As the application of cyber-physical systems (CPSs) becomes more and more widespread, its security is becoming a focus of attention. Currently, there has been much research on the security defense of the physical layer of the CPS. However, most of the research only focuses on one of the aspects, for example, attack detection, security state estimation or recovery control. Obviously, the effectiveness of security defense targeting only one aspect is limited. Therefore, in this paper, a set of security defense processes is proposed for the case that a CPS containing multiple sensors is subject to three kinds of stealthy attacks (i.e., zero-dynamics attack, covert attack, and replay attack). Firstly, the existing attack detection method based on improved residuals is used to detect stealthy attacks. Secondly, based on the detection results, an optimal state estimation method based on improved Kalman filtering is proposed to estimate the actual state of the system. Then, based on the optimal state, internal model control (IMC) is introduced to complete the recovery control of the system. Finally, the proposed methods are integrated to give a complete security defense process, and the simulation is verified for three kinds of stealthy attacks. The simulation results show that the proposed methods are effective.

We propose a computer-generated hologram method for near-eye virtual reality and augmented reality 3D display. A 3D object located near the holographic plane is projected onto a projection plane to obtain a plurality of projected images with different angles. The hologram is calculated by superposition of projected image convolution with a specific PSF through the interference of reference wave with object wave. Holographic 3D display systems with LED as illumination, 4f optical filtering system and lens as eyepiece for near-eye VR display and HOE as combiner for near-eye AR display are designed. The results show that the proposed method is about 38 times faster than the conventional point cloud method. The proposed method is flexible to produce speckle noise free high-quality VR and AR images with efficient focus and defocus capabilities.

Drug-target affinity (DTA) prediction is crucial for understanding molecular interactions and aiding drug discovery and development. While various computational methods have been proposed for DTA prediction, their predictive accuracy remains limited, failing to delve into the structural nuances of interactions. With increasingly accurate and accessible structure prediction of targets, we developed a novel deep learning model, named S2DTA, to accurately predict DTA by fusing sequence and structural knowledge of drugs, targets, and pockets using heterogeneous models based on graph and semantic networks. Experimental findings underscored that complex feature representations imparted negligible enhancements to the model’s performance. However, the integration of heterogeneous models demonstrably bolstered predictive accuracy. In comparison to three state-of-the-art methodologies, the supremacy of S2DTA became strikingly apparent. It showcased a noteworthy 25.2% reduction in Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and an impressive 20.1% decrease in Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). Furthermore, S2DTA exhibited substantial advancements in other pivotal metrics, including Pearson Correlation Coefficient (PCC), Spearman, Concordance Index (CI), and R2. These metrics experienced remarkable increments of at least 19.6%, 17.5%, 8.1%, and a remarkable 49.4%, respectively. Finally, we conducted interpretability analysis on the effectiveness of S2DTA by bidirectional self-attention mechanism, fully proving that S2DTA is a valuable and accurate tool for predicting DTA. For further exploration, the source data and code repository can be accessed at https://github.com/dldxzx/S2DTA.

The phenomenon of seat occupancy in university libraries is a prevalent issue. However, existing solutions, such as software-based seat reservations and sensors-based occupancy detection, have proven to be inadequate in effectively addressing this problem. In this study, we propose a novel approach: a serial dual-channel object detection model based on Faster RCNN. Furthermore, we develop a user-friendly web interface and mobile APP to create a computer vision-based platform for library seat occupancy detection. To construct our dataset, we combine real-world data collection with UE5 virtual reality. The results of our tests also demonstrate that the utilization of personalized virtual dataset significantly enhances the performance of the convolutional neural network (CNN) in dedicated scenarios. The serial dual-channel detection model comprises three essential steps. Firstly, we employ Faster RCNN algorithm to determine whether a seat is occupied by an individual. Subsequently, we utilize an object classification algorithm based on transfer learning, to classify and identify images of unoccupied seats. This eliminates the need for manual judgment regarding whether a person is suspected of occupying a seat. Lastly, the web interface and APP provide seat information to librarians and students respectively, enabling comprehensive services. By leveraging deep learning methodologies, this research effectively addresses the issue of seat occupancy in library systems. It significantly enhances the accuracy of seat occupancy recognition, reduces the computational resources required for training CNNs, and greatly improves the efficiency of library seat management.

Background: We attempted to find if there were gender differences in different types of Negative life events and Suicidal ideation among Chinese adolescents, then analyze the relationship between different types of Negative life events and Suicidal ideation among these young students. Methods: Based on the data from 6 middle-schools and 3 universities in 3 cities of Western China, the gender difference in different types of Negative life events and Suicidal ideation and their related factors were investigated and analyzed in the study. Results: Gender differences were found during different types of Negative life events and Suicidal ideation; Negative life events could predict the intensity of Suicidal ideation by gender, to some specific types. Conclusions: Negative life events were proved to be risk factors of adolescents’ Suicidal ideation regardless of different gender stereotypes, but the specific classification of negative life events which had significant impact on adolescents’ Suicidal ideation also indicated significant gender divisions. For males, negative life events of punishment and adaptation had a significant and boosting impact on their Suicidal ideation, the higher the scores of punishment and adaptation negative life events had, the greater intensity of male adolescents were to have Suicidal ideation. Thus, the above two types of negative life events may be the main stressors predicting male adolescents' Suicidal ideation; For females, in addition to punishment, other types of negative life events all had significant impacts on their Suicidal ideation, which can be treated as the main stressors to trigger female adolescents' Suicidal ideation; Additionally, parents’ marital status of remarriage and divorce were proved to be significant indicators to adolescents’ Suicidal ideation, the age variable was proved to be strongly correlated with Suicidal ideation among female adolescents.

Copper demand for a country's copper industry has a greater pull effect. China's copper consumption in 2015 has accounted for 50% of the world. The scientific forecast of China's copper demands trend is also an important basis for analyzing its future environmental impact. This paper assumes that China's economy will be developing high, medium and low scenarios, and forecasts economic and social indicators such as total GDP, population and per capita GDP in China from 2016 to 2030. Then, predicted the demand of copper resources in China from 2016 to 2030 by the combination of system dynamics model, vector autoregressive moving average model and inverted U-type empirical model. The results show that: (1) in 2020, 2025 and 2030, China's refined copper demand will be 13 Mt, 15 Mt and 15.5 Mt. (2) China's copper demand growth slowed down significantly from 2016-2030. (3) 2025-2030, China's copper resource demand is stable, into the platform of demand growth, the highest peak value in 2027 will be 15.5 Mt. (4) 2030 years later, China's copper resource demand will enter a slow decline.

In the first part of this talk we review some prerequisites for and essential arguments involved in the construction of the thermal-ground-state estimate for the deconfining phase in the thermodynamics of SU(2) Quantum Yang-Mills theory and how this structure supports its distinct excitations. The second part applies deconfining SU(2) Yang-Mills thermodynamics to the Cosmic Microwave Background in view of (i) a modified temperature-redshift relation with an interesting link to correlation-length criticality in the 3D Ising model, (ii) the implied minimal changes in the dark sector of the cosmological model, and (iii) best-fit parameter values of this model when confronted with the spectra of the angular two-point functions TT, TE, and EE, excluding the low-$l$ physics. The latter, which is treated in an incomplete way because of the omission of radiative effects, is addressed in passing towards future work.

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.

We present set-theoretical solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation in BCK–algebras. Some solutions in BCK−algebras are not solutions in other structures (such as MV −algebras). Related to our investigations we also consider some new structures: Boolean coalgebras and a unified braid condition – quantum Yang-Baxter equation. Finally, we will see how poetry has accompanied the development / history of the Yang–Baxter equation.

Fosmidomycin (FOS) is a naturally occurring compound active against the enzyme DXR in the MEP pathway, and using it as a template for lead structure design is an effective strategy in developing new active compounds. In this work, by replacing the hydroxamate unit of FOS with pyrazole, isoxazole and the related heterocycles that also have the metal ion binding affinity, while retaining the monophosphonic acid in FOS or replacing it with a bisphosphonic acid group, heterocycle-containing mono- and bisphosphonic acid compounds as FOS analogs were designed. The key steps involved in the facile synthesis of these FOS analogs include the Michael addition of diethyl vinylphosphonate or tetraethyl vinylidenebisphosphonate to β-dicarbonyl compounds and the subsequent cyclic condensation with hydrazine or hydroxylamine. Two additional isoxazolinone-bearing FOS analogs were synthesized by the Michaelis-Becker reaction with diethyl phosphite as a key step. The bioactivity evaluation on model plants demonstrated that several compounds have better herbicidal activities compared to FOS, with the most active compound showing a 3.7-fold inhibitory activity on Arabidopsis thaliana, while on the root and stalk of Brassica napus L. and Echinochloa crus-galli in pre-emergence inhibitory activity test, the activities of this compound were found to be 3.2- and 14.3-, 5.4- and 9.4-fold, respectively, and in post-emergency activity test on Amaranthus retroflexus and Echinochloa crus-galli, 2.2- and 2.0-fold inhibition activities were displayed. Despite the significant herbicidal activity, this compound exhibited a DXR inhibitory activity lower than that of FOS but comparable to that of other non-hydroxamate DXR inhibitors, and the dimethylallyl pyrophosphate rescue assay gave no statistical significance, suggesting a different target might be involved in the inhibiting process. This work demonstrates that using bioisosteric replacement can be considered a valuable strategy for discovering new FOS analogs that may have high herbicidal activity.

Patients with end stage liver disease (ESLD) undergoing liver transplantation are prone to thromboses both while on the waiting list or in the perioperative period. This hypercoagulability is associated with significant endothelial dysfunction (ED) due to nitric oxide dysregulation. ED in combination with increased thrombin generation are the main factors responsible for this hypercoagulability. Sepsis itself can significantly change the coagulation profile, but in combination with ESLD, sepsis, and septic shock is responsible for very complex changes in the patients coagulation making both assessment and management of coagulation in patients with ESLD very challenging. Viscoelastic testing (VET) is a preferred method of coagulation management in patients with cirrhosis because, as with standard laboratory testing, VET can assess the entire coagulation system including the interaction between both pro- and anticoagulants and platelets.

The rank-3 antisymmetric tensors which are the magnetic monopoles of SU(N) Yang-Mills gauge theory dynamics, unlike their counterparts in Maxwell’s U(1) electrodynamics, are non-vanishing, and do permit a net flux of Yang-Mills analogs to the magnetic field through closed spatial surfaces. When electric source currents of the same Yang-Mills dynamics are inverted and their fermions inserted into these Yang-Mills monopoles to create a system, this system in its unperturbed state contains exactly 3 fermions due to the monopole rank-3 and its 3 additive field strength gradient terms in covariant form. So to ensure that every fermion in this system occupies an exclusive quantum state, the Exclusion Principle is used to place each of the 3 fermions into the fundamental representation of the simple gauge group with an SU(3) symmetry. After the symmetry of the monopole is broken to make this system indivisible, the gauge bosons inside the monopole become massless, the SU(3) color symmetry of the fermions becomes exact, and a propagator is established for each fermion. The monopoles then have the same antisymmetric color singlet wavefunction as a baryon, and the field quanta of the magnetic fields fluxing through the monopole surface have the same symmetric color singlet wavefunction as a meson. Consequently, we are able to identify these fermions with colored quarks, the gauge bosons with gluons, the magnetic monopoles with baryons, and the fluxing entities with mesons, while establishing that the quarks and gluons remain confined and identifying the symmetry breaking with hadronization. Analytic tools developed along the way are then used to fill the Yang-Mills mass gap.

Directional Modulation (DM) technique, as an emerging promising approach to secure wireless communications, has been attracting increasing attention for its unique characteristic in the past decade. The baseband signal is synthesized at the antenna level for maintaining the standard constellation format along the prescribed direction(s) while simultaneously distorting the signal constellations in other undesired directions. In this paper, we present a novel DM signal synthesis method based on phased array using a hybrid genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, which takes advantages of both GA and PSO algorithm. Then, the bit error rate of the proposed method is analyzed and simulated. Simulation results are presented to verify that the proposed DM signal have a narrower information beam-width. Therefore, it can offer a better physical layer security (PLS) performance compared with the conventional directional modulation signal.

