Remote sensing technology provides a new way to explore the earth for geoscience applications. In the context of continuous deepening of geological research and the vigorous development of geospatial information science, 3D geological modeling technology has become a research hotspot in the intersection of earth science and information science. The traditional 3D geological modeling technology refers to underground 3D modeling using geological data. This modeling method can only display the underground scene in 3D visualization, but cannot display the surface in detail. In this study, remote sensing technology is adopted to improve the traditional 3D geological modeling method, so that geological modeling can be integrated with remote sensing image, and a new 3D geological modeling method based on remote sensing technology is developed. This method can perform integrated 3D visualization of underground and aboveground scenes, which provides a new way for disaster prevention and reduction, geological prospecting and tectonic interpretation. The new 3D geological modeling method is mainly applied in the geological field, and has made new progress in multi-source heterogeneous geological data fusion, large-scale high-precision modeling, geological grid subdivision, attribute modeling technology, remote sensing image fusion and other aspects. Taking the Ya'an area as an example, this paper makes use of the new generation of 3D geological modeling technology to carry out 3D geological modeling and visual display. The 3D visualization in Ya'an area verifies the feasibility and effectiveness of the new 3D geological modeling method based on remote sensing technology in the current data environment.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of propofol combined with psychological intervention on pain and emotional evaluation in painless colonoscopic colonic polypectomy patients undergoing endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR).Methods: A total of 80 patients who underwent painless colonoscopic colonic polypectomy with EMR treatment between June 2020 and June 2022 were selected in order of admission and divided into two groups. The control group received conventional analgesia, while the observation group received propofol combined with psychological intervention. Pain visual analog scale (VAS) and emotional scale were used to evaluate pain and emotions in both groups of patients. Adverse reactions and clinical efficacy were also compared between the two groups.Results: The two groups of patients were generally comparable with no significant differences (P > 0.05). The VAS score in the observation group was significantly lower than that in the control group (P < 0.05), and the emotional scale score was also improved compared to the control group (P < 0.05). The number of patients with adverse reactions in the observation group was less than that in the control group. The clinical effective rate in the observation group was significantly higher than that in the control group (P < 0.05).Conclusion: Propofol combined with psychological intervention can effectively alleviate pain and improve emotional status in painless colonoscopic colonic polypectomy patients undergoing EMR treatment, thereby increasing the comfort and success rate of the surgery. The number of patients with adverse reactions in the observation group was less than that in the control group, and the clinical effective rate in the observation group was significantly higher than that in the control group (P < 0.05).

The Mine Internet of Things (MIoT), as a key technology for reconstructing post-disaster communication networks, enables to realize the safety monitoring and controlling of the affected roadway. However, due to the challenging underground mine environment, the MIoT suffers from severe signal attenuation, vulnerable nodes, and limited energy, which result in low network reliability of the post-disaster MIoT. To improve the transmission reliability as well as to reduce energy consumption, a directional-area-forwarding-based energy-efficient opportunistic routing (DEOR) for the post-disaster MIoT is proposed. DEOR defines a forwarding zone (FZ) for each node to route packets toward the sink. The candidate forwarding set (CFS) is constructed by the nodes within the FZ that satisfy the energy constraint and the neighboring node degree constraint. The nodes in CFS are prioritized based on the routing quality evaluation by taking the local attributes of nodes into consideration, such as the directional angle, transmission distance, and residual energy. DEOR adopts a recovery mechanism to address the issue of void nodes. The simulation results validate that the proposed DEOR outperforms ORR, OBRN and ECSOR in terms of energy consumption, average hop count, packet delivery rate, and network lifetime.

Vibrio splendidus is the main pathogen infect a wide range of hosts, especially sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus. Our previous studies had shown that the level of L-glutamic acid (L-Glu) was significantly increased under heat stress and it was one of the best carbon sources that could be used by V. splendidus AJ01. In this study, the effects of exogenous L-Glu on the coelomocyte viability, tissue status and individual mortality of sea cucumbers were analyzed. The results showed that 10 mM L-Glu decreased coelomocyte viability and increased mortality, with tissue rupture and pyknosis, while 0.1 mM L-Glu slightly affected the survival of sea cucumbers without obvious damages at both cellular and tissue levels. Transcriptomic analysis showed that there were 343 upregulated and 206 downregulated genes regulated by exogenous L-Glu. GO analysis showed that differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were mainly enriched in signaling and membrane formation, while KEGG analysis showed that DEGs were significantly enriched in the upregulated endocytosis and downregulated lysosomal pathways. The coelomocyte viability further decreased 20% in the simultaneous presence of exogenous L-Glu and V. splendidus AJ01, compared to that of V. splendidus AJ01 infection alone. Consequently, a higher mortality of sea cucumber was also observed in the presence of exogenous L-Glu challenged by V. splendidus AJ01. Real time reverse transcriptase PCR showed that L-Glu specifically upregulated the expression of the fliC gene, conding the subunit protein of flagellar filament, with promoted swimming motility activity of V. splendidus. Our result indicated that L-Glu should be kept in a state of equilibrium, and the excess L-Glu in the host-pathogen interface would prompt the virulence of V. splendidus via increasing bacterial motility.

Is human capital heterogeneity a decisive factor for Chinese enterprises to invest in Africa? Based on the Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI） data of Chinese enterprises in 37 African countries from 2007 to 2017, this paper using the FGLS model, is the empirical analysis of the mechanism and effect of the human capital heterogeneity of host countries on OFDI location selection. The human capital heterogeneity can be divided into four dimensions: scale, quality, cost and structure, which can be measured by health level, education level, wage level, child dependency ratio and old-age dependency ratio. The results show that: (1) the host country's human capital scale and child dependency ratio structure have a significant positive impact on decision-making for OFDI; (2) the cost of human capital and the structure of old-age dependency ratio are negatively correlated with the inflow of OFDI; (3) different from the existing conclusions, the quality of human capital will inhibit the inflow of OFDI in the sample period; (4) the extended test shows that the quality of human capital has a significant positive impact on OFDI decision-making. The results of robustness test are reliable. Finally, according to the conclusion of this paper, policy recommendations are put forward.

With the rapid development in Beijing, there is a critical need to explore the circumstance and reveal the mechanisms of precious urban natural resources. In this context, urban blue space has attracted more and more attention by driving microcirculation, cooling heat islands, and relaxing residential. We extracted the UBS at Beijing using remote sensing, explored the spatial and temporal development in the last two decades via USDA methods, uncovered the full spectrum of landscape patterns from an ecological perspective, and simulated the mechanisms of the UBS area and the landscape quantitatively. We found that: (1) The UBS area in Beijing increased with fluctuation from 2000 to 2020. (2) The spatial clustering has distributed stable with some subtle changes. (3)The ecological circumstance has improved in the last 21 years in Beijing, with the increasing habitat diversity and richness, while the inferior landscape fragmentation has indicated some severe challenges. (4) Natural factors impact urban blue space areas more than social ones, while both similarly influence the UBS landscape. (5) Vegetation circumstances and precipitation are the most important natural factors on both area and landscape of UBS, and population and artificial surface are the most important social factors.

In this paper, a novel permanent magnet-assisted synchronous reluctance machine (PMASynRM) with rare-earth PMs and ferrite magnets is proposed. The performance of PMASynRM is discussed with respected to the different magnet ratio of rare-earth PMs and ferrite magnets. Some characteristics including the flux density, output torque, cogging torque, output power, power factor, torque ripple, loss, efficiency, and demagnetization are calculated by 2-D finite element analysis (FEA). The analysis results show that the excellent performance can be obtained by using hybrid magnet of rare-earth PMs and ferrite magnets with the suitable magnet ratio, and provide some desirable cost-performance trade-off.

In this paper, the lamellar structural evolution and microvoids variations of β-iPP during the processing of two different stretching methods, sequential biaxial stretching and simultaneous biaxial stretching, were investigated in detail. It was found that different stretching methods led to significantly different lamellae deformation modes, and the microporous membranes obtained from the simultaneous biaxial stretching exhibited better mechanical properties. For the sequential biaxial stretching, abundant coarse fibers originated from the tight accumulation of the lamellae parallel to the longitudinal stretching direction, whereas the lamellae perpendicular to the stretching direction were easily deformed and separated. Those coarse fibers were difficult to be separated to form micropores during the subsequent transverse stretching process, resulting in a poor micropores distribution. However, for the simultaneous biaxial stretching, the β crystal had the same deformation mode, that is, the lamellae distributed in different directions were all destroyed, forming abundant microvoids and little coarse fibers formation.

Malaria, as a major global health problem, continues to affect a large number of people each year, especially those in the developing countries. Effective drug discovery is still one of the main efforts to control malaria. As natural products are still considered as a key source for discovery and development of therapeutic agents, we have evaluated more than 2000 plant extracts against Plasmodium falciparum. As a result, we discovered dozens of plant leads that displayed antimalarial activity. Our phytochemical study of some of these plant extracts led to identification of several potent antimalarial compounds. The prior comprehensive review article entitled “Antimalarial activity of plant metabolites” by Schwikkard and Van Heerden (2002) reported structures of plant-derived compounds with antiplasmodial activity and covered literature up to the year 2000. As a continuation of this effort, the present review covers the antimalarial compounds isolated from plants, including marine plants, reported in the literatures from 2001 to the end of 2017. During the span of the last 17 years, 175 antiplasmodial compounds were discovered from plants. These active compounds are organized in our review article according to their plant families. In addition, we also include ethnobotanical information of the antimalarial plants discussed.

To explore the relevant factors that affect the efficacy of consciousness-regaining therapy (CRT)for prolonged disorder of consciousness(pDOC),a retrospective analysis was conducted on the case data of 114 patients with pDOC admitted to department of functional neurosurgery of Tianjin Huanhu Hospital from January 2019 to January 2022. Basic information on the cases,data on pDOC disease assessment, consciousness-regaining therapy methods, and efficacy evaluation were collected. A total of 114 patients were grouped and compared based on the efficacy at the end of treatment. Among them, there were 61 cases in the ineffective group and 53 cases in the effective group. There was no statistically significant difference (P&gt;0.05) between the two groups in terms of gender, age, etiology, acute cerebral herniation, emergency craniotomy surgery, emergency decompressive craniectomy, time from onset to start of consciousness-regaining therapy , and duration of consciousness-regaining therapy(P&gt;0.05). However, there were statistically significant differences (P&lt;0.05) in terms of secondary hydrocephalus, , consciousness-regaining therapy methods, CRS-R grading before treatment, and GOSE score at 6 months after treatment. Binary logistic regression analysis showed that the type of therapy (OR=0.169, 95% CI: 0.057-0.508) was a related factor affecting the efficacy of consciousness-regaining therapy (P&lt;0.05).Compared with non-invasive therapy, personalized awakening therapy using various invasive consciousness-regaining therapy methods can help improve the efficacy of therapy for pDOC.

The objective of this work is to analyze the improvement of heat transfer in trapezoidal fin heat exchangers using numerical simulation. Heat exchangers are essential components frequently used in contemporary electronic gadgets to effectively disperse heat produced by high-power components. Nevertheless, as electronic devices continue to advance and become more powerful, the heat transfer capacity of heat exchangers is facing more requirements, therefore requiring enhanced heat dissipation efficiency. Afterwards, various fin angles were adjusted, and the heat transmission efficiency was compared. Modifying the angles can significantly improve the effi-ciency of convective heat dissipation. Moreover, it has been found that employing an optimized trapezoidal fin structure can further enhance the efficiency of heat transfer. The results indicate that trapezoidal fin heat exchangers provide superior heat dissipation efficiency compared to conventional heat exchangers. This is important for enhancing the thermal dissipation capabili-ties of electrical gadgets, hence guaranteeing steady functionality and extending their longevity. Subsequent study might explore supplementary methods to boost heat transmission in different heat exchanger configurations in order to meet the growing requirements for heat dissipation.

Biological systematics, exploring the structure of taxonomic diversity (TD), needs a proper conceptualization that would (a) make it complying with certain universal criteria of scientificity and (b) take into account specificity of its studied object. This article outlines a possible conceptual framework for this natural science discipline based on the ideas of contemporary conceptualism. One of the most fundamental of them includes a concept of cognitive situation shaped by three interrelated basic components—ontic, epistemic, and subjective. Its core position is taken by a taxonomic theory (TT) being a conceptual construct resulted from a “summative” effect of all three components and designed for studying TD. The general TT is shown to be composed by a hierarchically arranged array of partial TTs of various levels of generality, and this construct serves as a conceptual justification of taxonomic pluralism. Several kinds of partial TTs are suggested to recognise, viz., ontology- and epistemology-oriented, aspect- and object-based, etc. The aspect-based TTs are of special importance as the conceptual foundations of particular research programs in systematics. The object-based partial TTs are shown to be implemented by concepts of species and homology. A large-scale relation between taxonomic theory and nomenclature is briefly considered.

