This paper presents a comparative analysis of the ZVZCS soft switching technique with the ZVS and the ZCS counterpart. The generalization of the voltage-current crossover or the energy loss factor obtained from simulation of the prototype converter shows that the ZVZCS significantly reduces the loss and helps to improve the efficiency of the converter as compared to the ZVS or the ZCS. On the other hand, it is also found that the soft switching range of operation of the ZVS and the ZCS are largely affected by the maximum switch voltage and switch current respectively. In contrary, these factors have a negligible effect on the ZVZCS operation which results in an extended range of soft switching operation. Additionally, a detailed LTPICE simulation is performed for selected ZVS, ZCS and ZVSCS topologies from the recent literature and the switching losses in the main switches of the converters are measured. It is observed that the energy losses in the ZVZCS mode are reduced on average by approximately 26 % at turn on and 20 % at the turn off as compared to the ZVS and the ZCS. Besides, the low standard deviation in this mode confirms a stable low loss profile which renders extended soft switching range. An experimental test is also conducted by building the prototype converter to verify the simulation results. It is found that the switching losses are minimum while the converter is operated in the ZVZCS mode. Besides, the efficiency drop remains consistently low as compared to the ZVS and the ZCS in the whole operating range. Resultantly, the simulation and the experimental results are both found to be consistent.

The relationship between pangolin-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 has been a subject of debate. Further evidence of a special relationship between the two viruses can be found by the fact that all known COVID-19 viruses have abnormally hard outer shell (low M disorder; i.e., low content of intrinsically disordered residues in the membrane (M) protein) that so far was found in CoVs associated with burrowing animals, such as rabbits and pangolins, in which transmission involves virus remaining in buried feces for a long time. While a hard outer shell is necessary for viral survival, a harder inner shell could also help. For this reason, the N disorder range of pangolin-CoVs, not bat-CoVs, more closely matches that of SARS-CoV-2 especially when Omicron is included. The low N disorder (i.e., low content of intrinsically disordered residues in the nucleocapsid (N) protein), first observed in pangolin-CoV-2017 amd later in Omicron, is associated with attenuation according to the Shell-Disorder-Model. Our experimental study revealed that pangolin-CoV-2017 and SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (XBB.1.16 subvariant) show similar attenuations with respect to viral growth and plaque formation. Subtle differences have been observed that are consistent with disorder-centric computational analysis.

Tellurium exhibits exceptional intrinsic electronic properties. However, investigations into the modulation of tellurium's electronic properties through physical modification are notably scarce. Here, we present a comprehensive study focused on the evolution of the electronic properties of tellurium crystal flakes under plasma irradiation treatment by employing conductive atomic force microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The plasma-treated tellurium experienced a process of defect generation through lattice broken. Prior to the degradation of electronic transport performance due to plasma irradiation treatment, a remarkable observation emerged: in the low-energy region of hydrogen plasma-treated tellurium, a notable enhancement in conductivity was unexpectedly detected. The mechanism underlying this enhancement in electronic transport performance was thoroughly elucidated by comparing it with the electronic structure induced by argon plasma irradiation. This study not only fundamentally uncovers the effects of plasma irradiation on tellurium crystal flakes, but also unearths an unprecedented trend of enhanced electronic transport performance at low irradiation energies when utilizing hydrogen plasma. This abnormal trend bears significant implications for guiding the prospective application of tellurium-based 2D materials in the realm of electronic devices.

A hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are the proteinaceous aggregates formed by the amyloid-beta peptide (Aβ) that is deposited inside the brain as amyloid plaques. The accumulation of aggregated Aβ may initiate or enhance pathologic processes in AD. According to the amyloid hypothesis any agent that has the capability to inhibit Aβ aggregation and/or destroy amyloid plaques represents a potential disease modifying drug. In 2023, a humanized IgG1 monoclonal antibody (lecanemab) against the Aβ soluble protofibrils was approved by US FDA for AD therapy thus providing compelling support to the amyloid hypothesis. To acquire a deeper insight on the in vivo Aβ aggregation, various animal models, including aged herbivores and carnivores, non-human primates, transgenic rodents, fish and worms are widely exploited. This review is based on the recent data obtained using transgenic animal AD models and presents experimental verification of the critical role in Aβ aggregation seeding of the interactions between zinc ions, Aβ with the isomerized Asp7 (isoD7- Aβ) and the α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor.