As a crucial part of head protection equipment, research on the material and structural application of helmet liners has always been a hot topic in the field of helmet manufacturing. This paper aims to introduce the most common helmet liner materials, including traditional polystyrene, polyethylene, polypropylene, and others, as well as emerging materials such as anisotropic materials, and polymer nanocomposites. In addition, the design principles of helmet liner structure are discussed, including the evolution of multi-layer structure, integration of geometric irregular bubbles, etc., to enhance energy absorption capacity. Advanced manufacturing processes such as additive manufacturing technology are introduced to fabricate complex structures. Finally, the application of biomimetic structures in helmet liner design is explored. For example, the structure of biological tissue can be used to design a helmet liner structure with superior energy absorption performance. On this basis, the idea of bionic structures is extended to the combination of plant stalks and animal skeletal structures, and additive manufacturing technology is used to significantly reduce energy loss during elastic yield energy absorption, thus designing a reusable helmet. This provides a promising research direction for future helmet liner materials and structural applications.

Xinjiang, as a climate-sensitive region in northwest China, holds significant importance in studying extreme weather events for agricultural production and socioeconomic development. Based on data from 52 meteorological stations and 23 extreme climate indicators in Xinjiang from 1960 to 2021, the 5a moving average, linear trend estimation, climate tendency rate, and GIS spatial analysis methods are used to analyze the distribution and change characteristics of extreme climate. The results revealed that from 1960 to 2021, TXx, TNx, TXn, TNn, FD, ID, TN10p, TX10p, and WSDI showed a significant upward trend, while SU, TR, TN90p, TX90p, and CSDI showed a significant downward trend. What is more, the range of changes in the extreme temperature indexes from 1990 to 2021 is higher than that of 1960 to 1989. The high-value areas of extreme indexes are primarily concentrated in the northern part, while the high-value areas of cold event indexes are mainly distributed in the southern part. The upward/downward trends all accounting for over 80.00% of the entire region. The Rx1day, Rx5day, PRCPTOT, R95p, R99p, R10, R20, and R25 showed a significant growth trend from 1960 to 2021, and the range of change in the extreme precipitation indexes from 1990 to 2021 was lower than that from 1960 to 1989. Moreover, their high-value areas and high climate tendency areas are mainly concentrated in the northern and western parts of Xinjiang, with upward trends all accounting for over 71.00% of the entire region. The research results provide theoretical foundations for formulating climate risk strategies in the northwest region of China.

Food waste is a common issue arising from grinding of food by experimental animals, leading to excessive food scraps falling into cages. In the wild, animals grind food by gnawing vegetation and seeds, potentially damaging the ecological environment. However, limited ecology studies have focused on food grinding behavior since the last century, with even fewer on rodent food grinding, particularly recently. Although food grinding function is partially understood, biological purposes remain under-investigated and driving factors unclear. This review aims to explain potential causes of animal food grinding, identify influencing factors, and discuss contexts and limitations. Specifically, we emphasize recent progress on gut microbiota significance for food grinding. Moreover, we show abnormal food grinding is determined by degree of excess normal behavior, emphasizing food grinding is not meaningless. Findings from this review promote comprehensive research on the myriad factors, multifaceted roles, and intricate evolution underlying food grinding behavior, benefiting laboratory animal husbandry and ecological environment protection, and identifying potential physiological benefits yet undiscovered.

Littoraria melanostoma (Gray, 1839) is a most common species of gastropods in mangroves. They quickly respond during the early stage of mangrove restoration and usually form a dominant community within a certain period. We characterized the complete mitochondrial genome of the species. The whole mitogenome of L. melanostoma was 16,149 bp in length and its nucleotide composition showed high AT-content of 64.16%. It had 37 genes, including 13 protein-coding genes, two ribosomal RNA genes, and 22 transfer RNA genes, one control region between tRNA-Phe and COX3. The A/T compositions in the control region is 74.7%, respectively, and are much higher than the overall A/T composition of the mitochondrial genomes. The amino acid composition and codon usage of the mitochondrial genomes of from eight superfamilies of Littorinimorpha were analyzed, and the results showed that CUU (Leu), GCU (Ala), AUU (Ile), UCU (Ser), UUA (Leu), GUU (Gly) and UUU (Phe) are the commonly used codons in this order. The results of phylogenetic analysis were roughly consistent with morphological classification, which showed that L. melanostoma is closely related to L. sinensis, a rock-dwelling species that is widespread in the coastal intertidal zone of China. These results may provide a basis to understand the phylogeny and evolution of the Littorinimorpha.

This paper studies the impact of agricultural subsidies and product certification on the use rate of green pesticides based on experimental economics. We found that agricultural subsidies effectively increased the utilization rate of green pesticides. If the agricultural subsidies raised from 20% to 100%, the green pesticides’ using rate increased by 438.51%. We also found that product certification increased the utilization rate of green pesticides by 376.16%%.The increase of agricultural subsidies is more effective than the product certification. Under a higher proportion of agricultural subsidies, farmers’ behavior will maintain “status bias”. Therefore, there are three suggestions proposed. Firstly, because of high price of green pesticides and lower production, the subsidies for agricultural materials should raise greatly to effectively improve the utilization rate of green pesticides. It is recommended that green pesticide provided free of charge in some wealthy areas. Secondly, both subsidies and product certification can improve the use rate of green pesticides. However, since the effect of agricultural subsidies is better than product certification, and farmers may have status bias. Therefore, it is recommended to give priority to the substantial increase on the proportion of agricultural subsidies, and then to product certification.

The unique characteristics of frescoes on overseas Chinese buildings can attest to the integration and historical background of Chinese and Western cultures. Reasonable analysis and preservation of overseas Chinese frescoes can provide sustainable development for culture and history. This research adopts the image analysis technology based on artificial intelligence, and proposes a ResNet-34 model and method integrating transfer learning. This deep learning model can identify and classify the source of the frescoes of the emigrants, and can effectively deal with the problems such as the small number of fresco images on the emigrants' buildings, poor quality, difficulty in feature extraction, and similar pattern text and style. The experimental results show that the training process of the model proposed in this article is stable. On the constructed Jiangmen and Haikou fresco JHD datasets, the final accuracy is 98.41%, and the recall rate is 98.53%. The above evaluation indicators are superior to classic models such as AlexNet, GoogLeNet, and VGGNet. It can be seen that the model in this article has strong generalization ability and is not prone to overfitting. It can effectively identify and classify the cultural connotations and regions of frescoes.

A switchable and tunable terahertz (THz) metamaterial based on photosensitive silicon and Vanadium dioxide (VO2) was proposed. By using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, the transmission and reflective properties of the metamaterial were investigated theoretically. The results imply that, the metamaterial can realize a dual electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) or two narrow-band absorption depending on the temperature of the VO2. Additionally, the magnitude of the EIT and two narrow-band absorption can be tuned by varying the conductivity of photosensitive silicon (PSi) via pumping light. Correspondingly, the slow light effect accompanying the EIT can also be adjusted.

Biotic and abiotic factors influence the formation of fungal-algal pairings in lichen symbiosis. It is poorly known which factors determine the specific associations, especially when distantly related fungi are considered. Here, we investigated the effect of different drivers on the association patterns of taxonomically diverse lichenized fungi and their trebouxioid symbiotic partners. In 200 samples collected across three biomes, we found 41 species of lichenized fungi, associating with 16 species of trebouxioid green algae, of which 62% were previously unreported. Species identity of the fungal and algal partner had the greatest effect on the outcome of the symbiosis compared with abiotic factors such as climatic variables and geographic distance. Partner specificity was found to be higher in tropical regions than in temperate and arctic regions. Co-phylogenetic analyses indicated congruent phylogenies of trebouxioid algae and associated fungi, rejecting their random associations. Evolutionary mechanisms contributing most to the observed phylogenetic patterns were ‘loss’ and ‘failure to diverge’ of the algal partners. This study broadens our knowledge of fungi-algae symbiotic patterns in view of Trebouxia-associated fungi.

Tryptanthrin has not been widely applied in clinical practice due to its poor solubility and low bioavailability in spite of possessing several biological and pharmacological activities. Here, to improve the solubility of tryptanthrin, two types of novel tryptanthrin-loaded micelles were prepared. One was tryptanthrin physically encapsulated by distearoyl phosphatidylethanolamine polyethylene glycol (DSPE-PEG) and the other was pegylated tryptanthrin synthesized by acid-sensitive hydrazone bond and further prepared as micelles. Molecular imprinting technology was used to separate pegylated tryptanthrin and free mPEG-COOH in the preparation of PEGylated tryptanthrin micelles with considerably high separation efficiency. The solubility of tryptanthrin-loaded DSPE-PEG micelles (TDMs) and PEGylated tryptanthrin micelles (PTMs) was increased by 300 and 1493 fold compared with that of tryptanthrin, respectively. The PTMs increased the solubility of tryptanthrin more effectively and 95% of tryptanthrin was released from PTMs at pH 5.5 in 12 h. The cytotoxicity of PTMs decreased under physiological conditions compared with that of tryptanthrin, whereas at pH 5.5, the PTMs showed comparable cytotoxicity with that of tryptanthrin, indicating successful drug release from the carrier in response to tumor cell pH. Overall, we elucidated an efficient method to improve water solubility of tryptanthrin and indicated pegylated tryptanthrin is a promising prodrug.

The aim of this paper is to use the elementary method and the properties of the second kind Stirling numbers to study the congruence properties of a new sequence, which is closely related to Fubini polynomials and Euler numbers, and give some interesting congruences for it. This solves a problem proposed by the first author at an unpublished paper.

To study the influence of electrothermal effect of ESD protection device on the reliability of inte-grated circuit,a theoretical model of ESD protection device thermal resistance is constructed in the paper based on the Conservation of Energy Principle. By analyzing the temperature relativity between electricity parameter and thermology parameter of ESD protection device characterized by self-heating thermal resistance, the quantitative relationship expression of physical parameter and geometric parameter is obtained, which can be used to improve ESD protection device elec-tro-thermal effect. The simulation testing and the real tape-out testing of ESD protection device self-heating thermal resistance based on ggNMOS are shown and compared. It is concluded that self-heating thermal resistance is an effective index for the protection device electrothermal char-acterization. Based on the established model, the self-heating thermal resistance could be decreased to improve the homogeneity of the heat transference. The uneven distribution of device temperature can be reduced, and the overall reliability of chips can be improved.

The Yixian Formation (Lower Cretaceous) of China is famous worldwide for its fossils of early angio-sperms, but there is only one record of flower bud hitherto. A previous fossil record of flower bud just showed the appearance and lacked any internal details. Such a lacuna in knowledge of flower buds hin-ders our understanding of the evolution of flowers. Our new specimen was collected from an outcrop of the Yixian Formation (the Barremian-Aptian, Lower Cretaceous) near Dawangzhangzi, Lingyuan, Liao-ning, China. The specimen was observed and photographed using a Sony ILCE-7 digital camera and a Nikon SMZ1500 stereomicroscope, and details were observed using a TESCAN MAIA3 SEM. Our ob-servations document a fossil flower bud, Archaebuda cretaca sp. nov, from the Lower Cretaceous of China. The occurrence of two species of Archaebuda in the Yixian Formation not only confirms the ex-istence of the expected gynoecium (and possible androecium) in a flower bud, but also underscores the occurrence of typical flowers in the Early Cretaceous.