It is important for researchers in material domain to reconstruct and visualize the microstructure of alloy, which helps discover morphologies and properties that can only be found in three dimensional and microscopic space. However, because of the limitation of state-of-the-art sensors, the internal microstructure of the material is not easy to obtain. In this paper, a novel automatic 3D reconstruction method is proposed using diffraction contrast tomography technology to capture the 3D microstructure of Al-La alloy. The pipeline of the proposed method starts from the imaging of Al-La alloy with the LabDCT technique from Carl Zeiss AG, which produces a sequence of 2D microstructure sections. Then, a segmentation algorithm based on superpixel and lifted multicut is proposed to extract the 2D microstructure in an image section. Finally, 2D segmentations are joined together to reconstruct and visulize the 3D microstructure. As a result, a novel morphology of Al-La alloy is recovered with both dendrite and lamellar morphologies. The proposed method has the advantage of the ability to losslessly recover the internal microstructure.

The molecular clusters ((HO)3Si-O-Si(OH)3, and (HO)3Al-O-Si(OH)3 ) representative of aluminosilicate mineral surface were employed to study the dissolution of aluminosilicate in acidic condition via density functional theory with the M06-2X+G(d,p) methodology. The surface termination sites (Si and Al) were both tetra-coordinated and the terminal oxygen was protonated in acidic condition. In the dissolution reaction, the calculated barrier height of the six-membered ring transition state complex containing two water molecules was predicted to be lower than that of four-membered ring transition state complex containing one water molecule. In addition, the calculated barrier heights for Al-terminated sites were predicted to be lower than those for the Si-terminated sites, suggesting that breaking the Al-O bond is easier than Si-O bond in the aluminosilicate mineral surface; the barrier heights of the surface termination sites with protonated terminal oxygen were lower than those without protonated terminal oxygen. With the fracture of Si-O and Al-O bonds, the Si and Al release from the aluminosilicate. These results confirm the experimental conclusions that the acidic condition facilitates the release of Si and Al from the aluminosilicate, and the concentration of Al leaching from aluminosilicate is higher than Si.

We estimated the daily intakes of chlorpyrifos and cypermethrin via ingestion of indoor dust and outdoor soils using the Stochastic Human Exposure and Dose Simulation Model on a probabilistic approach for Taiwan’s homes. Variable information for the daily intake estimation, such as concentration, ingestion rate, body weight, was adopted from previous studies. Monte Carlo simulation was performed with 1,000,000 iterations to simulate a single daily intake, which was shown in terms of percentage of the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of either insecticide. The daily intakes were minimal with a 99% probability; at 99.9th percentile, however, the total intakes leaped to 13.1% and 20.0% of the respective ADIs of chlorpyrifos and cypermethrin. The sensitivity analysis indicated that concentration was the most determinant variable. Compared to the data of daily intakes via dietary ingestion of vegetables derived from a previous study, the estimated intakes by this study were considerable at the highest percentile, which referred to insecticide residues few days after insecticide application. Consequently, the non-dietary ingestion exposure to either insecticide was negligible in most cases; nevertheless, for those with indoor insecticide applications, the daily intakes for young children could be of concern. Frequently home cleaning is recommended to reduce the exposure.

The testing of high-dimensional normality has been an important issue and has been intensively studied in literatures, it depends on the Variance-Covariance matrix of the sample, numerous methods have been proposed to reduce the complex of the Variance-Covariance matrix. The principle component analysis(PCA) was widely used since it can project the high-dimensional data into lower dimensional orthogonal space, and the normality of the reduced data can be evaluated by Jarque-Bera(JB) statistic on each principle direction. We propose two combined statistics, the summation and the maximum of one-way JB statistics, upon the independency of each principle direction, to test the multivariate normality of data in high dimensions. The performance of the proposed methods is illustrated by the empirical power of the simulated data of normal data and non-normal data. Two real examples show the validity of our proposed methods.

No research to date has explored the possibility of context-specific, within-relationship fluctuation in attachment security. In this present article, two cross-sectional studies were designed (1) to develop and validate context-specific attachment scales in Traditional-Chinese, and (2) to explore fluctuations in within-parent attachment security between the contexts of sport and academics, in relation to global attachment patterns and indicators of psychological wellbeing. Results indicated that youth can and do perceive within-parent attachment patterns differently depending upon context but that the relationship of such differences to context-specific outcomes is complex. Of particular interest was that the degree of within-parent attachment variability between contexts was clearly and negatively related to indices of psychological wellbeing. This suggests that contextual variation may be a meaningful and useful way to explore within-parent attachment fluctuation.

The study investigated the relationships between sarcopenia, frailty, and related factors in hemodialysis patients with chronic kidney disease. A prospective cross-sectional study with convenience sampling was conducted between August 2021 and February 2022 at a hospital-affiliated hemodialysis center. Ninety-six hemodialysis patients participated in the study. Quantitative data were collected with structured interviews. Sarcopenia was determined with a rapid screening tool. Frailty was determined with the Rockwood clinical frailty score. Descriptive analysis, Person Correlations, and Linear regression analysis were used to evaluate the associations between frailty, sarcopenia, and health-related factors in hemodialysis patients. The mean age of the participants was 65.4 11.5 years, with an average of 95.0 77.5 months of hemodialysis. The most common comorbidity was hypertension (72.9%), followed by diabetes mellitus (39.6%) and cardiovascular health problems (35.4%). A significant difference in frailty between sarcopenia patients and a healthy population (X2 =9.51, p &lt;.001) was identified. There was a strong negative correlation (r= −.853, p&lt;.001) between sarcopenia and frailty, while moderate correlations between sarcopenia and frailty in sarcopenia patients (r= −.66, p&lt;.001) and a healthy population (r= −.58, p&lt;.001) were observed. Age, body weight before dialysis, and hand grip strength were found to be potential predictors of sarcopenia and frailty. Left calf circumference was significantly associated with sarcopenia (ß= −.128, p = .049). Age, body weight before dialysis, and hand grip strength are potential predictors of sarcopenia and frailty in hemodialysis patients with chronic kidney disease. Comorbidities, which may be preventable, are common in this population.

The rapid development of the regional economy in China has led to the rise of local ecological risks. It is very important to provide enjoyable ecosystem services to residents while reducing ecological risks. In order to understand spatial relationships between ecosystem services and ecological risks, we took Chongqing as an example in this study to assess the spatial relationship between ecosystem services and ecological risks at the county scale based on the ES-DPSIR system. The main findings include: (1) significant variation in the spatial distribution of the comprehensive ecosystem service index, where the lowest ecosystem service index (0.013) was found in the main urban area of Chongqing and the scores gradually increased outward from this center, reaching 0.689 in the outermost areas, (2) the increase of the comprehensive ecological risk index from east to west, ranging from -0.134 to 0.333, (3) the spatial relationship between ecosystem services and ecological risks was prominent, with 52.63% of the districts and counties being imbalanced or mild imbalanced, and (4) the significant differences between development trends of ecosystem services-ecological risks, including 60.53% being imbalanced districts and 30.47% mildly balanced. Overall, it was necessary to improve the relationship between ecosystem services and ecological risks in Chongqing by reducing ecological risks., and these research results could provide effective approaches and technical support for improving regional ecological security and enhancing ecosystem service capabilities.

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

In order to solve the problem of feature extraction of underwater acoustic signals in complex ocean environment, a new method for feature extraction from ship radiated noise is presented based on empirical mode decomposition theory and permutation entropy. It analyzes the separability for permutation entropies of the intrinsic mode functions of three types of ship radiated noise signals, and discusses the permutation entropy of the intrinsic mode function with the highest energy. In this study, ship radiated noise signals measured from three types of ships are decomposed into a set of intrinsic mode functions with empirical mode decomposition method. Then, the permutation entropies of all intrinsic mode functions are calculated with appropriate parameters. The permutation entropies are obviously different in the intrinsic mode functions with the highest energy, thus, the permutation entropy of the intrinsic mode function with the highest energy is regarded as a new characteristic parameter to extract the feature of ship radiated noise. After that, the characteristic parameters, namely, the energy difference between high and low frequency, permutation entropy, and multi-scale permutation entropy, are compared with the permutation entropy of the intrinsic mode function with the highest energy. It is discovered that the four characteristic parameters are at the same level for similar ships, however, there are differences in the parameters for different types of ships. The results demonstrate that the permutation entropy of the intrinsic mode function with the highest energy is better in separability as the characteristic parameter than the other three parameters by comparing their fluctuation ranges and the average values of the four characteristic parameters. Hence, the feature of ship radiated noise can be extracted efficiently with the method.

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

In Taiwan, mountainous areas account for approximately two-thirds of the total area. The steep terrain and concentrated rainfall during typhoons cause landslides, which pose a considerable threat to mountain settlements. Therefore, models for analyzing rainfall-induced landslide hazards are urgently required to ensure adequate land use in mountainous areas. In this study, focusing on Pingtung County in southern Taiwan, we developed a landslide hazard index (IRL) to land use. Using FORMOSA-2 and SPOT-5 satellite images, data were collected before and after four typhoons (one in 2009 and three in 2013). The ArcGIS random tree classifier was used for interpreting satellite images to explore surface changes and disasters, which were used to analyze slope disturbances. The product of the maximum 3-h rolling rainfall intensity and effective accumulated rainfall was used as a rainfall trigger index (IRT). Considering environmental and slope disturbance factors, an index of slope environmental strength potential (ISESP) was developed through logistic regression (LR). Landslide hazard to land use was estimated using IRT and ISESP. The average coefficient of agreement (Kappa) was approximately 0.71 (medium to high accuracy); the overall accuracy of slope environmental strength potential analysis was approximately 80.4%. At a constant ISESP, IRT increased with the increasing hazard potential of rainfall-induced landslides. Furthermore, IRT and ISESP were positively correlated with landslide occurrence. When large ISESP values occur (e.g., fragile environment and high land development intensity), small IRT values may induce landslides.

Bowlby’s (1969/1982) attachment theory has been employed as a broad and integrative framework to explore human wellness across a range of disciplines. Attachment theory has even been labelled one of the last surviving “grand theories” not to have been completely dismissed, replaced, or extensively reworked (e.g., Carr, 2012; Mercer, 2011). However, despite the ubiquitous nature of some of the theory’s fundamental tenets, there are always possibilities for new conceptual development, extension, and revision. In this paper, we critically explore the idea of “context-specific” attachment within parent-child relationships. We briefly outline critical assumptions and key areas of attachment and articulate potential rationale, conceptualisation, and relevance of contextual attachment.

: Background: The polysaccharides are one of the main active ingredients of Polygonum sibiricum (PSP), which is a traditional food and medicine homologues in China. The antidepressant-like effects of PSP and its underlying mechanisms remain to be studied in depth, especially the regulation of microglial polarization. Methods: The chemical composition and structural characteristics of PSP was determined firstly. The CUMS procedure was carried out to the zebrafish for 5 weeks and PSP were immersed administration for 9 days (1 h/d). The body weight of zebrafish was monitored and the behavioral tests, including the novel tank test and light and dark tank test, were performed to evaluate the antidepressant-like effects of PSP. Then the function of HPI axis, the levels of peripheral inflammation, neuronal and blood-brain barrier damage in mesencephalon and telencephalon and the mRNA expression of M1/M2 phenotype genes in brain were examined. Results: PSP samples had the typical structure characteristics of polysaccharide, consisting of glucose, mannose and galactose with the average Mw 20.48 kDa, which owned a porous and agglomerated morphology. Compared with untreated zebrafish, the depression-like behaviors of CUMS-induced zebrafish were significantly attenuated. PSP significantly decreased the levels of cortisol and the pro-inflammatory cytokines and increased the levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokines in the body of CUMS-induced depressive zebrafish. Furthermore, neuronal and blood-brain barrier damage in mesencephalon and telencephalon and the mRNA expression of M1/M2 phenotype genes in brain were remarkably reversed by PSP. Conclusion: These findings indicated that the antidepressant-like effects of PSP were related to alter the HPI axis hyperactivation, suppress peripheral inflammation, inhibit neuroinflammation induced by microglia hyperactivation, and modulate microglial M1/M2 polarization. The current study provides foundation to the future exploitation of PSP in the functional foods of emotional regulation.

