million hectares) and the extreme precipitation trend is increasing in the northeastern of the Southwest China. In the Yangtze River basin, there were increasing trends in terms of drought and extreme precipitation, especially in the northeastern of the Southwest China, where accompanied by severe disaster losses. By combining the trends in drought and extreme precipitation days with the distribution of damaged areas, we found that the increasing trend in droughts shifted gradually from north to south, especially in the Southwest China, and the increasing trend in extreme precipitation gradually shifted from south to north.

This study mainly experimentally investigates and explores the effects of local low-frequency vibrations on the starting-up and heat transfer characteristics of the pulsating heat pipe. A micro motors with the vibration frequency of 200 Hz were imposed on the external surface of evaporation, condensation and adiabatic section of the pulsating heat pipe, respectively, and the starting-up temperature and the average temperatures along the evaporation section as well as the thermal performances of the vibrating heat pipe were experimentally scrutinized under the local vibrations of different positions. The following important conclusions can be achieved by the experimental study: 1) The effect of vibrations at the evaporation section and at the adiabatic section on the starting-up time of pulsating heat pipe is more significant than that at the condensation section. 2) The vibrations at different positions can reduce the starting-up temperature of the pulsating heat pipe. The effect of the vibrations at the evaporation section is the best as the heating power is lower, and the effect of the vibration at the adiabatic section is the best as the heating power is higher. 3) The vibrations at the evaporation section and at the adiabatic section can reduce the thermal resistance of the pulsating heat pipe. However, the vibrations at the condensation section have little effect on the thermal resistance of the pulsating heat pipe. 4) The vibrations at the evaporation section and at the adiabatic section can effectively reduce the temperature of evaporation section of the pulsating heat pipe, but the vibrations at the condensation section have no effect on the temperature of evaporation section of the pulsating heat pipe.

An innovative superconducting mechanism was developed based on a patented discovery of room temperature superconductivity in several thorium (Th) salts or compounds. The rationale behind this discovery is through the experimental results about the unique electrical and magnetic properties of these Th salts. Accordingly, this new superconducting mechanism for these Th salts was obtained through the analyses of the compounds’ molecular configurations and the packings of their relevant crystal structures. Owing to the distinctive properties of the Th compounds in this discovery, we further established a different electron pairing scheme as opposed to the pairing of the Cooper pairs. Compared to the long distance electron pairing of the Cooper pairs, the new electron pairing in our mechanism is constructed by two closely correlated electrons that reside on the same atomic orbital of the Th cation as an electron lone pair. In this new superconducting mechanism, the Th cation is sitting on a relevant crystallographic lattice arrangement or a network of the relevant Th compounds. This network is constructed by many Th cations along certain crystallographic lattice arrangement where each Th cation contains one electron lone pair. This network allows the electron lone pairs on the Th cations to be delocalized over the network, “in pair”, and thus, reveals the electron lone pair in presence in a long distance fashion. The closely correlated electron lone pairs hop on this network and thus, construct the supercurrent over the network. This explanation about the superconductivity laid the basis for our superconducting mechanism. All these conclusions came from the previous studies about these compounds that illustrated their unusual features of a coexistence of high electrical conductivity and diamagnetism. These electrical and magnetic properties fall in line with that of superconductors but, surprisingly, these Th compounds have such properties at the ambient condition, meaning under room temperature and atmosphere pressure. We expect that this mechanism may be appropriate to be utilized to other superconducting cases, either conventional or unconventional, and therefore, can be adapted to describe the superconducting phenomenon for other superconductors.

