With the aim to improve cladding coating quality and prevent cracking, this paper established an extreme high-speed laser cladding thermo-mechanical coupling simulation model to study the evolution of the temperature field and residual stress distribution. Process parameters that impacted the macroscopic morphology of single-pass coatings were investigated. Numerical calculations and temperature field simulations were performed based on the process parameter data to validate the effect of the temperature gradient and cooling rate on the coating structure and the residual stress distribution. The results showed that a good coating quality could be achieved using a laser power of 2400 W, a cladding rate of 20 m/min, and a powder feeding rate of 20.32 g/min. The coatings’ cross-sectional morphology corresponded well with the temperature distribution predicted by numerical modeling of the melt pool. The microstructure of the molten coatings is affected by the temperature gradient and cooling rate, which vary greatly from the bottom to the middle to the top. Maximum residual stress appears between the bonding region of the coatings and the substrate, and the coatings themselves have significant residual stress in the form of tensile strains that are mostly distributed in the direction of the laser cladding speed.

The accurate wellbore pressure control not only prevents from lost circulation/blowout and fracturing formation by managing density of drilling fluid, but also improves productivity by mitigating reservoir damage. The geothermal pressure calculated by constant parameters for geothermal well would bring big error easily, as the changes of physical, rheological and thermal properties of drilling fluids with temperature were neglected. This paper researches the wellbore pressure coupling by calculating the temperature distribution with existed model, fitting the rule of density of drilling fluid with temperature and establishing mathematical models to stimulate the wellbore pressures, which is expressed as the variation of Equivalent Circulating Density (ECD) under different conditions. With this method, temperature and ECDs in the wellbore of the first medium-deep geothermal well ZK212 Yangyi Geothermal Field in Tibet were determined, and the sensitivity analysis was simulated by assumed parameters, i.e. circulating time, flow rate, geothermal gradient, diameters of wellbore, rheological models and regimes, the results indicated the geothermal gradient and flow rate were the most influence parameters on the temperature and ECD distribution, and additives added in drilling fluid should be careful which would change the properties of drilling fluid and induce the temperature redistribution. To make sure the safe drilling, velocity of pipes tripping into the hole, depth and diameter of wellbore are considered to control the surge pressure.

Post-translational modifications (PTMs) of histone residues shape the landscape of gene expression by modulating the dynamic process of RNAPII transcription. The contribution of particular histone modifications to the definition of distinct RNAPII transcription stages remains poorly characterized in plants. Chromatin Immuno-precipitation combined with next-generation sequencing (ChIP-seq) resolves the genomic distribution of histone modifications. Here, we review histone PTM ChIP-seq data in Arabidopsis thaliana and find support for a Genomic Positioning System (GPS) that guides RNAPII transcription. We review the roles of histone PTM “readers”, “writers” and “erasers”, with a focus on the regulation of gene expression and biological functions in plants. The distinct functions of RNAPII transcription during the plant transcription cycle may in part rely on the characteristic histone PTMs profiles that distinguish transcription stages.

Gastroesophageal (GE) junction adenocarcinoma is an aggressive malignancy of growing incidence and is associated with public health issues such as obesity and GERD. Management has evolved over the last 2 decades to incorporate a multidisciplinary approach including endoscopic intervention, and neoadjuvant chemotherapy/ chemoradiation and minimally invasive or more limited surgical approaches. Surgical approaches include esophagectomy, total gastrectomy, and more recently proximal gastrectomy. This review analyzes the evidence for and applicability of these varied approaches in management as well areas of continued controversy and investigation.

An 8-months old male American Staffordshire terrier was referred for a no weightbearing lameness of the right pelvic limb, hyperthermia, lethargy and inappetence caused by hematogenous osteomyelitis. Orthopedic, radiographic and tomographic examinations revealed a bone sequestrum of 4 x 1.4 cm and active periosteal reaction of the caudo-lateral cortical in the metaphysis and the distal third of the right femoral diaphysis, medullary osteolysis and interruption of the cranio-medial cortical profile, with involvement of the femoral trochlea leading to a secondary medial patella luxation. Once skeletally mature, after 4 months from surgical debridement and aggressive antibiotic therapy against Klebsiella oxytoca revealed by bacteriological exam, the patient underwent prosthetic surgery for the application of a custom-made patellar groove replacement (PGR) to fill the bone defect and restore the femoral trochlea surface. Despite the serious injury that afflicted the right pelvic limb, the surgery had satisfactory outcomes until the last 18-months postoperative follow up.

Gastric outlet obstruction (GOO) poses a common and challenging clinical scenario, characterized by mechanical blockage in the pylorus, distal stomach, or duodenum, resulting in symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and early satiety. Its diverse etiology encompasses both benign and malignant disorders. The spectrum of current treatment modalities extends from conservative approaches to more invasive interventions, incorporating procedures like surgical gastroenterostomy (SGE), self-expandable metallic stents (SEMS) placement, and the advanced technique of endoscopic ultrasound-guided gastroenterostomy (EUS-GE). While surgery is favored for longer life expectancy, stents are preferred in malignant gastric outlet stenosis. The novel EUS-GE technique, employing a lumen-apposing self-expandable metal stent (LAMS), combines the immediate efficacy of stents with the enduring benefits of gastroenterostomy. Despite its promising outcomes, EUS-GE is a technically demanding procedure requiring specialized expertise and facilities.

This paper integrates carrier manifolds from control theory and hybrid systems modeling to develop a novel mathematical framework for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Carrier manifolds represent the state space of complex AGI systems, while hybrid systems model discrete and continuous dynamics together. The proposed architecture embeds carrier manifold into GPTProX, a hybrid AI solver combining conversational AI, logic programming, and optimization.

Based on the Expected Utility Theory and Regret Theory, the Extended Regret Theory (ERT) is proposed in this paper to study the optimal pricing strategy of retailers in e-commerce environment. Taking the diversity of sales channels and the uncertainty of consumers in e-commerce environment into consideration, author of the paper designs an extended regret utility function which comprehensively considers both pessimistic and optimistic attitudes of decision makers in retailing industry to describe their regret-avoidance behavior. According to the sensitivity analysis, it is found that the optimal retail price decreases as the consumer price sensitivity coefficient increases, yet does not show variation with changes of the consumers pessimism degree. Moreover, the optimal retail price(s) obtained under EUT, ERT and combination of EUT and ERT represent the same.

Aim: To analysis the relationship between healthy adults right ventricular diameter (RVD) and geographical factors. Location: China’s 22 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. Methods: Using correlation analysis the relationship between RVD and nine geographic factors, build predictive models by factor analysis. Results: There is significant correlation between RVD and geographical factors, and the annual average temperature is most relevant geographical factors, a predictive model was built by factor analysis: Ŷ = 19.46 + 0.0007072X1 + 0.001034X2 -0.05412X3 -0.001405X4 -0.0006351X5 + 0.02903X6 + 0.01243X7 -0.01033X8 + 0.03816X9 ± 0.63. Then using Kriging interpolation interpolate the geographical distribution of Chinese healthy adult right ventricular diameter reference value in ArcGIS software. Main Conclusion: If geographic factors can be derived in anywhere of China, RVD can be calculated by the model, you can also get RVD from geographical distribution.

In this perspective article, we ponder topographical enhancements of artificial neural networks. In our recent paper in JMLR, we proved a quasi-equivalence between the network width and depth and also discussed the power of intra-links, which can be viewed as network height. In 1982, Hopfield published a network to model human associative memory, which contains many loops for dynamic evolution toward fixed points. Based on noising-denoising loops, diffusion models are recently developed to enable Bayesian modeling and inference with big data. Furthermore, we envision development of multi-AI-agent systems through “netware” engineering as a quantum leap of software engineering for emergent behaviors and autonomous AI at individual and population levels. We believe that the novel use of links and loops in space and time via multi-scale coupling would catalyze the next-generation neural networks.

Natural gas hydrate, also known as combustible ice and mainly composed of methane, it is identified as the potential clean energy in the 21th century. Due to its large reserves, gas hydrate can ease problems caused by energy resource shortage and has gained attention around the world. In this paper, we focus on the exploration and development of gas hydrate as well as discussing its status and future development trend in China and abroad, then we analyze its opportunities and challenges in China from four aspects: resource, technology, economy and police with five forces model and PEST method. The results show, China has abundance gas hydrate resource; however the backward technologies and inadequate investment has seriously hindered the future development of gas hydrate, so China should establish relevant cooperation framework and intuitional arrangement to attract more investment as well as breaking through technical difficulties to make gas hydrate commercialization as soon as possible.

The representation of aerosols in climate-chemistry models is important for air quality and climate change research, but it can require significant computational resources. To overcome this, simpler modules such as modal aerosol modules with three lognormal modes (MAM3) can be used. In this study, the coupling of the Carbon Bond Mechanism, version Z (CBMZ), and MAM3 chemistry modules in WRF-CAM5 was improved by adding biomass-burning emissions to both gas- and particle-phase chemistry and incorporating a conversion mechanism between volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and secondary organic carbons (SOCs). The study conducted six simulations over the western U.S. and northeastern Pacific region and compared the model’s performance with observational benchmarks such as reanalysis, ground-based, and satellite data. The results showed that the model with enhanced chemistry capabilities had a 31% and 58% reduction in root-mean-square errors (RMSE) for black carbon (BC) and organic carbon (OC) surface concentrations, respectively. The earlier release of the WRF-CAM5 version had two deficiencies that were addressed in this study. This research highlights the importance of accurate aerosol representation in climate-chemistry models for improving accuracy and reducing errors in simulations.

Amorphous germanium films on non-refractory glass substrates were annealed by ultrashort near-infrared (1030 nm, 1.4 ps) and mid-infrared (1500 nm, 70 fs) laser pulses. Crystallization of germanium irradiated at a laser energy density (fluence) range from 25 to 400 mJ/cm2 under single-shot and multi-shot conditions was investigated using Raman spectroscopy. The dependence of the fraction of the crystalline phase on the fluence was obtained for picosecond and femtosecond laser annealings. The regimes of almost complete crystallization of germanium films over the entire thickness are obtained (from the analysis of Raman spectra with excitation of 785 nm laser). The possibility of scanning laser processing is shown, which can be used to create films of micro and nanocrystalline germanium on flexible substrates.

Viruses are silent enemies that intrude and take control of the plant cell's machinery for their own multiplication. Infection by viruses and the resulting damage is still a major challenge in the agriculture sector. Plants have the ability to fight back, but the ability of viruses to counteract and mutate at a fast rate helps them to hide from the host response. Therefore, classical approaches for introgressing resistance genes by breeding have obtained limited success in counteracting the virus menace. Genetic modification (GM) based strategies have been successful in engineering artificial resistance in plants. Several different approaches based on pathogen derived resistance, antisense constructs, hairpin RNA, double stranded RNA etc. have been used to enhance plant resistance to the virus. Recently, genome editing (GE) strategies mainly involving the CRISPR/Cas mediated modifications are being used for virus control. In this review, we discuss the developments and advancements in the GM and GE based methods in tackling virus infection in plants.

Predicting the outcome of a future game between two National Basketball Association (NBA) teams poses a challenging problem of interest to statistical scientists as well as the general public. In this article, we formalize the problem of predicting the game results as a classification problem and apply the principle of maximum entropy to construct NBA maximum entropy (NBAME) model that fits to discrete statistics for NBA games, and then predict the outcomes of NBA playoffs by the NBAME model. The best NBAME model is able to correctly predict the winning team 74.4 percent of the time as compared to some other machine learning algorithms which is correct 69.3 percent of the time.

The emergence of multi-drug resistant E. coli is an important matter of increasing considerable concern to global public health. The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence, antibiotic resistance pattern, phylogroups and genetic variation of E. coli isolates from raw milk, vegetable salad and ground meat samples. Methods: Culture-based techniques, Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion susceptibility testing, PCR and RAPD assays were used to determine the incidence rate, antimicrobial resistance pattern, phylogenetic groups and genetic diversity of the E. coli isolates. Results: E. coli isolates were highly resistant to amoxicillin (79.16%), trime-thoprim-sulfamethoxazole (70.83%), amoxicillin-clavulanic acid (62.50%), tetracycline (54.16%), chloramphenicol (54.16%), nitrofurantoin (54.16%), ampicillin (45.83%), streptomycin (45.83%), and kanamycin (33.33%); and completely susceptible to norfloxacin and azithromycin. 70.83% of the isolates were multi-drug resistant. Most E. coli isolates (46%) belonged to phylogroup A. RAPD with UBC245 primer categorized the isolates into 11 clusters. A high level of genetic di-versity was found among the isolates; however, 33.3% of the isolates were grouped in a major cluster (R5). Conclusions: Antibiotic resistance patterns are randomly distributed among the ge-netic clusters. Novel, practical, efficient food safety control and surveillance systems of multi-drug resistant foodborne pathogens are required to control the foodborne pathogen contamina-tion.