In 1999, Molodtsov initiated the theory of soft sets as a new mathematical tool for dealing with uncertainties in many fields of applied sciences. In 2011, Shabir and Naz introduced and studied the notion of soft topological spaces, also defining and investigating many new soft properties as generalization of the classical ones. In this paper, we introduce the notions of soft separation between soft points and soft closed sets in order to obtain a generalization of the well-known Embedding Lemma to the class of soft topological spaces.

In this paper, we first define the concepts of r-fuzzy soft α-open (semi-open and δ-open) sets on fuzzy soft topological spaces based on the article Aygunoglu et al. (Hacet. J. Math. Stat., 43 (2014), 193-208), and the relations of these sets with each other are established. In addition, we introduce the concepts of fuzzy soft δ-closure (δ-interior) operators, and study some properties of them. Also, the concept of r-fuzzy soft δ-connected sets is introduced and studied with help of fuzzy soft δ-closure operators. Thereafter, we define the concepts of fuzzy soft α-continuous (β-continuous, semi-continuous, pre-continuous and δ-continuous) functions, which are weaker forms of fuzzy soft continuity, and some properties of these functions along with their mutual relationships are discussed. Moreover, a decomposition of fuzzy soft α-continuity and a decomposition of fuzzy soft semi-continuity is obtained. Finally, as a weaker form of a fuzzy soft continuity, the concepts of fuzzy soft almost (weakly) continuous functions are defined, and some properties are specified. Additionally, we explore the notion of continuity in a very general setting called, fuzzy soft (L, M, N, O)-continuous functions and a historical justification is introduced.

Proteins have the ability to adsorb on the surface of materials, such as soft contact lenses (SCLs), and can affect the hydrophobicity, roughness and surface properties of the contact lenses (CLs), which, in turn, can influence the friction between the lenses and the ocular surface. Excessive friction between contact lenses and the ocular surface can lead to discomfort for the wearer and may cause irritation or inflammation of the cornea, better known as corneal ulcers (keratitis). Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is often used as a standard protein in biocompatibility testing of materials, including contact lenses. One standard commercial contact lenses was tested under lubricated conditions to access the coefficient of friction (CoF), being the contact lubricated with a tear like fluid (TLF) solution containing six different concentrations of BSA. In all cases, a good linearity of the results of the friction force was verified, so the first friction law can be applied to determine the value of the coefficient of friction. It was found that friction increases with increasing protein concentration.

Background: One challenge in implant dentistry is to reduce marginal bone resorption to avoid long-term esthetic and biological complications. Sub-gingival implant placement has been suggested as a suitable strategy. Methods: 38 healthy patients were enrolled to receive bone level (BL – Control group) or 2 mm sub-crestal (SC - Test group) conical connection, platform-switched implants. An immediate tissue level abutment was used in the Test group by following a One Time Abutment (OTA) restorative procedure. Marginal Bone Modification (MBM) was calcu-latied on standardized radiographs at surgery (T0), loading (T1), and 6 months (T2) and 12 months after loading (T3), and cathegorised in Bone Loss (BL) if the resorption occurred below the implant neck and Bone Remodeling (BR) if above. Pocket probing depth (PPD), Bleeding on probing (BoP) and Plaque Index (PI) were also collected. Results: The mean MBM in the test group after 12 months was 0.61mm, compared to 0.52mm in the control group. However, no BL was observed in the test group, as the MBM completely occurred above the implant neck as BR, whilst in the control group MBM corresponded in total to BL. The average PPD was 2.38mm in the test group and 3.04mm in the control group after 12 months, BoP 50% and 43%, PI 33% and 19.44% respectively. Conclusions: Sub-crestal conical connection, platform-switched implants could be a suitable clinical choice to avoid BL with exposure of the treated implants surfaces.