The BP neural network and PSO algorithm are applied into analyzing the reliability of long-span Concrete Filled Steel Tubular (CFST) arch bridges. Firstly, using BP neural network to fit the structural performance function. And then the PSO method was used to calculate the reliability index. A long-span Concrete Filled Steel Tubular arch bridges reliability indices were calculated whether considering the geometric nonlinearity or not. The calculation and analysis results showed that the BP neural network and PSO algorithm compensated the deficiency of the traditional reliability analysis methods, improved the calculation accuracy, provided a new thought and means for the research on the reliability of long-span bridge structure, and well applied to the reliability analysis of long-span Concrete Filled Steel Tubular arch bridges. Additionally, the reliability analysis of long-span Concrete Filled Steel Tubular arch bridges on service limit state must consider the geometric nonlinearity effect, or the results will tend to be unsafe.

In this paper, aiming at the safety evaluation of ultimate bearing safety capacity of ultra-high-performance-concrete (UHPC) composite pile bridge foundation, the symmetrical reliability method with forward and inverse analysis considering the randomness of parameters is proposed to evaluate the safety performance of composite pile foundation. The proposed method, consid-ering the randomness of parameters, was used to calculate the safety factor of ultimate bearing capacity of composite pile foundation to meet the prescribed target reliability requirements. An example was used to verify the correctness of the proposed method. The proposed method was applied to an actual engineering example and the sensitivity of the parameters were analyzed, the calculation results show that: ignoring the randomness of the parameters will overestimate the safety of the composite pile foundation; the target reliability index has a great influence on the safety of composite pile foundation; the influence of statistical parameters of random variables on the safety of UHPC composite pile foundation cannot be neglected; the initial iteration value of the safety factor has no effect on the final calculation result. The proposed method has high ac-curacy and applicability, and provides an effective way for the safety factor estimation of ultimate carrying capacity of UHPC composite pile foundation.

Intergenerational integration has given rise to a novel aging paradigm known as all-age communities, which is garnering international attention. In China, the aging population and the implementation of the three-child policy have resulted in increased demand for retirement and childcare services among residents in older neighborhoods. Consequently, there is a pressing need to retrofit these older neighborhoods to accommodate all-age living arrangements given the high demand they generate. Therefore, this study undertakes research interviews with residents and constructs an exploratory theoretical model rooted in established theory. To assess the significance of our model, we employ Smart PLS 3.0 based on 297 empirical data points. Our findings indicate that anxiety has a significant negative effect on payment behavior; objective perception, willingness to pay, and government assistance exert significant positive effects on payment behavior. By comprehensively analyzing the mechanisms underlying residents’ payment behavior, this study provides valuable insights to the government for promoting the aging process within communities and formulating effective transformation policies.

Deep learning has achieved lots of successes in many fields, but when trainable sample are extremely limited, deep learning often under or overfitting to few samples. Meta-learning was proposed to solve difficulties in few-shot learning and fast adaptive areas. Meta-learner learns to remember some common knowledge by training on large scale tasks sampled from a certain data distribution to equip generalization when facing unseen new tasks. Due to the limitation of samples, most approaches only use shallow neural network to avoid overfitting and reduce the difficulty of training process, that causes the waste of many extra information when adapting to unseen tasks. Euclidean space-based gradient descent also make meta-learner's update inaccurate. These issues cause many meta-learning model hard to extract feature from samples and update network parameters. In this paper, we propose a novel method by using multi-stage joint training approach to post the bottleneck during adapting process. To accelerate adapt procedure, we also constraint network to Stiefel manifold, thus meta-learner could perform more stable gradient descent in limited steps. Experiment on mini-ImageNet shows that our method reaches better accuracy under 5-way 1-shot and 5-way 5-shot conditions.