The results of numerical experiments with the chemistry-climate model of the Institute of Numerical Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences - Russian State Hydro-Meteorological University (INM-RSHU CCM) in comparison with the MERRA2 reanalysis data are presented. To assess the impact of sea surface temperature (SST) on stratospheric processes and the ozone layer, numerical experiments were carried out for scenarios corresponding to the El Niño and La Niña Southern Oscillation phases. It is shown that the El Niño phase contributes to the enhancement of heat and mass transfer to the polar stratosphere, which strengthen the Brewer-Dobson circulation and the flux of wave activity that affect the zonal wind. As a result, during El Niño, the probability of sudden stratospheric warming increases and the stratospheric polar vortex (SPV) weakens, re-sulting in an increase in total polar stratospheric ozone. The La Niña phase, on the contrary, is accompanied by a weakening of heat and mass transfer from the troposphere to the stratosphere, as a result of which the stratospheric polar vortex strengthens and the total column ozone decreases. It is shown that the effect associated with the Southern Oscillation is more pronounced in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere. Numerical experiments were also carried out for scenarios in which the sea surface temperature was set corresponding to the early 1980s, and the results were compared with calculations in which the SST was set corresponding to the late 2010s. This allowed us to assess the influence of the multiyear trend in the SST increase on stra-tospheric processes and the ozone layer. It was shown that the SST increase is most pronounced in the Arctic, which corresponds to the phenomenon of "Arctic amplification", and therefore, the heat and mass transfer to the stratosphere increases in the Northern Hemisphere, which contributes to some weakening of the SPV and increase of the total column ozone. But, compared to the Southern Oscillation, the influence of the SST trend on the SPV and total column ozone is much weaker and is observed mainly in the Northern Hemisphere.

This paper proposes a compact planar Wi-Fi antenna with optimized radiation patterns for small uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) applications in both urban and open areas. It is suitable for mounting on the outermost side of the non-metallic wing of small UAVs. It has small dimensions of 16.5 mm (L) by 30.3 mm (W) by 1.6 mm (h), and the measured results of its prototype are in agreement with simulated data. Its impedance bandwidths over the two frequency ranges are 2.11 to 2.58 GHz and 5.06 to 7.5 GHz ( ). At 5.8 GHz, it has stronger radiation below the small UAV to reduce interference from rare-use directions. Its maximum radiations, the directions of the maximum radiation in each elevation plane, are below the UAV and between 14° and 29° from the horizontal plane. At 2.4 GHz, it has quasi-omnidirectional radiation to ensure a stable link in all directions, and its maximum radiations are near the horizontal plane. The optimized radiation patterns at 5.8 and 2.4 GHz can provide more antenna gain when the small UAV flies farther in urban and open areas, respectively. In addition, it has good vertically polarized radiation for long-distance applications.

Inequality of health service for different specialty categories not only occurs in different areas inequality of health service for different specialty categories in the world, but also happens in the online service platform. In the online health community (OHC), health service was often of inequality for different specialty categories, including both online views and medical consultation for offline registered service. Moreover, how the factor city-level impacts the inequality of health service in OHC is still unknown. We designed a causal inference study with data on distributions of serviced patients and online views in over 100 distinct specialty categories on one largest OHC in China. To derive the causal effect of the city-levels (two levels inducing 1 and 0) on the Gini coefficient, we matched the focus cases in cities of rich healthcare resources with the potential control cities. For the Gini coefficient of serviced patients in over 100 specialty categories, the average treatment effect of level-1 cities is 0.470, which is 0.029 higher than that of the matched group. Similarly, for the Gini coefficient of online views, the average treatment effect of Level-1 cities is 0.573, which is 0.016 higher than that of the matched group. For each of the specialty categories, we also estimated the average treatment effect the specialty category’s Gini coefficient ( ) with the balanced covariates. The results support the argument that the total Gini coefficient of all the doctors in OHC shows that the inequality of health service is still very serious. This study contributes to the development of the theoretically grounded understanding of the causal effect of city-level on the inequality of health service in an online to offline healthcare service setting.

The basic idea is to expand the completed zeta function $\xi(s)$ in MacLaurin series (infinite polynomial), which can be further expressed as infinite product (Hadamard product) by conjugate complex roots. Finally, the functional equation $\xi(s)=\xi(1-s)$ leads to $(s-\alpha_i)^2 = (1-s-\alpha_i)^2, i \in \mathbb{N}$ with solution $\alpha_i= \frac{1}{2}, i \in \mathbb{N}$, where $\alpha_i$ are the real parts of the zeros of $\xi(s)$, i.e., $s_i =\alpha_i\pm j\beta_i, i\in \mathbb{N}$. Therefore, a proof of the Riemann Hypothesis is achieved.

Photophysical properties of a series of bis(arylydene)cycloalkanone dyes with various donor substituentns are studied by quantum chemistry. Their capacity for luminescence and nonradiative relaxation through trans-cis isomerization is related to their structure, in particular, to the donor capacity of the substituents and the degree of conjugation due to the central cycloalkanone moiety. It is shown that cyclohexanone central moiety introduces distortions and disrupts the conjugation, thus leading to a nonmonotonic change in their properties. The increasing donor capacity of the substituents causes increase in the HOMO energy (raise of the oxidation potential) and decrease in the HOMO-LUMO gap, which results in the red shift of the absorption spectra. The ability of the excited dye to relax through fluorescence or through trans-cis isomerization is governed by the height of the barrier between the Franck–Condon and S1-S0 conical intersection regions on the potential energy surface of the lowest π-π* excited state. This barrier also correlates with the donor capacity of the substituents and the degree of conjugation between the central and donor moieties. The calculated fluorescence and trans-cis isomerization rates are in good agreement with the observed fluorescence quantum yields.

The Myb family of transcription factors (TFs) is a large and functionally diverse group found in all eukaryotes, but its role in fungi remains poorly understood. Here, we characterized a Myb family TF called MoMyb13 in the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae. MoMyb13 has two Myb domains and has orthologues only in ascomycete fungi. Localization experiments confirmed that MoMyb13 is located in the nuclei, as expected for a TF. Phenotypic analysis showed that MoMyb13 mutants exhibited reduced growth, whitened colony appearance and no conidia formation. Importantly, these mutants completely lost pathogenicity, despite being able to form appressoria at their hyphae ends, suggesting that these appressoria were non-functional for causing infection. Furthermore, the mutant colonies lost hydrophobicity and had significantly reduced expression of the hydrophobin MPG1. However, overexpression of MPG1 in the mutants restored their hydrophobicity, but not pathogenicity. Stress assay showed that the mutants were more sensitive to SDS, CR and H2O2, but more tolerant to NaCl and SOR. In summary, our study revealed the essential role of the MoMyb13 in the growth, conidiation, hydrophobicity, stress response and pathogenicity of M. oryzae, and provides valuable insights into the working mechanism of Myb TFs in fungi.

We report fabrication of crystalline microresonators of high quality (Q) factors with a controllable wedge angle on lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI). Our technique relies on femtosecond laser assisted chemo-mechanical polish which allows us to achieve ultrahigh surface smoothness as critically demanded by high Q microresonator applications. We show that by refining the polish parameters, Q factors as high as 4.7 × 10⁷ can be obtained and the wedge angle of the LNOI can be continuously tuned from 9° to 51°.

We report fabrication of a multifunctional photonic integrated chip on lithium niobate on insulate (LNOI), which is achieved by femtosecond laser assisted chemo-mechanical polish. We demonstrate a high extinction ratio beam splitter, a 1 × 6 optical switch, and a balanced 3 × 3 interferometer on the fabricated chip by reconfiguring the microelectrode array integrated with the multifunctional photonic circuit.

Both fibrosis and cirrhosis of the liver are the end results of most kinds of chronic liver damage and present a common but difficult clinical challenge throughout the world. The inhibition of the fibrogenic, proliferative, and migratory effects of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) has become an experimental therapy for preventing and even reversing hepatic fibrosis. Furthermore, a complete understanding of the function of non-coding RNA-mediated epigenetic mechanisms in HSC activation may improve our perception of liver fibrosis pathogenesis. This review focuses on an evolving view of molecular mechanisms in which HSC activation by miR-29a signaling may moderate their profibrogenic phenotype, thus supporting the use of miR-29a agonists as a potential therapy for treating liver fibrosis in the future.

The chiral optical Tamm state (COTS) is a special localized state at the interface of a handedness-preserving mirror and a structurally chiral medium such as a cholesteric liquid crystal or a chiral sculptured thin film. The spectral behavior of COTS, observed as reflection resonances, is described by the temporal coupled-mode theory. Mode coupling is different for two circular light polarizations because COTS has a helix structure replicating that of the cholesteric. The mode coupling for co-handed circularly polarized light exponentially attenuates with the cholesteric layer thickness since the COTS frequency falls into the stop band. Cross-handed circularly polarized light freely goes through the cholesteric layer and can excite COTS when reflected from the handedness-preserving mirror. The coupling in this case is proportional to anisotropy of the cholesteric and theoretically it is only anisotropy of magnetic permittivity that can ultimately cancel this coupling. These two couplings being equal results in a polarization crossover (the Kopp--Genack effect) for which a linear polarization is optimal to excite COTS. The corresponding cholesteric thickness and scattering matrix for COTS are generally described by simple expressions.

The study of man-land relationship in urbanization process is the current frontier and focus of international research. How to balance urban development and ecosystem conservation in the Upper Yellow River is a key issue for sustainable development in China. In this study, we evaluated the Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomeration （LXUA）by constructing a multi-dimensional assessment system for urbanization quality and ecosystem services. The efficacy function model, entropy weight method, and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model were used to quantitatively assess the subsystems' state of development. Then, the coupling model (CD) and the coordination degree（CCD）model were used to explore the coupling coordination relationship and spatial-temporal change characteristics of the composite system. The findings indicate that: 1）In 2020, the quality of urbanization in LXUA showed the pattern of "double core". The development of urban centers in each city is insufficient, and the proportion of counties with low-level is too high. 2）Integrated ecosystem services showed an increasing distribution pattern from the northeast to the southwest. Water provision services, soil conservation services and carbon fixation services all showed growth trends. 3）Each county’s composite system was in the run-in stage or highly coupled stage. The subsystems were closely related to each other. 4）The CCD was decreased by 6% between two decades. The number of counties on the verge of disorder was the highest. About 80% of the counties are relatively lagging behind in ecosystem services.

The development of computational acoustics allows simulation of sound generation and propagation in complex environment. In particular, meshfree methods are widely used to solve acoustics problems through arbitrarily distributed field points and approximation smoothness flexibility. As a Lagrangian meshfree method, smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method reduce the difficulty in solving problems with deformable boundaries, complex topologies, or multiphase medium. The traditional SPH method has been applied in acoustic simulation. This study presents the corrective smoothed particle method (CSPM), which is a combination of SPH kernel estimate and Taylor series expansion. The CSPM is introduced as a Lagrangian approach to improve accuracy in solving acoustic wave equations in the time domain. Moreover, a boundary treatment technique based on the hybrid meshfree and finite difference time domain (FDTD) method is proposed to represent different acoustic boundaries with particles. To model sound propagation in pipes with different boundaries, soft, rigid, and absorbing boundary conditions are built with this technique. Numerical results show that the CSPM algorithm is consistent and demonstrates convergence with exact solutions. Main computational parameters are discussed, and different boundary conditions are validated to be effective for benchmark problems in computational acoustics.

Road cracks significantly affect the serviceability and safety of roadways, especially in mountainous terrain. Traditional inspection methods, such as manual detection, are excessively time-consuming, labor-intensive, and inefficient. Additionally, multi-function detection vehicles equipped with various sensors are expensive and not suitable for mountainous roads due to poor conditions. To address these challenges, this study proposes a customized Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) inspection system designed for automatic crack detection. The system focuses on enhancing autonomous capabilities in mountainous terrains by incorporating embedded algorithms for route planning, autonomous navigation, and automatic crack detection. The slide window method is proposed to enhance the autonomous navigation of UAV flights by generating path planning in mountainous roads. This method compensates for GPS/IMU positioning errors, particularly in GPS-denied or GPS-drift scenarios. Moreover, the YOLOv8 algorithm is introduced to conduct autonomous crack detection from UAV imagery in the offboard module. To validate our UAV inspection system's performance, we conducted several experiments to assess its accuracy, robustness, and efficiency. The experimental results demonstrate that our UAS inspection system accurately estimates the flight trajectory along the mountainous road for autonomous navigation. Furthermore, the experimental detection results also demonstrate that the YOLOv8 algorithm achieves higher recognition accuracy compared to the YOLOv5, and YOLOv7-tiny algorithms, exceeding 3.1%,and 6.8% of mAP, respectively. In summary, the UAV inspection system proposed in this study can provide a useful tool and technological guidance for the regular inspection of mountainous roads.