To conduct high-precision and high-resolution numerical simulation of complex flow structures in turbomachinery, a high-order finite volume weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) scheme for the large eddy simulation (LES) is improved and embedded into the three-dimensional viscous unsteady CFD solver NUAA-Turbo. Firstly, the spectral characteristics and unsteady convergence of the improved WENO scheme are studied. Compared with the classical WENO scheme, the improved WENO scheme has better dissipation and dispersion characteristics and faster convergence speed. Then, the coefficient CW of the Wall-Adapting Local Eddy-viscosity (WALE) model is calibrated by decaying homogeneous isotropic turbulence (DHIT) test case. Finally, the scheme is applied to conduct high-precision LES calculations of turbulent boundary layer flow, supersonic compression corner flow, and low-pressure turbine cascade separation flow. The numerical simulation results show that this WENO scheme has excellent shock wave capture ability and turbulence resolution and can capture more flow field details with less mesh size, greatly reducing the computational cost and laying a foundation for large-scale engineering application of LES.

Photocatalytic degradation plays a crucial role in wastewater treatment, and the key to achieving high efficiency is to develop photocatalytic systems that possess excellent light absorption, carrier separation efficiency, and surface-active sites. Among various photocatalytic systems, S-type heterojunctions have shown remarkable potential for efficient degradation. This work delves into construction of S-type heterojunctions of ternary indium metal sulfide and bismuth ferrite nanofibers with introduction of sulfur vacancy defects and morphology modifications to enhance the photocatalytic degradation performance. Through the impregnation method, BiFeO₃/Zn₂S₄ heterojunction materials were synthesized and optimized30% BiFeO₃/Zn₂S₄ heterojunction exhibited superior photocatalytic performance with higher sulfur vacancy concentration than Zn₂S₄. The in-situ XPS results demonstrate that the electrons between Zn₂S₄ and BFO are transferred via S-Scheme, and after modification, Zn₂S₄ has a more favorable surface morphology for electron transport, and its flower-like structure interacts with the nanofibers of BFO, which has a further enhancement of the reaction efficiency for degrading pollutants. This exceptional material demonstrated a remarkable 99% degradation of Evans blue within 45 min and a significant 68% degradation of ciprofloxacin within 90 min. This work provides a feasible idea for developing photocatalysts to deal with the problem of polluted water resources under practical conditions.

We investigate numerically the interactions of in-phase Airy beams modulated by a fundamental Gaussian beam and fourth-order diffraction in Kerr nonlinear media. Directly numerical simulations show that normal (anomalous) fourth-order diffractions and in-phase (out-of-phase) Gaussian beam affect the interactions of solitons generated from Airy beams in unique manners. Different from previous results that interactions between in-phase (out-of-phase) conventional beams are always attractive (repulsive), many anomalous interactions of Airy beams are obtained. Stable bound states of breathing Airy soliton pairs can be formed with the help of fourth-order diffraction and fundamental Gaussian beam.

This paper proposes a novel single-stage buck-boost three-Level neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter with two independent dc sources coupled for the grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) application, which can effectively solve the unbalanced operational conditions generally appeared between two coupled independent PV sources induced by the unequal irradiation and temperature distribution. The proposed control scheme can simultaneously guarantee the maximum power point (MPP) operation of both PV sources and maintain the output waveform quality. Compared to the traditional two-stage PV inverter, the proposed NPC inverter could reduce the PV array voltage requirement and dc-link capacitors’ voltage rating, meanwhile show the advantage in operational efficiency. MATLAB simulations and the captured experimental results are presented to show the performance of the proposed three-level inverter.

In recent decades, as eutrophication in inland and coastal waters (ICWs) has increased due to anthropogenic activities and global warming, so has the need for timely monitoring. Compared with traditional sampling and laboratory analysis methods, satellite remote sensing technology can provide macro-scale, low-cost, and near real-time water quality monitoring services. The Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI), integrated onboard the Communication Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) from the Republic of Korea, was the first geostationary ocean color observation satellite and was operational from April 1, 2011 to March 31, 2021. Over ten years, GOCI has observed oceans, coastal waters, and inland waters within its 2,500 km×2,500 km target area centered on the Korean Peninsula. The most attractive feature of GOCI, compared with other commonly used watercolor sensors, was its high temporal resolution (1h, eight times daily from 0 UTC to 7 UTC), providing the opportunity to monitor the quality of ICWs, where optical properties can change rapidly throughout the day. This systematic review aims to comprehensively review GOCI features and applications in ICWs, analyzing progress in atmospheric correction algorithms and water quality monitoring. Analyzing 123 articles from the Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) through a bibliometric quantitative approach, we examined GOCI’s strength and performance with different processing methods. These articles reveal that GOCI played an essential role in monitoring the ecological health of ICWs in its observation area in East Asia. GOCI has led the way to a new era of geostationary ocean satellites, providing new technical means for monitoring water quality in oceans, coastal zones, and inland lakes. We also discuss the challenges encountered by geostationary satellites in monitoring water quality and provide suggestions for improvements.

A transport process was studied from an aqueous solution containing oxalic acid and 100 mg/L Ge using a flat sheet supported liquid membrane (FSSLM) system. Cyanex 923 immobilized in a polytetrafluoroethylene membrane was employed as a carrier. The solution chemistry and related diagrams were applied to study the transport of germanium. The effectual parameters such as oxalic acid, carrier concentration, and strip reagent composition were evaluated in this study. Based on the results, the oxalic acid concentration of 0.075 mol/L and the carrier concentration of 20 %v/v were the condition in which the efficient germanium transport occurred. Among strip reagents, NaOH (0.04-0.1 mol/L) had the best efficiency to transport germanium through the SLM system. Furthermore, the permeation model was obtained to calculate the mass transfer resistances of the membrane (Δ_m) and feed (Δ_f) phases. According to the results, the values of 1 and 1345 s/cm were evaluated for Δ_m and Δ_f, respectively.

The shortwave infrared Ge-Si photodetector will become the core device of the LiDAR optical receiver. In order to meet the urgent demand for photodetectors in the LiDAR field, we have designed and produced a 32×32 pixel Ge-Si photodetector array proposed and developed to meet the performance requirements of the detector array. A dark current detection system for fast scanning and detecting large-scale Ge-Si detector arrays is proposed and developed to achieve rapid detection of dark current in each pixel of the detector. The system was used to validate the main performance indicators of the detector array we designed, achieving rapid discrimination of array performance and rapid localization of damaged pixels. The scanning test results show that the average dark current of the detector array chip we designed is at the nano ampere level, and the proportion of bad points is less than 1%. The consistency of the array chip is high, which can meet the requirements of light detection at the receiving end of the LiDAR. This work laid the foundation for our subsequent development of a LiDAR prototype system.

The way in which a perforated structure is formed has attracted much interest in the porous membrane research community. This novel structure gives materials an excellent antifouling property as well as a low operating pressure and other benefits. Unfortunately, the current membrane fabrication methods usually involve multi-step processes and the use of organic solvents or additives. Our study is the first to offer a way to prepare perforated membrane by using a physical foaming technique with CO₂ as the blowing agent. We selected thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) as the base material because it is a biocompatible elastomer with excellent tensility, high abrasion resistance, and good elastic resilience. Various processing parameters, which included the saturation pressure, the foaming temperature, and the membrane thickness, were applied to adjust the TPU membrane’s perforated morphology. We proposed a possible formation mechanism of the perforated membrane. The as-prepared TPU membrane had good mechanical properties with a tensile strength of about 5 MPa and an elongation at break above 100%. Such mechanical properties make this novel membrane usable as a self-standing filter device. In addition, its straight-through channel structure can separate particles and meet different separation requirements.

Based on the deployment of global innovation value chain, the article analyzes the existing independent innovation capability of Guangzhou, and analyzes in detail from innovative talents, innovation system, innovation culture and innovation environment. The role of the central city of Guangzhou has led to research on issues such as the common development of cities in Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta. Using the combination of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, we can find out the shortcomings of Guangzhou's independent innovation capability, explore the causes of problems, and seek solutions to the main problems.

Background: New open-source electric-grid planning models have the potential to improve power system planning and bring a wider range of stakeholders into the planning process for next-generation, high-renewable power systems. However, it has not yet been established whether open-source models perform similarly to the more established commercial models for power system analysis. This reduces their credibility and attractiveness to stakeholders, postponing the benefits they could offer. In this paper, we report the first model intercomparison between an open-source power system model and an established commercial production cost model. Results: We compare the open-source Switch 2.0 to GE Energy Consulting’s Multi Area Production Simulation (MAPS) for production-cost modeling, considering hourly operation under 17 scenarios of renewable energy adoption in Hawaii. We find that after configuring Switch with similar inputs to MAPS, the two models agree closely on hourly and annual production from all power sources. Comparing production gave a coefficient of determination of 0.996 across all energy sources and scenarios, indicating that the two models agree on 99.6% of the variation. For individual energy sources, the coefficient of determination was 69–100. Conclusions: Although some disagreement remains between the two models, this work indicates that Switch is a viable choice for renewable integration modeling, at least for the small power systems considered here. Although some disagreement remains between the two models, this work indicates that Switch is a viable choice for renewable integration modeling, at least for the small power systems considered here.

Prunus tenella is a rare and precious relict plant in China. It is an important genetic resource for almond improvement and an indispensable material in ecological protection and landscaping. However, the research of molecular breeding and genetic evolution has been severely restricted, due to the lack of genome information. In this investigation, we created a chromosome-level genomic pattern of P. tenella, 231Mb in length with a contig N50 of 18.1 Mb by Hi-C techniques and high-accuracy PacBio HiFi sequencing. The present assembly predicted 32088 protein-coding genes, and an examination of the genome assembly indicated that 94.7% among all assembled transcripts were alignable to the genome assembly; most (97.24%) were functionally annotated. By phylogenomic genome comparison, we found that P. tenella is an ancient group that diverged approximately 13.4 million years ago (Mya) from 13 additional closely related species and about 6.5 Mya from the cultivated almond. Collinearity analysis revealed that P. tenella is highly syntenic and has high sequence conservation with almond and peach. However, this species also exhibit many presence/absence variants. Moreover, a large inversion at the 7,588 kb position of chromosome 5 was observed, which may have a significant association with phenotypic traits. Lastly, population genetic structure analysis in eight different populations indicated a high genetic differentiation among the natural distribution of P. tenella. This high-quality genome assembly provides critical clues and comprehensive information for the systematic evolution, genetic characteristics, and functional gene research of P. tenella. Moreover, it provides a valuable genomic resource for in-depth study in protecting, developing, and utilizing P. tenella germplasm resources.

In view of the problem of charging and hydrogen filling facilities construction in the transition from fuel vehicles to electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, in order to meet the electric energy demand of electric vehicles and hydrogen energy demand of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at the same time, this paper puts forward a method of siting and capacity determination of electric-hydrogen refueling integrated station (EHRIS) based on Voronoi diagram and particle swarm algorithm based on calculating the demand of charging and filling of hydrogen in vehicles. Firstly, OD pair(Origin-Destination) is used to represent the starting point and end point of the car to portray the travel demand of the car, and on the basis of the traffic network model, the shortest driving path of the new energy car is determined by Dijkstra algorithm, and Monte Carlo simulation is used to get the electric-hydrogen energy demand of the car; secondly, the Voronoi diagram is introduced to classify the service scope of the electric-hydrogen charging station to determine the equipment capacity of the electric-hydrogen charging station, while taking into account the electric-hydrogen charging and refueling capacity. Secondly, a Voronoi diagram is introduced to divide the service scope of the EHRIS, determine the capacity of the equipment in the EHRIS, and consider the distance constraints between the sites of EHRIS, so as to make the division of the site and service scope more reasonable. Finally, a dynamic optimal current model framework for distribution networks based on second-order cone relaxation is established, and each element of the active distribution network is planned, so that the distribution network can operate safely and stably after being connected to the EHRIS. With the objective of minimizing the total social cost of EHRIS and considering the constraints of the charging equipment and hydrogen production and injection equipment of the EHRIS, a siting and capacity model to meet the electric-hydrogen energy demand of electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is developed, and solved by a particle swarm algorithm. Finally, the simulation planning is carried out with Sioux Falls city and IEEE33 network, which ensures the stable operation of the power grid while meeting the energy demand of automobiles, and the results verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.

Open source software such as OpenDSS has given a lot of help to distribution network researchers and educators. With high penetration of distributed renewable energy resources into distribution network, tradition distribution steady state analysis software such as OpenDSS is faced with difficulty in handling distributed generators. Three-phase distributed generators are often modeled in sequence frame while unbalanced distribution network are usually modeled in phase frame. So a load flow in sequence-phase coupled frame is proposed to handle models described in both frames. Voltage controlled DGs which are difficult to cope with in OpenDSS are handled in proposed program. The steady state analysis platform is programmed with open source Modelica language and the main aim of this paper is to introduce an open source platform for active distribution network steady analysis include load flow and short circuit analysis which can be easily adopted and improved by other educators and researchers.