Temper embrittlement is a major challenge encountered during the heat treatment of high-performance steels for large forgings. This study investigates the microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of Cr-Ni-Mo-V thick-walled steel, designed for new large forgings with a tensile strength of 1500 MPa, under different tempering cooling rates. Optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) were employed to analyze the microstructural features. The results demonstrate that the embrittlement occurring during air cooling after tempering is attributed to the concentration of impurities near Fe3C at the grain boundaries. The low-temperature impact toughness at -40°C after water quenching reaches 29 J due to the accelerated cooling rate during tempering, which slows down the diffusion of impurity elements towards the grain boundaries, resulting in reduced concentration and dislocation density, and increased stability of the grain boundaries, thereby enhancing toughness. the bainite content decreases and the interface between martensite and bainite undergoes changes after water quenching during tempering. These alterations influence the crack propagation direction within the two-phase microstructure, further modifying the toughness. These findings contribute to the understanding of temper embrittlement and provide valuable guidance for optimizing heat treatment processes to enhance the performance of high-performance steels in large forgings.

The reliability of concrete cable-stayed bridge structure is time variant. This is due to strength deterioration and time-variant mechanical and environmental loadings. Demands for keeping concrete cable-stayed bridge structure in functional and reliable states require maintenance interventions. Limited financial resources require optimal maintenance strategies. These strategies have to consider the effects of uncertainties not only on the structural reliability deterioration but also on the maintenance interventions. By analyzing variation of concrete cable-stayed concrete cable-stayed bridge liabilities and benefit expectation through different maintenance programs, on the condition of satisfying the concrete cable-stayed bridge performance, with the maximum expected benefit as the target to discuss repair and reinforcement strategies for the concrete cable-stayed bridges in service. The method takes into account the present performance and future expected benefit, optimizing the performance of the concrete cable-stayed bridge and the expected benefit through determination policies of concrete cable-stayed concrete cable-stayed bridge maintenance program. The proposed method also includes an advanced cost model which takes into account the interaction between costs of maintenance interventions and their effect on reliability. Examples are presented demonstrating the application of the proposed method to a stock of existing deteriorating concrete cable-stayed bridges under various maintenance scenarios.

This study identifies the optimal management policy of a given energy storage system (ESS) installed in a grid-connected wind farm for maximizing the monetary benefits and provides guidelines for defining the economic value of the ESS under the optimal management policy and selecting the optimal size of the ESS based on the economic value. Considering stochastic models for wind power and electricity price, we develop a finite-horizon periodic-review Markov decision process (MDP) model to seek the optimal management policy. We also use a simple optimization model to find the optimal storage capacity and charging/discharging capacity of the ESS. By applying our analytic approach to a real-world grid-connected wind farm located in South Korea, we verify the usefulness of this study. Our numerical study shows that the economic value of the ESS is highly dependent on the management policy, wind electricity variability, and the electricity price variability. Thus, the optimal size of ESS should be carefully determined based on the locational characteristics and management policy even with limited investments. Furthermore, this study provides a meaningful policy implication on how much a subsidy the government should provide for installing ESS in a wind farm.

Ongoing climate change causes abnormal climate events worldwide such as increasing temperatures and changing rainfall patterns. With South Korea facing growing damage from the increased frequency of localized heavy rains, the country is not an exception. In particular, its steep slope lands, including mountainous areas, are vulnerable to damage from landslides and debris flows. In addition, localized short-term heavy rains that occur in urban areas with extremely high intensity tend to lead a sharp increase in damage from soil-related disasters and cause huge losses of life and property. Currently, South Korea predicts landslides and debris flows using the standards for forecasting landslides and heavy rains. However, as the forecasting is conducted separately for rainfall intensity and accumulated rainfall, this lacks a technique that reflects both amount and intensity of rainfall in an episode of localized heavy rainfall. This study, therefore, aims to develop such a technique by collecting past cases of debris flow occurrences and rainfall events that accompanied debris flows to calculate the rainfall triggering index (RTI) reflecting accumulated rainfall and rainfall intensity. In addition, the RTI is converted into the critical accumulated rainfall (Rc) to use precipitation information and provide real-time forecasting. The study classifies the standards for flow debris forecasting into three levels: ALERT (10%–50%), WARNING (50%–70%), and EMERGENCY (70% or higher), to provide a nomogram for 6 hr, 12 hr, and 24 hr. As a result of applying this classification into the actual cases of Seoul, Chuncheon, and Cheongju, it is found that about 2–4 hr of response time is secured from the point of the Emergency level to the occurrence of debris flows.