Longitudinal image registration of pulmonary computed tomography (PCT) images may serve as an essential tool for investigating the relationship between radiation dose distribution and the occurrence and phenotype of radiation-induced lung disease (RILD). Although numerous longitudinal registration algorithms have been developed for PCT, most similarity-based approaches are not suitable for PCT involving RILD due to the complex tissue variation between two PCT images. Moreover, conventional feature-based approaches might fail to find a sufficient number of matched pairs of feature points due to the disparate lung deformation caused by breathing and RILD. To overcome the challenges resulting from RILD, component structure coherence point drift (CSCPD) was proposed to establish a deformation model by decomposing the chest into several components and matching them with individual parameters based on coherence point drift (CPD). Moreover, a regional vascular point matching (RVPM) algorithm was proposed to generate a vascular subtree and to substantially increase the number of corresponding pairs between two images. Eventually, the components were recomposed and aligned by a thin plate spline algorithm. A performance assessment on 15 pairs of PCT images of patients with RILD yielded recall and precision values of 0.85 and 0.89 for RVPM, respectively. Moreover, the target registration error of CSCPD with RVPM (2.3 ± 1.79) was significantly better than that of conventional CPD with RVPM (2.95 ± 1.89) and conventional CPD (5.04 ± 2.87). Therefore, the proposed registration system is robust enough to address the disparate deformation of lungs with RILD, and it improves registration accuracy within the parenchyma.

The rock joint fissure slope in cold regions is prone to deformation and failure problems such as relaxation, tension and collapse under freeze-thaw (F-T) cycles. Based on the ideology of clean production and promoting the structural integrity of geotechnical projects in cold areas, this study designed and prepared aeolian-sand (AS) to replace part of river sand as a filling mortar material by taking advantage of the low cost and easy availability of AS. Investigations were carried out to determine the impact of varying proportions of AS in mortar on the microstructure and shear properties of the mortar-rock interface under F-T cycles. Therefore, F-T cycle testing, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) testing and shear testing were carried out on grout with different proportions of AS. The results show that the right proportion of AS replacement could enhance the shear deformation resistance and F-T resistance of the mortar-rock interface, and 30% proportion is the optimal proportion. By increasing of F-T cycles, the three types of specimens showed different degrees of particle spalling, shedding and cracking. The slurry-rock interface layer in the A (0%) group exhibited the most severe F-T deterioration, while the B (15%) group showed a lesser degree, and the C (30%) group performed the best. T2 spectrum curve and total spectrum area change law from the microscopic point of view to verify the 30% AS proportion mortar-rock interface F-T resistance is the strongest, followed by 15% AS proportion mortar, the weakest is ordinary mortar. The degradation of the mortar-rock bond is primarily due to the conversion of solid to liquid phases and the movement of internal water caused by fluctuating temperatures. The extent of F-T deterioration in the slurry-rock interface layer is greatly affected by the varying proportions of AS. The shear strength and shear stiffness of specific proportion of AS decreased with the increase of F-T cycles. For same F-T cycles, the shear strength and shear stiffness of group C (30%) were the highest, followed by group B (15%) and group A (0%). The grout material not only reinforces the F-T joint fissure slope, but also reduces the cost of grout reinforcement and promotes the clean production of geotechnical structures.

We demonstrate fabrication of single-mode optical waveguides on lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) by optical patterning combined with chemo-mechanical polishing. The fabricated LNOI waveguides have a nearly symmetric mode profile of a mode field size of ~2.5 µm (full-width at half maximum). We develop a high-precision measurement approach by which the single mode waveguides are characterized to have a propagation loss of ~0.042 dB/cm.

In order to correct attenuated millimeter-wavelength (Ka-band) radar data and address the problem of instability, an attenuation correction methodology (attenuation correction with variation trend constraint; VTC) was developed. Using synchronous observation conditions and multi-band radars, the VTC method adopts the variation trends of reflectivity in X-band radar data captured with wavelet transform as a constraint to adjust reflectivity factors of millimeter-wavelength radar. The correction was evaluated by comparing reflectivities obtained by millimeter-wavelength cloud radar and X-band weather radar. Experiments showed that attenuation was a major contributory factor in the different reflectivities of the two radars when relatively intense echoes exist, and the attenuation correction developed in this study significantly improved data quality for millimeter-wavelength radar. Reflectivity differences between the two radars were reduced and reflectivity correlations were enhanced. Errors caused by attenuation were eliminated, while variation details in the reflectivity factors were retained. The VTC method is superior to the bin-by-bin method in terms of correction amplitude and can be used for attenuation correction of shorter wavelength radar assisted by longer wavelength radar data.

In (Semigroup Forum 77: 325-338, 2008) Mahmoudi M. and Renshaw J. solved a study that covers of cyclic $S$-acts over monoids. This article is an attempt to initiate the covers of finitely generated $S$-acts. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a monoid to have the properties that $n$-generated $S$-acts have strongly flat covers, Condition $(P)$ covers and projective covers. The main conclusions extend some known results. We show also that Condition $(P)$ covers of finitely generated $S$-acts are not unique, unlike the situation for strongly flat covers. Additionally, we demonstrate that the property of Enochs' $\mathcal{X}$-precover of $S$-act $A$, where $\mathcal{X}$ denotes a class of $S$-acts that are closed under isomorphisms.

The era of Internet of Things (IoT) has begun to evolve and with this the devices around us are getting more and more connected. Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANETs) is one of the applications of IoT. VANET allow vehicles within these networks to communicate effectively with each another. VANETs can provide an extensive range of applications that support and enhance passenger safety and comfort. It is important that VANETs are applied within a safe and reliable network topology; however, the challenging nature of reaching reliable and trustworthy agreement in such distributed systems is one of the most important issues in designing a fault-tolerant system. Therefore, protocols are required so that systems can still be correctly executed, reaching agreement on the same values in a distributed system, even if certain components in the system fail. In this study, the agreement problem is revisited in a VANET with multiple damages. The proposed protocol allows all fault-free nodes (vehicles) to reach agreement with minimal rounds of message exchanges, and tolerates the maximal number of allowable faulty components in the VANET.

Promoting green development has become an important way to optimize the ecological and economic structure and promote sustainable development. The Yangtze River Economic Belt is an important economic corridor in China, and it remains to be examined whether the implementation of environmental regulations has enhanced the green total factor productivity (GTFP) of cities. This paper calculates the green total factor productivity of 107 cities within the Yangtze River Economic Belt by using the super-efficient SBM model and the GML index with Chinese city panel data from 2007-2019 and measures the intensity of environmental regulations through textual analysis. The bidirectional fixed-effects model constructed in this paper suggests an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and GTFP, which is confirmed by a series of robustness tests. Green technology innovation and advanced industrial structure play a mechanism role in this. In regions with lower levels of green technology and industrial structure, the inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and green total factor productivity is more significant. In addition, the phenomenon of GTFP rising and then falling because of environmental regulation is more obvious in cities in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River and outside the urban agglomerations. Therefore, when formulating environmental regulation policies, it is necessary to balance the relationship between economic development and environmental protection and harmonize the environment and economic development of the entire Yangtze River Basin.

Abstract: NFinFET transistors with fin channel length 90nm and a planar MOSFET transistor with channel length 180nm and 90nm are presented with characteristic curves at various gate biases. A finalized algorithm with kink effects is effectively responsible for addressing the field effect transistors. The algorithm includes the modified conventional current-voltage formula and a nonlinear heat-associated kink solution which is simplified as a Gaussian form. Three parameters in modified model includes kN (related with channel width, channel length, and gate oxide capacitor, and proportional to the mobility of carriers)Vth(Threshold Voltage), and (the inverse of Early Voltage). Those parameters are determined to minimize the discrepancies between the measured data and the fitting values, but leave kinks located at around (VGS－Vth), which are deliberately eliminated by the Gaussian form because of the agitation of thermal kink effects. The whole fitting is made to be as close as the as-measured IDS-VDS. In the mean time, those determined parameters are physically meaningful after the analysis has been done.

The four-way reversing valve is a key component determining whether a heat pump air conditioning system can work. Studying the four-way reversing valve is of great significance for improving the performance of the heat pump air conditioning system. In this paper, the control equation of the sliding block movement process is constructed to simulate the reversing process of the four-way reversing valve in fluid mechanics, and a detailed study is carried out from the sliding block speed, sliding block acceleration, sliding block force, refrigerant leakage, and other aspects. Research has shown that optimizing the structure of the slider can greatly improve the working performance of the four-way reversing valve. Increasing the height of the slider not only improves the pressure relief ability of the four-way reversing valve and prevents the slider from being damaged by high-pressure gas impact, but also reduces the leakage of refrigerant during the directional process; When reducing the length of the slider, although it will improve the pressure relief capacity of the four-way reversing valve, it also increases the amount of refrigerant leakage. The research results provide a theoretical basis and improvement direction for designers to improve the performance of four-way reversing valves.

We demonstrate hybrid integration of a lithium niobate microring resonator with a silicon nitride waveguide in the vertical configuration to achieve efficient light coupling. The microring resonator is fabricated on a lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) substrate using photolithography assisted chemo-mechanical etching (PLACE). A fused silica cladding layer is deposited on the LNOI ring resonator. The silicon nitride waveguide is further produced on the fused silica cladding layer by first fabricating a trench in the fused silica using focused ion beam (FIB) etching for facilitating the evanescent coupling, followed by formation of the silicon nitride waveguide on the bottom of the trench. The FIB etching ensures the required high positioning accuracy between the waveguide and the ring resonator. We achieve Q-factors as high as 1.4*10^7 with the vertically integrated device.

With the increasing concern of environment, the energy-efficiency scheduling of manufacturing industry is becoming urgent and popular. In turning processes, both spindle speed and processing time can affect the final energy consumption and thus the spindle speed and scheduling scheme need to be optimized simultaneously. Since the turning workshop can be regarded as the flexible flow shop, this paper formulates a mixed integer linear programming model for energy-efficient scheduling of flexible flow shop. Accordingly, a new decoding method is developed by considering of the optimization of spindle speed and scheduling scheme simultaneously, and an estimation of distribution algorithm adopting the new decoding method is proposed to solve large-size problems. The parameters of this algorithm are determined by statistical technique with a simplified practical case. In order to validate the proposed method, a case from practical factories is studied, in which the makespan can be shortened by 25.22%, and the consumed energy can be saved by 5.48%. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed mathematical model and algorithm.

This paper aims to address the exponential stability and stabilization problems for a class of delayed nonlinear Markov jump systems under randomly occurring Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack and packet loss. Firstly, the stochastic characteristics of DoS attack and packet loss are depicted by the attack success rate and packet loss rate. Secondly, a Period Observation Window (POW) method and a hybrid-input strategy are proposed to compensate for the impact of DoS attack and packet loss on the system. Thirdly, A Dynamic Event-triggered Mechanism (DETM) is introduced to save more network resources and ensure the security and reliability of systems. Then, by constructing a general common Lyapunov functional and combining with the DETM and other inequality analysis techniques, the less conservative stability and stabilization criteria for the underlying systems are derived. In the end, the effectiveness of our result is verified through a numerical example.

Although Eulerian approaches are standard in computational acoustics, they are less effective for certain classes of problems like bubble acoustics and combustion noise. A different approach for solving acoustic problems is to compute with individual particles following particle motion. In this paper, a Lagrangian approach to model sound propagation in moving fluid is presented and implemented numerically, using three meshfree methods to solve the Lagrangian acoustic perturbation equations (LAPE) in the time domain. The LAPE split the fluid dynamic equations into a set of hydrodynamic equations for the motion of fluid particles and perturbation equations for the acoustic quantities corresponding to each fluid particle. Then, three meshfree methods, the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method, the corrective smoothed particle (CSP) method, and the generalized finite difference (GFD) method, are introduced to solve the LAPE and the linearized LAPE (LLAPE). The SPH and CSP methods are widely used meshfree methods, while the GFD method based on the Taylor series expansion can be easily extended to higher orders. Applications to modeling sound propagation in steady or unsteady fluids in motion are outlined, treating a number of different cases in one and two space dimensions. A comparison of the LAPE and the LLAPE using the three meshfree methods is also presented. The Lagrangian approach shows good agreement with exact solutions. The comparison indicates that the CSP and GFD method exhibit convergence in cases with different background flow. The GFD method is more accurate, while the CSP method can handle higher Courant numbers.