This article investigates the potential for carbon reduction in urban parks in Shangqiu City using high-resolution remote sensing imagery. The aim is to guide modern urban carbon neutrality strategies. The carbon reduction potential is estimated based on the mitigation of the urban heat island effect by park greenery, which reduces energy consumption. The parks are regarded as cool island centers, and 100 cooling gradients are gradually formed outward until the temperature reaches that of impermeable urban surfaces. The energy saved by the parks in mitigating the heat island effect is statistically calculated as the carbon reduction potential of urban park greenery. Additionally, this article classifies the sample parks into different categories and selects 26 landscape metrics to analyze their relationship with carbon-saving potential and driving factors.

Water pollution is the main cause of global ecological degradation and seriously affects people's water supply. In order to respond to the water environmental protection policy and provide management departments with a basis for refining water quality, this paper used the environmental Gini coefficient (EGC) method based on four indicators such as water environmental capacity, population, land area, and gross domestic production (GDP) to represent social factors, economic factors, and environmental factors, respectively. After the optimization, for COD, the EGC based on the land area was 0.30, EGC based on population was 0.21, EGC based on environment capacity was 0.02, and the EGC based on GDP was 0.45, and the sum of EGC was 0.962. From this result, we observed that the change in the Gini coefficient of each indicator was not very big. Hence, the most significant change in the Gini coefficient was that of GDP, with a higher rate than other criteria. Then, the COD, AND, and TP discharge allocation model was constructed to obtain the total allocated discharge permit in Lushui Basin. The results found that the total discharge permit allocation of COD, AN, and TP to the Lushui basin were 51483.304 tons/year, 843.119 tons/year, and 340.926 tons/year, respectively. Based on the GIS spatial analysis technology, the distribution of unfair factors that cause pollution inequity was investigated. Finally, the reduction measures were proposed to implement environmental supervision and strengthen water environment management strictly.

Runtime verification (RV) is a lightweight approach to detecting temporal errors of system at runtime. It confines the verification on observed trajectory which avoids state explosion problem.To predict the future violation, some work proposed the predictive RV which uses the information from models or static analysis. But for software whose models and codes cannot be obtained, or systems running under uncertain environment, these predictive methods cannot take effect. Meanwhile, RV in general takes multi-valued logic as the specification languages, for example the " true, false and inconclusive" in three-valued semantics. They cannot give accurate quantitative description of correctness when "inconclusive" is encountered. We in this paper present a RV method which learns probabilistic model of system and environment from history traces and then generates probabilistic runtime monitor to quantitatively predict the satisfaction of temporal property at each runtime state. In this approach, Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is firstly learned and then transformed to Discrete Time Markov Chain (DTMC). To construct incremental monitor, the monitored LTL property is translated into Deterministic Rabin Automaton (DRA). The final probabilistic monitor is obtained by generating the product of DTMC and DRA, and computing the probabilities for each state. With such method, one can give early warning once the probability of correctness is lower than pre-defined threshold, and have the chance to do adjustment in advance. The method has been implemented and experimented on real UAS (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) simulation platform.

In this present study, 3-pentadecyl-phenol was selected as a modifier to prepare a foamable phenolic resin with excellent performance, which was successfully prepared by in-situ modification. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR, ¹³C-NMR) were used to test and characterize the molecular structure of the modified resin. The results showed that 3-pentadecyl-phenol successfully modified the molecular structure of phenolic resin with a reduction in resin gel time. The effect of changing the added amount of 3-pentadecyl-phenol on the mechanical properties, microstructure and flame retardancy of the modified foam was investigated. The results showed that when the amount of added 3-pentadecyl-phenol was 15% of the total amount of phenol, this resulted in the best toughness of the modified foam, which could be increased to 300% compared to the bending deflection of the unmodified phenolic foam. The cell structure showed that the modified phenolic foam formed a more regular and dense network structure and the closed cell ratio was high. Furthermore, the compressive strength, bending strength, and limited oxygen index were improved, while the water absorption rate was lowered. However, the foam density could be kept below 40 mg/cm³, which does not affect the load.

Atoms in Molecules (AIM), Natural Bond Orbital (NBO), and normal coordinate analysis have been carried out at the global minimum structures of TH₅⁺ (T = C/Si/Ge). All these analyses lead to a consistent structure for these three protonated TH₄ molecules. The CH₅⁺ has a structure with three short and two long C-H covalent bonds and no H-H bond. Hence, the popular characterization of protonated methane as a weakly bound CH₃⁺ and H₂ is inconsistent with these results. However, SiH₅⁺ and GeH₅⁺ are both indeed a complex formed between TH₃⁺ and H₂ stabilized by a tetrel bond, with the H₂ being the tetrel bond acceptor. The three-center-two-electron bond (3c-2e) in CH₅⁺ has an open structure, which can be characterized as a V-type 3c-2e bond and that found in SiH₅⁺ and GeH₅⁺ is a T-type 3c-2e bond. This difference could be understood based on the typical C-H, Si-H, Ge-H and H-H bond energies. Moreover, this structural difference observed in TH₅⁺ can explain the trend in proton affinity of TH₄. Carbon is selective in forming a ‘tetrel bond’ and when it does, it might be worthwhile to highlight it as a ‘carbon bond’.

TSPO-PET tracers are sensitive to a single-nucleotide-polymorphism (rs6971-SNP) resulting in low (LAB), medium (MAB) and high (HAB) affinity binders, but the clinical relevance for [18F]GE-180 is still unclear. We evaluate the impact of rs6971-SNP on in vivo [18F]GE-180 binding in healthy brain and in pseudo-reference tissue in neurooncological and neurodegenerative diseases. Standardized uptake values (SUV) of [18F]GE-180-PET were assessed using a manually drawn region of interest in the fronto-parietal and cerebellar hemisphere. SUVs were compared between LAB, MAB and HAB in controls, glioma, 4-repeat tauopathies (4RT) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) subjects. Second, SUVs were compared between patients and controls within their rs6971-subgroup. After exclusion of patients with prior therapy, n=24 LABs (n=7 controls, n=5 glioma, n=6 4RT, n=6 AD) were analysed. Age- and sex-matched MABs (n=38) and HABs (n=50) were selected. LABs had lower fronto-parietal and cerebellar SUVs when compared to MABs and HABs, but no significant difference was observed between MABs and HABs. Within each rs6971 group no SUV difference between patients and controls was detected in the pseudo-reference tissues. The rs6971-SNP affects [18F]GE-180 quantification, revealing lower binding in LABs when compared to MABs/HABs. Fronto-parietal and cerebellar ROIs were successfully validated as pseudo-reference regions.

Air pollutants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), as well as water pollutants including heavy metal, are harmful to human and environment. Effective control and reduction of their pollution is therefore an important topic for today’s scientists. Fly ash (FA) is a type of industrial waste that can cause multiple environmental problems if discharged into the air. On the other hand, because of its high porosity, large specific surface area, and other unique characteristics, the FA can also be used as a low-cost and high efficient adsorbent with some simple modifications. This paper reviews the effects of FA on treatment of the above air and water pollution based on our research experience over many years, including to the current status of global FA utilization, physicochemical properties, principle of adsorption, and the application direction of FA in the future. It focuses on the use of nanocomposite technology to fabricate functional FA fibrous membranes to adsorb VOCs from air, and treat heavy metal wastewater. This present review first describes the fabrication technology of FA nanocomposites and their mechanism of adsorption VOCs from air. Utilization of nanofiber technology to fabricate multi-functional FA emerging composite materials to mitigate air and water pollution has great potential in the future, especially use of pollutant material to control other pollutants.

The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with increases in some healthcare-associated infections. We investigated the impact of the pandemic on rates and molecular epidemiology of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) within one VA Hospital. We anticipated that the potential widespread use of antibiotics for pneumonia during the pandemic might increase CDI rates given that antibiotics are a major risk for CDI. Hospital data on patients with CDI and recurrent CDI (rCDI) were reviewed pre-COVID-19 pandemic (2015 to 2019) and during the pandemic (2020 - 2021). Restriction endonuclease analysis (REA) strain typing was performed on CD isolates recovered from stool samples collected from 10/2019 – 3/2022. CDI case numbers declined 43.2% in 2020 – 2021 compared to the annual mean over the previous 5 years. Stool test positivity rate was also lower during the COVID-19 pandemic (14.3% vs. 17.2%; P = 0.013). Although inpatient volume declined, rates of CDI among inpatients were reduced by 34.2% in 2020 – 2021. Mean monthly cases of rCDI also declined significantly after 2020 [3.38 (95% CI: 2.89 – 3.87) vs. 1.92 (95% CI: 1.27 – 2.56); P = <0.01]. Prior to the pandemic, REA group Y was the most prevalent CD strain among the major REA groups (27.3%). During the first wave of the pandemic from March 8, 2020, through June 30, 2020, there was an increase in the relative incidence of REA group BI (26.7% vs. 9.1%. After adjusting for CDI risk factors, a multivariable logistic regression model revealed that odds of developing an REA group BI CDI increased during the first pandemic wave (OR 6.41, 95% CI: 1.03 – 39.91) compared to the pre-pandemic period. In conclusion, the incidence of CDI and rCDI decreased significantly during the initial waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, REA BI (Ribotype 027), a virulent, previously epidemic CD strain and frequently associated with hospital transmission and outbreaks, reappeared as a prevalent strain during the first wave of the pandemic.

Embryo stage of oxidation of an epi Ge(001)-2×1 by atomic oxygen and molecular O₂ is studied via synchrotron radiation photoemission. The topmost surface buckled with the up- and down-dimer atoms and the first subsurface layer behave distinctly from the bulk by exhibiting surface core-level shifts in the Ge 3d core-level spectrum. The O₂ molecules become dissociated upon reaching the epi Ge(001)-2×1 surface. One of the O atom removes off the up-dimer atom, and the other bonds with the underneath Ge atom in the subsurface layer. Atomic oxygen adsorbed on the epi Ge(001)-2×1 preferentially in between the up-dimer atoms and the underneath subsurface atoms without affecting the down-dimer atoms. The electronic environment of the O-affiliated Ge up-dimer atoms becomes similar to that of the down-dimer atoms. Both exhibit an enrichment in charge, where the subsurface of the Ge layer is maintained in a charge-deficient state. The dipole moment originally generated in the buckled reconstruction no longer exists, thereby resulting in a decrease in the ionization potential. The down-dimer Ge atoms and the back-bonded subsurface atoms remain inert to atomic O and molecular O₂, a possible cause of low reliability in Ge-related metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) devices.

In this study, alfalfa silage with different packing densities (500 kg/m3, 600 kg/m3 and 700 kg/m3) were set up under outdoor high temperature and indoor normal temperature. The chemical composition, fermentation quality and microbial community of alfalfa silage were analyzed. The results showed that DM and WAC content decreased with the increase of density. When the density is 600kg/m3, CP content reaches the maximum and ADF content is the lowest. Temperature has a certain effect on alfalfa silage. The content of Lactobacillus plantarum fermented at high temperature is lower than that fermented at normal temperature. At the same time, the content of Lactobacillus plantarum decreased with the increase of packing density. However, the content of Lactobacillus plantarum was the lowest when the packing density was 600 kg/m3 at high temperature. In summary, this study explained the effects of different temperature and density on alfalfa fermentation quality and microbial community, and clarified that the density should be reasonably controlled within 600 kg/m3 during alfalfa silage, providing theoretical support for production practice.

The Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) improve the efficiency of data utilization by combining physical principles with neural network algorithms and ensure that the predictions are consistent and stable with the physical laws. PINNs opens up a new approach to address inverse problems in fluid mechanics. Based on the single-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann method (SRT-LBM) with the Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook (BGK) collision operator, the PINN-SRT-LBM model is proposed in this paper for solving the inverse problem in fluid mechanics. The PINN-SRT-LBM model consists of three components. The first component involves a deep neural network that predicts the equilibrium control equations in different discrete velocity directions within SRT-LBM. The second component employs another deep neural network to predict non-equilibrium control equations, enabling inference of the fluid's non-equilibrium characteristics. The third component, a physics informed function translates the outputs of the first two networks into physical infor-mation. By minimizing the residuals of the physical partial differential equations (PDEs), the physics informed function infers relevant macroscopic quantities of the flow. The model evolves two sub-models applicable to different dimensions, named PINN-SRT-LBM-I and PINN-SRT-LBM-II models according to the construction of the physical informed function. The innovation of this work is the introduction of SRT-LBM and discrete velocity models as physical drivers into the neural network through the interpretation function. Therefore, PINN-SRT-LBM allows the neural network to handle inverse problems of various dimensions and focus on problem-specific solving. Experimental results confirm the accurate prediction of flow infor-mation at different Reynolds numbers within the computational domain. Relying on the PINN-SRT-LBM models, inverse problems in fluid mechanics can be solved efficiently.

Abstract: To describe the feeder topology and information exchange between intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) for Internet of Things (IoT), it is necessary to extend IEC 61850 and add a logical model. The feeder model described in IEC 61970 is then extended in IEC 61850 to serve as a container for the equipment along the distribution line. For the physical connections in the electrical equipment, both terminal and connectivity node logical models are added. Taking logical node XCBR as the example, its attributes for the terminals are added to the electrical equipment. The logical node LCNN is then further added in order to describe the connectivity node. By next adding the logical node LTPN to describe the topological node, and FTPA to describe the results of the topology analysis, we can efficiently describe the topology analysis results. Based on these new logical nodes, the exchange of topology information between intelligent terminals no longer relies on configuration files, but only requires logical nodes. Through the above expansion, the topology description and information exchange of medium and low voltage feeders are realized.