The Vu Gia - Thu Bon River Basin (VG-TB) is confronting numerous challenges related to water security (WS), particularly in the face of the impacts of climate change. These challenges manifest in salinity intrusion, altered rainfall patterns, and reduced water supply in downstream areas. To assess the current state of water security in the basin, the study employed statistical analysis methods, Process Analysis Method (PAM), SMART, and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to develop a comprehensive Assessment Framework for Water Security (AFWS) in the VG-TB. The AFWS encompasses five key dimensions, 17 indicators, and 28 variables, aligning with the UN-Water definition of water security and addressing the Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) criteria for global water sustainability. It also adheres to the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) approach to water security assessment as outlined in the Asian Water Development Outlook (AWDO) reports. This allows for the computation of a comprehensive Water Security Index (WSI) for specific regions, serving as a foundation for decision-making and policy formulation aimed at enhancing water security in the context of climate change and facilitating sustainable basin development in the future.

Large aluminum alloy ring forgings are the core components of heavy-duty rocket fuel storage tanks, and the large residual stress inside the rings leads to poor shape accuracy of large thin-walled parts. The initial stress of the 2219 aluminum alloy ring blank was tested using the drilling method, and the creep constitutive coefficient of the 2219 aluminum alloy was determined through stress relaxation tests. The numerical simulation processes of thermal stress relief (TSR), vibration stress relief (VSR), and thermal-vibration stress relief (TVSR) were compared and established. Through the correlation analysis between the actual measurement results of residual stress and the simulation results, it can be seen that the strong correlation in three directions at each measurement point accounts for over 37.5%, and the moderate correlation accounts for over 62.5%. This indicates that the numerical simulation model of 2219 aluminum alloy ring containing initial residual stress can accurately reflect the size and distribution of residual stress inside the actual ring. The simulation results show that the derived constitutive model can describe the stress relaxation process of TVSR by combining a single thermal time effect stress relaxation constitutive theory with a VSR plastic deformation material model. The simulation models established above were used to calculate the residual stress homogenization ability of three types of aging. The results showed that VSR, TSR, and TVSR can homogenize and reduce the residual stress field inside the ring, improve the distribution of residual stress inside the ring, and have a better overall homogenization ability of TVSR. The VSR control has a certain effect on reducing and homogenizing residual stress, but compared with TSR and TVSR, the reduction and homogenization ability of residual stress control is limited. The homogenization control effect TVSR>TSR>VSR, and the maximum equivalent stress homogenization rates of VSR, TSR, and TVSR are 52.8%, 80.6%, and 82.2%, respectively. Then, numerical simulation technology is used to study how the initial residual stress in the blank will cause the deformation of the ring during the thin-walled machining process. The roundness error theory of the minimum containment area method is applied to evaluate the deformation degree during the thin-walled numerical machining process, and the TVSR method is used for stress regulation. The deformation law of the thin-walled machining of the ring under different aging parameters is studied.

Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) is a common autoimmune disease, with its prevalence rapidly increasing. Both genetic and environmental risk factors contribute to the development of HT. Recently, viral infection has been suggested to act as a trigger of HT by eliciting the host immune response and subsequent autoreactivity. We analyzed features of HT through bioinformatics analysis so as to identify markers of HT development. We accessed public microarray data of HT patients from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and obtained differentially expressed genes (DEGs) under HT. Gene Ontology (GO) and KEGG pathway enrichment analyses were performed for functional clustering of our protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. Utilizing ranked gene lists, we performed Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) using the clusterprofiler R package. By comparing the expression signatures of the huge perturbation database with the queried rank-ordered gene list, connectivity map (CMap) analysis was performed to screen potential therapeutic targets and agents. The gene expression profile of the HT group was in line with general characteristics of HT. Biological processes related to the immune response and viral infection pathways were obtained for the upregulated DEGs. GSEA results revealed activation of autoimmune disease-related pathways and several viral infection pathways. Autoimmune disease and viral infection pathways were highly interconnected by common genes, while the HLA genes which are shared by both were significantly upregulated. CMap analysis suggested that perturbagens, including SRRM1, NLK, and CCDC92, have the potential to reverse the HT expression profile. Several lines of evidence suggested that viral infection and the host immune response are activated during HT. Viral infection is suspected to act as a key trigger of HT by causing autoimmunity. SRRM1, an alternative splicing factor, which responds to viral activity, might serve as potential marker of HT.