Abstract—Hydraulic switching actuators are high efficiency, fast response, and low cost solutions for hydraulic control systems. One of the challenging problems is throttling losses during valve transitions. Previously the authors proposed a zero-flowrate switching method to reduce throttling energy loss of the switching valve, where a hydraulic resonator is applied to make the flowrates through the lines approaching zero before the valves are switched off. The major challenge of this approach is fast switching valves whose transition times are less than 2 ms. In this paper, an improved zero-flowrate switching method is presented. It utilizes the capacity with independent inlet/outlet ports to regulate flowrates through the lines. Models of capacity applied in a simple line with different pressure signals are developed to explore characteristics of the capacity, based on which a complete actuation system is developed. In the complete model, resistance and inductance are optimized to achieve desired flowrate response. The improved zero-flowrate switching method reduces throttling energy losses by 99.945% compared to a hard switching system. The simulation results demonstrated that the improved zero-flowrate switching method performs as expected in the design condition. A capacity with proper volume is able to regulate flowrates through all the lines to zero, with the help of appropriate resistance and inductance. Compared to previous zero-flowrate switching method, the novel strategy allows slower switching valves applied in hydraulic actuation systems and achieves better efficiency performance. This research paves a new avenue for reducing throttling energy losses and improves system efficiency in hydraulic switching actuators, as well as most of the hydraulic switch-mode circuits.

The present review compared the efficacy of soft tissue substitutes (STS) and autogenous free gingival graft (FGG) or connective tissue graft (CTG) in mucogingival procedures to increase keratinized tissue (KT) width around teeth and implants. Two independent examiners performed the electronic search on Medline and Cochrane Library based on the following PICO’s format: (P) adult patients; (I) soft tissue substitutes and FGG/CTG; (C) STS vs CTG; STS vs FGG; STS vs CTR; (O) KT width gain; (S) Systematic Reviews, Randomized Controlled Trials. Results showed that around teeth, all biomaterials showed superior performance compared to CAF alone for treating gingival recessions. However, when compared to CTG, ADM yields the most similar outcomes to the gold standard (CTG), even though in multiple recessions CTG still continue to be considered the most favorable approach. Use of STSs (acellular matrix or tissue engineered) in combination with an apically positioned flap resulted in a significantly less gain of KTW compared to what achieved with FGG and APF. Around dental implants, free gingival grafts were deemed more effective than soft tissue substitutes in enhancing keratinized mucosa width.

In this manuscript, we first introduce some properties of r-fuzzy soft α-open sets in fuzzy soft topological spaces based on the manuscript Aygunoglu et al. (Hacet. J. Math. Stat. 2014, 43, 193-208). In addition, we define the concepts of fuzzy soft α-closure (α-interior) operators, and investigate some properties of them. Furthermore, the concept of r-fuzzy soft α-connected sets is defined and characterized with help of fuzzy soft α-closure operators. Thereafter, we introduce and study the concepts of fuzzy soft almost (weakly) α-continuous mappings, which are weaker forms of fuzzy soft α-continuous mappings, and we discuss some properties of fuzzy soft α-continuity. Moreover, we establish that fuzzy soft α-continuity → fuzzy soft almost α-continuity → fuzzy soft weakly α-continuity, but the converse may not be true. It is also we show that the composition is fuzzy soft almost α-continuous mapping if, is fuzzy soft α-continuous mapping and is fuzzy soft almost continuous mapping. Finally, some new types of compactness via r-fuzzy soft α-open sets are defined, and the relationships between them are examined.