In numerical simulations, achieving high accuracy without significantly increasing computational costs is often challenging. To address this, this paper presents an improved finite volume weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) scheme tailored for applicability in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and implemented in the flow solver NUAA-Turbo for simulating turbomachinery flows using both RANS and RANS/LES coupling. Firstly, the new WENO scheme is validated against classic numerical test cases to assess its stability and reliability in handling discontinuities, the Double problem, and Raleigh-Taylor (RT) instability issues. Compared to the original format, this enhanced finite volume WENO scheme demonstrates superior stability near discontinuities and resolves flow features with the same grid resolution more effectively. Next, for engineering applications related to turbomachinery, such as compressor and turbine characteristics, computations are performed using RANS, and the results obtained using WENO-ZQ3 and WENO-JS3 are compared. Finally, the new fifth-order WENO scheme is applied to RANS/LES coupled simulations of turbine wakes and film cooling. The results show that the enhanced finite volume WENO scheme offers improved stability and accuracy in engineering applications, allowing for high-precision calculations with fewer grid points to capture more detailed flow physics, thereby reducing computational costs in aerodynamic applications.

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.

Over recent years, the importance of patent literature has become more recognized in the academic setting. In the context of artificial intelligence, deep learning, and data sciences, patents are relevant to not only industry but also academe and other communities. In this article, we focus on deep tomographic imaging and perform a preliminary landscape analysis of the related patent literature. Our search tool is PatSeer . Our patent bibliometric data is summarized in various figures and tables. In particular, we qualitatively analyze key deep tomographic patent literature.

To address the limitations of the current anodes of Li+-ion batteries (LIBs), a Ge/GeO2/Carbon (Ge@GeO2-C) composite was designed by introducing a high-energy ball-milling process for advanced LIBs. Ge@GeO2-C is prepared and characterized by XPS, XRD, SEM, and TEM, which facilitate synthesis and provide controllability with respect to milling time. Interestingly, as the ball-milling time increased, the proportion of metallic Ge increased during the carbon thermal reduction reaction. The electrochemical characteristics of Ge@GeO2-C are assessed using differential capacity analysis (dQ/dV) and galvanostatic charge-discharge techniques to confirm its viability as an anode material in LIBs. The results demonstrated decent initial and secondary capacities of approximately 1800 mAh g-1 (for the first cycle) and 838 mAh g-1 (for the second cycle) at a rate of C/60 by the reaction between Ge and the Li-Ge complex. Furthermore, postmortem characterization was performed to gain an understanding of the material, suggesting future prospects for advanced LIBs.

We investigated the magnetic properties of antiferromagnetic (AFM) topological insulator MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ with partial substitution of Mn atoms by non-magnetic elements (A$_x^{IV}$ = Ge, Pb, Sn). Samples with various element concentrations (10-80%) were studied using SQUID magnetometry. The results demonstrate that, for all substitutes the type of magnetic ordering remains AFM, while the Nèel temperature (T$_N$) and spin-flop transition field (H$_{SF}$) decrease with increasing A$_x^{IV}$ = Ge, Pb, Sn concentration. The rate of decrease varies among the elements, being highest for Pb, followed by Sn and Ge. This behavior is attributed to combined effects of magnetic dilution and lattice parameter increase on magnetic properties, most prominent in (Mn$_{1−x}$Pb$_x$)Bi$_2$Te$_4$. Besides this, the linear approximation of experimental data of T$_N$ and H$_{SF}$ suggests higher magnetic parameters for pure MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ than observed experimentally, indicating the possibility of their non-monotonic variation at low concentrations and the potential for enhancing magnetic properties through doping MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ with small amounts of nonmagnetic impurities. Notably, the (Mn$_{1−x}$Pb$_x$)Bi$_2$Te$_4$ sample with 10% Pb substitution indeed exhibits increased magnetic parameters, which is also validated by local analyses using ARPES. Our findings shed light on tailoring the magnetic behavior of MnBi$_2$Te$_4$-based materials, offering insights for potential applications in device technologies.

Aeromagnetic compensation plays a vital role in geomagnetic navigation and has received considerable attention throughout last few decades. Classical aeromagnetic compensation methods based on the Tolles–Lawson (T-L) model are mainly aimed at permanent, induced, and eddy-current magnetic interferences of aircraft platform, which ignores other stray magnetic field interference on the platform including the interferences caused by on-board electronic (OBE) systems. In order to cooperate with TL model, magnetometers are usually required to be installed on the extension rod outside the cabin, which is widely applied to geophysical magnetic survey. In order to ensure safety and reduce the cost of platform modification in geomagnetic navigation, it’s necessary to place magnetometers inside the cabin. It also further exacerbates the magnetic interferences and improves the difficulty of magnetic compensation. In this paper, a modified aeromagnetic compensation method is proposed, and the in-cabin OBE interferences are respectively modelled to be proportional to the currents and their temporal variations of different electronic devices. To ensure that modified model adapts to strong OBE interference in the cabin, a cut-off frequency determination method based on curvature calculation and a feature selection method based on correlation calculation are proposed. The cut-off frequency determination method helps to select passband filter which suitable for in-cabin OBE interference. The feature selection method can help to effectively select current and voltage inputs for modified model. In addition, principal component analysis (PCA) is adopted to reduce multicollinearity which is intensified by the extension of OBE interferences in coefficient-estimating. Experiments on public dataset are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, and the best compensation result achieved 1.71nT of root mean square error (RMSE).

Since the advent of the OBORI, it was subjected to numerous studies. However, most previous studies investigated only the potential impact of the OBORI on the Chinese economy and geopolitics. Therefore, its real effect on Chinese international commerce in OBORI countries is not evaluated yet. Accordingly, this study intends to model the OBORI effect on Chinese product brand purchases across country members. The assessment is made on 18362 purchases of the International Online Consumers (IOCs) from a Chinese international online selling platform. The Data was obtained from a programming language and the octopus software. The OBORI policy's effect on Chinese brands' purchases was examined through a Different In Different Model (DIDM). Results show that the impact of OBORI is weak in the real market. However, it could be significant if OBORI includes more developed and economically strong countries. To Chinese brands and policymakers, we show how the inclusion in the OBORI project of developed countries could contribute more to Chinese product brands' purchases. Thus, the study enables decision-makers to understand the current impact of OBORI on the real market and its potential effect if more developed and economically strong countries are included.

The plate fin heat exchanger is the compact heat exchanger applied in many industries because of its high thermal performance. To enhance the heat transfer of plate fin heat exchanger in further, three new kinds of wavy plate fins, namely perforated wavy fin, staggered wavy fin and discontinuous wavy fin are proposed and investigated by CFD simulations. The effects of key design parameters, including that of waviness aspect ratios, perforation diameters, stagger ratios and breaking distance are investigated, respectively, with the Reynolds number changes from 500 to 4500. It is found that due to the swirl flow and efficient mixing of fluid, the perforation, serration and breaking techniques are beneficial for the enhancement of heat transfer compared to the traditional wavy fin. At the same time, serration is beneficial to reduce the friction factor, and the breaking technique can reduce heat transfer area as well as enhance heat transfer performance. Through the performance evaluation criteria, the staggered wavy fin has an advantage over the small waviness aspect ratio compared to the perforated wavy fin. The maximum performance evaluation criteria (PEC), as high as 1.24, can be obtained for the perforated wavy fin at the largest waviness aspect ratio.

Suboptimal health status (SHS) is a state between health and disease, has several associated factors, although, its underlying mechanism is still unclear. This study aimed to investigate the status of SHS and its associated factors of high school students in three areas of China (Shanxi, Guangzhou, and Tibet). A multidimensional sub-health questionnaire of adolescent (MSQA) is used to evaluate SHS. Among 1461 respondents, females proportion 56.47% was higher than males 43.53% where SHS was higher in Shanxi followed by Tibet and then Guangzhou. The rural area, grade, lack of sleep, home visit in a week, lack of exercise, a heavy burden of study, smoking, drinking, and fewer friends were the risk factors of SHS, while, families living status, seeking help and extroversion were the protective factors. SHS is significantly associated with different influencing factors. For comprehensive prevention and control measures, reduce the risk factors and enhance the protective factors.

Increasing green total factor productivity is the key to achieving green development in agriculture. This study measured the green total factor productivity of Jiangxi’s agriculture, and its regional and temporal evolution characteristics were examined. The fixed-effects model was then used to investigate the model’s fundamental components empirically. The study’s findings reveal the following: During the period under review, technical change was the primary element driving the rise in the green total factor productivity of agriculture. A rising “U”-shaped trend with notable regional variances characterizes the spatial and temporal evolution. The primary factors that affect changes in green total factor productivity in agriculture include the ease of transportation, the per capita disposable income of rural residents, the level of agricultural mechanization, the degree of urbanization, the level of financial support for agriculture, and the percentage of workers in secondary industries. As a result, it is suggested that, in order to substantially increase agricultural green total factor productivity, agricultural green technological support should be strengthened, more fully developed, and promoted in a multi-pronged approach.

Introduction. Until now, the impact of learning variables on consumers' choices concerning Chinese product brands in the international online shopping framework remains unknown. Accordingly, this study aims to examine the effect of those learning variables on global consumers' choices of Chinese product brands. Method. A total of 44,704 transactions related to the buying process have been collected from a programming language and the Octopus Software within a Chinese International Online Shopping platform. Analysis. The 44,704 transactions have been analyzed through a Decision Tree. Results. The study points out that the number of e-retailers' subscribers reinforces the international consumers' trust online. At the same time, the pricing levels and quantity of product availability are used by global online consumers to assess the originality of Chinese product brands. Conclusions. First, this study extends the existing literature on consumer learning by going beyond the learning variables considered. Second, the study boosts consumer learning literature by elucidating the most significant learning variables guiding international online consumers' choices and purchases. The application of the results will enable brands and e-retailers to understand (1) the stages of the international online consumers' choice; (2) the buying strategies of global consumers.

Until now, the literature on Chinese International Online Shopping (CIOS) (B2C export from China) mainly concentrated on the potential income that it constitutes for Chinese international trade. However, regarding International Online Consumers' (IOCs) purchase behaviors, research does not provide insight into the impact of Countries' Level of Economic Development (CLED) on the IOCs' preferences and choices about Chinese brands. Based on 9971 purchases about Chinese mobile phone brands, countries' macroeconomic data, and a multinomial logistics model (MLM), we examined IOCs' preferences and choices about Chinese brands. The result shows that the CLED influences IOCs' preferences and choices. Consequently, accounting of CLED in consumers’ preferences and choices introduces a new dimension in understanding IOCs' behaviors and attitudes towards Chinese mobile phone brands. This work contributes to Chinese brands' globalization research from the perspective of CLED. Such a model can be used to guide e-retailers and brand managers.

This paper studied the combined influences of the hot streak and swirl on the cooling performances of the NASA C3X guide vane coated with or without TBCs. The results show that: (1) Even under uniform velocity inlet conditions, the hot streak core can be stretched as it impinges the leading edge which causes higher heat load on the suction side of the forward portion. (2) The swirl significantly affects circumferential and radial migration of the hot streak core in the NGV passage. On the passage inlet plane, positive swirl leads to a hotter tip region on the suction side. In comparison, negative swirl leads to a hotter hub region on the pressure side. (3) Under the influence of swirl, migration of coolant improve the coverage of film cooling close to the midspan, while in the regions close to the hub and tip end-wall, the overall cooling performance decrease simultaneously. (4) In the regions with enough internal cooling, the cooling effectiveness increment is always larger than that in other regions. Besides, the overall cooling effectiveness increment decreases on the region covered by film cooling for the coated vane, especially in the region with negative local heat flux.

Fully mechanized mining face production involves complex geological conditions; mining pressure; gas, water, fire and other mining environments. The working face needs a shearer, hydraulic support, a scraper conveyor and other equipment for coordination. The deep integration of intelligent technology with factors such as "humans, machines, the environment, and management" in the workplace is the core content of intelligent coal mines. This paper puts forward an advanced framework for coal mining robot technology systems, including single robots, robotized equipment, robot clusters and unmanned systems. The framework clarifies the common key technologies of coal mining robot research and development and cross-integration with new technologies such as 5G, the industrial internet, big data, artificial intelligence, and digital twins to improve the autonomous and intelligent application of coal mining robots. By establishing a scientific and complete standard system for coal mining robots, we aim to achieve customized research and development and standardized production of various types of robots. A specific analysis was conducted on the research progress of common key technologies such as explosion-proof design, mechanical system innovation, power drive, intelligent sensing, positioning and navigation, and underground communication of coal mining robots. The current research and application status of various types of coal mining robots in China are summarized. A new direction for future coal mine robot research and development is proposed. Moreover, robotic mining systems should be promoted to enhance the overall intelligence level and mining efficiency of mining equipment. To develop human‒machine environment-integrated robots to improve the autonomy and collaboration level of coal mining robots. The digital twinning of the entire mine robot system should be accelerated, the normalized operation level of coal mine robots should be improved, research on coal mining robots, support robots, and transportation robots should be carried out, intelligence should be achieved in fully mechanized mining faces, and equipment support for fewer and unmanned fully mechanized mining faces should be provided. The practical process of implementing coal mining robotization has been summarized, and the technical and engineering feasibility of the coal mining machine population has been verified.