Effects of oxygen content on microstructure and creep property of FGH96 superalloy were investigated. When oxygen content increased from 135ppm to 341ppm, prior particle boundary (PPB) rose from degree 2 to degree 3, and the size of γ′ phase on PPB enlarged from 1.07μm to 1.27μm, and MC carbide size grew from 77.4nm to 104.0nm. Meanwhile, the steady creep rate accelerated form 4.34×10-3 h-1 to 1.87×10-2 h-1, and the creep rupture life shortened from 176h to 94h, and the creep rupture mode transferred from intergranular and transgranular mixed fracture to along PPB fracture. During creep, the micro-twins formation and gliding will be restrained by ∑3 boundaries. FGH96 superalloy with higher oxygen content contains less ∑3 boundaries and its micro-twins cross slipped instead of single direction slip in lower oxygen content superalloy. Consequently, specimen with higher oxygen content creeped faster and raptured earlier.

Osteoporosis (OP), a prevalent skeletal disorder characterized by compromised bone strength and increased susceptibility to fractures, poses a significant public health concern. This review aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the current state of research in the field, focusing on the application of proteomic techniques to elucidate diagnostic markers and therapeutic targets for OP. The integration of cutting-edge proteomic technologies has enabled the identification and quantification of proteins associated with bone metabolism, leading to a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying OP. In this review, we systematically examine recent advancements in proteomic studies related to OP, emphasizing the identification of potential biomarkers for OP diagnosis and the discovery of novel therapeutic targets. Additionally, we discuss the challenges and future directions in the field, highlighting the potential impact of proteomic research in transforming the landscape of OP diagnosis and treatment.

Expansion tube is ideal energy absorber which dissipates kinetic energy through plastic deformation and friction. There is an urgent need to understand the influence of key parameter, e.g. semi angle, tube material, and friction coefficient, on the mechanical response and energy absorption characteristics of expansion tube. In the present work, the material properties of the tubes were tested under quasi-static loading condition, and the numerical simulations were carried out by using commercial software ABAQUS. Based on the validated finite element simulation, all the semi angle, tube material, and friction have significant effects on the energy absorption capacity of expansion tube. The expansion tube with high tensile stress of parent material have high energy absorption capacity, while the specific energy absorption is linear with the tensile stress/density of tube material. This work would give a guidance to the structural design and parent materials selection for expansion tubes.

The exceptional performance advantages of the fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) position it as a dominant player in middle and high-end inertial navigation systems. To prevent the loss of sensor precision caused by algorithm design and simplify the complex modeling strategy in traditional methods. We gradually demonstrate the significant role of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) in the navigation system based on FOG, and utilize the particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO) to expedite the convergence of the network. The experimental results demonstrate that the initial alignment method based on deep learning is more accurate than the traditional method. The attitude angle error is reduced by 81.25%, 92.54% and 36.53% respectively. The research provides support for the future application of deep learning in optical navigation systems.

Semisolid casting can provide excellent castings, but the nature of the pore-forming mechanisms has not been properly clarified. In the current communication, it was suggested that hydrogen precipitated during slurry making might have a decisive role in the formation of both gas and shrinkage porosity. Intensive stirring at the end of the slurry making process may act as a degassing step. Without the intense stirring, structures of primary slurry particles form around the hydrogen pores, strongly affecting pore formation and feeding during the intensification stage.

Stroke remains one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Current reperfusion treatments for ischaemic stroke are limited due to their narrow therapeutic window in rescuing ischaemic penumbra. Stem cell therapy offers a promising alternative. As a regenerative medicine, stem cells offer a wider range of treatment strategies, including long-term intervention for chronic patients, through the reparation and replacement of injured cells via mechanisms of differentiation and proliferation. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the therapeutic role of stem cells for ischaemic stroke. The paper discusses the pathology during acute, subacute, and chronic phases of cerebral ischaemic injury, highlights the mechanisms involved in mesenchymal, endothelial, haematopoietic, and neural stem cell-mediated cerebrovascular regeneration and evaluates the pre-clinical and clinical data concerning the safety and efficacy of stem cell-based treatments. Treatment of stroke patients with different type of stem cells appears to be safe and efficacious even at relatively higher concentrations irrespective of the route and timing of administration. Priming or preconditioning of cells prior to administration appears to help augment their therapeutic impact. However, larger patient cohorts and later phase trials are required to consolidate these findings.

Forest resources are an important material basis for ecological protection and economic devel-opment, and are responsible for the dual mission of guaranteeing national ecological safety and grain safety. Forest land is an important carrier of forest resources, and forest landowner is a direct component of forest land management. Forest landowners’ willingness to engage in forest man-agement affects whether the important value function of forest resources can be implemented. Are there differences in the willingness and behavior of forest management between ethnic minority foresters and ordinary foresters? How to stimulate the forest management willingness and behavior of forest farmers in ethnic minority areas?These questions will be about the realization of the value of forest resources. Through the analysis of 185 questionnaires in Yunnan Province, this paper clarifies the current situation of forest management of forest farmers in minority areas. Then, using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, we select three indicators including the socio-economic at-tributes of individual farmers, the cognition and experience of forest landowners, and policy guidance. And we use the binary logistic regression model to analyze the factors affecting the willingness of forester to participate in forest management. Through the above analysis, we find that: (1) Forest landowners' willingness to engage in forest management in minority regions is relatively high, at 71.98%. (2) Individual farmers’ socioeconomic attributes have the most significant degree of influence on willingness to engage in forest management, while forest landowners' cognitive and related experiences, policy guidance and other related variables influence willingness to engage in forest management at the macro level. (3) Literacy has a significant positive contribution to man-agement intentions, while forest land area, living standard, whether they are compensated by public welfare forest, and whether they participate in the project of returning farmland to forest and grass have a significant negative effect on management intentions. (4) There are significant differences between forest landowners' willingness to engage in forest management and the influencing factors between minority regions and non-minority regions. Finally, we suggest to improve the willingness to engage in forest management and forestry industry development in minority regions through innovative management methods, concentrated and continuous large-scale management, en-couraging capital investment and driving forest landowners to "nearby employment", optimizing the logging quota system and raising the compensation standard for public welfare forests. This study has important practical significance for promoting the realization of forest ecological products value, consolidating the achievement of poverty alleviation in forest areas and realizing rural re-vitalization in China.

Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) is a rare and life-threatening disease characterized by microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia, and acute kidney injury, necessitating differentiation from other thrombotic microangiopathy disorders. Definitive biomarkers for disease diagnosis and activity are currently lacking, and identifying molecular markers is essential. We conducted single-cell sequencing on peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 13 aHUS patients, 3 aHUS family members, and 4 healthy controls. Analysis included clustering, cell type annotation, pseudotime estimation, and cell-cell communication. Immune cell populations differ among aHUS, aHUS families, and healthy controls. Disease activity and treatment influence T, NK, B, and monocyte subpopulations, with increased intermediate monocyte levels distinguishing aHUS from controls and aHUS groups with varying disease activity. Subclustering revealed differential gene expression in patients compared to controls; higher expression of mitochondria-related genes suggests cell metabolism may influence clinical course. Pseudotime trajectory analysis demonstrated unique immune cell differentiation, and cell-cell interaction analysis identified distinct signaling pathways among patients, family members, and controls. This single-cell sequencing study is the first to confirm immune cell dysregulation in aHUS pathogenesis, offering valuable insights into molecular mechanisms and potential new diagnostic and disease activity markers.

In order to reduce the waste of Akebia trifoliata peel and maximize its utilization. In this study, on the basis of single factor experiment and response surface method, the optimum technological conditions for the extraction of soluble dietary fiber from Akebia trifoliata peel by compound en-zyme method were obtained. The chemical composition, physical and chemical properties, structural characterization and biological activity of the purified soluble dietary fiber (AP-SDF) from the Akebia trifoliata peel were analyzed. We discovered that that the optimum yield was 20.87 % under the conditions of cellulase addition 600 U/g, enzymolysis time 100 min, solid-liquid ratio 1:24 g/mL and enzymolysis temperature 51 °C. At the same time, AP-SDF was a po-rous network structure cellulose type I acidic polysaccharose mainly composed of arabinoxylan (36.03%), galacturonic acid (27.40%) and glucose (19.00%), which possessed the structural charac-teristic peaks of the infrared spectra of polysaccharides, and the weight average molecular weight (Mw) was 95.52 kDa with good uniformity. In addition, AP-SDF exhibited high oil hold-ing capacity (15.11 g/g), good water holding capacity, swelling capacity, certain antioxidant ca-pacity in vitro, hypoglycemic activity in vitro of α-glucosidase inhibition and hypolipidemic ac-tivity in vitro of the binding ability of bile acids and cholesterol. These results will provide a theoretical basis for the development of functional products with antioxidant, hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects, it has certain application value in related industries.

We develop a technique for realizing lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) waveguides of a multi-centimeter-length with a propagation loss as low as 0.027 dB/cm. Our technique relies on patterning a chromium (Cr) thin film coated on the top surface of LNOI into a hard mask with a femtosecond laser followed by the chemo-mechanical polishing for structuring the LNOI into the waveguides. The surface roughness on the waveguides is determined to be 0.452 nm with an atomic force microscope (AFM). The approach is compatible with other surface patterning technologies such as optical and electron beam lithographies or laser direct writing, enabling high-throughput manufacturing of large-scale LNOI-based photonic integrated circuits.

This study investigates the impact of specimen size on the mechanical properties of wood, specifically focusing on compression strength, elastic modulus, and Poisson's ratio. Compression tests were conducted using three different specimen sizes (20mm×20mm×30mm, 40mm×40mm×60mm, 60mm×90mm×90mm) in the longitudinal, radial, and tangential directions. Mechanical parameters, failure mechanisms, load-displacement curves, and stress-strain relationships were systematically analyzed for each size. The study also evaluated the influence of specimen size on the accuracy of finite element numerical simulations by utilizing the obtained mechanical parameters. The results reveal a significant correlation between compressive strength and specimen size, indicating a decrease in compressive strength with increasing specimen size. Conversely, elastic modulus and Poisson's ratio exhibit less sensitivity to variations in specimen size. Notably, parameters derived from small-sized specimens (20mm×20mm×30mm) exhibited substantial errors, while those obtained from medium-sized (40mm×40mm×60mm) and large-sized specimens (60mm×90mm×90mm) demonstrated greater reliability, providing precise results in finite element numerical simulations.

A series of precise data consisting of zircon U–Pb ages, whole-rock geochemistry and Sr–Nd–Hf isotope compositions from the Huhetaoergai granitic pluton was collected in this study and combined with data from the western Huhetaoergai, Zhuxiaogubuhe and Yagan granitic plutons to constrain the petrogenesis and tectonic setting of granitic plutons in the northern Ya-Gan fault zone, North Alxa, China. The Huhetaoergai pluton is composed of hornblende diorite, medium- to coarse-grained biotite adamellite and coarse-grained biotite adamellite with K-feldspar megacrysts. The U–Pb zircon ages of biotite adamellite are 220.5 ± 1.9 Ma and 226.5 ± 2.4 Ma. These granitoids are I-type granites with highly radiogenic initial ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr of 0.708085–0.735470, negative eNd(t) average values of −2.98–3.23 and high eHf(t) of 9–11.05. These features indicate the granitoids were formed from magmas generated from juvenile crust. We speculate that the granitoids of the Huhetaoergai pluton were emplaced during an episode of intense intraplate orogenic movement evolution in an extrusional setting after a period of extensional postcollisional intraplate evolution.

The spectral properties of a one-dimensional photonic crystal bounded by a resonant absorbing nanocomposite layer with the near-zero permittivity have been studied. The problem of calculating the transmittance, reflectance, and absorptance spectra of such structures at the normal and oblique incidence of light has been solved. It is shown that, depending on the permittivity sign near zero, the nanocomposite is characterized by either metallic or dielectric properties. For the first time, the possibility of simultaneous formation of the Tamm plasmon polariton at the photonic crystal/metallic nanocomposite interface and the localized state similar to the defect mode with the field intensity maximum inside the dielectric nanocomposite layer is demonstrated. Specific features of field localization at the Tamm plasmon polariton and defect mode frequencies are analyzed.