This research deals with risk assessment for human life, man-made infrastructure, and agriculture in a landslide-prone area using GIS-based spatial methods. The study area landslide inventory map was prepared based on previous landslide information, aerial photograph analysis, and several field observations. A total of 550 landslides have been included with 182 debris flow and 368 soil slides. All included landslides were classified into two groups by random selection; half were used for model calibration and the rest were used for cross-validation. In the analysis, fourteen causative factors were vastly used, such as aspect, slope, curvature, elevation, topographic wetness index, forest timber diameter, forest type, forest crown density, forest age, land-use, geology, soil drainage, soil depth, and soil texture. Moreover, to identify the interaction between occurred landslides and causative factors, the affected pixels were divided into different sub-classes using a frequency ratio method. Based on the total dataset, three landslide susceptibility maps were constructed using Bayesian prediction, likelihood ratio, and fuzzy set method. By evaluating cross-validation and success rate curve, model susceptibility results were plotted with a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and the area under the curve (AUC) was estimated. In addition, for risk assessment, each social data layer such as agriculture, house, industry, business, road, river, population intensity, monetary value, and vulnerability level was added based on the local standard and incident time and was converted into US dollars. During the analysis, each method hazard map was used with a specific group of thematic data layers. Subsequently, for preparing the probability table, study area total pixels and predictive landslide affected pixels were considered. Matching with the affected pixels, a standard of 5000 pixels was selected to run the final evaluation. Based on the results, the agricultural field showed the highest vulnerability and estimated risk of US $ 16.3 million. Further, the man-made infrastructure map showed a risk of US $ 31.3 million. The total estimated population casualties were 6.77, which was relatively similar to the published data.

The differentiation between Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) and cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) is necessary, because both diseases have similar symptoms, such as motor weakness and sensory disturbances. The challenge arises when NMOSD presents with short-segment spinal cord lesions, which can mimic the clinical presentation of CSM. This case report presents an NMOSD misdiagnosed as CSM. A 66-year-old woman presented with neck pain, left arm pain, and motor weakness. She was initially diagnosed with CSM based on MRI findings that revealed the increased signal intensity of the spinal cord at the C3 to 4 levels and underwent surgery. Three years later, she had sudden left upper extremity motor weakness and mild gait disturbance. Physical exam showed left-side weakness and altered reflexes, with longitudinally extensive transverse myelitis (LETM) findings on cervical MRI. The CSF study revealed a 2+ AQP4-Ab finding. Finally, NMO was diagnosed. Steroid pulsed therapy and immunosuppression therapy led to improved motor function and gait after 20 days. We present a case report of a NMO patient who initially exhibited clinical and radiological features CSM but was later diagnosed with NMO. This case underscores the diagnostic challenge in distinguishing NMO from CSM, especially in elderly patients who commonly experience spinal degeneration leading to cord compression and associated cord signal changes on MRI. The misinterpretation or confusion with transverse myelitis can occur as a result. This case highlights the importance of considering NMO as a potential differential diagnosis in elderly patients with spinal degeneration, emphasizing the significance of precise and timely diagnosis for guiding optimal treatment decisions.