The soft robot has many degrees of freedom, strong environmental adaptability and good human-computer interaction ability. As the end-effector of the soft robot, the soft gripper can grasp objects of different shapes without destructivity. Based on the theoretical analysis of the soft robot, the kinematics model of the flexible gripper and the theoretical model of the bending deformation of the air cavity were established. Accordingly, the relationship between the bending angle of the soft gripper and the air pressure was determined. Through the application of finite element software, the bending degree of pneumatic network multi-cavity soft gripper was simulated by finite element software, and the influence of structural parameters of soft actuator on bending deformation was determined. In addition, with the 3D technology conducting the printing of soft gripper fixtures and molds, the injection molding the actuator and the human-computer interaction interface controlling the movement of the gripper, the adaptability of the soft gripper in grasping object was verified. The result shows that the software gripper possesses good flexibility and can better grasp objects of different shapes.

Salidroside, a valuable phenylethanoid glycoside, is obtained from plants belonging to the Rhodiola genus, known for its diverse biological properties. At present, salidroside is still far from large-scale industrial production due to the lower titer and higher process cost. In this study, we constructed a biosynthetic pathway from L-tyrosine to salidroside in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. To increase sali-droside production, we for the first time constructed an in vivo UDP-glucose regeneration system that sucrose synthase GmSUS worked in conjunction with UDP-glucose transferase RrUGT33 to improve the UDP-glucose availability with inexpensive sucrose as the consumed substrate. Finally, the molar conversion rate of L-tyrosine could reach 95%. To further reduce the cost, co-culture with E. coli that synthesized L-tyrosine de novo resulted in an 81% reduction in the final substrate cost per 1 kg of salidroside compared to the initial cost. The final titer of salidroside obtained 3.8 g/L and was the highest titer achieved at the Shake-Flask-Level in the existing reports. And this marked the first successful synthesis of salidroside in an in situ enhanced UDP-glucose system using sucrose. This accomplishment laid a robust groundwork for further investigations into the synthesis of other notable glycosides and natural compounds.

The rapid advancements in gene therapy have opened up new possibilities for the treatment of genetic disorders, including Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Thalassemia, cystic fibrosis, Hemophilia, and Familial hypercholesterolemia. The utilization of the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) - CRISPR-associated protein (Cas) system has revolutionized the field of gene therapy by enabling precise targeting of genes. In recent years, CRISPR/Cas9 has demonstrated remarkable efficacy in treating cancer and genetic diseases. However, the susceptibility of nucleic acid drugs to degradation by nucleic acid endonucleases, necessitates the development of functional vectors capable of protecting the nucleic acids from enzymatic degradation, while ensuring safety and effectiveness. This review aims to explore the biomedical potential of non-viral vector-explore CRISPR/Cas9 systems for the treatment of genetic diseases. Furthermore, it provides a comprehensive overview of recent research advances in viral and non-viral vector-based gene therapy for genetic disorders, including insights from preclinical and clinical studies. Additionally, the review analyzes the current limitations of these delivery systems and proposes avenues for the development of novel nano-delivery platforms.

Sympatric distribution and temporal overlap of cryptic zooplankton species pose a challenge to the framework of the niche differentiation theory and the mechanisms allowing competitor coexistence. We applied the methods of phylogenetic analysis, DNA taxonomy and statistical analysis to study the temporal distribution patterns of cryptic B. calyciflorus species, an excellent model, in three lakes, and to explore the putative mechanisms for their seasonal succession and temporal overlap. The results showed that in the warm-temperate Lake Yunlong, B. fernandoi and B. calyciflorus s.s. underwent a seasonal succession, which was largely attributed to their differential adaptation to water temperature. In the subtropical Lake Jinghu, B. fernandoi, B. calyciflorus s.s. and B. dorcas exhibited both seasonal succession and temporal overlap. Seasonal successions were largely attributed to their differential adaptation to temperature, and temporal overlap resulted from their differential responses to algal food concentration. In the tropical Lake Jinniu, B. calyciflorus s.s. persisted throughout the year, and overlapped with B. dorcas for 5 months. Temporal overlap resulted from their differential responses to copepod predation. These results indicated that the temporal distribution pattern of cryptic B. calyciforus species and the mechanism allowing competitor coexistence vary with different climate zones.

In this work, the optoelectronic characteristics of kesterites of the Cu₂NiXS₄ system (X = Si, Ge, Sn) were studied. The electronic properties of the Cu₂NiXS₄ (X = Si, Ge, Sn) system were studied using first-principles calculations within the framework of density functional theory. For calculations, ab initio codes VASP and Wien2k were used. The high-precision modified Beke-Jones (mBJ) functional and the hybrid HSE06 functional were used to estimate the bandgap, electronic and optical properties. Calculations have shown that when replacing Si with Ge and Sn, the band gap decreases from 2.58 eV to 1.33 eV. Replacing Si with Ge and Sn reduces the overall density of electronic states. In addition, new deep (shallow) states are formed in the band gap of these crystals, which is confirmed by the behavior of their optical properties. The obtained band gap values are compared with existing experimental measurements, demonstrating good agreement between HSE06 calculations and experimental data. The nature of changes in the dielectric constant, absorption capacity and optical conductivity of these systems depending on the photon energy has also been studied. The statistical dielectric constant and refractive index of these materials were found. The results will help increase the amount of information about the properties of the materials under study and will allow the use of these compounds in a wider range of optoelectronic devices, in particular, in solar cells and other devices that use solar radiation to generate electric current.

Facilitative glucose transporters (GLUT) are transmembrane transporter of proteins involved in glucose transport across the plasma membrane. To date, there is no information about glucose transporter 2 (GLUT2) in blunt snout bream (Megalobram aamblycephala). In this study, GLUT2 were cloned and characterized from blunt snout bream, and its-expression in response to diets with different carbohydrate levels (17.1%; 21.8%; 26.4%; 32.0%; 36.3% and 41.9% of dry matter). In this study, the full-length cDNA of GLUT2 was 2577 bp, including a 5’-untranslated region (UTR) of 73 bp, a 3’-UTR of 992 bp, and an open reading frame of 1512 bp, encoding a polypeptide of 503 amino acids with predicted molecular weight of 55.046 kDa and theoretical isoelectric point of 7.52. GLUT2 has twelve across the membrane area locating at 7-29; 71-93; 106-123; 133-155; 168-190; 195-217; 282-301; 316-338; 345-367; 377-399; 412-434; 438-460 aimo acids respectively. Conservative structure domains located at 12-477 aimo acids belonging to sugar porter family major facilitator superfamily (MFS) transporter. The blunt snout bream GLUT2 showed high identity to their orthologs in other fish species and mammals. Quantitative real-time (qRT)-PCR assays revealed that GLUT2 expression was high in the liver, intestine and kidney; highest in the liver. Compared with the control group (17.1%), high dietary carbohydrate levels (32.0%; 36.3% and 41.9%) resulted in high plasma glucose at 3h after feeding, but high plasma glucose were back to basal at 24h after feeding. Furthermore, high dietary carbohydrate levels significantly improved the glycolysis and inhibitied gluconeogenesis by augmentation of GK and PK expression, inhibition of PEPCK and G6P mRNA levels (P<0.05). However, GLUT2; GK; PK; PEPCK and G6P mRNA levels were back to basal.

2-Pyridone ligand-facilitated palladium-catalyzed direct C–H bond functionalization via the transient directing group strategy has become an attractive topic. Here we report a Pd-catalyzed direct β-C(sp3) –H arylation reaction of tertiary aliphatic aldehydes by using an α-amino acid as a transient directing group in combination with a 2-pyridone ligand.

One-step oxidative esterification of 2, 5-furandiformaldehyde (DFF) derived from biomass to prepare Dimethyl Furan-2, 5-dicarboxylate (FDMC) not only simplifies the catalytic process and increases purity of product, but also avoids the polymerization of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) at high temperature condition. Gold supported on a series of acidic oxide, alkaline oxide and hydrotalcite were prepared by colloidal deposition to explore the effect of support on the catalytic activities. The Au/Mg3Al-HT catalyst exhibited the best catalytic activity in all catalysts, 97.8% selectivity of FDMC at 99.9% conversion of DFF. And this catalyst is suitable to oxidative esterification of benzaldehyde and furfural as well. X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and CO2 temperature programmed desorption (CO2-TPD) were performed to characterize the catalysts. The results indicated that the medium and strong basic sites in the heterogeneous catalysts benefited for the absorption of intermediate spices, further facilitated the oxidative esterification of aldehyde groups. While, neutral or acidic support tended to aldol condensation reaction. It was worth noting that basicity on the support surface reduce electronic state of the Au nanoparticle (Auδ-), thus enhance the catalytic selectivity of oxidative esterification. This finding demonstrated the support plays crucial role in oxidative esterification.

Pedestrian detection is the core of driver assistance system, which collects the road conditions through the radars or cameras on the vehicle, judges whether there is a pedestrian in front of the vehicle, supports decisions such as raising the alarm, automatically slowing down or emergency stopping to keep pedestrians safe, and improves the security when the vehicle is moving. Suffered from weather, lighting, clothing, large pose variations and occlusion, the current pedestrian detection still has a certain distance from the practical applications. In recent years, deep networks have shown excellent performance for image detection, recognition and classification. Some researchers employed deep network for pedestrian detection and achieve great progress, but deep networks need huge computational resources which make it difficult to put into practical applications. In real scenarios of autonomous vehicle, the computation ability is limited. Thus, the shallow networks such as UDN (Unified Deep Networks) is a better choice since it performs well on consuming less computation resources. Base on UDN, this paper proposes a new deep network model named as two-stream UDN, which augments another branch for solving traditional UDN’s indistinction of the difference between trees / telegraph poles and pedestrians. The new branch accepts the upper third part of the pedestrian image as input, and the partial image has less deformation, stable features and more distinguished characters from other objects. For the proposed two-stream UDN, multi-input features including HOG feature, Sobel feature, color feature and foreground regions extracted by GrabCut segmentation algorithms are fed. Compared with the original input of UDN, the multi-input features are more conducive for pedestrian detection since the fused HOG features and significant objects are more significant for pedestrian detection. Two-stream UDN is trained through two steps: First, the two sub-networks are trained until converge; then we fuse results of the two subnets as the final result and feed it back to the two subnets to fine tune network parameters synchronously. To improve the performance, Softplus is adopted as activation function to obtain faster training speed, and positive samples are mirrored and rotated with small angle to make positive and negative samples more balanced.

Full-scale/model test comparison studies to validate the traditional ABL wind tunnel simulation technique are reviewed. According to the literature review, notable discrepancies between full-scale measurement results and model test results were observed by most performed comparison studies, but the causes of the observed discrepancies were not revealed in a scientific way by those studies. In this regard, a new research scheme for future full-scale/model test comparison studies is proposed in this article, which utilizes the multiple-fan actively controlled wind tunnel simulation technique. With the new research scheme, future full-scale/model test comparison studies are expected to reasonably disclose the main problems with the traditional ABL wind tunnel simulation technique, and the technique can be improved correspondingly.

Marine soft corals are prolific sources of various natural products that have served as a wealthy reservoir of diverse chemical scaffolds for new drug leads. The genus Litophyton contains almost 100 species but only a small part of them had been classified and chemically investigated, which calls for more attentions from the global researchers. In the current work, 109 secondary metabolites have been discussed based on published data from 1975 to July, 2023, covering a period of near five decades. The studied species of the genus Litophyton inhabited various tropical and temperate regions and afforded a variety of biologically active natural products such as terpenes, steroids, alkaloids, and lipids. A wide spectrum of pharmacological effects of these compounds had been evaluated, including cytotoxic, anti-HIV, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-malarial, antifeedant, molluscicidal, PTP1B inhibitory, and insect growth inhibitory activities. This review aims to provide an up-to-date literature survey and comprehensive insight into chemical structures, taxonomical distributions, and biological activities of the reported metabolites from the title genus whenever available.

To accurately predict the matching relationships between the various components and the engine performance in the whole aero-engine environment, this study introduces a two-dimensional throughflow simulation method for the whole aero-engine. This method is based on individual throughflow solvers for the turbo-machinery and the combustor. It establishes a throughflow simulation model for the whole engine by integrating with the compressor-turbine co-operating equations and boundary conditions. The turbo-machinery throughflow solver employs a circumferentially averaged form of the time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations (N-S) as the governing equation. The combustor solver uses the Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes (RANS) method to solve flow and chemical reaction processes by constructing turbulence, combustion, and radiation models. The accuracy of the component solver is validated using Pratt &amp; Whitney’s three-stage axial compressor (P&amp;W3S1) and General Electric’s high-pressure turbine (GE-EEE HPT), and the predicted results are consistent with the experimental data. Finally, the developed throughflow method is applied to simulate the throttling characteristics of the WZ-X turboshaft engine. The results predicted by the throughflow program are consistent with the GasTurb calculations, including the trends of shaft power delivered, specific fuel consumption (SFC), inlet airflow, and total pressure ratio of the compressor. The developed method to perform throughflow simulation of the whole aero-engine eliminates the dependence on a general component map. It can quickly obtain the meridian flow field parameters and overall engine characteristics, which is expected to guide the design and modification of the engine in the future.