This experiment was conducted to study the effects of Cyfluthrin (Cy) exposure on neurobehaviour, hippocampal tissue and synaptic plasticity in Wistar rats. First, high-dose Cy exposure can cause nerve injury with symptoms such as deficits in learning and memory ability, spatial exploration and autonomic motor ability. Moreover, it was found that medium- and high-dose Cy exposure can cause disordered energy metabolism in hippocampal cells and an abnormal release of the neurotransmitter Glu. Second, pathological brain sections showed that the middle and high doses of Cy caused deformation, reduction and disorder of hippocampal pyramidal cells, a decrease in the number of Nissl bodies, pyknosis of the hippocampal cell nuclear membrane and serious damage to organelles, indicating that exposure to these doses of Cy may cause hippocampal tissue damage in rats. Third, with the increase in exposure dose, the morphological changes in hippocampal synapses were more obvious, including blurred synaptic spaces, decreased synaptic vesicles and a decreased number of synapses. Moreover, the expression levels of the key synaptic proteins PSD-95 and SYP also decreased in a dose-dependent manner, indicating obvious synaptic damage. Finally, the study found that medium and high doses of Cy could upregulate the expression of A2AR in the hippocampus, and the expression levels of inflammatory factors and apoptosis-related proteins increased in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, the expression of A2AR mRNA was correlated with neurobehavioural indicators, inflammatory factors, synaptic plasticity factors and apoptosis factors, suggesting that Cy may cause nerve damage in rats and has a close relationship with A2AR.

Utilizing ecological engineering to manage pests by enhancing the biological control function of natural predators through the selection of high-efficiency bank plants and the establishment of bank plant systems within agricultural ecosystems is an optimal strategy. While bank plant systems have found widespread use in greenhouse crop cultivation, their application in rice fields remains limited. This study aimed to assess the efficacy of Leersia sayanuka as a bank plant for controlling planthoppers and to explore the potential of sesame as a complementary plant to enhance the effectiveness of the bank plant system through field trials. The findings revealed that planting a strip of L. sayanuka, at least 50 cm wide and extending over 1 m in length, had a notable impact on planthopper control in paddy fields. Moreover, the incorporation of Sesamum indicum, a nectar plant, into the bank plant system consisting of L. sayanuka, Nilaparvata muiri, and Anagrus nilaparvatae, led to a significant increase in the population of Anagrus spp. in rice fields. This increase was accompanied by a rise in the egg parasitism rate targeting rice planthoppers, resulting in a marked improvement in overall rice planthopper control in paddy fields. Thus, the combined system demonstrated efficiency as an effective bank plant system for managing rice planthoppers.

Mitochondrial alternative oxidase 1a (AOX1a) plays an extremely important role in critical node of seed viability. However, the regulatory mechanism is still poorly understood. The study aims to identify regulatory mechanisms by comparing between OsAOX1a-RNAi and wild type (WT) rice seed during artificial aging treatment. Gain weight and P50 significantly decreased in OsAOX1a-RNAi rice seed, indicating that there might be impaired in seed development and storability. Compared to WT seeds in the 100%, 90%, 80%, and 70% germination, respectively, NADH and succinate-dependent O2 consumption, the activity mitochondrial malate dehydro-genase and ATP contents were decreased in OsAOX1a-RNAi seeds in the 100%, 90%, 80%, and 70% germination, respectively, indicating that mitochondrial status in the OsAOX1a-RNAi seeds after imbibition was weaken than the WT. In addition to, the reduced abundance of complex I N and P module subunits might showed that the capacity of mitochondrial electron transfer chain was significantly inhibited in the OsAOX1a-RNAi seed at critical node of seed viability. Above results might indicated that the ATP production was impaired in OsAOX1a-RNAi seeds during ageing. Therefore, we conclude that the activities of mitochondrial metabolism and alternative pathways were severely inhibited in OsAOX1a-RNAi seeds at critical node of viability, which was leading to accelerate the collapse of seed viability. The precise regulatory mechanism of the alternative pathway at the critical node of viability still needs to be further analyzed.

Conducting related research is crucial since there are still many problems that need to be resolved in the research on soft robots in the areas of material selection, structure design and manufacture, and drive control. Soft manipulators, a subset of soft robots, are now a popular area of study for many researchers. In comparison to typical manipulators, soft manipulators feature a high degree of gripping flexibility and a basic morphological structure. They are composed of flexible materials. It has a wide range of potential applications in healthcare, rehabilitation, bionics, and detection, and it can compensate for the drawbacks of rigid manipulators in some use scenarios. A modular soft-body torsional gripping system is developed after a torsional and gripping actuator is conceived, constructed, and its performance is examined. The torsion actuator and the grasping actuator can be combined in the system in a modular fashion. With the help of RGB-D vision algorithms, this multi-modular setup makes it possible to combine soft actuators with various twisting degrees and achieve exact gripping. Through pneumatic control, the target object is precisely grasped and rotated at various angles, enabling rotation of the target object in three dimensions.

Device to Device (D2D) is a pivotal technology in the next generation of communication, allowing for direct task offloading between mobile devices (MDs) to improve the efficient utilization of idle resources. This paper proposes a novel algorithm for dynamic task offloading between active MDs and idle MDs in the D2D-MEC (Mobile Edge Computing) system by deploying multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to minimize the long-term average delay of delay-sensitive tasks under deadline constraints. Our core innovation is a dynamic partitioning scheme for idle and active devices in the D2D-MEC system, accounting for stochastic task arrivals and multi-time-slot task execution, which has been insufficiently addressed in existing literature. We adopt a queue-based system to formulate a dynamic task offloading optimization problem. To address the challenges of large action space and coupling of actions across time slots, we model the problem as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and perform the multi-agent DRL through Multi-Agent Proximal Policy Optimization (MAPPO). We employ a centralized training with decentralized execution (CTDE) framework to enable each MD to make offloading decisions solely based on its local system state. Extensive simulations demonstrate the efficiency and fast convergence of our algorithm. In comparison with the existing sub-optimal results deploying single-agent DRL, our algorithm reduces the average task completion delay by 11.0% and the ratio of dropped tasks by 17.0%.

Automobile industry is recognized as one of the most influential sectors shaping the global economies, societies, and individual lifestyles. Therefore, fierce competitions among different companies are continuously undergoing, and innovations deserve special attention to improve the competitiveness. In the past several years, additive manufacturing (AM) is emerging as an innovative technology in the applications of automobile industry with significant advantages over traditional techniques. As a result, increasing attention has been attracted to combining AM technology with the development of automobile industry. Currently, many automobile players are optimizing their industrial layout by incorporating with innovative AM techniques, and meanwhile, many research progresses have been achieved to meet the market demand. This article aims at presenting a timely review to conclude the recent advances in the application of AM techniques in automobile industry, focusing on the available AM techniques, printable materials, and the industry applications. The future research opportunities and challenges are also outlooked. Hopefully, this work can be useful to the related researchers, as well as the game players in the industry of this field.

The interface of a structural system in the soil is usually unsaturated. A decrease in the shear strength of the soil-structure interface can degrade the structure, especially under humid conditions. Studying the shear characteristics of the silt-concrete interface using a shear apparatus. Suction-controlled ring shear tests were carried out on the silt-concrete interface for three interface roughness values. The influence of the matric suction (s) and interface roughness (R) on the shear strength index of the silt-concrete interface was analyzed. The test results showed that high values of s and R improved the shear strength of the interface, but the result was affected by the net normal stress (NNS). High values of NNS and R improved the strain-hardening characteristics. NNS, s, and R significantly affected the interface shear shrinkage. The internal friction angle of the saturated interface was smaller than that of saturated silt, whereas the opposite occurred in the unsaturated state. The cohesion and internal friction angle of the interface rose with an increase in R, and they were larger than that of silt. A shear strength model of the silt and interface was established.

Alternative splicing can produce transcripts that affect cancer development and shows potential for cancer diagnosis and treatment. However, intron retention (IR), a type of alternative splicing, has been less systematically studied in cancer biology research. Here, we generated a pan-cancer IR landscape for more than 10,000 samples across 33 cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We characterized differentially retained introns between tumor and normal samples and identified retained introns associated with survival. We discovered 988 differentially retained introns in 14 cancers, some of which demonstrated diagnostic potential in multiple cancer types. We also inferred a large number of prognosis-related introns in 33 cancer types, and the associated genes included well-known cancer hallmarks such as angiogenesis, metastasis, and DNA mutations. Notably, we discovered a novel intron retention event inside 5′UTR of STN1 that is associated with the survival of lung cancer patients. The retained intron reduces translation efficiency by producing upstream open reading frames (uORFs) and thereby inhibits colony formation and cell migration of lung cancer cells. Besides, the IR-based prognostic model achieved good stratification on certain cancers, as illustrated in acute myeloid leukemia. Taken together, we performed a comprehensive IR survey at a pan-cancer level, and the results implied that IR has the potential to be diagnostic and prognostic cancer biomarkers, as well as new drug targets.

In this paper, an ultracompact combined sensor for displacement and angle synchronous measurement is proposed based on self-imaging effect of optical microgratings. Using a two-grating structure, linear and angular displacement can be measured by detecting the change of phase and amplitude of the optical transmission respectively within one single structure in meantime. The optical transmitted properties of the two-grating structure are investigated in both theory and simulation. Simulated results indicate that, the optical transmission changes in a sinusoidal relationship to the input linear displacement. Meanwhile, the amplitude of the curve decreases with an input pitch angle, indicating the ability for synchronous measurement within one single compact structure. The synchronous measurement of the linear displacement and the angle is also demonstrated experimentally. The results show a resolution down to 4nm for linear displacement measurement, and a sensitivity of 0.26mV/arcsec within a range of ±1° for angle measurement. Benefitting from a simple common-path structure without using optical components including reflectors and polarizers, the sensor shows an ultrahigh compactness for multiple-degrees-of-freedom measuring, indicating the great potential for this sensor in the fields such as integrated mechanical positioning and semiconductor fabrication.

The 20th century, global temperatures underwent significant changes, impacting agricultural climate zones worldwide. Xinjiang, China, a key player in machine-picked cotton production, was influenced by various heat-related indicators(sum of active temperature ≥ 10℃、mean temperature in July、climatological growing season length, April-May sum active temperature、Last spring frost, and Defoliator spray time). Using meteorological data from 58 weather stations in Xinjiang, we examined the spatio-temporal trends of these indicators during the period of 1981-2020. Additionally, we considered the effects of climate warming and plastic mulching on the sowing area and zoning area of machine-picked cotton in different suitable zones. Overall, Xinjiang experienced an trend in heat resources, with a pattern of "more in the southern part than the northern part, and more in plains and basins than in mountainous areas." Under climate warming conditions, the sowing area of the most suitable cotton zone and the suitable cotton zone has increased, while the sowing area of the moderately suitable cotton zone and unsuitable cotton zone has decreased. Under the plastic mulching mechanism, a comparison of the zoning area and sowing area from 1991 to 2020 revealed that there was no difference in the zoning area of the most suitable zone compared to the sowing area, while the zoning area of the suitable zone increased by 15.7% (2.15×103km2) compared to the sowing area. The zoning area of the moderately suitable zone decreased by 14.5% (0.26×103km2), and the unsuitable zone decreased by 7.8% (0.17×103km2) compared to their respective sowing areas. These results indicate that climate warming and plastic mulching have increased the cultivable area of machine-picked cotton in Xinjiang, but there are also instances of unreasonable zoning. It is necessary to allocate land resources reasonably based on climatic conditions to ensure the healthy development of the cotton industry in Xinjiang.

COVID-19 is a highly infectious respiratory illness caused by SARS-CoV-2, and acute lung injury (ALI) is the major cause of COVID-19. The challenge in studying SARS-CoV-2 pathogenicity is the limited availability of animal models. Therefore, it is necessary to establish animal models that can reproduce multiple characteristics of ALI to study therapeutic applications. The present study established a mouse model that has features of ALI that are similar to COVID-19 syndrome to investigate the role of ACE2 and the administration of the Chinese herbal prescription NRICM101 in ALI. Mice with genetic modifications, including overexpression of human ACE2 (K18-hACE2 TG) and absence of ACE2 (mACE2 KO), were intratracheally instillated with hydrochloric acid. The acid intratracheal instillation induced severe immune cell infiltration, cytokine storms, and pulmonary disease in mice. Compared with K18-hACE2 TG mice, mACE2 KO mice exhibited dramatically increased levels of multiple inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, TNF-α, and TGF-β1) in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, histological evidence of lung injury, and dysregulation of MAPK and MMP activation. In mACE2 KO mice, NRICM101 could ameliorate the disease progression of acid-induced ALI. In conclusion, the established mouse model provided an effective platform for researchers to investigate pathological mechanisms and develop therapeutic strategies for ALI, including COVID-19-related ALI.

Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) can differentiate into three germ layers and diverse autolo-gous cell lines. Being among the most commonly used large domesticated hoofed animals and serving as a vital source of food and bioreactors, cattle are among the many species in which PSCs have been developed. Bovine PSCs (bPSCs) are the "seed cells" of regenerative science and have immense potential to advance species propagation, genetic engineering, and disease treatment. Moreover, they can aid in screening new drugs for efficacy and toxicity, model human diseases, and establish a sustainable agricultural system that can cater to the needs of the growing global population. Establishing stable bPSCs in vitro has been a critical scientific challenge, and researchers have made numerous attempts to address this issue. This review primarily delves into the current research progress of bPSCs, the challenges faced, and their potential applications.

Breast cancer is a complex and heterogeneous disease that displays diverse molecular subtypes and clinical outcomes. Although it is known that the location of tumors can affect their biological behavior, the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. In our previous study, we found a differential methylation profile and membrane potential between left (L) and right (R)-sided breast tumors. In this current study, we aimed to identify the ion channels responsible for this phenomenon and determine any associated phenotypic features. To achieve this, experiments were conducted in mammary tumors in mice, human patient samples, and with data from public datasets. The results revealed that L-sided tumors have a more depolarized state than R-ones. We identified a 6-ion channel-gene signature (CACNA1C, CACNA2D2, CACNB2, KCNJ11, SCN3A, and SCN3B) associated with side: L-tumors exhibit lower expression levels than R-ones. Additionally, in silico analyses show that the signature correlates inversely with DNA methylation writers and with key biological processes involved in cancer progression, such as proliferation and stemness. The signature also correlates inversely with patients’ survival rates. In an in vivo mouse model, we confirmed that KI67 and CD44 markers were increased in L-sided tumors and similar tendency for KI67 was found in patient L-tumors. Overall, this study provides new insights into the potential impact of anatomical location on breast cancer biology and highlights the need for further investigation into possible differential treatment options.

Bigeye grunt Brachydeuterus auritus is an important economic species in the waters off Sierra Leone in West Africa, with great ecological value. Based on the survey data of bottom trawl nets from 6 voyages from 2019 to 2021, the body weight-length relationship (WLR), as well as their relative fatness, were studied in depth using the method of body length and its corresponding mean body weight. This study fitted the WLR of bigeye grunt by gender, calculated its fullness, and analyzed the influence of environmental factors. The results showed that month and gender had a significant impact on body length and weight distribution (P<0.01). There was a highly significant negative correlation (P<0.01) between the condition factor (a) and the allometric factor (b) in the WLR, and salinity significantly affects b (P<0.05). The (lga)/b ratio was less affected by environmental factors which may be related to the body size and density of the fish. The difference in b between male and female populations was extremely significant (P<0.01). The relative fatness had significant seasonal variation characteristics, with highly significant effects of sex and body length (P<0.01). With increasing body length, the relative fatness showed two types of changes, continuously increasing and first increasing then decreasing, with salinity and b significantly affecting the type of change (P<0.05) and depth having a highly significant effect (P<0.01). The bigeye grunt off the coast Sierra Leone exhibited significant seasonal growth characteristics, with significant differences in growth characteristics between male and female individuals. This study suggested that salinity may be the main factor affecting its growth and development. In addition, this study hypothesised that the peak breeding season may occur during the dry season, beginning in December and ending before April of the following year. The study provides updated and more comprehensive insights into the biology and ecology of the bigeye grunt offshore Sierra Leone, West Africa, which can provide scientific basis for its resource assessment, development and utilization, and resource management.

Yellow nanorod Mg-MOF-74 was obtained by solvothermal synthesis method. XRD、N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms、SEM and TGA results suggest that the particle size of Mg-MOF-74 reaches 400 nm after the introduction of sodium acetate in the precursor of Mg-MOF-74. Besides, the morphology of Mg-MOF-74 was changed from cauliflower to rod particles. At the same time, the BET specific surface area and pore volume of Mg-MOF-74 were also increased a lot. Then the CO2 dynamic adsorption capacity of Mg-MOF-74 was measured by self-made fix bed under 30 ℃、0.1 bar CO2 partial pressure. The results show that the CO2 adsorption capacity of Mg-MOF-74-N2 reaches 3.67 mmol/g and its CO2 adsorption capacity remains unchanged after 10 times CO2 adsorption-desorption cycles.

Drug delivery systems consist of cyclodextrins (CyDs) have kept constant attention for good compatibility, negligible toxicity, and improved pharmacokinetics of drugs. The unique hollow structure has endowed a lot of functions, such as inclusion of guest molecules, functional modification of active hydroxyl groups, and noncovalent interactions. Besides, the polyhydroxy structure has further extended the functions of CyDs by inter/intramolecular interactions and chemical modification. Furthermore, the versatile functions of the complex contribute to physicochemical characteristics alteration of the drugs, therapeutic talent, stimulus-responsive switch, self-assemble capability, and fiber formation. This review attempts to list the recent progress of CyDs and discuss their roles in the drug delivery system. Future perspectives of the construction of CyD-based drug delivery systems are also discussed at the end of this review, which may be the possible directions for the construction of more rational and cost-effective delivery vehicles.

An outbreak of a virus-like disease has caused severe damage to noni plants (Morinda citrifolia L.) in Xishuangbanna area of China's southwestern Yunnan province since 2015. The diseased plants displayed typical mosaic symptom with light and dark green patches on leaves. Flexuous filamentous virus particles of about 800 nm in length were observed from the leaf saps by transmission electron microscope. Illumina transcriptomic sequencing further revealed the presence of a potyvirus and its near complete genome was obtained from de novo assembly. The complete genome of 9,659 nts was obtained by Sanger sequencing of eight amplicons generate by RT-PCR and 5’ and 3’ RACE. BLASTp analysis of the polyprotein sequence showed that the virus was most closely related to Tobacco vein banding mosaic virus (TVBMV), but these two viruses only shared 50.7% amino acid sequence similarity. Both phylogenetic analyses of the polyprotein and CP amino acid sequences indicated that this virus is a member of genus Potyvirus. However, the low sequence homology with all known potyviruses established this virus as a new species in the genus, tentatively named as Noni mosaic virus (NoMV). Our field surveys showed that 100% of the symptomatic samples and 28.57% of the asymptomatic samples were infected with this novel potyvirus. Aphids collected from diseased leaves were also detected carrying the virus. In summary, our data indicated that a novel species of potyvirus, NoMV, is prevalent in Yunnan, China and is associated with an emerging mosaic disease on M. citrifolia.

The lengthy maturation period is the key cause of the reduced hot pepper market value. An experiment was performed to assess the effects of R/B/W light qualities on reducing the maturation period. The maturation period was shortened by 16 days under 4R:1B:5W compared to the control. The appearance of the first flower is a limiting factor affecting the maturation period. It exhibited a dark purple color and an abnormal petal under 4R:1B:5W compared to the control, which was associated with increased contents of flavonoids, total organic acids, and phenolics and decreased total amino acid and carbohydrate contents. Plant hormone, flavonoid, ABC transporters, key metabolites (such as amino acid, carbohydrate, organic acid) was associated with first flower development. Ethylene response factors (ERFs) mediated by light, especially ERF021, were identified as potential hub regulators during the development of the first flower due to their involvement in all the associated metabolic pathways.

In our article in Genome Biology Ecology six years ago, one complete plastid genome of Belian was assembled for comparative analyses of the plastomes in Lauraceae. However, Ariati et al. (2023) concluded that our sequenced Belian individual could be located in the clade of Myristicaceae instead of that of Lauraceae. Here, we performed re-analyses of additional two Belian plastomes, along with 42 plastomes from plants spanning ten families of the Magnoliids. The plastomes of the three Belian individuals range from 157,535 to 157,577 bp in length. Comparative genomic analysis revealed 170 mutation sites in their plastomes, which include 111 substitutions, 53 indels, and six microinversions. Phylogeny was reconstructed using maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches for 44 magnoliids species indicated that our three Belian individuals are nested among the species in the family Lauraceae rather than Myristicaceae.

Blocking the interaction of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein with the human angiotensin-converting enzyme II (hACE2) protein serves as a therapeutic strategy for treating COVID-19. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatments containing bioactive products could alleviate the symptoms of severe COVID-19. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants has complicated the process of developing broad-spectrum drugs. As such, the aim in this study was to explore the efficacy of TCM treatments for SARS-CoV-2 variants through targeting the interaction of the viral spike protein with the hACE2 receptor. The antiviral activity was systematically evaluated using a pseudovirus system. Scutellaria baicalensis was found to be effective against SARS-CoV-2 infection through affecting the interaction of viral spike protein with the hACE2 protein. The active molecules of S. baicalensis were identified and analyzed. Baicalein and baicalin, a flavone and a flavone glycoside, respectively, found in S. baicalensis, exhibited strong inhibitory activities, targeting the viral spike protein or hACE2 protein, respectively. Under optimized conditions, virus infection was inhibited by 98% via baicalein-treated pseudovirus and baicalin-treated hACE2. In summary, we identified the potential SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors of the interaction of the Omicron spike protein and hACE2 receptor from S. baicalensis. Future studies on the therapeutic application of baicalein and baicalin against SARS-CoV-2 variants are needed.

As one of toxic Volatile Organic Pollutant (TVOCs), formaldehyde has a toxic effect on microorganisms, and then inhibits the biochemical process of formaldehyde wastewater treatment. Therefore, the selective degradation of formaldehyde is of great significance to achieve formaldehyde wastewater high-efficiency and low-cost treatment. This study constructed a heterogeneous Fe-ZSM-5/H2O2 Fenton system for selective degradation to target compounds. By bonding Fe3+ onto the surface of ZSM-5 molecular sieve, Fe-ZSM-5 was prepared successfully. XRD, BET and FT-IR spectral studies shown the prepared Fe-ZSM-5 was mainly composed of micropores. The influences of different variables on formaldehyde selective heterogeneous Fenton degradation performance were studied. The 93.72% formaldehyde degradation and the 98.15% selectivity of formaldehyde compared with glucose had demonstrated in the optimized Fenton system after 360 min. Notably, the resultant selective Fenton oxidation system had a wide range of pH suitability from 3.0 to 10.0. Also, the Fe-ZSM-5 was used in 5 consecutive cycles, while the degradation efficiency of formaldehyde did not drop dramatically. Using reactive oxygen species scavengers, hydroxyl radical was the main active substance to degrade formaldehyde. Furthermore, the great degradation performance of this system to high concentration of formaldehyde was acquired, and the degrading efficiency was more than 95%.

The complete genomic sequence of a Cassava common mosaic virus Linggao isolate (CsCMV-LG) was determined from cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) with mild leafy mosaic symptom to no symptom in China. Excluding the poly(A) tail, the CsCMV-LG genome (GenBank accession No. MT038420) is 6374 nucleotides (nts) in length, with five major open reading frames encoding a 1450-amino acids (aa) RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), three triple gene block (TGB) proteins (231-aa, 110-aa and 95-aa), and a 229-aa coat protein (CP). Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the complete genome of the CsCMV-LG is closely related to that of CsCMV-Brazilian which has been assigned to the genus Potexvirus, but the sequence identity shared only 88.0%. Notable, the mild CsCMV-LG isolate can also infect Nicotiana benthamiana in laboratory through rub inoculation causing mild vein yellowing at 15-day post inoculation. This is the first full-length genome sequence of a distinct isolate of Cassava common mosaic virus (CsCMV) infecting cassava in Hainan, China.