Over the past few decades, phototherapy, encompassing the utilization of both natural and artificial light, has emerged as a dependable and non-invasive strategy for addressing a diverse range of illnesses, diseases, and infections. This therapeutic approach, primarily known for its efficacy in treating skin infections such as herpes and acne lesions, involves the synergistic use of specific light wavelengths and photosensitizers like methylene blue. Photodynamic therapy, as it is termed, relies on the generation of antimicrobial reactive oxygen species (ROS) through the interaction between light and externally applied photosensitizers. Recent research, however, has highlighted the intrinsic antimicrobial properties of light itself, marking a paradigm shift in focus from exogenous agents to the inherent photosensitivity of molecules found naturally within pathogens. Chemical analyses have identified specific organic molecular structures and systems, including porphyrins and conjugated C=C bonds, as pivotal components in molecular photosensitivity. Given the prevalence of these systems in organic life forms, there is an urgent need to investigate the potential impact of phototherapy on individual molecules expressed within pathogens and discern their contributions to the antimicrobial effects of light. This review delves into the recently unveiled key molecular targets of phototherapy, offering insights into their potential downstream implications and therapeutic applications. By shedding light on these fundamental molecular mechanisms, we aim to advance our understanding of phototherapy's broader therapeutic potential and contribute to the development of innovative treatments for a wide array of microbial infections and diseases.

Caries is a prevalent oral disease that primarily affects children and teenagers. Advances in ma-chine learning have caught the attention of scientists working with decision support systems to predict early tooth decay. Current research has developed machine learning algorithm for caries classification and reached high accuracy especially in ML for image data. Unfortunately, most studies on dental caries only focus on classification and prediction tasks, meanwhile dental carries prevention is more important. Therefore, this study aims to design an efficient feature for decision support system machine learning based that can identify various risk factors that cause dental caries and its prevention. The data used in the research work was obtained from the 2018 Korean Children's Oral Health Survey, which totaled nine datasets. The experimental results show that combining the mRMR and GINI Feature Importance methods when training with the GBDT model achieved the optimum performance of 95%, 93%, 99%, and 88% for accuracy, F1 score, precision, and recall, respectively. So, the proposed method has provided effective predictive model for dental caries prediction.

This work focuses on the bifurcation behavior before chaos phenomenon happens. Traditional numerical method is unable to solve the unstable limit cycle of nonlinear system. One algorithm is introduced to solve the unstable one, which is based one of the continuation method is called DEPAR approach. Combined with analytic and numerical method, the two stable and symmetrical equilibrium solutions exist through Fork bifurcation and the unstable and symmetrical limit cycles exist through Hopf bifurcation of Lorenz system. With the continuation algorithm, the bifurcation behavior and its phase diagram is solved. The results demonstrate the unstable periodical solution is around the equilibrium solution, besides the trajectory into the unstable area cannot escape but only converge to the equilibrium solution.

(1)Background: To perform a simulation-based analysis of 2019 COVID-19 outbreak and how would the electronic commerce indursty help China’s economy resilient. (2)Methods: As the epidemic continues, it is possible to use Computable General Equilibrium model to simulate the economic consequences and analyse the role of electronic commerce industy in COVID-19 outbreak. (3)Results: Estimates and models produced at the time of the outbreak suggested that COVID-19 could have a catastrophic effect on China’s economy. National statistics were examined for anomalies that corresponded to the timing of COVID-19 outbreak and, where possible, the size of any gain or loss found estimated. Our analysis suggests that the electronic commerce industry could help China’s economy to recover by stimulating consumption, improving technological level and expanding investment. (4)Conclusions: This exercise holds important lessons for estimating the electronic commerce’s role of similar events – such as pandemic influenza – and measures to recover the economy. We suggest that electronic commerce industry should be paid more attention in economic development, especially in epidemic time. The implications of our findings are discussed in the light of a prospective epidemic.