To realize structural vibration control,a two parameters H2 optimization design was proposed to optimize the tuning ratio and damping ratio for electromagnetic tuned mass damper (EMTMD). The control effect of this two parameters optimization design is better than that of classical tuned mass damper (TMD).For this two parameters optimization,the most important thing is that the inductance of the coil can be set very small and the external load resistance can be positive ,which can avoid the use of complex negative impedance circuit. If Ref.[6] were designed according to the H2 optimization of two parameters, the EMTMD can be used for multi-modal vibration control of structures without connecting negative inductance and negative resistance spontaneously.

In the current pandemic of COVID-19, students and faculty are subject to social distancing and online learning. How to test students in this unprecedented environment is a new educational challenge with immediate and global impacts. The main contribution of this paper is to establish the feasibility that by a clever design we can control the average gain (which is referred to as the g-factor) from cheating behaviors to a degree as small as pre-specified so that accurate and reliable online exams can be administered. It is underlined that even after the pandemic the methods and systems in the spirit of our proposal are still valuable for cost-effective exams to promote open courses and internet-based education.

Constructed wetlands (CWs) is a kind of green environmental protection technology, which is widely used in sewage treatment. The traditional CWs is faced with the problem of low treatment effect of high concentration sewage. In recent years, biochar, as a new type of adsorption material, has been used in CWs because of its advantages of large specific surface area, strong adsorption capacity and wide material sources. This paper systematically summarized the characteristics of biochar and the preparation of biochar by studying the changes of microorganisms added to CWs, and compared the effects of different treatment methods coupled with biochar on the treatment performance of CWs, the effects of biochar coupled with CWs on enzyme activity, functional genes, metabolites and microbial communities were investigated. This review summarizes how different preparation methods affect the properties of biochar and how these biochar cause changes in the microorganisms added to CWs.

After long years of development, the technology of analyzing the working condition of power units based on vibration signals has had relatively stable applications, but the accuracy and the degree of automation and intelligence for fault diagnosis are still inadequate due to the limitations of the current development of key technologies. With the development of big data and artificial intelligence technology, the involvement of new technologies will be an important boost to the development of this field. To support the subsequent research, bibliometrics is used as a tool to sort out the development of the technology in this field at the macro level; at the micro level, the classical and key literature is studied to grasp the development status at the technical level and prepare for the selection of entry points to continue in-depth innovation afterwards.

Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) causes severe inflammation and airway pathology in children and the elderly by infecting the epithelial cells of the upper and lower respiratory tract. RSV replication is sensed by intracellular pattern recognition receptors upstream of the IRF and NF-B transcription factors. These proteins coordinate an innate inflammatory response via Bromodomain containing protein 4 (BRD4), a protein that functions as a scaffold for unknown transcriptional regulators. To better understand the pleiotropic regulatory function of BRD4, we examine the BRD4 interactome and identify how RSV infection dynamically alters it. To accomplish these goals, we leverage native immunoprecipitation and Parallel Accumulation – Serial Fragmentation (PASEF) mass spectrometry to examine BRD4 complexes isolated from human alveolar epithelial cells in the absence or presence of RSV infection. In addition, we explore the role of BRD4’s acetyl-lysine binding bromodomains in mediating these interactions by using a highly selective competitive bromodomain inhibitor. We identify 101 proteins that are significantly enriched in the BRD4 complex and are responsive to both RSV-infection and BRD4 inhibition. These proteins are highly enriched in transcription factors and transcriptional coactivators. Among them, we identify members of the AP1 transcription factor complex, a complex important in innate signaling and cell stress responses. We independently confirm the BRD4/AP1 interaction in primary human small airway epithelial cells. We conclude that BRD4 recruits multiple transcription factors during RSV infection in a manner dependent on acetyl-lysine binding domain interactions. This data suggests that BRD4 recruits transcription factors to target its RNA processing complex to regulate gene expression in innate immunity and inflammation.

The lactic acid bacteria Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus helveticus are commonly used as starter cultures in dairy product production. This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of fermented milk using different ratios of these strains and analyze the changes in volatile compounds during fermentation and storage. The 10:1 ratio of Streptococcus thermophilus CICC 6063 to Lactobacillus helveticus CICC 6064 showed optimal fermentation time (4.2 h), viable cell count (9.64 log10 colony-forming units/mL), and sensory evaluation score (79.1 points). In total, 56 volatile compounds were identified and quantified by solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS), including aldehydes, ketones, acids, alcohols, esters, and others. Among these, acetaldehyde, 2,3-butanedione, 2,3-pentanedione, 2-heptanone, acetoin, and 1-heptanol had the highest odor activity values and contributed to the characteristic flavor of fermented milk. The concentrations and types of key flavor compounds reached their peak at the end of fermentation. Throughout the fermentation and storage process, the levels of 2,3-pentanedione and acetoin exhibited synergistic dynamics. These findings enhance our understanding of the chemical and molecular characteristics of milk fermented with Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus helveticus, providing a basis for improving the flavor and odor of dairy products during fermentation and storage.

Against the backdrop of global climate change, the frequency of drought events is increasing, leading to significant impacts on human society and development. Therefore, it is crucial to study the propagation patterns and trends of drought characteristics over a long-time scale. The main objective of this study is to delineate the dynamics of drought characteristics by examining their propagation patterns in China from 1951 to 2020. In this study, precipitation data from meteorological stations across mainland China were used. A comprehensive dataset consisting of 700 stations over the past 70 years was collected and analyzed. To ensure data accuracy, the GPCC database was employed for data correction and gap filling. Long-term drought evolution was assessed using both the SPI-12 and SPEI-12 indices to detect drought characteristics. Two Moran indices were applied to identify propagation patterns, and the MK analysis method along with the Theil-Sen slope estimator were utilized to track historical trends of these indices. The findings of this study reveal the following key results: (i) Based on the SPI-12, the main areas of China that are prone to drought are mostly concentrated around the Hu Huanyong Line. Indicating a tendency towards drying based on the decadal change analysis. (ii) The distribution of drought-prone areas in China, as indicated by the SPEI-12, is extensive and broadly distributed, with a correlation to urbanization and population density. These drought-prone areas are gradually expanding. (iii) Between 2010 and 2011, China experienced the most severe drought event in nearly 70 years, affecting nearly 50% of the country's area with a high degree of severity. This event may be attributed to atmospheric circulation variability, exacerbated by the impact of urbanization on precipitation and drought. (iv) The frequency of drought occurrence in China gradually decreases from south to north, with the northeast and northern regions being less affected. However, areas with less frequent droughts experience longer and more severe drought durations. In conclusion, this study provides valuable insights into the characteristics and propagation patterns of drought in China, offering essential information for the development of effective strategies to mitigate the impacts of drought events.

Abstract: The chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) has been widely used for surface modification of critical materials and components and provided global planarization of topography with a low post-planarization slope high quality and efficiency. The colloidal silica slurries play an important role in the finishing processes of optical components. Monodisperse mesoporous silica nanospheres were synthesized with different surfactant by Stöber method. Their architectural features and texture parameters were characterized by XRD, FTIR, N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms, SEM, XPS, and TGA techniques. The spherical SiO2 products presented with the controllable 50-150 nm particle size and distribution. The AFM micrographs reveal that flat and smooth surfaces without distinct scratches residual particles are achieved by using the as-obtained composite particles as abrasives[The particle size of SiO2 slurry plays a critical role in the chemical-mechanical polishing process.

At present, failure definition and damage characteristic curve (DCC) analysis included in the framework to assess bitumen fatigue cracking performance have an inconsistency in ranking bitumen fatigue behaviour. This study utilized two types of self-healing polymers (STP and IPA1w) to modify the neat asphalt (NA), and research four different types of bitumens: NA, STP-modified bitumen, IPA1w-modified bitumen, and styrene-butadiene-styrene modified bitumen (SBSB), to evaluate the above-mentioned framework. All bitumens were subjected to short-term and long-term aging and tested utilizing the Linear amplitude sweep (LAS) test and simplified viscoelastic-continuum-damage (S-VECD) model. The results showed that the SBSB exhibited the highest numbers of loading cycles (in long-term aging analysis) to reach failure points at 25°C, 28°C, and 31°C which were 2290, 2340, and 2510, respectively. However, this bitumen failed to exhibit the best performance in terms of DCC assessment under the same conditions, confirming the above-mentioned inconsistency. Besides, the current failure criterion could not accurately predict bitumen fatigue behaviour under certain test conditions because two R2 values were below 0.1. As a result, this study proposed a new failure definition and failure criterion to overcome these issues. The proposed failure definition agreed with the DCC analysis to rank bitumen fatigue performance, and the proposed failure criterion showed R2 values higher than 0.9. The new framework presented the modified bitumen containing 0.5% of STP as the asphalt binder with the best fatigue cracking performance, according to the selected test conditions.

Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is a routinely used therapeutic procedure for the biliary and pancreatic diseases. Population aging may increase the typical indications of ERCP and come with more complexity and difficulties, especially in cannulation. This study aimed to evaluate the incidence, causes, and management of difficult biliary cannulation during ERCP in super-aged patients and the role of difficult cannulation as a risk factor for adverse events. A total of 614 patients, underwent ERCP, were prospectively studied as a cohort and divided into two groups based on their age. There were 146 patients aged 80 years or older in group A and 468 patients aged less than 80 years in group B. The primary outcome measures were the difficulty grade of papilla cannulation, clinical outcomes, and ERCP-related complications in the two groups. The adverse events were analyzed using logistic regression for patient age, co-morbidities, indications, and cannulation difficulty grade variables. There was no difference in the incidence of difficult cannulation between the two groups (32.9% vs. 34.4%, p=0.765) though, as expected, super-aged Group A had a higher prevalence of periampullary diverticulum (29.5% vs. 16.7%, p=0.001). The technical cannulation success rate was (96.6% vs. 96.8%, p= 0.54). All used cannulation techniques in the elderly group were efficient and safe. Logistic regression showed that age ≥80 was not associated with increased adverse events; however, difficult cannulation (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=3.478; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.877, 6.442; p<0.001) and CCI ≥2 (AOR=1.824; 95% CI=0.993, 3.349; p=0.045) were more likely to have adverse events. Age ≤65 (AOR=3.460; 95% CI=1.511, 7.922; p=0.003), female gender (AOR=2.362; 95% CI=1.089, 5.124; p=0.030), difficult cannulation (AOR=4.527; 95% CI=2.078, 9.860; p<0.001), and patients with cholangitis (AOR=3.261; 95% CI=1.204, 8.832; p=0.020) were strongly associated with increasing Post-ERCP Pancreatitis (PEP). Advanced age has not proved to be a risk factor of difficult cannulation, and secondary cannulation techniques can be safely and efficaciously utilized for this group. CCI ≥2 and difficult cannulation are associated with increased overall adverse events rate while age ≥80 factor is not.

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

In the current natural environment, due to the complexity of the background and the high similarity of the color between immature green tomato and plant, the occlusion of the key organs (flower and fruit) by the leaves and stems will lead to low recognition rate and poor generalization of the detection model. Therefore, an improved tomato organ detection method based on convolutional neural network has been proposed in this paper. Based on the original Faster R-CNN algorithm, Resnet-50 with residual blocks was used to replace the traditional vgg16 feature extraction network, and K-means clustering method was used to adjust more appropriate anchor size than manual setting to improve detection accuracy. A variety of data augmentation techniques were used to train the network. The test results showed that compared with the traditional Faster R-CNN model, the mean average precision (mAP) of the optimal model was improved from 85.2% to 90.7%, the memory requirement decreased from 546.9MB to 115.9 MB, and the average detection time was shortened to 0.073S/sheet. As the performance greatly improved, the training model can be transplanted to the embedded system, which lays a theoretical foundation for the development of precise targeting pesticide application system and automatic picking device.

Legionella pneumophila RpoS (LpRpoS) is an alternative sigma factor of RNA polymerase (RNAP) essential for virulence and stress resistance. To investigate the mechanism of RpoS in the intracellular pathogen L. pneumophila, we determined the high-resolution crystal structure of the LpRpoS (residues 95-194) containing a partial region 1.2 and region 2. The structure of LpRpoS (residues 95-194) reveals that the conserved residues are critical for promoter melting, DNA and core RNAP binding. The differences in regulatory factor binding site between Escherichia coli RpoS and LpRpoS suggest that LpRpoS may employ a distinct mechanism to recruit alternative regulatory factors controlling transcription initiation.