Two polyurethanes (PUs) were similarly synthesized by reacting a cycloaliphatic isocyanate with 1,4 butanediol and two polyols of different nature (polyester, polycarbonate diol) with molecular weights of 1000 Da. The PU made with polycarbonate diol polyol (YCD) was the only showing intrinsic self-healing at 20 °C. For assessing the mechanism of intrinsic self-healing of YCD, a structural characterization by molecular weights determination, infrared and X-ray photoelectronic spectroscopies, differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction, thermal gravimetric analysis and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis was carried out. It was concluded that the self-healing at 20 °C of YCD was due to non-covalent dynamic exchange interactions among the carbonate groups of the soft segments. Therefore, the chemical nature of the polyol played a key role in developing PUs with intrinsic self-healing at 20 °C.

In this article, we introduce the concept of soft intervals, soft ordering and sequences of soft real numbers, and some of their structural properties are studied. The notion of soft Lebesgue measure on the soft real numbers has been introduced. Also, a correspondence relationship has been established between the soft Lebesgue measure and the classical Lebesgue measure. Furthermore, we have studied some exciting results and relations between the soft Lebesgue measure and the Lebesgue measure of soft real sets.

The challenge of achieving ultrafast switching of electric polarization in ferroelectric materials remains unsolved, as there is no experimental evidence of such switching to date. In this study, we have developed an enhanced model that describes switching within a two-dimensional space of generalized coordinates. Our findings indicate that stable switching in barium titanate cannot be achieved through a single linearly polarized pulse. When the intensity of the linearly polarized pulse reaches a certain threshold, the sample experiences depolarization, but not stable switching. Our study also reveals that phonon friction plays a minor role in the switching dynamics and provides an estimate of the optimal parameters of the perturbing pulse with the lowest intensity that results in depolarization of an initially depolarized sample.

BiFeO3/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (BFO/LSMO) epitaxial heterostructures were successfully synthesized by pulsed laser deposition on (001)-oriented SrTiO3 single crystal substrates with Au top electrodes. Stable bipolar resistive switching characteristics regulated by ferroelectric polarization reversal was observed in the Au/BFO/LSMO heterostructures. The conduction mechanism was revealed to follow the Schottky emission model, and the Schottky barriers in high resistance and low resistance states were estimated based on temperature-dependent current–voltage curves. Further, the observed memristive behavior was interpreted via the modulation effect on the depletion region width and the Schottky barrier height caused by ferroelectric polarization reversal, combining with the oxygen vacancies migration near the BFO/LSMO interface.

Amylose content (AC) stands as a pivotal determinant of rice grain quality, primarily governed by the Waxy gene (Wx), with its allelic diversity significantly influencing AC variation. In the current culinary landscape, soft rice varieties, known for their low AC and superior palatability, are particularly sought after by consumers. Notably, many soft japonica rice varieties cultivated in southern China, including the Nangeng series, are characterized by the presence of the Wxmp allele, derived from the ancestral Wxmq allele. While both alleles are associated with reduced AC, there remains a paucity of detailed understanding regarding the interplay between specific functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within these alleles and the overarching rice grain quality. Employing site-directed mutagenesis, we engineered three distinct transgenic rice lines, each harboring either the Wxmp, Wxmq, or Wxb-5c alleles, against the background of the glutinous rice cultivar Nip(wx). This suite of transgenic rice showcased a gradation ingrain transparency inversely correlated to AC, delineating a sequence from Wxmq, signifying the lowest, through Wxmp, to Wxb-5c, indicating the highest. Consequently, this gradation in AC precipitated variations in other rice grain physicochemical attributes, such as the taste value of cooked rice, gel consistency (GC), and starch pasting properties. Furthermore, analyses of gene expression and enzyme activity revealed that the functional SNPs, Ex4-53G/A and Ex5-53T/C, lead to a decline in the GBSSI enzyme activity without affecting expression levels. These findings underscore the potential of harnessing these SNPs in breeding programs aimed at developing soft rice varieties endowed with enhanced culinary qualities.