To present surgical methods and outcomes of neobladder-vaginal fistula (NVF) repair after radical cystectomy (RC) with ileal orthotopic neobladder (IONB). Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 136 women who underwent RC with IONB for bladder cancer between January 2010 and December 2018. The NVF was confirmed by cystoscopy and/or voiding cystography. NVF repair was performed using a transvaginal approach, which included circumferential incision of the fistula tract, creation of a plane between the neobladder serosa and the vaginal epithelium, and multi-layered transvaginal closure. Results: During a median follow-up of 47.9 months, NVF was identified in 12 (8.8%) women. Eight fistulas were located in the proximal anterior vaginal wall and four in the vaginal apex. Median time from RC to NVF repair was 3.4 months. Median NVF size and duration of urethral Foley catheter indwelling was 6.0 mm and 24.0 days, respectively. Initial repair of NVF was successful in ten (83.3%) patients. Two (16.7%) patients who relapsed retained IONB through the subsequent operation. Two (16.7%) patients developed urinary incontinence after NVF repair, requiring anti-incontinence surgery. Conclusions: The transvaginal approach for NVF repair is feasible, yielding successful surgical outcomes. However, women should be counseled about the risks of relapse and urinary incontinence.

Background and Objectives: To assess femoral shaft bowing (FSB) in the coronal and sagittal planes and introduce the clinical implications of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) by analyzing a three-dimensional (3D) model with virtual implantation of the femoral component. Materials and Methods: Sixty-eight patients (average age: 69.1 years) underwent 3D model reconstruction, incorporating medullary canals, by importing computed tomography (CT) data into Mimics® software. A mechanical axis (MA) line was drawn from the midportion of the femoral head to the center of the intercondylar notch; proximal/distal straight centerlines (length, 60 mm; diameter, 1 mm) were placed in the center of the medulla canal. Acute angles between the two centerlines were measured as lateral and anterior bowing. The acute angle by distal centerline and MA line was measured as distal coronal and sagittal alignment in both anteroposterior (AP) and lateral views. The diameter of curve (DOC) of the medulla along the posterior border was measured. Results: The mean lateral bowing on the AP view was 3.71°, and the mean anterior bowing on the lateral view was 11.82°. The average DOC of the medullary canal was 1501.68 mm. The distal coronal alignment of all femurs was an average of 6.40°, and the distal sagittal alignment was 2.66°. Overall, 22 femurs had coronal bowing, 42 had sagittal bowing, and 15 had both. Conclusion: In Asians, FSB is present in coronal, sagittal, or both directions. Increased anterolateral FSB may lead to cortical abutment in the sagittal plane despite limited space in the coronal plane. During TKA, distal coronal alignment can guide distal femoral valgus cut angle, whereas distal sagittal alignment helps anticipate femoral component positioning, avoiding anterior notching. Osteotomy along the anterior cortical bone to prevent notching may result in outliers due to differences between distal sagittal alignment and distal anterior cortical axis.

Wireless Sensor Networks are critical for modern applications ranging from environmental monitoring to smart city infrastructures. This research proposes a novel optimization learning and deployment strategy for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) by 3D WUSN model is uniformly distributed M sensor nodes across diverse terrains, with clusters representing 20% of sensors, showcasing its ability to balance power consumption and extend network longevity, grounded in fuzzy clustering based protocol using the Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) method, called FCM-3DWUSN. Comparative analysis against established models including LEACH-C, K-Means and LEACH emphasized FCM-3DWUSN's outperformed performance, with average power consumption such as 134.990, 341.790, 143.895, and 192.984; respectively. The experimental result shows that FCM protocol in the 3D WUSN model can reduce energy consumption and improve the network lifetime to gather data and send the information.