As the lifespan of porous asphalt pavement extends, it invariably experiences performance degradation and an increase in tire/pavement noise compared with the original surface when it is newly built. To understand the medium-term performance of porous asphalt pavement during service and reveal the influence of different pavement performance indicators on tire/pavement noise generation, a seven-year continuous observation and data analysis study was conducted. Porous asphalt with different designed material parameters was taken into account, including thin-layer porous asphalt overlay with a maximum nominal aggregate size of 10mm (PUC-10), porous asphalt with a maximum nominal aggregate size of 13mm (PAC-13), and a two-layer porous asphalt incorporating both PUC-10 and PAC-13 (PUC-10+PAC-13). Using automated pavement technology testing equipment, key performance indexes, including damage rate (DR), rut depth (RD), international roughness index (IRI), and sideway force coefficient (SFC), were measured and calculated. The on-board sound intensity (OBSI) method was used to test noise levels in three types of porous asphalt pavement structures and on a dense graded easy compact asphalt concrete (ECA) for comparison. The progressions of the medium-term performances were analyzed according to the measured results. The correlations between tire/pavement noise levels and testing speed, testing lane, pavement structure, and road condition indicators were investigated by regression. The research results revealed that the DR and SFC of the three types of porous asphalt pavement displayed more significant attenuation in the service period, while the IRI and RD showed small changes. Among them, the SFC demonstrated significant attenuation over the first 4 years, decreasing between 13.8% and 17.0%. From the 3-7 years of operation, the transverse crack disease in porous asphalt pavement progressed rapidly. The three porous asphalt pavement structures tested exhibited commendable noise reduction capabilities. Compared to ECA, the OBSI noise levels of these structures were lower by 2.09 dB, 1.53 dB, and 2.88 dB, respectively. Compared to other pavement condition indicators, RD had a more significant impact on the OBSI value of the PUC-10 porous asphalt pavement. For the PUC-10+PAC-13 porous asphalt pavement, there was a significant linear relationship between the OBSI value and SFC, mainly due to polishing of the coarse aggregate surface. It leads to a decrease of the micro-texture, which lies in increasing tire/pavement noise at high-frequency ranges and decreasing SFC. This study will have guiding significance for the research of the attenuated law and durability improvement of porous asphalt tire/pavement noise.

Bamboo engineering materials are green, high-strength, tough, durable, and structurally safe, and have promising application prospects in various modern green and low-carbon buildings. To invest the vibration behavior of new bamboo bundle veneer -laminated lumber (BLVL) for use in floor slabs, this study designed two kinds of full-scale vibration tests under a pedestrian load: an extraction hammer impact test, and a static concentrated load test, it is expected to provide theoretical and data support for the application of bamboo bundle veneer laminated composite materials in the construction field. The results showed that the self-oscillation frequency and mid-span deflection of the BLVL composite met the requirements of multiple relevant regulations when used as the structural material of floor slabs. The BLVL floor slab had a higher flexural stiffness and better vibration-damping performance than the OSB floor slab. The first-order self-oscillation frequency of the BLVL composite floor slab was 13.769 Hz, the damping ratio of the first three orders of modalities was 1.262–2.728%, and the maximum static deflection in the span of the joist was 0.932 mm under a 1 kN concentrated load. The 1 kN static deflection of the BLVL was reduced by 22.33%, and the root mean square (RMS) acceleration of the walking load response was significantly lower than that of the OSB floor slab. The preparation of BLVL composite materials by homogeneous lamination of bamboo bundle veneer and wood veneer may help improve the vibration behavior of bamboo-wood structures such as floor slabs and walls.

In this paper, low circumferential reciprocating load foot-scale tests were performed on two truncated PHC B 600 130 tubular piles with bearing nodes to characterize the damage process and morphology of the specimens and to investigate the load-carrying performance of the members. The test results reveal that under the action of tensile-bending-shear loading, the bearing concrete in the node area buckles and is damaged, the anchored reinforcement in the node area yields, the constraint is weakened, an articulation point is formed, and the node rotational capacity increases. When the embedment depth increases from 200 mm to 300 mm, the ultimate bearing capacities of the positive and negative nodes increase by 57.60% and 54.60%, respectively. A numerical simulation is used to verify the test results. Considering the three types of piles with truncated nodes, the numerical simulation is used to analyze the node-bearing capacity at different embedment depths. Finally, two preferred node types are proposed as follows: pipe pile core-filled longitudinal reinforcement anchored into the bearing node and pipe pile body longitudinal reinforcement anchored into the bearing node + pipe pile core-filled longitudinal reinforcement anchored into the bearing node, with preferred embedment depths of 350 mm and 200 mm, respectively.

China is rich in coal resources, but the complex hydrogeological conditions lead to difficulties in coal mining, such as coal mine collapse, roof and water damage, and other accidents that occur frequently, resulting in many casualties and property losses. The use of coal mine hole detection technology to detect and analyze the internal environment of the coal mine in advance helps to reduce safety hazards and prevent coal mine accidents, for the existing coal mine hole detection technology operation is cumbersome, not easy to control, and insufficient depth of jacking prob-lems, this paper designs a new type of mine hole detection small robot. Firstly, this paper ana-lyzes the function and structural design of the mine hole detection robot, designs the variable diameter function according to the characteristics of narrow and uneven mine holes in coal mines, and analyzes the mechanics of the critical parts through theoretical calculations; secondly, based on the three-dimensional modeling software, established the structural model of the small robot for mine hole detection; after that, designed the robot's hardware circuits and control pro-grams for the presence of water and gas inside the mine hole, highlighting the need to carry out a new type of mine hole detection small robot. After that, we designed the robot's hardware circuit and control program, giving particular emphasis to the safety design of the circuit for the pres-ence of water and gas inside the mine hole of the coal mine. Finally, to verify the feasibility of the design program, the basic parameters and function tests of the mine hole detection small robot are carried out. The experimental results show that the mine hole inspection small robot realized by this design can adapt to the working hole diameter from 65 mm to 100 mm, the maximum working power is only 12 W, and the maximum crawling speed is 3.96 m/min. The maximum crawling slope reaches 90°, which can meet the actual mine hole inspection needs. The research can provide theoretical and design guidance for developing the mine hole detection robot with substantial engineering practical reference value.

Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer (P. ginseng), has been widely used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). It contains a number of chemical components and possesses a variety of pharmacological activities. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is neurodegenerative disease that creates a huge burden on the lives and health of individuals. In recent years, studies have indicated that the chemical components of P. ginseng, especially ginsenosides, play a pronounced positive role in the prevention and treatment of neurological diseases. This review aimed to summarize currently studies on chemical components and the mechanisms action in AD intervention treatment of P. ginseng, especially ginsenosides. In this review, the components of P. ginseng and their respective active effects were first introduced. Then the key molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways of P. ginseng were introduced, and its different active ingredients in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease-related pathogenesis were also summarized from the pathogenesis of AD Aβ generation and aggregation, hyperphosphorylation of tau protein，oxidant stress，neuroinflammation，mitochondrial damage，disorder of neurotransmitter and gut microbiota. Signaling pathway networks related to the action of ginseng active ingredients was constructed, which could serve as a therapeutic target for Alzheimer's disease. In addition to a detailed report on P. ginseng in improving Alzheimer's disease-related pathogenesis, the application of the current technology, spatial metabonomics in AD therapeutics and diagnostics were later discussed. Spatial metabonomics could be applied to investigate the multi-target intervention of P. ginseng on Alzheimer's disease. Research perspectives for the study of P. ginseng in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease were provided for further studies.

The structure and phenomena arising from charge transfer in cold field emission modus in a single closed carbon nanotube under cold field emission conditions were studied. By studying microphotographs in various microscopes - AFM, SEM, TEM it was found inhomogeneities in the form of two types of superlattices. The conductivity of the emitter section of a nanodiode circuit with an emitter made of an individual closed carbon nanotube (CNT) and arrays of closed CNTs was studied. High values of cold field emission were observed, as well as nonlinearity and anomalies of the current-voltage characteristic (I-V characteristics), which manifested themselves in the form of peaks at low and high current values. Peaks in the CVC have distinct areas of negative differential conductivity. It is argued, that the anomalously high currents in the I–V characteristics of cold field emission of electrons from a nanoemitter made of closed CNTs can be associated with a sharp increase in the density of electron states at energies near the van Hove singularity.

The Source Region of the Yellow River (SRYR), renowned as the "Water Tower of the Yellow River", serves as an important water conservation domain in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, significantly influencing water resources within the basin. Based on the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model Hydrological modeling system (WRF-Hydro) model, the key variables of the atmosphere-land-hydrology coupling processes over the SRYR during the 2013 rainy season are analyzed. The investigation involves a comparative analysis between the coupled WRF-Hydro and the standalone WRF simulations, focusing on the hydrological response to the atmosphere. The results reveal that the WRF-Hydro model's proficiency in depicting streamflow variations over the SRYR, yielding a Nash Efficiency Coefficient (NSE) of 0.44 and of  0.61 during the calibration and validation periods, respectively. Compared to the standalone WRF simulations, the coupled WRF-Hydro model demonstrates enhanced performance in soil heat fluxes simulations, reducing the mean Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of surface soil temperature by 0.96 K and soil moisture by 0.01 m\textsuperscript{\textsuperscript{3}}/m\textsuperscript{\textsuperscript{3}}. Furthermore, the coupled model adeptly captures the streamflow variation characteristics with the NSE of 0.33. This underscores the significant potential of the coupled WRF-Hydro model for delineating coupled atmosphere-land-hydrology processes in regions characterized by cold climates and intricate topography.

The Hippo pathway plays crucial roles in governing various biological processes during tumorigenesis and metastasis. Within this pathway, upstream signaling stimuli activate a core kinase cascade, involving MST1/2 and LATS1/2, which subsequently phosphorylates and inhibits the transcriptional co-activators YAP and its paralog TAZ. This inhibition modulates the transcriptional regulation of downstream target genes, impacting cell proliferation, migration, and death. Despite the acknowledged significance of protein kinases in the Hippo pathway, the regulatory influence of protein phosphatases remains largely unexplored. In this study, we conducted the first gain-of-functional screen for protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) regulating the Hippo pathway. Utilizing a LATS kinase biosensor (LATS-BS), a YAP/TAZ activity reporter (STBS-Luc), and a comprehensive PTP library, we identified numerous novel PTPs that play regulatory roles in the Hippo pathway. Subsequent experiments validated PTPN12, a master regulator of oncogenic receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), as a previously unrecognized negative regulator of the Hippo pathway effectors, oncogenic YAP/TAZ, influencing breast cancer cell proliferation and migration. In summary, our findings offer valuable insights into the roles of PTPs in the Hippo signaling pathway, significantly contributing to our understanding of breast cancer bi-ology and potential therapeutic strategies.

To investigate the role of sulfhydryl groups and disulfide bonds in different protein-stabilized emulsions, N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) was used as sulfhydryl-blocking agent to be added in the emulsion. The addition of NEM to block the sulfhydryl groups resulted in a reduction of the content of disulfide bonds formation, which enabled destruction of the internal structure of the protein molecule, and then decreased the restriction of protein membrane on the oil droplets. Furthermore, with NEM content increasing in the emulsion, a reduction of protein emulsifying activity and emulsion stability also occurred. At the same time, the intermolecular interaction of the protein on the oil droplet interface membrane was destroyed, and the emulsion droplet size increased with the NEM content in the emulsion. Although NEM blocking sulfhydryl groups not to form disulfide bonds has similar effects on three types of protein emulsion, the degree of myofibrillar protein (MP), egg-white protein isolate (EPI), and soybean protein isolate (SPI) as emulsifier had a subtle difference.

Cerebral ischemia, which is a leading cause of disability and mortality worldwide, sets off a chain of molecular and cellular pathologies that are associated with some central nervous system (CNS) disorders, mainly including ischemic stroke, Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), epilepsy and other CNS diseases. In recent times, despite significant advancements in the treatment of the pathological processes underlying various neurological illnesses, effective therapeutic approaches specifically targeted at minimizing the damage of such diseases remain absent. Remarkably, ischemia causes severe damage to cells in Ischemia-associated CNS Diseases. Cerebral ischemia initiates oxygen and glucose deprivation, which subsequently promotes mitochondrial dysfunction, including MPTP opening, mitophagy dysfunction, and excessive mitochondrial fission, triggering various forms of cell death, such as autophagy, apoptosis, as well as ferroptosis. Ferroptosis, a novel type of regulated cell death (RCD), is characterized by iron-dependent accumulation of lethal reactive oxygen species and lipid peroxidation. Mitochondrial dysfunction and ferroptosis both play critical roles in the pathogenic progression of Ischemia-associated CNS Diseases. In recent years, growing evidence has indicated that mitochondrial dysfunction interplays with ferroptosis to aggravate cerebral ischemia injury. However, the potential connections between mitochondrial dysfunction and ferroptosis in Cerebral Ischemia have not yet been clarified. Thus, we analyze the underlying mechanism between mitochondrial dysfunction and ferroptosis in Ischemia-associated CNS Diseases. We also discovered that GSH depletion and GPX4 inactivation cause lipoxygenase activation and calcium influx following cerebral ischemia injury, resulting in MPTP opening and mitochondrial dysfunction. Additionally, dysfunction in mitochondrial electron transport and an imbalanced fusion-to-fission ratio can lead to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species and iron overload, which further contribute to the occurrence of ferroptosis. This creates a vicious cycle that continuously worsens cerebral ischemia injury. In this study, our focus is on exploring the interplay between mitochondrial dysfunction and ferroptosis, which may offer new insights into potential therapeutic approaches for the treatment of Ischemia-associated CNS Diseases.