Sunflower is one of the oil crops and its planting areas was listed behind Soybean, peanut and rapeseeds in China. It will encounter different kind of diseases during planting, thus limited the seeds yield. Fusarium species are the major threat to different crops nowadays, it is very important to identify the species caused diseases on different hosts, so that the potential control measures may be explored. In Inner mongolia, Sunflower Disk Rot (SDR) was found in different sunflower planting field, the average infection ratio around 8.50%, typically in some verieties, its infection ratio reach to 11.67%. The diseased receptacle were collected from different locations and Koch’s postulate was conducted. The results showed that Fusarium verticillioides was the main causal agent caused SDR. Fungicide toxicity tests shown that Fludioxonil and Flutolanil were screened out from six fungicides for controlling F. verticillioides, with EC50 values of 0.05 µg/mL (R = 0.9825) and 0.96 µg/mL (R = 0.9964) , respectively. This is the first report of SDR caused by F. verticillioides, and it will alert sunflower reseachers to include SDR in the disease list, so as to control sunflower diseases with integrated management strategy successfully.

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

This study aimed to determine clinical instructors’ perceptions of the assessments used to evaluate the clinical knowledge of undergraduate nursing students. This study uses a descriptive phenomenological approach. Purposive sampling was used to recruit sixteen clinical instructors for semi-structured interviews between August to December 2019. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi’s seven-step method. Four criteria were used to ensure the study’s validity: credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Three themes were identified in the clinical instructors’ views on evaluating the clinical performance of student nurses: familiarity with students, patchwork clinical learning, and differing perceptions of the same scoring system. Study results suggest the need for a reliable, valid, and consistent approach to evaluating students’ clinical knowledge. If the use of patchwork clinical internships for student nurses is unavoidable, a method for assessing student nurses’ clinical performance that requires instructor consensus is necessary.

The microglia, displaying diverse phenotypes, play a significant regulatory role in the development, progression, and prognosis of Parkinson's disease. Research has established that glycolytic reprogramming serves as a critical regulator of inflammation initiation in pro-inflammatory macrophages. Furthermore, the modulation of glycolytic reprogramming has the potential to reverse the polarized state of these macrophages. Previous studies have shown that levetistilide A (LA), a phthalide component derived from Angelica sinensis, possesses a range of pharmacological effects, including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and neuroprotective properties. In our study, we have examined the impact of LA on inflammatory cytokines and glucose metabolism in microglia induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Furthermore, we explored the effects of LA on the AMPK/mTOR pathway and assessed its neuroprotective potential both in vitro and in vivo. The findings revealed that LA notably diminished the expression of M1 pro-inflammatory factors induced by LPS in microglia, while leaving M2 anti-inflammatory factor expression unaltered. Additionally, it reduced ROS production and suppressed IκB-α phosphorylation levels as well as NF-κB p65 nuclear translocation. Notably, LA exhibited the ability to reverse microglial glucose metabolism reprogramming and modulate the phosphorylation levels of AMPK/mTOR. In vivo experiments further corroborated these findings, demonstrating that LA mitigated the death of TH-positive dopaminergic neurons and reduced microglia activation in the ventral SNpc brain region of the midbrain and the striatum. In summary, LA exhibited neuroprotective benefits by modulating the polarization state of microglia and altering glucose metabolism, highlighting its therapeutic potential.

Rapid and accurate detection of road cracks is of great significance for road health monitoring, but currently this work is mainly completed through manual site surveys. Low-altitude UAV remote sensing can obtain images with centimeter or even subcentimeter ground resolution, which provides a new efficient and economical approach for rapid crack detection. Nevertheless, crack detection networks face challenges such as edge blurring and misidentification due to the heterogeneity of road cracks and the complexity of the background. To address these issues, we propose a real-time edge reconstruction crack detection network (ERNet) which adopts multi-level information aggregation to reconstruct crack edges and improve the accuracy of segmentation between the target and background. To capture global dependencies across spatial and channel levels, we propose an efficient bilateral decomposed convolutional attention module (BDAM) that combines depth separable convolution and dilated convolution to capture global dependencies across spatial and channel levels. To enhance the accuracy of crack detection, we use a coordinate-based fusion module that integrates spatial, semantic, and edge reconstruction information. In addition, we propose an automatic measurement of crack information for extracting the crack trunk and its corresponding length and width. Experimental results demonstrate that our network achieves the best balance between accuracy and inference speed.

The bilateral trade relationship between PRC and ASEAN is close. As early as 2012, China has been the largest trading partner of ASEAN, and ASEAN has also taken the place of the United States as PRC’s second largest trading partner in 2019.This paper uses the theory of ecological population evolution, selects the total import and export volume of PRC and the ten ASEAN countries from 2000 to 2019 as the data sample, studies the bilateral trade relations between PRC and the ten ASEAN countries, analyzes the competition and symbiotic relationship of bilateral trade between PRC and the ten ASEAN countries and the possibility of trade friction according to the results, and proposes corresponding improvement strategies. According to the results of the population evolution competition model, China has a competitive relationship with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, which is most likely to cause trade friction. China has a biased relationship with Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, which is more likely to cause trade friction. On this basis, in order to further strengthen the trade relations between PRC and the ten ASEAN countries, this paper puts forward policy suggestions on improving infrastructure, strengthening independent innovation, seeking cooperation fields and actively investing abroad.

Domain generalization has led to remarkable achievements in Hyperspectral Image (HSI) classification. Inspired by contrastive language-image pre-training (CLIP), the language-aware domain generalization method has been explored to learn cross-domain-invariant representation. However, existing methods face some challenges: 1) The weak capacity to extract long-range contextual information and inter-class correlation. 2) Due to the inadequacies of the large-scale pre-training for HSI data, the spatial-spectral features of HSI and linguistic features can not be straightforwardly alignment. To address the above problems, a novel network has been proposed with a CLIP framework, which consists of an image encoder, based on an encoder-only transformer to obtain the global contextual information and inter-class correlation, a frozen text encoder, and a cross-attention mechanism, named Linguistic-Interact-with-Visual Engager (LIVE), enhances the interaction between two modalities. Extensive experiments demonstrating superior performance over state-of-the-art methods in HSI Domain Generalization with a CLIP framework.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing has allowed for production of geometrically complex 3D objects with extreme flexibility, which is currently undergoing rapid expansions in terms of materials, functionalities, as well as areas of application. When attempting to print 3D microstructures in glass, femtosecond laser induced chemical etching (FLICE) – which is a subtractive 3D printing technique – has proved itself a powerful approach. Here, we demonstrate fabrication of macro-scale 3D glass objects of large heights up to ~3.8 cm with an identical lateral and longitudinal spatial resolution of ~20 μm. The remarkable accomplishment is achieved by revealing an unexplored regime in the interaction of ultrafast laser pulses with fused silica which results in aberration-free focusing of the laser pulses deeply inside fused silica.

Background: Foodborne disease is a major public health concern in both developed and developing countries. China has established a nationwide Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (FDOSS) for collection and periodic reporting of data on the occurrence and causes of foodborne disease outbreaks in China. Each provincial Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducts the system working. Methods We reviewed foodborne disease outbreaks that occurred during 2011-2016 in Shandong Province from the FDOSS. The Wilcoxon test was used to compare the median number of ill persons in outbreaks. All data analysis was performed using Epi Info 7. Results: During 2011-2016, Shandong CDC received reports of 1043 foodborne disease outbreaks, resulting in 8078 illnesses, 2442 hospitalizations, and 17 deaths. Hotels were the most common setting. Among the 744 (71.3%) outbreaks with an implicated food or contaminated ingredient reported, 704 (94.6%) could be assigned to one of 17 predefined commodity categories. Of the 280 outbreaks with a known aetiology, 117(41.8%) were caused by poisonous plants and animals and their toxins, 39(13.9) were caused by nitrite, and 27(9.6%) were caused by vibrio parahaemolyticus. Conclusion: Timely investigation, disposal and reporting of foodborne disease outbreaks provides information that might help FDOSS to make full use of efficiency and FDOSS should be continued and strengthened even more in Shandong Province, such as an increase in diagnostic laboratory capacities.

Multimodal remote sensing data classification can enhance the model’s ability to distinguish land features through multimodal data fusion. In this context, how to help models understand the relationship between multimodal data and target tasks is the focus of researchers. Inspired by human feedback learning mechanisms, causal reasoning mechanisms, and knowledge induction mechanisms, this paper integrates causal learning, reinforcement learning, and meta learning into a unified remote sensing data classification framework and proposed the causal meta-reinforcement learning (CMRL). First, based on feedback learning mechanisms, we have overcome the limitations of traditional implicit optimization of fusion features and customized a reinforcement learning environment for multimodal remote sensing data classification tasks. Through feedback interactive learning between agents and the environment, we help them understand the complex relationships between multimodal data and labels, thereby achieving full mining of multimodal complementary information. Second, based on the causal inference mechanism we designed causal distribution prediction action, classification reward, and causal intervention reward, capturing pure causal factors in multimodal data and cutting off false statistical associations between non-causal factors and class labels. Finally, based on the knowledge induction mechanism, we designed a bi-layer optimization mechanism based on meta-learning. By constructing a meta training task and meta validation task simulation model in the generalization scenario of unseen data, we helped the model induce cross-task shared knowledge, thereby improving its generalization ability for unseen multimodal data. The experimental results on multiple sets of multimodal datasets show that the proposed method achieved state-of-the-art performance in multimodal remote sensing data classification tasks.

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

With ongoing colony losses driven in part by the Varroa mite and the associated exacerbation of virus load, there is an urgent need to protect honey bees (Apis mellifera) from fatal levels of virus infection and from nontarget effects of insecticides used in agricultural settings. A continuously replicating cell line derived from the honey bee would provide a valuable tool for study of molecular mechanisms of virus – host interaction, for screening of antiviral agents for potential use within the hive, and for assessment of the risk of current and candidate insecticides to the honey bee. However, the establishment of a continuously replicating, honey bee cell line has proved challenging. Here we provide an overview of attempts to establish primary and continuously replicating hymenopteran cell lines, methods (including recent results) for establishing honey bee cell lines, challenges associated with the presence of latent viruses (especially Deformed wing virus), in established cell lines and methods to establish virus-free cell lines. We also describe the potential use of honey bee cell lines in conjunction with infectious clones of honey bee viruses for examination of fundamental virology.

Microbiota-based strategies are a novel auxiliary therapeutic and preventative way of moderating chronic kidney disease. Lactobacillus mixture (Lm) was previously demonstrated to exert a renal-protective function in the CKD mice model. The efficacy of probiotics in pet foods is a relatively new area of study, and thus verifying the potential health benefits is necessary. This study evaluated the efficacy of Lm treats in feline CKD and elucidated the mechanisms underlying host-microbe interactions. CKD cats (2 and 3 stages) were administrated probiotic pet treats daily (10 g) for 8 weeks. The results demonstrated that during the eight weeks of Lm administration, creatinine was reduced or maintained in all cats with CKD. Similarly, gut-derived uremic toxins (GDUT), IS, and TMAO were significantly downregulated in the serum (confidence intervals = 90%). The life quality of the cats also improved. Feline gut microbiome data, KEGG pathway, and renal function indicator analyses revealed the possible mechanisms involved in modulating CKD feline microbial composition. Further regulation of the microbial functions in amino acid metabolism after Lm administration contributed to downregulating deleterious IS, PCS, and TMAO. The current study provides potential adjuvant therapeutic insights into probiotic pet foods or treats for pets with CKD.

The impacts of inflation on international finance are generally reflected in the decline of buying power, risks of investment and deposit loss from currency devaluation. For the purpose of optimized allocation and management of asset values, i.e., annual income or research grants, a framework of a three-level model for static financial management is presented to maximize banking interests, bonuses, and the remaining balance after spending necessary expenditures. Meanwhile, in retrospect to higher-level financial inflation, strategies of dynamic investment, i.e., posing regular tests of flipping coins, exploiting variations of the currency exchange rate, as well as applying the theory of broad money, are presented to increase the appreciation rate of net assets in and post the era of COVID-19. Quantitative evaluations in case studies verify the feasibility of improving the financial situation, indicating broader applications for budgeting and investing when US inflation rate is below 3.0%. Besides, combining approaches of static and dynamic strategies, the expected annual growth rate of individual zero-risk asset investment is predicted as within the range of 8.30~9.62% according to budgeted appreciation on net assets in 12 months, which is capable of overcoming negative impacts from higher level annual inflation, i.e., those as highest as 8.01% in the Year 2022.