The control of alumina morphology is crucial yet challenging for its various applications. Un-fortunately, traditional methods for preparing alumina particles suffer from several limitations such as irregular morphology, poor dispersibility, and restricted application areas. In this study, we develop a novel method for preparing spherical mesoporous alumina using chitin and Plu-ronic P123 as mixed templates. The effects of reaction temperature, time, and the addition of mixed templates on the phase structure, micromorphology, and optical absorption properties of the samples were investigated. The experimental results indicate that lower temperature and shorter reaction time facilitated the formation of spherical mesoporous alumina with excellent CO2 adsorption capacity. The periodic density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrate that both (110) and (100) surfaces of γ-Al2O3 can strongly adsorb CO2. The difference in the amount of CO2 adsorbed by Al2O3 is mainly due to the different surface areas, which give dif-ferent number of exposed active sites. This approach introduces a novel strategy for utilizing bi-ological compounds to synthesize spherical alumina and greatly enhances mesoporous alu-mina's application efficiency in adsorption fields. Moreover, the study explored the electro-chemical performance of the synthesized product using cyclic voltammetry and discovered im-proved loading of electrocatalysts and enhanced electrocatalytic activity.

Land plants have undergone their great diversification and evolution in the past 400 million years. Although appearing complex and hard to grasp, the evolution of plants centers around an invariable core development process, SRC (Sexual Reproductive Cycle). Various modifications have been added sequentially to this core process, and thus creating various novel organs and distinguishing their bearers one from another. Reproductive organs of all land plants, including sporangium, megasporangium, metamegasporangium (= ovule), and various metamegasporangium complexes, are derived from terminal sporangia in the earliest land plants. Throughout the million-year-long evolution, plants sequentially recruit associating accessories to protect their vulnerable core parts (spore and gamete). The occurrence of every single of these novelties is a stair marking land plant reproduction evolution and leads to enhanced offspring development conditioning (ODC).

Food-grinding occurs in rodents and is influenced by multiple-factors. However, the factors affecting this behavior remain unclear. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of food restriction on food grinding by Brandt’s voles (Lasiopodomys brandtii), as well as the potential role of the gut microbiota in this process, through a comparison of the variations between voles with different food supplies. Food restriction reduced the relative amount of ground food to a greater extent than it lowered the relative food consumption, and altered the abundance of Staphylococcus, Aerococcus, Jeotgalicoccus, and Un--s-Clostridiaceae bacterium GM1. Strong correlations between the ground-to-consumed food ratio and the abundance of fecal microbiota were found for Un--s-Clostridiaceae bacterium GM1 and Aerococcus. The content of fecal acetate and propionate for the 7.5 g-food supply group was lower than that for the 15 g-food supply group. Further, the relative amount of ground food and ground-to-consumed food ratio were both positively correlated with the acetate content. Our study indicated that food restriction can effectively inhibit food grinding. Further, Un--s-Clostridiaceae bacterium GM1 abundance, Aerococcus abundance, and acetate content were strongly related to food grinding. Variations in gut microbial abundance and metabolite short-chain fatty acid content induced by food restriction likely promote the inhibition of food grinding. These results could potentially provide guidance for reducing food waste during laboratory rodent maintenance.

Abstract: Safety issues related to the electrification of more electric aircraft (MEA) need to be addressed because of the increasing complexity of aircraft electrical power systems and the growing number of safety-critical sub-systems that need to be powered. Managing the energy storage systems and the flexibility in the load-side plays an important role in preserving the system’s safety when facing an energy shortage. This paper presents a system-level centralized operation management strategy based on model predictive control (MPC) for MEA to schedule battery systems and exploit flexibility in the demand-side while satisfying time-varying operational requirements. The proposed online control strategy aims to maintain energy storage (ES) and prolong the battery life cycle, while minimizing load shedding, with fewer switching activities to improve devices lifetime and to avoid unnecessary transients. Using a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation, different objective functions are proposed to realize the control targets, with soft constraints improving the robustness of the model. Besides, an evaluation framework is proposed to analyze the effects of various objective functions and the prediction horizon on system performance, which provides the designers and users of MEA and other complex systems with new insights into operation management problem formulation.

Panax notoginseng is a traditional Chinese medicine, and saponins are its main active ingredients. The content of saponins in flower of P. notoginseng is the highest in the whole plant. Minor ginsenosides have stronger pharmacological activity than main ginsenosides, but its content in nature is very low. We can use extracted total saponins from P. notoginseng flower as the substrate to produce minor ginsenosides by biotransformation method. In this study, we used the fungus Talaromyces flavus and its crude enzymes to transform the extracted total saponins of P. notoginseng flower. Through the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the transformation substrates and products, it was found that minor ginsenosides Gyp-XVII, ginsenosides C-Mc1, C-Mx1, F2, Rg3, 20(R)-Rg3, Rk1 and Rg5 were found in the products and the conversion rate of the major saponins in P. notoginseng flower ranged from 44.16 to 55.22%, the yields of the minor ginsenosides ranged from 0.05 to 3.24%. This study provided a good experimental idea, greatly increased the utilization rate of total saponins in P. notoginseng flower, and laid a foundation for promoting the wide application of minor saponins.

Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) may convey high current and sustain high breakdown voltages; it may provide high power control. In a sense, how IGBT demonstrates the capability of power control was not specifically described, and the equivalent bipolar junction transistors (BJT) activated by an applied bias to the insulated gate is intriguing. As seen in Figure 1, IGBT shows an equivalent circuit structure containing two types of BJT, (NPN-type Bipolar transistor and PNP-type Bipolar transistor), which can be modeled as diode-associated transistor. Apparently, as a bias applies to the controlling gate, the channel beneath the gate oxide gets strongly inversed and turns out to be conductive just like what happens on metal-oxide-silicon field effect transistor (MOSFET), which provides necessary igniting currents to both BJTs and thus causes high current gain flowing through them-selves from the bottom. A proposed and renewed formula provides addressing the above scenario and successfully fitting the measured data that forms the characteristic curves. Some parameters in the proposed formula, which includes size and mobility associated constant, threshold voltage, and Early-Voltage-related lambda for MOSFET, explain and explore the underlying physics. IGBT thus enjoy high input impedance and high current gain due to MOSFET (Insulated Gate) and BJT, respectively. This formula combines both merits of MOSFET and BJT in order to fit the measured data. Indeed, the formula intimately fits IGBT electrical characteristic curves, and thus may be qualified and served as a model. The new model is then advisable for designing power integrated circuit to exactly achieve power saving, power control, and power efficiency.

We present the generation and nonlinear frequency conversion of nanosecond cylindrical vector beams (CVBs) in two-mode fiber (TMF). Based on the polarized dependence vector mode coupling characteristic and the precise wavelength tunability of an acoustically-induced fiber grating (AIFG), the nanosecond cylindrical vector beams (CVBs, 1064 nm, 10 ns) is directly generated in a TMF with convenient switching characteristics between the radial and azimuthal vector beams. Furthermore, the stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) is produced based on the transmission of the nanosecond CVBs in the 100-meters long TMF, and the spatial intensity and polarization distributions characteristics the 1st-order Stokes shifted component is consistent with the nanosecond CVBs pump pulse. This work provides a method for achieving wavelength conversion of the CVBs in optical fiber.

The main idea of this paper is to investigate the exact solutions and dynamic properties in optical nanofibers, which is modeled by space-time fractional perturbed nonlinear schr\"odinger equation involving Kerr law nonlinearity with conformal fractional derivative. Firstly, by the complex fractional traveling wave transformation, the traveling wave system of the original equation is obtained, then a conserved quantity, namely the Hamiltonian is constructed, and the qualitative analysis of this system is conducted via this quantity by classifying the equilibrium points. Moreover, the prior estimate of the existence of the soliton and periodic solution is established via the bifurcation method. Furthermore, all exact traveling wave solutions are constructed to illustrate our results explicitly by the complete discrimination system for polynomial method.

RNA, as an important substance for regulating biological growth and development, has significant implications for visualization research. However, many spontaneously fluorescent substances in plants greatly interfere with the effectiveness of plant bioimaging. Aggregetion- induced emission luminogens (AIEgens), due to their luminescent properties, tunable molecular size, high fluorescence intensity, good photostability, and low cell toxicity, have been widely applied in the animal and medical fields. We have found that AIEgens have great potential as RNA fluorescent probes for efficient imaging in plants. In this review, we first introduce several common RNA labeling forms and point out their pros and cons. We briefly describe the development of AIEgens and the AIE mechanism, and then present various practical applications of AIEgens, including detailed examples of their use as biological markers. To further promote the application of AIE in the field of RNA, we suggest the use of AIEgens to modify target RNA via techniques such as click chemistry or CRISPR/Cas, to achieve RNA visualization in plants. highly possible to modify target RNA with AIEgens in vivo for RNA visualization.

Hepatitis B is a potentially life-threatening infectious disease caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV), which affects the liver. Every year, about 390,000 people die from HBV-related diseases in China, about 86 million people are carriers of HBV, accounting for about 6% of the total population, and 30 million people are chronically infected. From 2002 to 2007, though China government launched “The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI)” program to reduce HBV infection in children, but the number of hepatitis B cases in China remains high. Reasonable estimation of potential HBV carriers is crucial to prevention and control the spread hepatitis B virus. This study is based on the case data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China from 2003 to 2021. We build a dynamic model that includes potential hepatitis B virus carriers, use nonlinear least squares and genetic algorithms to fit the parameters in the model, and calculate the reproduction number of hepatitis B virus transmission in the population and obtain R_c=1.741. The number of potential hepatitis B virus carriers is estimated to be 449,535 (95%CI [415651 to 483420]) based on our model, which is 30.49% of the total number of hepatitis B cases, and the simulation results show the number of chronic hepatitis B incidence decreases as the vaccination rate α increases, increasing α by 20%, the number of chronic hepatitis B incidence decreases by 169,469 on average.

This letter presents a dual-frequency terahertz amplitude modulator based on a cross-shaped structure and U-shaped metal patches. Its structural unit is a typical metal-substrate structure. The top metal consists of a cross-shaped structure and U-shaped metal patches, and the bottom substrate layer is made of quartz. Amplitude modulation is achieved by adjusting the temperature of the vanadium dioxide (VO2) patches. The modulation depth can be approximately 75%. The mechanism of the resonance frequency is explained by the equivalent circuit model. The proposed structure shows good amplitude modulation capability at different incidence and azimuth angles by changing the location of the VO2 patches. The dual-frequency terahertz amplitude modulator can be used in terahertz communication, imaging, etc.

Successful geophysical exploration works in Gucheng-Yaxi area located in Gaochun District, Jiangsu province, China, have been limited partly due to complex geological condition of the area and high artificial noise in data acquired using electrical and electromagnetic methods. In this work, we deployed the new anti-interference spread spectrum induced polarization method (SSIP) and audio magnetotellurics (AMT) method to detect a copper-polymetallic deposit in the area. Two-dimensional (2D) inversion results at Gucheng-Yaxi Area revealed a high chargeability anomalous zone on SSIP profile that coincided with a zone of moderate resistivity located between two resistor bodies on AMT profile. A follow up 1200 meters drill hole was established at this high chargeability-moderate resistivity zone which encountered polymetallic (copper, lead, zinc, gold and silver) mineralization at the depth ≥ 400 m. Drill hole data analysis showed that mineralization occurs interspaced in marble rock mass at varies depth. Furthermore, several low resistivity-weak chargeability sections were revealed and inferred attributed to Cretaceous sediments and faults. These faults are thought to have played critical role in the polymetallic mineralization genesis. In summary, this work demonstrated the successful of application of SSIP and AMT at detecting a metallic deposit in an area with high artificial noise. Hence the geophysical prospection potential of Gucheng-Yaxi area is great.

Abstract In order to solve the problem that it is difficult to obtain the accurate trigger signal moment when using the time difference of UAV flight acoustic signals collected by acoustic sensors arranged in advance to locate the position of UAVs when they cannot be tracked by radar and are difficult to be observed by the human eye, an acoustic source localisation method with improved empirical modal decomposition (REMD) under an adaptive frequency window is proposed. Firstly, the collected UAV flight signals are smoothed and filtered, then the robust empirical modal decomposition (REMD) is used for IMF modal decomposition and spectral analysis of the collected signals, and a panning frequency window with variable bandwidth is introduced for corresponding frequency locking and extracting the IMFs; the GWO optimisation is used and the sliding metrics are set to determine the position of the panning frequency window automatically; finally, the extracted Finally, the extracted IMF components are reconstructed according to the criterion, and the trigger signal moments in the reconstructed IMF components are resolved and recorded, and the algorithm is used to calculate the difference between the reception moments of different sensors; for the traditional sound source localisation algorithms with a small detection range, which are prone to fall into the no-solution or false-solution, i.e., unable to achieve the localisation, a weighted least-squares-based Chan-Taylor algorithm is proposed for the localisation computation, and a weighted least-squares algorithm is proposed for the localisation computation, through the Inputting the sensor delay parameter and solving the linear equation system to get the target position information; finally, this paper verifies the robustness and performance of the design method with simulated and actual signals. The results show that the maximum positioning error is no more than 5% in an area with a side length of 15m in the measurement area. With the improved accuracy of time delay estimation, the positioning simulation results meet the positioning requirements even though the positioning error is further expanded when the measurement area is further expanded.