The advantage of FPGAs lies in the ability to implement a fully hardware solution for interfacing with various input/output (I/O) devices. Each block can work in parallel with all the others, simplifying the satisfaction of timing constraints. However, this hardware utilization consumes FPGA resources that could otherwise be allocated to the primary project. An alternative involves employing a small "soft-core" processor implementing I/O in software. With the goal to design and evaluate a new tiny soft-core processor optimized for FPGA resources in I/O , a novel processor named Baby8 is developed. It is an 8-bit CISC soft-core processor optimized for reduced FPGA resources including program size for 8-bit applications. The number of instructions is not large but any instruction can access arbitrary memory locations. The performance and resource utilization of the newly designed processor are evaluated and compared with a variety of other soft-core processors. The results demonstrate its competitive performance, achieving an average maximum clock frequency of approximately 57 MHz and a power consumption of around 2mW. Furthermore, it conserves nearly half of the FPGA resources in implementation.

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

Soft robotic manipulators consisting of serially-stacked segments combine actuation and structure in an integrated design. This design can be miniaturised while providing suitable actuation for applications such as minimally invasive surgery and for inspections in confined environments. The control of these robots, however, remains challenging, due to the difficulty in accurately modelling the robots, in coping with their redundancies, and in solving their full inverse kinematics. In this work, we explore a hybrid approach to control serial soft robotic manipulators that combines machine learning (ML) to estimate the inverse kinematics with a closed-loop control to compensate the remaining errors. For the ML part, we compare various approaches, including both kernel-based learning and more general neural networks. We validate the selected ML model experimentally. For the closed-loop control part, we first explore Jacobian formulations using both synthetic models and numerical approximations from experimental data. We then implement integral control actions using both these Jacobians, and evaluate them experimentally. In an experimental validation, we demonstrate that the hybrid control approach achieves setpoint regulation in a robot with 6 inputs and 4 outputs.

The light response and resistance switching behavior in BaTiO3 (BTO) films are studied for a symmetric Pt/BTO/Pt structure. The resistance of films as a function of time with and without ultraviolet light has been studied. Furthermore, resistance switching behavior was clearly observed based on the application of 365 nm wavelength ultraviolet light. Consequently, the polarities of resistance switching can be controlled by ultraviolet light when the energy is larger than the band excitation energy. It is proposed that the polarity of the resistance switching is dictated by the competition of the ferroelectricity and oxygen vacancy migration. This provides a new mechanism for modulating the state of ferroelectric resistive memory devices.

Covalent DNA protein crosslinks (DPCs) are common lesions that block replication. We examine here the consequence of DPCs on mutagenesis involving replicational template-switch reactions in Escherichia coli. 5-azacytidine (5azaC) is a potent mutagen for template-switching, dependent on DNA cytosine methylase (Dcm), implicating the trapped Dcm-DNA covalent complex as the initiator for mutagenesis. The leading strand of replication is more mutable than the lagging strand, explained by blocks to the replicative helicase and/or fork regression. We find that template-switch mutagenesis induced by 5-azaC does not require DSB repair via RecABCD. The ability to induce the SOS response is anti-mutagenic by an unknown mechanism. Mutants in recB, but not recA, exhibit high constitutive rates of template-switching and we suggest that RecBCD-mediated DNA degradation prevents template-switching associated with fork regression. A mutation in the DnaB fork helicase also promotes high levels of template-switching. We also find that other DPC-inducers, formaldehyde (a non-specific crosslinker) and ciprofloxacin (a topoisomerase II poison) are also strong mutagens for template-switching. Induction of mutations and genetic rearrangements that occur by template-switching may constitute a previously unrecognized component of the genotoxicity and genetic instability promoted by DPCs.