Abstract: Toxicity of emerging organic pollutants to photosystems of aquatic plants are still not well clarified. This study aimed to develop a novel ecotoxicological experimental protocol based on nanoscale electrochemical mapping of photosynthetic oxygen evolution of aquatic plants by SECM (scanning electrochemical microscopy). The protocol was also checked by confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM), the traditional Clark oxygen electrode method and chlorophyll fluorescence technique. The typical persistent organic pollutant 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) in water environment and the common aquatic Microsorium pteropus (M. pteropus) were chosen as the model organic pollutant and tested plant, respectively. It was found that the SECM method could well discriminated the responses of stoma micromorphology and spatial pattens of photosynthetic oxygen evolution on single stoma. The shape of stoma blurred with increasing 2,4-DCP concentration, which was in good agreement with the CLSM images. The dose-response curves and IC50 values obtained from the SECM data were verified by the data measured by the traditional Clark oxygen electrode method and chlorophyll fluorescence test. The IC50 value of single stoma oxygen emission of 24 h exposed plant leave, which was derived from the SECM current data (32535 μg L-1), was close to those calculated from the maximum photosynthetic efficiency (Fv/Fm) measured by chlorophyll fluorescence test (33963 μg L-1), and the Clark oxygen electrode method photosynthetic oxygen evolution rate (32375 μg L-1). The 72 h and 96 h 2,4-DCP exposure data further confirmed the reliability of the nanoscale stoma oxygen emission mapping methodology for ecotoxicological assessment. In this protocol, the procedures for how to collect effective electrochemical data and how to extract useful information from the single stoma oxygen emission pattern were well established. This study showed that SECM is a feasible and reliable ecotoxicological tool for evaluation of toxicity of organic pollutants to higher plants with unique nanoscale visualization advantage over the conventional methods.

The sexual reproduction of ascomycetes is controlled by the mating-type(MAT) locus. (Pseudo)homothallic reproduction has been hypothesized based on genetic data from Hirsutella sinensis (Genotype #1 of Ophiocordyceps sinensis). In this study, the differential occurrence of the mating-type genes in the MAT1-1 and MAT1-2 idiomorphs, which constitute the genetic control of O. sinensis reproduction, was analyzed in 237 strains and 5 genomes of H. sinensis. The mating-type genes were differentially transcribed in H. sinensis Strain L0106, and the MAT1-2-1 transcript in H. sinensis Strain 1229 was alternatively spliced, with an unspliced intron I containing stop codons; these findings constitute O. sinensis reproduction controls at the transcriptional and coupled transcriptional-translational levels. The occurrence of the mating-type genes and a-/α-pheromone receptor genes differed among the 5 H. sinensis genomes. The differential occurrence and transcription of these genes are inconsistent with self-fertilization under (pseudo)homothallism but suggest self-sterility of H. sinensis, which therefore needs a mating partner to achieve sexual outcrossing under heterothallism or hybridization. Consistent occurrence and transcription of the mating-type genes of both the MAT1-1 and MAT1-2 idiomorphs have been reported in natural and cultivated Cordyceps sinensis, but these findings are insufficient to determine the reproduction mode(s) because of the co-occurrence of >90 fungal species and multiple genomically independent genotypes of O. sinensis. The mutant MAT1-1-1 and α-pheromone receptor transcripts in natural C. sinensis result in the N-terminus or middle-truncated proteins, with changes in hydrophobicity and secondary structures of the proteins, suggesting heterogeneous fungal source(s) of the proteins and hybridization reproduction.

We consider the financial planning problem of a retiree wishing to enter a retirement village at a future uncertain date. The date of entry is determined by the retiree's utility and bequest maximisation problem within the context of uncertain future health states. In addition, the retiree must choose optimal consumption, investment, bequest and purchase of insurance products prior to her full annuitisation on entry to the retirement village. A hyperbolic absolute risk-aversion (HARA) utility function is used to allow necessary consumption for basic living and medical costs. The retirement village will typically require an initial deposit upon entry. This threshold wealth requirement leads to exercising the replication of an American put option at the uncertain stopping time. From our numerical results, active insurance and annuity markets are shown to be a critical aspect in retirement planning.

Proposed as a response to the increasing global need for environmental protection, a green port balances economic vibrancy and environmental protection. However, because exhaust emissions (e.g., CO2 or sulfide) are difficult to monitor in and around ports, data on such emissions are often incomplete, which hinders research on this topic. To remedy this problem, this study aimed to formulate a method for collecting CO2 emissions data at their source; this method was applied to collect real-world operating data from a large container-handling company in Taiwan. Specifically, to account for undesirable outputs, we formulated a method that combines (1) data envelopment analysis based on a modified slack-based measure and (2) a multichoice goal programming approach. We found that rubber-tired gantry cranes are the greenest and should be used. Our findings aid port managers in selecting port equipment that best balances between environmental protection and profitability.

Myr47 lipopeptide consisting of hepatitis B virus (HBV) pre-S1 domain (myristoylated 2-48 peptide) is a commercialized effective anti-HBV drug, preventing the interaction of HBV with sodium taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide (NTCP) on human hepatocytes, of which the activity requires both N-myristoylation residue and specific amino acid sequence. Meanwhile, we recently reported that Myr47 reduces the cellular uptake of HBV surface antigen (HBsAg, subviral particle of HBV) in the absence of NTCP expression (Somiya; et al. Virology 2016, 497, 23–32). In this study, we analyzed how Myr47 reduces the cellular uptake of lipid nanoparticles (including liposomes (LPs) and HBsAg) without NTCP expression. By using Myr47 mutants lacking the HBV infection inhibitory activity, they could reduce the cellular uptake of LPs in an N-myristoylation-dependent manner whereas in an amino acid sequence-independent manner. Moreover, Myr47 and its mutants could reduce the interaction of LPs with apolipoprotein E3 (ApoE3) in an N-myristoylation-dependent manner regardless of their amino acid sequences. From these results, N-myristoyl residue of lipopeptides generally could interfere the LPs/HBsAg-ApoE3 complex formation, thereby reducing the cellular uptake of LPs/HBsAg. When lipid nanoparticles are used as a DDS (drug delivery system) nanocarrier, the surface modification with lipopeptides may be a new method to inhibit unwanted cellular uptake of DDS nanocarriers by non-target cells.

This paper focused on the oxidative leaching process of vanadium from vanadium-chromium reducing residue in alkaline medium with MnO₂. The effect of experimental parameters including reaction time, reaction temperature, dosage of MnO₂, dosage of NaOH, and liquid-to-solid ratio on the leaching efficiency of vanadium had been studied. The results indicated that MnO₂ was an efficient oxidant for leaching out of vanadium. The leaching efficiency of vanadium was up to 97.25% under optimal reaction conditions: reaction temperature of 90 ℃, reaction time of 60 min, dosage of MnO₂ at 50 wt.%, concentration of NaOH at 30 wt.% and liquid-to-solid at 5:1 mL/g.

Open-vocabulary learning has recently gained prominence as a means to enable image segmentation for arbitrary categories based on textual descriptions. This advancement has extended the applicability of segmentation systems to a broader range of generally purpose scenarios. However, current methods often revolve around specialized architectures and parameters tailored to specific segmentation tasks, resulting in a fragmented landscape of segmentation models. In response to these challenges, we introduce OVAMTSeg, a versatile framework designed for Open-Vocabulary and Multitask Image Segmentation. OVAMTSeg harnesses adaptive prompt learning to empower the model to capture category-sensitive concepts, enhancing its robustness across diverse multi-task and scenario contexts. Text prompts are employed to effectively capture semantic and contextual features of the text, while cross-attention and cross-modal interactions enable the fusion of image and text features. Furthermore, a transformer-based decoder is incorporated for dense prediction. Extensive experimental results underscore the effectiveness of OVAMTSeg, showcasing its state-of-the-art performance and superior generalization capabilities across three segmentation tasks. Notable achievements include a 47.5 mIoU in referring expression segmentation, 51.6 mIoU on Pascal-VOC with four unseen classes, 46.6 mIoU on Pascal-Context in zero-shot segmentation, 65.9 mIoU on Pascal-5i, and 35.7 mIoU on COCO-20i datasets for one-shot segmentation.

Structural health monitoring has been studied by a number of researchers as well as various industries to keep up with the increasing demand for preventive maintenance routines. This work presents a novel method for reconstruct prompt, informed strain/stress responses at the hot spots of the structures based on strain measurements at remote locations. The structural responses measured from usage monitoring system at available locations are decomposed into modal responses using empirical mode decomposition. Transformation equations based on finite element modeling are derived to extrapolate the modal responses from the measured locations to critical locations where direct sensor measurements are not available. Then, two numerical examples (a two-span beam and a 19956-degree of freedom simplified airfoil) are used to demonstrate the overall reconstruction method. Finally, the present work investigates the effectiveness and accuracy of the method through a set of experiments conducted on an aluminium alloy cantilever beam commonly used in air vehicle and spacecraft. The experiments collect the vibration strain signals of the beam via optical fiber sensors. Reconstruction results are compared with theoretical solutions and a detailed error analysis is also provided.

Channel bends are one of the most important characteristic features of natural streams. These bends often create the conditions for a hyporheic zone, which has been recognized as a critical component of stream ecosystems. The streambed vertical hydraulic conductivity (K_v), vertical hydraulic gradient (VHG) and Darcian flux (DF) in the hyporheic zone were estimated at 61 locations along a channel bend of the Beiluo River during July 2015 and January 2016. All the streambed attributes showed great spatial variability along the channel bend. Both upward fluxes and downward fluxes occurred during the two test periods, most of studied stream sections were controlled by downwelling, indicating stream water discharge into the subsurface. The average downward flux was higher at the downstream side than at the upstream side of the channel bend, especially in July 2015. The distribution of streambed sediment grain size has a significant influence on the variability of K_v; high percentages of silt and clay sediments generally lead to low K_v values. Higher K_v at the depositional left bank at the upstream site shifted toward the erosional right bank at the downstream site, with K_v values positively correlated with the water depth. This study suggested that the variabilities of K_v and VHG were influenced by the stream geomorphology and that the distribution of K_v was inversely related, to a certain extent, to the distribution of VHG across the channel bend. K_v and VHG were found to have opposite effects on the DF, and the close relationship between K_v and DF indicated that the water fluxes were mainly controlled by K_v.

Underwater visual detection technology plays a pivotal role in fields such as marine exploration. With the increasing demand for underwater monitoring, the quest for efficient and reliable methods for underwater target recognition has become particularly significant. To address this requirement, this study developed an innovative underwater object detection architecture based on YOLOv8, named YOLOv8-MU, aimed at significantly enhancing detection accuracy.By integrating the LarK module proposed in UniRepLKNet to optimize the backbone network, YOLOv8-MU aims to achieve a larger receptive field without increasing the model’s depth. Further, this research introduces C2fSTR, an innovative method that combines Swin Transformer with the C2f module. Additionally, we have incorporated the SPPFCSPC_EMA module, which combines Cross-Stage Partial Fast Spatial Pyramid Pooling (SPPFCSPC) with attention mechanisms, significantly improving the detection accuracy and robustness of various biological targets. Moreover, by introducing a fusion block based on DAMO-YOLO into the neck of the model, we further enhanced the model’s capability in multi-scale feature extraction. Finally, the adoption of the MPDIoU loss function, designed around vertex distance, effectively tackles the challenges of localization accuracy and boundary clarity in underwater organism detection. Experimental results on the URPC2019 dataset demonstrate that the YOLOv8-MU model achieved an [email protected] of 78.4%, marking improvements of 5.6%, 1.1%, and 4.0% over YOLOv5s, YOLOv7, and YOLOv8n respectively, indicating the leading performance (SOTA) of this method. On the other hand, further evaluation on the URPC2020 dataset confirmed the generalization capability of the YOLOv8-MU architecture, with its [email protected] reaching 80.4%, surpassing various models including YOLOv5x and YOLOv8n, showcasing the wide applicability of our proposed improved model architecture.