In pattern recognition domain, deep architectures are widely used nowadays and they have achieved fine grades. However, these deep architectures need special demands, especially big datasets and GPU. Aiming to gain better grades without deep networks, we propose a simplified algorithm framework using fusion features extracted from the salient areas of faces. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm has achieved a better result than some deep architectures. For extracting more effective features, this paper firstly defines the salient areas on the faces. This paper normalizes the salient areas of the same location in the faces to the same size, therefore it can gain more similar features from different subjects. LBP and HOG features are extracted from the salient areas, fusion features’ dimensions are reduced by Principal Component Analysis( PCA) and we apply softmax to classify the six basic expressions at once. This paper proposes a salient areas definitude method which uses peak expressions frames to compare with their neutral faces. This paper also proposes and applies the idea of normalizing the salient areas to align the specific areas which express the different expressions. This makes the salient areas found from different subjects have the same size. Besides, gamma correction method is firstly applied on LBP features in our algorithm framework which improves our recognition rates significantly. By applying this algorithm framework, our research has gained state-of-the-art performances on CK+ database and JAFFE database.

Quantifying the landscape pattern change can effectively demonstrate the ecological progresses and the consequences of urbanization. Based on remotely sensed land cover data in 1994, 2000, 2006 and a gradient analysis with landscape metrics at landscape- and class- level, we attempted to characterize the individual and entire landscape patterns of Shanghai metropolitan during the rapid urbanization. We highlighted that a roadscape transect approach that combined the buffer zone method and the transect-based approach was introduced to describe the urban-rural patterns of agricultural, residential, green, industrial, and public facilities land along the railway route. Our results of landscape metrics showed significant spatiotemporal patterns and gradient variations along the transect. The urban growth pattern in two time spans conform to the hypothesis for diffusion–coalescence processes, implying that the railway is adaptive as a gradient element to analyze the landscape patterns with urbanization. As the natural landscape was replaced by urban landscape gradually, the urban fringe expanded radically. The results also showed that the desakota region expanded its extent widely. Satellite towns witnessed the continual transformation from the predominantly rural landscape to peri-urban landscape. Furthermore, the gap between urban and rural areas remained large especially in public service. More reasonable urban plans and land use policies should push to make more of an effort to transition from the urban-rural separation to coordinated urban-rural development. This study is a meaningful trial in demonstrating a new form of urban–rural transects to study the landscape change of large cities from a strategic viewpoint. By combining gradient analysis with landscape metrics, we addressed the process of urbanization both spatially and temporally, and provided a more quantitative approach to urban studies.

Spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) are the only primitive spermatogonial cells in males that can naturally transmit genetic information to their offspring and replicate throughout their lives. Phospholipase D family member 6 (PLD6) has recently been found to be a surface marker for SSCs in mice and boars; however, it has not been validated in cattle. The results of RT-PCR and qRT-PCR found that the relative expression of PLD6 gene in the testicular tissues of 2-year-old Simmental calves was significantly higher than that of 6-month-old calves. Immunofluorescent staining further verified the expression of PLD6 protein in bovine spermatogenic cells like germ cell marker VASA. Based on multiple bioinformatic databases, PLD6 is a conservative protein which has high homology with mouse Q5SWZ9 protein. It is closely involved in the normal functioning of the reproductive system. Molecular dynamics simulation analyzed the binding of PLD6 as a phospholipase to cardiolipin (CL), and PLD6-CL complex showed high stability. The protein interaction network analysis showed that there is a significant relationship between PLD6 and piRNA binding protein. PLD6 acts as an endonuclease and participates in piRNA production. In addition, PLD6 in bovine and mouse testes has a similar expression pattern with the spermatogonium-related genes VASA and PIWIL2. In conclusion, these analyses imply that PLD6 has a relatively high expression in bovine testes and could be used as a biomarker for spermatogenic cells including SSCs.

Digital technology makes energy systems more dynamic, efficient, reliable and sustainable. Promoting the digital governance of renewable energy is not only a key part of energy transformation, but also an important initiative to cope with the global energy crisis, which provides a new impetus for realizing the goal of net-zero emissions. In order to achieve the "dual-carbon" goal, China has been actively promoting energy reform and enhancing the wide application of digital technologies in the development and utilization of renewable energy. The digital governance system and governance capacity of renewable energy is an important support for the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. Although the digital governance of renewable energy in China has better policy support and advantages, the dilemmas it faces are still relatively prominent, including unsound laws and policies, insufficient governance capacity, and security loopholes in digital technology, etc. Therefore, this paper proposes a problem-oriented approach to the digital governance of renewable energy. Therefore, this paper puts forward problem-oriented optimization suggestions to innovate the legal system of renewable energy digital governance, promote the digital transformation of China's renewable energy industry, provide development space for renewable energy digital governance in a diversified mode, and enhance the digital governance capacity by improving the renewable energy security system.

The European Union Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC; WFD) aims to achieve a good ecological and chemical status of all bodies of surface water by 2027. The development of an integrated guidance on surface water chemical monitoring (e.g. WFD Guidance Document No. 7/19) has been transferred into national German law (Ordinance for the Protection of Surface Waters, OGewV). For the majority of compounds, this act requires a monthly sampling frequency to assess the chemical water quality status of a surface water body. To evaluate the representativeness of the sampling strategy under the OGewV, high-frequency online monitoring data is investigated under different sampling scenarios and compared with current, monthly grab sampling strategy. About 23 million data points were analyzed for this study, three chemical parameters (dissolved oxygen, nitrate-nitrogen, chloride concentration) and discharge data were selected from four catchment of different sizes ranging from 51391 km² to 84 km² (Elbe, Vereinigte Mulde, Neiße and two stations at Lockwitzbach). In this paper we proposed short-term online-monitoring (STOM) as a sampling alternative. STOM considers the placement of online sensors over a limited duration and return interval. In general we: (I) compare the results of conventional grab sampling with STOM, (II) investigate the different performance of STOM and grab sampling using discharge data as proxy for analyzing event-mobilized pollutants and (III) investigate the related uncertainties and costs of both sampling methods. Results show, that STOM outperforms grab sampling for parameters where minimum/maximum concentrations are required by law as the probability to catch a single extreme value is higher with STOM. Furthermore, parameters showing a pronounced diurnal pattern, like dissolved oxygen, are also captured considerably better. The performance of STOM showed no substantial improvements for parameters with small concentration variability, as nitrogen-nitrate The analysis of discharge events as a proxy parameter for event-mobilized pollutants proved that the probability of capturing samples during events is significantly increased by STOM.

A space charge density wireless measurement system based on the idea of distributed measurement is proposed for collecting and monitoring the space charge density in an ultra-high-voltage direct-current (UHVDC) environment. The proposed system architecture is composed of a number of wireless nodes connected with space charge density sensors and a base station. The space charge density sensor based on atmospheric ion counter method is elaborated and developed, and the ARM microprocessor and Zigbee radio frequency module are applied. The wireless network communication quality and the relationship between energy consumption and transmission distance in the complicated electromagnetic environment is tested. Based on the experimental results, the proposed measurement system demonstrates that it can adapt to the complex electromagnetic environment under the UHVDC transmission lines and can accurately measure the space charge density.

The study addresses the urgent environmental issue of climate change, focusing specifically on the role of local food, which is produced and consumed locally, helps reduce carbon emissions by eliminating the need for long-distance transportation. Through quantitative analysis, this study elucidates the potential benefits in environmental impact achieved through the consumption of local food: the significant reduction in carbon emissions. Specifically, the consumption of local food is found to yield an annual decrease of 2,421,296 tCO2 emissions, representing 2.5% of South Korea’s total greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. This reduction further translates into an estimated economic value of USD 54.23 million (KRW 70.5 billion). This study underscores the potential of local food consumption as a tangible strategy to overcome environmental problems. Moreover, its academic contribution lies in its comprehensive analysis of the economic and empirical impacts of local food consumption on environment. Moving forward, we propose policies such as supporting local food distribution networks, providing public education on local food, fostering the local food industry, and providing incentives to revitalize local food consumption.

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 lower reaches of the Changhua River are located in the northwest of Hainan Island, and the shallow groundwater in this area is the main water source for residents living at both sides of the river. In order to sustain the exploitation and use of water resources in this area, it is essential to clarify the chemical characteristics and the formation mechanism of the groundwater. We collected 100 sets of shallow groundwater samples from the lower reaches of the Changhua River, and analyzed the chemical characteristics of the groundwater in shallow aquifers as well as its controlling factors by means of the methods including descriptive statistical analysis, Piper diagram, Gibbs diagram, and ion ratio. The results show that the overall characteristics of groundwater in the study area are near-neutral to weakly alkaline nature, indicating a generally oxidized environment. The groundwater involves in 56 chemical types, and the most predominant types are Ca•Na-HCO3 and Ca-HCO3, respectively. NO- 3 has become a macro component exceeding SO2- 4in most of the sampling groundwater, suggesting a significant impact of human activities in this area. At the same time, the chemical characteristics of groundwater in the study area are mainly affected by the water-rock interaction, while the water-rock interaction is mostly affected by the dissolution of silicate rocks and less by the dissolution of carbonate rocks and evaporite rocks. According to the ion ratio results, Na+ and K+ in the study area are mainly from the leaching of silicate rocks, Ca2+ and Mg2+ are mainly from the dissolution of carbonate rocks, in addition to a certain degree of cationic exchange. NO- 3 is mainly related to human activities, and the human activities are more affected by agricultural activities and domestic sewage than by industrial and mining activities. This study can provide a reference for the development and protection of shallow groundwater in the lower reaches of the Changhua River.

Cell junction that is usually associated with dynamic cytoskeletons is essential for a wide range of cellular activities such as cell migration, cell communication, barrier function and signal transduction. Real-time observation of cell junction facilitates understanding of the mechanisms by which cell junction regulate relevant cellular activities. In this study, we examined the binding capacity of a modified tridecapeptide from Cx43 to cell junction protein ZO-1 and sought to create a fluorescent peptide that could be used to label cell junction. To introduce the fluorescent peptide into the cells, a cell-penetrating peptide was linked to the modified tridecapeptide and synthesized. The binding of the modified tridecapeptide was tested using pull down and immunoprecipitation assay. The ability of the peptide to label cell junction was assessed by adding it to fixed or cultured Caco-2 cells. Testing assay revealed that the Cx43-derived peptide can bind to ZO-1. Besides, the peptide was able to label cell junction of fixed cell, although no obvious cell junction labeling was observed clearly in living cells, probably due to the inadequate affinity. These results indicate that a peptide-based strategy for labeling cell junction may be feasible, and efforts to improve its affinity are warranted in the future.

In light of advancing technology, the conventional clock network architecture has become inadequate for addressing the intricacies inherent in modern System-on-Chip (SoC) designs. While clock mesh topology offers resilience against On-Chip Variation (OCV) fluctuations, it still necessitates manual intervention. Therefore, substantial scope exists for methodological enhancements and the refinement of rapid analytical techniques. This paper introduces a novel clock mesh synthesis approach, underpinned by dynamic programming algorithms, that guarantees latency constraints. Our experimental findings demonstrate that our algorithm achieves an additional 26.6% reduction in power consumption compared to the baseline methodology. Furthermore, it substantially reduces runtime by an average of 78.0% when contrasted with traditional simulation methods. These results highlight the potential of our methodology for enhancing the efficiency and power management of clock mesh.

Genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) have been widely used for phenotypic prediction of microorganisms. However, the lack of other constraints in the stoichiometric model often leads to a large metabolic solution space inaccessible. Inspired by previous studies that take allocation of macromolecule resources into account, we developed a simplified Python-based workflow for constructing enzymatic constrained metabolic network model (ECMpy) and constructed an enzyme-constrained model for Escherichia coli (eciML1515) by directly adding a total enzyme amount constraint in the latest version of GEM for E. coli (iML1515), considering the protein subunit composition in the reaction, and automated calibration of enzyme kinetic parameters. Using eciML1515, we predicted the overflow metabolism of E. coli and revealed that redox balance was the key reason for the difference between E. coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae in overflow metabolism. The growth rate predictions on 24 single-carbon sources were improved significantly when compared with other enzyme-constrained models of E. coli. Finally, we revealed the tradeoff between enzyme usage efficiency and biomass yield by exploring the metabolic behaviors under different substrate consumption rates. Enzyme-constrained models can improve simulation accuracy and thus can predict cellular phenotypes under various genetic perturbations more precisely, providing reliable guidance for metabolic engineering.

A fast calculation method for the full parallax high-resolution hologram is proposed based on the elemental light field image (EI) rendering. A 3D object located near the holographic plane is firstly rendered as multiple EIs with a pinhole array. Each EI is interpolated and multiplied by a divergent sphere wave and interfered with a reference wave to form a hogel. Parallel acceleration is used to calculate the high-resolution hologram because calculation of each hogel is independent. A high-resolution hologram with the resolution of 20,0000×20,0000 pixels is calculated only within 8 minutes. Full parallax high-resolution 3D displays are realized by optical reconstructions.

A PLS-based quality prediction method is proposed for batch processes using two-dimensional extended windows. To realize the adoption of information in the direction of sampling time and batch, a new definition region of support (ROS), k-i-back-extended region of support (KIBROS), is proposed to establish the extended window, which including the data of the previous sampling times in the same batch, the data of the same sampling time in the historical batches, the data of the previous sampling times in the historical batches and the data of the later sampling times in the historical batches. According to these regions of support, extended windows are established, and different models are proposed based on the extended windows for batch processes quality prediction. Further, using a typical batch process as an example, the injection molding process, the proposed quality prediction method is experimentally verified, proving that the proposed methods have higher prediction accuracy than the traditional method and the prediction stability is also improved.

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is one of the most serious extra-articular complications of rheu-matoid arthritis (RA), which increases the mortality of RA. Because the pathogenesis of RA-ILD remains poorly understood, appropriate therapeutic strategies and biomarkers have not yet been identified. Thus, the goal of this review was to summarize and analyze the reported data on the etiology and pathogenesis of RA-ILD. The incidence of RA-ILD increases with age, and is also generally higher in men than in women and in patients with specific genetic variations and eth-nicity. Lifestyle factors associated with an increased risk of RA-ILD include smoking and exposure to pollutants. The presence of an anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibody, high RA disease activity, and rheumatoid factor positivity also increase the risk of RA-ILD. We also explored the roles of biological processes (e.g., fibroblast–myofibroblast transition, epithelial–mesenchymal transition, and immunological processes), signaling pathways (e.g., JAK/STAT and PI3K/Akt), and the his-topathology of RA involved in RA-ILD pathogenesis based on published preclinical and clinical models of RA-ILD in animal and human studies.

Ti and its alloys are the most commonly used materials for biomedical applications. However, bacterial infection after implant placement is still one of the significant rising complications. Therefore, the application of the antimicrobial agents into implant surfaces to prevent implant-associated infection has attracted lots of attention. Scientific papers have shown that inorganic antibacterial metal element (e.g. Ag, Cu, Zn) can be introduced to implant surfaces with the addition of metal nanoparticles or metallic compounds into electrolyte via micro-arc oxidation (MAO) technology. In this review, the effects of the composition and concentration of electrolyte and process parameters (e.g. voltage, current density, oxidation time) on morphological characteristics (e.g. surface morphology, bonding strength), antibacterial ability and biocompatibility of MAO antimicrobial coating were discussed in detail. Anti-infection and osseo-integration can be simultaneously accomplished with the selection of the proper antibacterial elements and operating parameters. Besides, MAO assisted by magnetron sputtering (MS) to endow Ti-based implant materials with superior antibacterial ability and biocompatibility was also discussed. Finally, the development trend of MAO technology in the future was forecasted.

Tao and Ming (name) or Tao and Yan (language or speech) is an inseparable pair of important concepts in traditional Chinese language philosophy. In LaoTze’s opinion, Tao could not be spoken out, and language or speech could not reach Tao’s essence. Yan and Tao are separated from each other, and they are paradoxical. All the confusion derives from Yan regardless of how delicate they are. Tao can be expressed in words, but it will never be expressed through common languages. In this article, Tao is regarded as a human being’s thoughts or intentions and is even considered to be the origin of the real world. Language can express people’s thought, although it has some limitations. There exist some contradictions between the real word and the world expressed in words. To enable people to better understand the existence of the real world from multiple perspectives at the language or linguistic level without being constrained by words, this article studies LaoTze’s linguistic philosophy reflected in his opinion on the relationship between Tao and Yan and makes a comparative analysis of modern Western language philosophers’ stand on language (or speech) and existence.

Here, we have discovered a X-ray excited long afterglow phosphor β-NaYF₄: Tb³⁺. After the irradiation of X-ray, the green emission can persist for more than 240 h. After 36 h, the afterglow intensity arrived at 0.69 mcd•m^-2, which can clearly be observed by naked eyes. Even after 84 h, the afterglow emission brightness still reached 0.087 mcd•m^-2. Also, combined with the results of thermoluminescence and photoluminescence, the super long afterglow emission of β-NaYF₄: Tb³⁺ can be ascribed to the tunneling model associated with F centers. More importantly, the super long green afterglow emission of β-NaYF₄: Tb³⁺ has been successfully used as in vivo light source to activate g-C₃N₄ for photodynamic therapy（PDT）and bacteria destruction. Furthermore, super long persistent luminescence of β-NaYF₄: Tb³⁺ could be repeatedly charged by X-ray for many circulations, which indicates that the phosphors have high photo stability under repeated cycles of alternating X-ray irradiation.

A plasmonic refractive index (RI) sensor based on metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguide coupled with concentric double rings resonator (CDRR) is proposed and investigated numerically. Utilizing the novel supermodes of the CDRR, the FWHM of the resonant wavelength can be modulated, and a sensitivity of 1060 nm/RIU with high figure of merit (FOM) 203.8 is realized in the near-infrared region. The unordinary modes as well as the influence of structure parameters on the sensing performance are also discussed. Such plasmonic sensor with simple framework and high optical resolution could be applied to on-chip sensing systems and integrated optical circuits. Besides, the special cases of bio- sensing and triple rings are also discussed.

The goal of the current study is to analyse several nonlinear two-dimensional time-fractional Rosenau Hymanequations. The two-dimensional fractional Rosenau-Hyman equation has extensive use in engineering and applied sciences. The fractional view analysis of two-dimensional time-fractional Rosenau-Hyman equations is discussed using the homotopy perturbation approach, adomian decomposition method, and Yang transformation. Some examples involving two-dimensional time-fractional Rosenau-Hyman equations are provided in order to better understand the suggested approaches. The solutions appear as infinite series. We offer a comparison between the accurate solutions and those that are generated employing the proposed approaches in order to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed techniques. The results are graphically illustrated using 2D and 3D graphs. It has been noted that the obtained results and the targeted problems real solutions are quite similar. Calculated solutions at various fractional levels describe some of the problems useful dynamics. Other fractional problems that arise in other fields of science and engineering can be solved using a modified version of the current techniques.

It is expected that scholars will continue to strengthen the depth and breadth of theoretical research on RIS, so as to provide a higher theoretical upper bound for the engineering application of RIS. While making breakthroughs in academic research, great progress has been made in engineering application research and industrialization promotion. This article will provide an overview of RIS engineering applications, mainly including the typical features, typical classifications, and typical deployment scenarios of RIS. Then the challenges and candidate solutions of the RIS are systematically and deeply analyzed, involving the cascade channel decoupling for solving the RIS beamforming, the influences and solutions of RIS regulation constraints, RIS system architecture of network controlled mode, the integrated channel regulation and information modulation, TDD mechanism used for RIS. Future trends and challenges are also provided.

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.

An active power dispatch method for a microgrid (MG) with multi-type loads, renewable energy sources (RESs) and distributed energy storage devices (DESDs) is the focus of this paper. The MG operates in a grid-connected model, and distributed power sources contribute to the service for load demands. The outputs of multiple DESDs are controlled to optimize the active power dispatch. Our goal with optimization is to reduce the economic cost under time-of-use (TOU) price, and to adjust the excessively high or low load rate of distributed transformers (DTs) caused by the peak-valley demand and load uncertainties. To simulate a practical environment, the stochastic characteristics of multi-type loads are formulated. The transition matrix of system state is provided. Then, a finite-horizon Markov decision process (FHMDP) model is established to describe the dispatch optimization problem. A learning-based technique is adopted to search the optimal joint control policy of multiple DESDs. Finally, simulation experiments are performed to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, and the fuzzification analysis of the method is presented.

Soil organic matter (SOM) is important for the global carbon cycle, and hyperspectral remote sensing has proven a promising method for fast SOM content estimation. However, soil physical properties significantly affect the sensitivity of satellite hyperspectral imaging to SOM, leading to poor generalization ability of the estimation model. This study aims to improve the spatiotemporal transferability of the SOM prediction model by alleviating the coupling effect of soil physical properties on the spectra. Based on satellite hyperspectral images and soil physical variables, including soil moisture (SM), soil surface roughness (root mean squared height, RMSH), and soil bulk weight (SBW), a soil spectral correction strategy was established based on the information unmixing method. Two important grain-producing areas in Northeast China were selected as study areas to verify the performance and transferability of the spectral correction model and SOM content prediction model. The results showed that soil spectral corrections based on fourth-order polynomials and the XG-Boost algorithm had excellent accuracy and generalization ability, with residual predictive deviations (RPD) exceeding 1.4 in almost all bands. In addition, when the soil spectral correction strategy was adopted, the accuracy of the SOM prediction model and the generalization ability after model migration were significantly improved. The SOM prediction accuracy based on the XG-Boost corrected spectrum was the highest, with a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.76, root mean square error (RMSE) of 5.74 g/kg, and RPD of 1.68. The prediction accuracy, R2, RMSE, and RPD of the model after migration were 0.72, 6.71 g/kg, and 1.53, respectively. Compared with the direct migration prediction of the model, adopting the soil spectral correction strategy based on fourth-order polynomials and XG-Boost reduced the RMSE of the SOM prediction results by 57.90% and 60.27%, respectively. The performance comparison highlighted the advantages of considering soil physical properties in regional-scale SOM prediction.

The greatly diversified flowering plants (angiosperms) are the dominating and defining group in the current earth ecosystem. However, from which group by what way the flowers, especially their gynoecia (key characteristics of angiosperms), are derived have been the questions in botany unanswered over centuries. Such an embarrassing situation can be attributed to the lack of plants with partially enclosed ovules, which are supposed to be a post between gymnosperms and angi-osperms. Here we report a fossil plant that has an apparent coniferous vegetative and reproduc-tive morphologies but has a single seed partially wrapped by the subtending bract. Such a mor-phology suggests that the carpels in angiosperms may be equivalent to bracts enclosing their axil-lary seed(s). Such a non-traditional interpretation of the homology of angiosperm carpels is com-patible with various new progresses made in botany and is in line with Tomlinson’s recent hy-pothesis. Together with other fossil evidence reported recently, it appears that gynoecia in angio-sperms are derived in multiple ways.