In the present study. At first, some properties of r-fuzzy soft β-closed sets are introduced on fuzzy soft topological spaces based on the paper Aygunoglu et al. (Hacet. J. Math. Stat. 2014, 43, 193-208). Also, we define the closure and interior operators with respect to the classes of r-fuzzy soft β-closed and r-fuzzy soft β-open sets, and investigate some of their properties. In addition, the concept of r-fuzzy soft β-connected sets is introduced and characterized with help of fuzzy soft β-closure operators. Thereafter, some properties of a fuzzy soft β-continuity are studied. Furthermore, we introduce and study the concepts of fuzzy soft almost (weakly) β-continuous functions, which are weaker forms of a fuzzy soft β-continuity. Also, the relationships between these classes of functions are specified with the help of some illustrative examples. Finally, we explore new types of fuzzy soft functions called, fuzzy soft β-irresolute (strongly β-irresolute, β-irresolute open, β-irresolute closed and β-irresolute homeomorphism) functions, and discuss some properties of them. Also, we show that fuzzy soft strongly β-irresolute → fuzzy soft β-irresolute → fuzzy soft β-continuity, but the converse may not be true.

Knowledge graphs (KGs) play a crucial role in many applications, such as question answering, but incompleteness is an urgent issue for their broad application. Much research in knowledge graph completion (KGC) has been performed to resolve this issue. The methods of KGC can be classified into two major categories: rule-based reasoning and embedding-based reasoning. The former has high accuracy and good interpretability, but a major challenge is to obtain effective rules on large-scale KGs. The latter has good efficiency and scalability, but it relies heavily on data richness and cannot fully use domain knowledge in the form of logical rules. We propose a novel method that injects rules and learns representations iteratively to take full advantage of rules and embeddings. Specifically, we model the conclusions of rule groundings as 0-1 variables and use a rule confidence regularizer to remove the uncertainty of the conclusions. The proposed approach has the following advantages: 1) It combines the benefits of both rules and knowledge graph embeddings (KGEs) and achieves a good balance between efficiency and scalability. 2) It uses an iterative method to continuously improve KGEs and remove incorrect rule conclusions. Evaluations on two public datasets show that our method outperforms the current state-of-the-art methods, improving performance by 2.7% and 4.3% in mean reciprocal rank (MRR).

Confinement can induce substantial changes in the physical properties of macromolecules in suspension. Soft confinement is a particular class of restriction where the boundaries that constraint the particles in a region of the space are not well-defined. This scenario leads to a broader structural and dynamical behavior than the observed in systems enclosed between rigid walls. In this contribution, we study the ordering and diffusive properties of a two-dimensional colloidal model system subjected to a one-dimensional parabolic trap. Increasing the trap strength makes it possible to go through weak to strong confinement, allowing a dimensional transition from two- to one-dimension. The non-monotonic response of the static and dynamical properties to the gradual dimensionality change affects the system phase behavior. We find that the particle dynamics is connected with the structural transitions induced by the parabolic trap. In particular, at low and intermediate confinement regimes, complex structural and dynamical scenarios arise, where the softness of the external potential induces melting and freezing, resulting in faster and slower particle diffusion, respectively. Besides, at strong confinements, colloids move basically along one direction, and the whole system behaves structurally and dynamically similar to a one-dimensional colloidal system.

The reliability analysis allows to estimate the system's probability of detecting and identifying outlier. Failure to identify an outlier can jeopardise the reliability level of a system. Due to its importance, outliers must be appropriately treated to ensure the normal operation of a system. The system models are usually developed from certain constraints. Constraints play a central role in model precision and validity. In this work, we present a detailed optical investigation of the effects of the hard and soft constraints on the reliability of a measurement system model. Hard constraints represent a case in which there exist known functional relations between the unknown model parameters, whereas the soft constraints are employed for the case where such functional relations can slightly be violated depending on their uncertainty. The results highlighted that the success rate of identifying an outlier for the case of hard constraints is larger than soft constraints. This suggested that hard constraints should be used in the stage of pre-processing data for the purpose of identifying and removing possible outlying measurements. After identifying and removing possible outliers, one should set up the soft constraints to propagate the uncertainties of the constraints during the data processing. This recommendation is valid for outlier detection and identification purpose.