Canine atopic dermatitis (CAD) is a common chronic allergic skin disease. In our previous study, we isolated two probiotic strains, Lactococcus cremoris subsp. cremoris MP01 and Lacticaseibacillus paracasei subsp. paracasei MP02, from Mongolian fermented milk. These strains demonstrated potential in alleviating symptoms similar to AD and reducing specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) levels in a mouse model of AD. Building upon this discovery, our current investigation sought to evaluate the therapeutic potential of these probiotics for treating CAD. We conducted an open-label, single-arm clinical trial where dogs diagnosed with AD were administered LCP capsules containing Lc. cremoris subsp. cremoris MP01 and L. paracasei subsp. paracasei MP02 once daily for 60 days. Stool, skin swab, and venous blood specimens were collected at three intervals: before, and after 30 and 60 days of LCP intervention. The skin and fecal microbiomes were analyzed using full-length 16S rRNA sequencing. After 60 days of LCP intervention, notable improvements were observed in skin lesions and scratching behaviors, accompanied by reductions in both the Canine Atopic Dermatitis Extent and Severity Index (CADESI) and the Pruritus Visual Analogue Scale (PVAS) scores. Additionally, LCP intervention resulted in significant reductions in IgE levels and modulation in type 1 T helper (Th1)/ type 2 T helper cells (Th2)-related cytokine secretion. Microbiota analysis unveiled changes in the composition of both skin and gut microbiotas, including reductions in Shigella flexneri on the skin and Romboutsia in the gut. Levels of short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) increased following the 60-days of LCP intervention. These effects were likely mediated by alterations in gut microbiota and the upregulation of SCFA levels, which subsequently reduced the secretion of allergy-related IgE. Collectively, these mechanisms contributed to alleviating CAD symptoms, regulating skin microbiota composition, and reducing the adherence and invasion of environmental microbes and pathogens. Overall, our findings highlight the promising therapeutic potential of the Lc. cremoris subsp. cremoris MP01 and L. paracasei subsp. paracasei MP02 mixture as an effective strategy for managing CAD in dogs.

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.

The electroencephalogram (EEG) is a record of brain activity. Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology formed by the EEG signal has become one of the hotspots at present. How to extract the feature signal of EEG is the most basic research of BCI technology. In this paper, A new method of recognizing fatigue, conscious, concentrated state of human brain is proposed by the combination of discrete wavelet transform and the neural network based on EEG signal. First of all, the law signal is preprocessed by the wavelet denoising method because the law EEG signal contains a large number of high frequency noise, which is decomposed into multi-layer high frequency signal and low frequency signal. thus, δ wave, θ wave, α wave, β wave are obtained by the wavelet transform. And then, frequency band energy of the different wave is regards as the feature signal of EEG. In the experiment, the feature signal is classified by radial basic function (RBF) and annealed chaotic competitive learning network (ACCLN). RBF and ACCLN networks are trained with 500 sets of sample data and are tested by 100 sets of samples in different mental states. The experimental results show that the average accuracy of RBF network under three conditions are 88.75%, 88.25%, 88.5%, respectively, and the correct rate of ACCLN network is 97%, 98%, 98%, respectively.

The task of weakly supervised point cloud semantic segmentation has received widespread attention and also has been widely used in autonomous driving, robotics, and modern industries. Due to the high dimensionality and large volume of point cloud data, many technical difficulties appeal to weakly supervised semantic processing, especially segmentation. However, weakly-supervised schemes usually provide only partial labelling information of the underlying point cloud data and thus need to effectively extract local features, geometric information, and contextual relationships only using these limited labelled data for supervised learning. To improve weakly-supervised semantic segmentation, we propose a novel segmentation network through the boundary-based feature aggregation based on a K-NN algorithm with down-sampling operation, and also introduce the smoothness loss and Siamese loss for effective segmentation. The experiments on public datasets demonstrate that our presented segmentation method exceeds most of the existing fully supervised and weakly-supervised methods in terms of mIoU. Specifically, our network has high segmentation accuracy on the labels of objects with similar geometrical structures, such as ceiling, wall, floor, chair and table, reaching 91.2%, 98.8%, 83.3%, 75.3% and 80.2%, respectively. Extensive experiments also illustrate its robustness, effectiveness, and generalization of the proposed weakly supervised segmentation network.

We investigate the ammonium removal abilities of natural and synthetic zeolites, which have distinct Si/Al ratios and various surface areas, to study how adsorption and ion-exchange processes in zeolites perform under different ammonium concentrations and different temperatures. Five zeolites including natural mordenite, chabazite, erionite, clinoptilolite and synthetic merlinoite were immersed in 20 mg/kg, 50 mg/kg and 100 mg/kg ammonium solutions. The results demonstrate that zeolites under high ammonium concentrations (100 mg/kg) possess higher physical adsorption capacity (0.398–0.468 meq/g), whereas those under lower ammonium concentrations (20 mg/kg) possess greater ion-exchange property (64–99%). The ion-exchange ability of zeolites are extremely dependent on the cation content of the zeolites, and the cation content is affected by the Si/Al ratio. The surface area of zeolites also has a partial influence on its physical adsorption ability. When the surface area is less than 100 m²/g, the adsorption ability of zeolite increases obviously with surface area; however, adsorption ability is saturated as the surface area becomes larger than this critical value of 100 m²/g. When we carried out the zeolites in 50 mg/kg ammonium concentration at different temperatures (5~50 ℃), we found that zeolites exhibit the highest ammonium removal ability at 30°C and the potassium release was enhanced at 30~40 ℃.

Cholinergic innervation in pancreas controls both the release of digestive enzymes to support the intestinal digestion and absorption, as well as insulin release to promote nutrient use in the cells of the body. The effects of muscarinic receptor stimulation are described in detail for endocrine beta cells and exocrine acinar cells separately. Here we describe morphological and functional criteria to separate these two cell types in situ in tissue slices and simultaneously measure their response to ACh stimulation on cytosolic Ca2+ oscillations [Ca2+]c in stimulatory glucose conditions. Our results show that both cell types respond to glucose directly in the concentration range compatible with the glucose transporters they express. The physiological ACh concentration increases the frequency of glucose stimulated [Ca2+]c oscillations in both cell types and synchronizes [Ca2+]c oscillations in acinar cells. The pharmacological ACh concentration further increases the oscillation frequency on the level of individual beta cells, inhibits the synchronization between these cells, and abolishes oscillatory activity in acinar cells. We discuss possible mechanisms leading to the observed phenomena.

Over the past decades, overweight and obesity has become a global epidemic and the leading threat for death. To prevent the serious risk, an overweight or obese individual must apply a long-term weight-management strategy to control food intake and physical activities, which is however, not easy. Recently, with the advances of information technology, more and more people can use wearable devices and smartphones to obtain physical activity information, while they can also access various health-related information from Internet online social networks (OSNs). Nevertheless, there is a lack of an integrated approach that can combine these two methods in an efficient way. In this paper, we address this issue and propose a novel mobile-social framework for health recognition and recommendation, namely, H-Rec². The main ideas of H-Rec² include (1) to recognize the individual's health status using smartphone as a general platform, and (2) to recommend physical activity and food intake based on personal health information, life science principles, and health-related information obtained from OSNs. To demonstrate the potentials of the H-Rec² framework, we develop a prototype that consists of four important components: (1) an activity recognition module that senses physical activity using accelerometer, (2) a health status modeling module that applies a novel algorithm to generate personalized health status index, (3) a restaurant information collection module that collects relevant information from OSN, and (4) a restaurant recommendation module that provides personalized and context-aware recommendation. To evaluate the prototype, we conduct both objective and subjective experiments, which confirm the performance and effectiveness of the proposed system.

To estimate the progressive collapse resistance capacity of a multi-column frame tube structure with the assembled truss beam composite floor (ATBCF), the pushdown analysis, and the nonlinear dynamic analysis as well, are conducted for such a structure by using the alternate load path (ALP) method. The bearing capacities of the remaining structures at three different work conditions, which are the side middle column failure, the edge middle column failure, and the corner column failure, are individually studied, and the collapse mechanism for the remaining structures is analyzed from the aspects of the internal force redistribution and the failure mode of the second defense line. Simultaneously, the influence of the column failure time on the dynamic response of the remaining structure and the dynamic amplification coefficient are discussed. The results show that the residual bearing capacity of the remaining structure with the bottom corner column failure is higher than that of the one with the side or edge middle column failure, while the latter has a stronger plastic deformation capacity. When the ALP method is adopted to operate the progressive collapse analysis, it is reasonable to take the column failure time as 0.1 times of the first-order vertical vibration period of the remaining structure, and it is suitable to set the dynamic amplification coefficient as of 2.0, which is the ratio of the maximum dynamic displacement to the static displacement of the remaining structure under the transient loading condition.

By introducing environmental mediator, for avoiding randomness in selecting indicators and subjectivity in deciding interaction path coefficients to reveal interaction mechanism among forest industry, ecology and environmental capacity, structural Pressure–State–Impact–Response (PSIR) and quantitative Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) are utilized with data on thirty–one provinces of China. We can find that: (i) forest industry has a negative influence on ecology, whereas ecology has a positive influence on industry; (ii) the destructive influence that industry has on ecology is much greater than the positive effect ecology has on industry; and (iii) environmental capacity plays a partial mediating role between industry and ecology. According to these results we can conclude that: (i) forest industry and ecology are not in a symbiotic relationship and have not reached a level of ecological security; (ii) the interaction between industry and ecology is in a period of transition from antagonistic to beneficial; and (iii) industry dominates ecology. However, we prospect the following advice: (i) methods of forest industry should be changed; (ii) new modes of industrial integration and circular economy should be developed; and (iii) the ability of the environment to sustain itself should be enhanced. The level of forest ecological security to discuss the symbiotic mechanism of industry and ecology will propose to be measured in future.

In agriculture, soil-borne fungal pathogens, especially Fusarium oxysporum strains, are posing a serious threat to efforts to achieve global food security. In the search for safer agrochemicals, silica nanoparticles (SiO2NPs) have recently been proposed as a new tool to alleviate pathogen damage including Fusarium wilt. Hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSNs), a unique class of SiO2NPs, have been widely accepted as a desired pesticide carrier. However, their role in enhancing the disease resistance and the specific mechanism remain unknown. In this study, three sizes of HMSNs (19, 96 and 406 nm as HMSNs–19, HMSNs–96 and HMSNs–406, respectively) were synthesized and characterized to determine their effects on seed germination, seedling growth, and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. phaseolus (FOP) suppression in cowpea roots by foliar spray using phenotypes, fresh biomass and disease progression as indicators. The results revealed that three HMSNs exhibited no adverse impacts on seed germination and tended to improve plant growth. Also, they exert their FOP suppression with a size- and concentration-dependent manner. HMSNs–406 possessed the best control effect at a concentration of 1000 mg/L showing an upto 40.00% decline in the disease severity. The Si(OH)4 control was also effective on FOP suppression at a lower concentration of 100 mg/L, whereas its higher concentrations exhibited obviously adverse impacts on FOP control, seed germination and plant growth. Moreover, we conformed that HMSNs posed their Fusarium wilt suppression in cowpea plant by activating SA (salicylic acid)-dependent SAR (systemic acquired resistance) responses rather than directly suppressing FOP. A higher level of SA content and elevated expression of its maker genes of PR-1 and PR-5 in HMSNs–406 treated cowpea roots provided substantial evidences of this mode of action. Other resistance-related genes, as well as defense-responsive enzymes, were also involved in the HMSNs-activated SAR pathway. Overall, for the first time, our results extended a new role of HMSNs as a potent elicitor to serve as a versatile alternative for plant disease protection of low cost, highly efficiency and sustainability.

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

Sweet sorghum is an important bioenergy grass and valuable forage with a strong adaptability to saline environments. However, little is known about the mechanisms of sweet sorghum coping with ion toxicity under salt stresses. Here, we first evaluated the salt tolerance of a sweet sorghum cultivar “Lvjuren” and determined its ion accumulation traits under NaCl treatments; then explored key genes involved in Na+, Cl−, K+ and NO3− transport using transcriptome profiling and qRT-PCR method. The results showed that the growth and photosynthesis of sweet sorghum were unaffected by 50 and 100 mM NaCl treatments, indicative of a strong tolerance of this species to salt stresses. Under NaCl treatments, sweet sorghum could efficiently exclude Na+ from shoots and accumulate Cl− in leaf sheaths to avoid their overaccumulation in leaf blades; meanwhile, it possessed a prominent ability to sustain NO3− homeostasis in leaf blades. Transcriptome profiling identified several differentially expressed genes associated with Na+, Cl−, K+ and NO3− transport in roots, leaf sheaths and leaf blades of sweet sorghum after 200 mM NaCl treatment for 6 and 48 h. Moreover, transcriptome data and qRT-PCR results indicated that HKT1;5, CLCc and NPF7.3-1 should be key genes involved in Na+ retention in roots, Cl− accumulation in leaf sheaths and maintenance of NO3− homeostasis in leaf blades, respectively. Many TFs were also identified after NaCl treatment, which should play important regulatory roles in salt tolerance of sweet sorghum. This work lays a preliminary foundation for clarifying the molecular basis underlying the adaptation of sweet sorghum to adverse environments.