The uncertainty in the secondary path of an Active Noise Control (ANC) headphone affects the waterbed effect and stability of the feedback system. This study focuses on the uncertainty of the secondary path when real users wear headphones, and proposes a new uncertainty constraint based on the measured results of the secondary path transfer function under different wearing conditions of dummy head and limited subjects. This constraint and a cascaded second-order infinite impulse response filter with fixed coefficients are used to formulate a control strategic function, which is optimized by the Improved Grey Wolf Optimizer (IGWO) algorithm to obtain the optimal controller with better noise reduction performance. The proposed method and simulation model are validated based on the experimental test results. The results demonstrate that the safety factor and waterbed suppressing factor contained in the proposed uncertainty constraint ensures more stable noise reduction and effective suppression of the waterbed effect for new subjects without a priori data.

Single-phase-to-ground fault in non-effectively grounded systems poses serious public safety concern. Along with increasing deployment of low-voltage (LV) sensors, new opportunities and ways are created for solving this traditional problem in distribution systems. A new approach, identifying primary single-phase-to-ground line fault and locating it through measurement data from smart sensors deployed in the secondary side of distribution transformers, is proposed in this paper. When a fault occurs in primary distribution feeder, the transient aerial mode voltage (AMV) of each LV smart sensor is calculated. The fault line can be identified by an abrupt change value of AMV at LV side. Next, by finding the position of the maximum value of this AMV from LV sensors on the fault line, the fault location can be pinpointed to two neighboring distribution transformers. The proposed method has been proven to be efficient and reliable by simulation studies.

As traditional supply chains face increasingly severe environmental issues and countries promote green development and sustainable development policy concepts, cultivating green supply chain operation models is gradually being highly valued by current governments and enterprises. Generally speaking, the production of green products incurs higher additional costs and thus their total production costs also increase. In this work, the product green level is related to the random demand. Under the green supply chain buy-back contract with the green product R&D cost sharing between the manufacturer and the retailer, both the product green level and the order quantity need to be decided to maximize the channel profit. In order to coordinate the green supply chain, the manufacturer needs to share both the risk of good salvage and the green product R&D cost with the retailer. We find that both the wholesale price and buy-back price increase in the manufacturer’s proposition of the green product R&D cost, but decrease in emission reduction efficiency coefficient or carbon trading price. In addition, the product green level, the optimal order quantity and the channel profit increase in emission reduction efficiency coefficient, but decrease in the R&D cost coefficient of the product green level. Interestingly, we find that if the carbon trading price is low, the manufacturer will set a low product green level and the product carbon emission trading is a cost for the supply chain. The increment of the carbon trading price leads to a higher cost such that the channel profit is decreased. However, if the carbon trading price is high, the manufacturer will set a high product green level and the product carbon emission trading is a revenue for the supply chain. The increment of the carbon trading price leads to a higher revenue such that the channel profit is increased.

Semantic communication is not obsessed with improving the accuracy of transmitted symbols, but is concerned with expressing the desired meaning that the symbol sequence exactly carried. However, the generation and measurement of semantic messages are still an open problem. Expansion combines simple things into complex systems and even generates intelligence, which is consistent with the evolution of the human language system. We apply this idea to semantic communication system, quantifying and transmitting semantics by symbol sequences, and investigate the semantic information system in a similar way as Shannon did for digital communication systems. This work was the first to propose the concept of semantic expansion and knowledge collision, which may provide a new paradigm for semantic communications. We believe that expansion and collision will be the cornerstone of semantic information theory.

Quantitative determination of the critical size of inclined coal pillar in old goaf water affected area is of great significance for water damage prevention and safe mining. The critical size of inclined waterproof coal pillar is derived by using theoretical analysis, numerical calculation and field engineering practice for the stability of the waterproof coal pillar in old goaf water affected area of 1303 working face of Dananhu I mine in Xinjiang region. Firstly, a force model of inclined waterproof coal pillar was established to reveal the law that the critical size of the coal pillar increases with the increase of coal seam inclination under the action of asymmetric load. Then, numerical simulation was applied to reveal the dynamic evolution process of plastic deformation-destabilization-destruction of section coal pillar under the influence of mining and single-side water pressure, and the critical size of waterproof coal pillar in study area was determined to be 19.09m. Finally, measures such as pumping and pressure relief and slurry reinforcement were adopted to reduce the deformation rate of the roadway on side of waterproof coal pillar, which ensured the stability of the coal pillar and roadway and the safe recovery of the working face.

The Goldbach Conjecture, which is frequently termed as “1 + 1”, has been a fascinating goal for many mathematicians over centuries. A Chinese mathematician, Dr. Jingrun Chen, proved 1 + 2, which is a great success and the best result so far achieved. Although there were several attempts proving the conjecture, these attempts are either tediously long, complicated, or logically imperfect, thus not widely accepted. Taking advantage of the periodicity of primes, here the author provides a straight forward rigorous proof for the Conjecture.

The key links of face recognition are digital image preprocessing, facial feature extraction and pattern recognition, this article aimed at the current problem of slow speed and low recognition accuracy of face recognition , from the above three key links, on the basic of analyzing the therories of Fractional Differential Masks Operator (FDMO), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM), design a kind of FDMO+PVA+SVM coupling algorithm that applies to face recognition to improve the speed and accuracy of it. To realize FDMO+PCA+SVM coupling algorithm, first, we should apply FDMO to face image processing binary marginalization, the purpose is getting face contour; Then, we apply PCA to get the feature of face image which is disposed by binary marainalization. At last, we can apply One-Against All of the SVM classifier and LibSVM software package to realize face recognition. Beside, the article with nine different coupling algorithm design four groups of experimental reaults on the ORL face database verified by comparative analysic FDMO+PCA+SVM coupling algorithm in the superiority of face recognition accuracy and speed.

The article describes the rational for inhibition of the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) pathways as specific targets in patients infected by SARS-CoV-2 in order to prevent the establishment of positive feedback loops triggered by COVID-19 in some predisposed subjects. Making use of a large quantity of published reports in which human/rodent ACE2 pathway inhibitors were administered in vivo, it is hypothesized a possible therapeutic pharmacological intervention through an inhibition strategy of the zinc metalloprotease ACE2 and its downstream pathway for SARS-CoV-2 patients. Of even more interest, metal (zinc) chelators and renin inhibitors (both FDA approved drugs) may also work alone or in combination in inhibiting the positive feedback loops, initially triggered by COVID-19 and subsequently sustained by hypoxia independently on viral trigger, when both arms of renin-angiotensin system (ACE2 and ACE) are upregulated, leading to critical, advanced and untreatable stages of the disease.

The popularity and growth of additive manufacturing(AM) in recent years are due to its ability to provide innovative solutions to complex manufacturing challenges and its potential to transform the way products are designed, developed, and produced. In this work, the numerical simulation geometry of the model extruder from nozzle is established along with the material extrusion process. The high gravity material extrusion system (HG-MEX) properties and characteristics during filament fabrication are evaluated. This work investigates the effects of gravity on the material extrusion process from nozzle extrusion. This work is unique in the incorporation of fluid surface characteristics to represent the performance and contact with the material extrusion in additive manufacturing. The use of simulation in high gravity material extrusion in additive manufacturing is a meaningful and valuable approach to improving the quality and efficiency of the process.

Limited studies have shown that exposure to arsenic is associated with serum vitamin D levels, but the results are still inconsistent. A cross-sectional study of 762 participants was conducted in Wenshui Country, Shanxi Province, which was identified as an area of water-borne arsenicosis. The results showed positive relationship between arsenic species (iAs, MMA, DMA) and serum 25(OH)D. Binary logistic regression analysis showed that the significant increases of 0.4% and 0.6% in the risk of vitamin D excess for every 1-unit increment in the Box-Cox transformed urinary tAs and DMA, respectively. After stratifying populations based on arsenic methylation metabolic capacity, each one-unit increase in the Box-Cox transformed tAs level was associated with increases of 0.064 (95%CI: 0.032 to 0.096) in serum 25(OH)D in the populations with iAs% above the median. In the populations with skin hyperkeratosis, urinary iAs was positively associated with serum 25(OH)D (β=0.592, 95%CI: 0.041 to 1.143). Overall, our findings support the positive relationship between urinary arsenic and serum 25(OH)D.

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

This study empirically examines the spatial spillover effect of various environmental regulations on green technology innovation using panel data from 284 county-level cities in China between 2007 and 2019. A geographical-economic spatial weight matrix is constructed, and the spatial Durbin model is employed to identify the specific characteristics of this spillover effect. The findings indicate that the spatial spillover effect of green technology innovation primarily occurs through geographical transmission. However, there is no significant spatial autocorrelation when using the economic distance weight matrix. Various types of environmental regulations influence the spatial spillover effect of green technology innovation in distinct ways. Specifically, Market-motivated environmental regulation exhibits a U-shaped relationship with the spatial spillover effect, while Command-controlled environmental regulation demonstrates an inverted U-shaped relationship, suggesting a complementary effect. Additional research shows that the upgrading of industrial structure acts as a mediator between command environmental regulation and the spatial spillover effect of green technology innovation. Government departments should comprehensively coordinate Market-motivated environmental regulation and Command-controlled environmental regulation, accurately assess the intensity of Command-controlled measures, and prevent the migration of green technology innovation elements caused by excessive regulatory measures within enterprises.

Time series ground deformation monitoring and reservoir parameter inversion are crucial for the dynamic assessment of oilfield resources and sustainable exploitation in an oilfield. As one of the regions with the richest oil reserves in China, the oilfield areas in the western Qaidam Basin are selected as a typical study area. Firstly, we used SAR images collected by the Sentinel-1A satellite from January 2021 to December 2022 and applied the Multidimensional Small Baseline Subset (MSBAS) method to obtain vertical and east-west deformation measurements. On this basis, a nonlinear Bayesian inversion method was applied to model the shallow reservoir in a series of complex deformation areas, based on a single-source model and a multi-source model, respectively. As a result, the ground deformation monitoring results obtained by long time series InSAR clearly reflect the uneven ground deformation caused by the oil extraction and water injection operation process. There is slight subsidence in the Huatugou oilfield, while significant uplift deformation occurred in the Ganchaigou oilfield and the Youshashan oilfield, with a maximum uplift rate of 48 mm/year. Further analysis indicates that the introduction of the 2D deformation field helps to improve the robustness of oilfield reservoir parameter inversion. Moreover, the dual-source model is more suitable than the single-source model for inverting complex deformation reservoir parameters. This study not only fills the blank of InSAR deformation monitoring for the oilfields in the western Qaidam Basin but also provides a theoretical reference for model and method selection of reservoir parameter inversion in other oilfields.

Omicron variants have higher infectivity, more immune escape but lower risk of severe clinical outcomes than the ancestral variants. However, people are still wondering whether SARS-CoV-2 may become lethal again or whether some highly-pathogenic strain may emerge in the future. Omicron is more selective proliferation in the upper respiratory tract (URT). The temperature of human URT is 33–34°C, and the virus strains other than Omicron cannot replicate effectively at this temperature. While Omicron adapted to the low temperature environment, so its distribution mainly depends on the expression levels of ACE2 in cells. Similar distribution switch from lungs to URT has been observed for the 1918 H1N1 influenza virus, who vanished after 1921 and has been turned to be the seasonal human influenza A viruses. However, some relatively high-pathogenic SARS-CoV-2 strains and influenza-virus strains may still emerge in the future. Dynamic changes in the viral virulence should be monitored constantly.

This paper mainly explores the feasibility of using desert sand (DS) and recycled aggregate in cement stabilized base. Recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) and DS serve as the substitutes of natural coarse and fine aggregates, respectively, in cement stabilized base. A four-factor and four-level orthogonal test is designed to analyze the unconfined compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, and compressive resilient modulus. Furthermore, this paper investigates the effects of cement content, fly ash (FA) replacement rate, RCA replacement rate, and DS replacement rate on the road performance of cement stabilized base composing of RCA and DS. The test results reveal that the performance of cement stabilized base with partial RCA instead of natural coarse aggregate (NCA) and partial DS instead of natural fine aggregate satisfy the road use. Meanwhile, DS is beneficial to improve the strength of cement stabilized base. The correlation and microscopic analyses of the test results imply the feasibility of applying DS and recycled aggregate to cement stabilized base. It is hoped that this paper can offer a solid theoretical foundation for promoting the application of DS and recycled aggregate in road engineering.