In this paper, we present the design, manufacturing and characterization of a soft textile-based clutch (TBC) that switches between locking and unlocking of its linear displacement by exploiting vacuum stimulation. The applied vacuum locks the relative sliding motion between two elaborated textile webbings covered by an elastic silicone rubber bag. Based on different fabrication techniques, such as silicone casting on textile, melt embossing for direct fabrication of miniature patterns on textile and sewing, we developed three groups of TBC samples based on friction and interlocking principles and we compared their performance in blocking configuration. The clutch with interlocking mechanism presented the highest withstanding force (150 N) respect to the one (54 N) recorded for the friction-based clutch. The simple and compact structure of the proposed clutch, together with the intrinsic adaptability of fabric with other clothing and soft materials, make it a proper solution for applications in soft wearable robotics and generally as locking and variable stiffness solution for soft robotic applications.

(1) Background: Aim was to investigate real-world effectiveness (hypothesizing non-inferiority) and safety profile of risdiplam in paediatric and adult nusinersen-risdiplam spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) switch cohort. (2) Methods: A retrospective and anonymous collection of relevant demographic and clinical data for all Croatian SMA patients switched from nusinersen to risdiplam up to September 2023 (reimbursed by Croatian Health Insurance Fund – CHIF) was performed using CHIF database and associated reimbursement documentation. Patients were included in effectiveness and safety analysis if they met the following inclusion criteria: i) risdiplam reimbursed by CHIF; ii) patient received at least 6 doses of nusinersen before switch to risdiplam; iii) no relevant pause between the latter disease modifying drugs (DMDs); iv) availability of all prespecified studied data and parameters. (3) Results: 17 patients met inclusion criteria [58.9% female; median age 12.75 (3.0-44.5) yr.]. In our ‘switch’ cohort, we have demonstrated a non-inferiority of risdiplam to nusinersen, in SMA 1 (+1.0 in CHOP INTEND; p=0.067), SMA 3p (+0.7 in HFMSE; p=0.897) and SMA 3a (+0.8 in RHS; p=0.463) subpopulations, during a one-year follow-up period. There were no reports on respiratory function worsening, feeding worsening, and no lethal events. No new safety concerns were identified, except of the weight gain that arose as a new potential adverse drug reaction ‘signal’ in two patients. (4) Conclusions: We have reported a pivotal real-world findings on switching SMA patients from nusinersen to risdiplam and demonstrated its effectiveness (non-inferiority), safety and tolerability in a heterogenous paediatric and adult ‘switch’ cohort, which will further increase the quality and standards of care as well as safety of a notable portion of SMA patients; especially for those who demand switch from nusinersen to other DMDs from clinical or personal reasons.

The present work is a theoretical and experimental study of temperature effect on wavelength and threshold current. Since Semiconductor lasers are the type of lasers which uses semiconductor material as a gain medium to achieve stimulated emission of radiation. In this module, the type of semiconductor lasers use is VCSEL and laser diode. Temperature change cause Semiconductor lasers to shift its threshold current, this variation also causes a shift in output wavelength. The experimental results highly agreement with the theoretical calculations.

Biomimetic stimuli-responsive materials can respond to various external stimuli in the form of structural or morphological transformations by actively or passively converting input energy into mechanical energy. They are the core element of soft actuators for typical smart devices like soft robots, artificial muscles, intelligent sensors and nanogenerators. While significant progresses have been made in bioinspired stimuli-responsive materials, they have not yet achieved the remarkable properties in biological systems. In this review, we will discuss recent advances in biomimetic stimuli-responsive materials that are instrumental for soft actuators. Different stimuli-responsive principles for soft actuators are firstly discussed, including fluidic, electrical, thermal, magnetic, light and chemical stimuli. We further summarize the state-of-the-art stimuli-responsive materials for soft actuators and explore the advantages and disadvantages of using electroactive polymers, magnetic soft composites, hydrogels, liquid crystal elastomers, shape memory alloys and chemical-responsive materials. Finally, we provide a critical outlook on the field of stimuli-responsive soft actuators, and emphasize the challenges in the process of their implementation to various industries.