Cryptotanshinone (CTT) is a natural product and a quinoid diterpene isolated from the root of the Asian medicinal plant, Salvia miltiorrhiza bunge. Notably, CTT has a variety of anti-cancer actions, including the activation of apoptosis, anti-proliferation, and a reduction in angiogenesis. We further investigated the anti-cancer effects of CTT in A549 and H460 which are NSCLC cell lines. CTT treatment in NSCLC cells reduced cell growth through PI3K/Akt/GSK3β pathway inhibition, G0 / G1 cell cycle arrest, and the activation of apoptosis. CTT induced increase of Bax and cleavage of apoptosis-related signaling such as caspase-3, caspase-9, poly-ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP), and Bax, as well as inhibition of anti-apoptosis related signaling such as Bcl-2, survivin, and cellular-inhibitor of apoptosis protein 1 and 2 (cIAP-1 and -2). It also induced G0/G1 phase cell cycle arrest by decreasing the expression of cyclin A, cyclin D, cyclin E, Cdk 2, and Cdk 4. In addition, CTT reduced the protein expression of the PI3K/Akt/GSK3β signaling pathway related to cell proliferation. These results highlight the latent potential of CTT as natural therapeutic agent for NSCLC.

Biocompatible and biodegradable poly(butylene succinate-co-adipate) (PBSA)/hexadecylamine-modified PPZn (m-PPZn) nanocomposites were prepared using a melt mixing process. Experimental results of wide-angle X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy revealed that the stacking layers of the m-PPZn were partially intercalated and partially exfoliated into the PBSA polymer matrix. The isothermal crystallization kinetics of PBSA/m-PPZn nanocomposites were studied at the temperature range of 62−70 °C and the half-time for crystallization of 3 wt % PBSA/m-PPZn nanocomposite was reduced by 27−35% compared with that of pure PBSA. This finding suggests that the incorporation of m-PPZn might cause the heterogeneous nucleation and the subsequent crystallization growth, which enhances the isothermal crystallization rate of PBSA/m-PPZn nanocomposite. The biodegradation rates of PBSA using Lipase from Pseudomonas sp. increase as the contents of m-PPZn increase. The degradation behavior of the neat PBSA investigated using the change of weight-average molecular weight belongs to exo-type hydrolysis activity. It is necessary to point out that the change of degree of crystallinity and degradation rate are almost linearly proportional to the loading of hexadecylamine-modified PPZn. This finding would provide an important information for the manufacturing biodegradable PBSA nanocomposites.

Asphalt binder is a temperature sensitive material, whose performance is greatly affected by the climate change of the environment. Improper selection of asphalt will cause a lot of damage and affect the durability of the road. The establishment of asphalt pavement performance zoning in Xinjiang, a vast area with great temperature difference, will provide reference for the selection of asphalt suitability, the refinement of pavement design and the sustainable development of road engineering. In this study, 11 years of temperature data in Xinjiang region were collected and analyzed, and 98% reliability of pavement design temperature was used to draw a performance grading map of asphalt pavement in Xinjiang region based on ArcGIS platform. Finally, Xinjiang region was divided into 9 performance zones. At the same time, the performance grade (PG) of five kinds of asphalt binders in Karamay were explored. The result shows that there is little difference in continuous PG span between different matrix asphalt binders, the lower penetration grade, the better high temperature performance, the worse low temperature performance. After adding SBS modifier, the continuous PG span can be higher than the matrix asphalt in 20 ℃. All these provide the basis for reasonable selection of asphalt binders in different areas of Xinjiang.

High dimensional statistical analysis for the yield of large-scale circuits is quite difficult due to expensive simulations, especially for the memory circuits with high sigma requirement (e.g., SRAM). In this paper, we developed an efficient sparse additive model to substitute simulations. To fit high sigma region accurately, the modeling center is moved to near failure boundary searched by scaling the shape of sampling function. To solve the model efficiently, the process variables are grouped by standard cells so that the model can be solved by our developed blockwise greedy algorithm. The experiments on the 28nm memory circuits validate that our method achieves high accuracy and efficiency compared with other state-of-art works.