The accurate assessment and monitoring of soil erosion is of great significance for guiding food production and ensuring ecological security, and it is a current research hotspot. In this paper, remote sensing and geographic information systems (GISs) are combined with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE model) to carry out research on soil erosion monitoring and make a quantitative evaluation. According to five factors, including rainfall erosivity, soil erodibility, topography, vegetation cover, crop management and water and soil conservation measures, the distribution of the soil erosion rate in Jilin Province in 2019 was mapped, and the soil erosion rate was divided into 5 levels according to the degree of erosion, including very slight, slight, moderate, severe and extremely severe erosion. Based on the segmented S-slope factor model and the unique topographical features of the study area, the relationships among the soil erosion rate, erosion risk level, erosion area, erosion amount and slope angle (θ) were systematically analysed, and a slope angle of 15° was identified as the threshold for soil erosion on sloped farmland in Jilin Province. The total soil erosion in Jilin Province was 402.14×106 t in 2019, the average soil erosion rate was 21.6 t·ha-1·a-1, and the average soil loss thickness was 1.6 mm·a-1; these values were far greater than the soil erosion rate risk threshold of 10 t ·Ha-1·a-1. Thus, the province has a strong level of soil erosion. We conclude that soil degradation is accelerating, and food production and the ecological environment will face severe challenges. It is suggested that soil erosion control should be carried out according to different types and slopes of land, with an emphasis on the management of forestland and farmland because forestland and farmland are currently the first types of land to be managed in Jilin Province. This paper aims to explore a timely, fast, efficient and convenient soil erosion monitoring and evaluation method and provide effective monitoring tools for agricultural water and soil conservation, ecological safety management and stable food production in Jilin Province and similar black soil areas.

In order to address the issue of nutrient deficiency in coconut coir-based nursery substrates, three materials with nutrient supplementation effects, namely pig manure, composted rice husks, and agricultural humic acid, were added in equal volumes to the coir-based substrate. The newly formulated substrates were then tested for their seedling growth effects on cucumber and rice. Results indicate that the substrate formulation consisting of "10% pig manure + 30% peat + 50% coconut coir + 10% vermiculite" was capable of satisfying the growth requirements of both cucumber and rice seedlings, with the highest acceptance among farmers.

The recent Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreak in Americas surprised all of us because of its rapid spread and association with neurologic disorders including fetal microcephaly, brain and ocular anomalies and Guillain-Barré syndrome. In responding to this global health outcry, unprecedented and world-wide efforts are taking place to study the ZIKV etiology. Much have been learned about this virus in the areas of epidemiology, clinical manifestation, viral sequences and protein structures, as well as effects of ZIKV infection on fetal brain development and microcephaly. However, the molecular mechanism underlying ZIKV-mediated neurologic disorders remains elusive. Some critical questions include: 1) what type of virologic changes has taken place that increased the viral virulence? 2) which ZIKV protein(s) is responsible for the enhanced viral pathogenicity? And 3) how the newly adapted and pathogenic ZIKV strains alter their interactions with host cells leading to neurologic disorders? The goal of this review is to explore the molecular insights into the ZIKV-host interactions with special focuses on host cell receptor usage for viral entry, host cellular and immune antiviral responses, ZIKV counteraction and ZIKV-induced cytopathic effects. Our hope with this literature review is to inspire additional studies focusing on molecular studies of ZIKV-host Interactions.

The carbonation of industrial calcium-rich byproducts such as steel slag demonstrates significant potential for CO2 sequestration. This technique aids in reducing carbon emissions while also promoting waste recycling. Despite its advantages, gaps remain in understanding how steel slag characteristics and operational parameters influence the carbonation process, as well as the underlying mechanism of direct aqueous carbonation. We evaluated the carbonation performance of three types of steel slag at temperatures below 100°C using a gas–liquid–solid reaction system. The slag with the highest CO2 sequestration capacity was chosen for a systematic evaluation of the effects of operating conditions on carbonation efficiency. Thermodynamic analysis indicated that the reactivity of CaO and Ca(OH)2 with CO2 exceeded that of CaO•SiO2 and 2CaO•SiO2. Under conditions of 85°C, a particle size less than 75 μm, an initial CO2 pressure of 0.5 MPa, a liquid-to-solid ratio of 5 mL/g, and a stirring speed of 200 rpm, the steel slag achieved a sequestration capacity (K) of 283.5 gCO2/kg and a carbonation efficiency (ζCa) of 51.61%. Characterization of the slag before and after carbonation using X-ray diffraction, SEM‒EDS, thermogravimetric analysis, and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry confirmed the formation of new carbonates. Mechanistic analysis revealed that the rate-limiting step initially involved the mass transfer of CO2, transitioning to Ca2+ mass transfer as time progressed. Our research provides a viable technique for CO2 capture and a beneficial approach for reutilizing waste steel slag. Furthermore, solid residues after capturing CO2 have the potential for conversion into carbon-negative building materials, offering a sustainable strategy for steel companies and other enterprises with high carbon emissions.

Damping-off caused by Pythium aphanidermatum (Pa) is one of the most destructive diseases for watemelon seedlings. Application of biological control agents against Pa has attracted attention of many researchers for a long time. In this study, an actinomycete isolate JKTJ-3 with strong and broad-spectrum antifungal effect was screened from 23 bacterial isolates. Based on the morphological, cultural, physiological, and biochemical characteristics as well as the feature of 16S rDNA sequence, isolate JKTJ-3 was identified as Streptomyces murinus. We compared the biocontrol efficacy of isolate JKTJ-3 and its metabolites. The results revealed that seed and substrate treatments with the JKTJ-3 cultures showed a significant inhibitory effect on watermelon damping-off disease. Seed treatment with the JKTJ-3 cultural filtrates (CF) had higher control efficacy that of the fermentation cultures (FC). Treatment of the seeding substrate with the wheat grain cultures (WGC) of JKTJ-3 exhibited better control efficacy than that of the seeding substrate with the JKTJ-3 CF. Moreover, the JKTJ-3 WGC showed the preventive effect on suppression of the disease, and the efficacy increased with increase in the inoculation interval between the WGC and Pa. Production of the antifungal metabolite actinomycin D by isolate JKTJ-3 and cell wall-degrading enzymmes such as β-1,3-glucanase and chitosanase was probably the mechanisms for effective control of watermelon damping-off. It was showed for the first time that S. murinus can produce anti-oomycete substances including chitinase and actinomycin D. This is the first report about S. murinus used as biocontrol agent against watermelon Pa-induced damping-off.

SARS-CoV-2, the newly identified human coronavirus causing severe pneumonia epidemic, was probably originated from Chinese horseshoe bats. However, direct transmission of the virus from bats to humans is unlikely due to lack of direct contact, implying the existence of unknown intermediate hosts. Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the receptor of SARS-CoV-2, but only ACE2s of certain species can be utilized by SARS-CoV-2. Here, we evaluated and ranked the receptor-utilizing capability of ACE2s from various species by phylogenetic clustering and sequence alignment with the currently known ACE2s utilized by SARS-CoV-2, predicting potential intermediate hosts of SARS-CoV-2.

Abstract Background: Numerous studies have demonstrated that the amalgamation of populations belonging to the same breed or closely related breeds leads to enhanced accuracies in genomic predictions (GP). Extensive experimentation with diverse Bayesian and Genome-enabled best linear unbiased prediction (GBLUP) models has been conducted to explore multi-breed genomic selection (GS) in livestock, ultimately establishing they as successful approaches for predicting genomic estimated breeding value (GEBV). This study aimed to examine the efficacy of BayesR and GBLUP model with different weighted genomic relationship matrices (GRM) in making genomic predictions for three distinct beef cattle breeds. Subsequently, we conducted a comparative analysis of the predictive accuracy pertaining to various marker densities and genetic correlations across three distinct beef cattle breeds. This investigation aimed to identify the optimal approach for enhancing the predictive accuracy of multi-breed genomic selection in beef cattle. Results：Genetic relationship matrices revealed moderate similarities between YL and the other breeds, with a striking genetic similarity of 0.87 between WG and HX. In HX cattle, BayesR demonstrated an enhancement in prediction accuracy, achieving 0.52 with HD and 0.46 with WGS, a marked improvement over 0.41 with HD and 0.42 with WGS in GBLUP. In WG and YL breeds, both methods showed comparable accuracies with HD, but BayesR slightly outperformed GBLUP with WGS. Further, multi-breed GS analysis indicated that BayesR consistently surpassed GBLUP in prediction accuracy, particularly with WGS data. For instance, in a combined HX and WG reference population, BayesR achieved a superior accuracy of 0.53 with WGS in HX cattle, a significant enhancement over GBLUP models. The study also underscores the advantage of incorporating multiple breeds in the reference population, which improved prediction accuracy, underscoring the value of broad-based genomic selection strategies. Conclusion: The results show that accuracy of multi-breed genomic predictions was higher with BayesR than with GBLUP, especially for the distantly genetic relationship between reference and validation breeds. Further improvements of multi-breed accuracy of genomic predictions could be achieved by increasing the density of the SNP marker. These findings underscore that BayesR providing a substantial improvement in genomic prediction and the importance of considering genetic relationships in the development of GS strategies for multi-breed cattle populations. Further research is warranted to optimize GRM construction and to explore alternative models for genomic prediction across breeds.

Dual specificity phosphatase 2 (DUSP2) regulates the activation of members in the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) family, which is involved in a variety of cellular processes like cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and migration. DUSP2 also regulates the expression of inflammatory mediators in macrophages, however, it remains unknown whether DUSP2 participates in macrophage migration. Here, using the tail fin injury model in zebrafish larvae, we found that deletion of DUSP2 inhibited expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and macrophage chemokines. Moreover, live imaging results showed that migration of macrophages to the injury site was inhibited after DUSP2 deletion. This inhibitory effect was mediated through reduced activation of extracellular regulated protein kinases (ERK) in DUSP2 knockout zebrafish.

To investigate the effect of montmorillonite on nonylphenol enrichment in a zebrafish model. The AB strain zebrafish were used as the animal subjects and three concentration gradients were set for both nonylphenol and montmorillonite, according to their actual concentrations in aquaculture water in Huzhou city. A group treated with nonylphenol alone was also set, adding up to 12 experimental groups. Concentrations of nonylphenol enriched in the liver, muscle, and gill of zebrafish were detected by solid phase microextraction–high performance liquid chromatography at Day 7, 15, and 30, respectively. Besides, the relative enzymatic activity of Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and the Glutathione S-transferase (GST) were also been detected, and the data were statistically analyzed. The results showed that the concentrations of nonylphenol in zebrafish peaked at Day 7 and gradually decreased afterwards for all the experimental groups. And the montmorillonite reduces short-term accumulation of nonylphenol in gills, and the high concentration of nonylphenol facilitates its enrichment in liver and muscle while the low concentration of nonylphenol doesn’t. Meanwhile, the low concentration of nonylphenol in liver exerts an influence on the inductive effect of SOD and GST while the high concentration of nonylphenol shows the inhibiting effect of SOD and GST.

AIUS (Atmospheric Infrared Ultraspectral Sounder) is an infrared occultation spectrometer onboard the Chinese GaoFen-5 satellite, which covers a spectral range of 2.4--13.3 μm (750--4100 cm-1) with a spectral resolution of about 0.02 cm-1. AIUS was designed to measure and to study chemical processes of ozone (O3) and other trace gases in the upper troposphere and stratosphere over Antarctic. In this study, the corresponding retrieval methodology is described. The comparison between AIUS measurements and simulated spectra illustrates that AIUS measurements agree well to the simulated spectra. To first evaluate the reliability of our retrieval algorithm, three retrieval O3 experiments are performed based on ACE-FTS observation spectra. A comparison between our retrieved profiles and the ACE-FTS official products shows that the relative difference of these three retrieval experiments is mostly within 10% between 20 km and 70 km. These retrieval experiments demonstrate that the retrieval algorithm described in this study work fine and reliable. Furthermore, O3, H2O and HCl profiles are retrieved from eight orbits of AIUS measurements and compared with the official AURA/MLS level-2 v4.2 profiles. Comparison experiments show that the relative difference is mostly within 10% (about 0.02 - 0.4 ppm) between 18 and 58 km for O3 retrieval, within 10% (0-0.5 ppm) between 15 and 80 km for H2O retrieval, and within 10% (about 0.1 ppb) between 30 and 60 km for HCl retrieval. There is a good agreement in the retrieved trace gas profiles obtained from AIUS and from coincident profiles from MLS.