Plasmonics is the study of resonant oscillations of free electrons in metals caused by incident electromagnetic radiation. Surface plasmons can focus and steer light on the subwavelength scale. Apart from metals, plasmonic phenomena can be observed in soft matter systems such as electrolytes where resonant charge oscillations can be induced for ions in solution. Due to their larger mass, they are plasmon-active in a lower frequency regime and on a larger wavelength scale. Spatial confinement allows increasingly strong charge interactions and gives rise to nonlocality or spatial dispersion effects. These effects manifest as additional longitudinal propagation modes and are known to cause plasmonic broadening and resonance shifts in metal nanostructures. We derive and discuss the nonlocal optical response of ionic plasmons using a hydrodynamic, two-fluid model in a planar homogeneous three-layer system with electrolyte-dielectric interfaces. Studying such systems enables us to identify and understand plasmonic phenomena in biological and chemical systems.

Nowadays, the development or improvement of actuation mechanisms is a crucial topic for the achievement of dextrous manipulation using soft robots. Then, a primary target of research is the design of actuation and driving devices. Consequently, in this paper, we introduce a soft driving epicyclical mechanism that mimics human muscle behavior and fulfills motion requirements to achieve grasping gestures using a robotic finger. The prototype is experimentally assessed, and results show that our approach has enough performance for the implementation in grasping tasks. Furthermore, we introduce the basis for a new soft epicyclical mechanism merger with shape memory alloys to allow active stiffness control of the mechanism.

Individual users' payment behaviors have changed. The diffusion of mobile devices makes people suitable for proximity mobile payment (PMP) services without the need for traditional payment. Existing mobile payment literature mainly focuses on users' adoption and continuous usage behavior, nevertheless, switching behavior on payment received little attention, especially focusing on why users switch from traditional payment to PMP. Thus, the objective of the current research is to investigate factors influencing users’ traditional payment - PMP switching to comprehend how these factors shape users’ switching intentions. We developed a traditional payment - PMP transition model based on the push-pull-mooring framework derived from migration theory. This research adopted a structural equation modeling analysis on 311 valid data. The findings indicate that a push factor drives users away from traditional payment in terms of dissatisfaction. The pull factors, including perceived substitutability and perceived usefulness, attract users to PMP. Furthermore, in terms of perceived technical compatibility, a positive mooring factor facilitates users' switching to PMP. The negative mooring factor, in terms of perceived risk, hinder users' switching intention. However, another pull factor - perceived ease of use, failed to influence switching intention significantly. This study found some distinctions between mobile payment switching and mobile payment adoption. These findings provide pivotal insights for mobile payment service providers.

The collaborative economy comprises resource circulation systems where consumers can act as both obtainers and providers of products and services. Despite considerable research on collaborative economies, there is a dearth of understanding of how individuals switch from being an obtainer to a provider. We address this void by drawing on 31 in-depth semi-structured interviews with collaborative economy obtainers. The findings suggest that personal values, learning experience, social benefits, mutuality, and peer influence drive obtainers to become providers. In contrast, distrusting strangers, a sense of intimacy, a lack of resources to share, and a lack of skills inhibit the switchover process. Our findings contextualize the drivers and inhibitors idiosyncratically to convert obtainers into providers, offer important implications for managers, contribute to the collaborative economy and sharing economy literature, and suggest compelling avenues for future research.

In-plane electro-optical switching (IPS) is a natural feature of a conventional planar aligned display cell based on deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystal effect (DHFLC-effect) with sub-wavelength helix pitch if the tilt angle close to 40 degrees.

Complex human behavior, including interlimb and interpersonal coordination, has been studied from a dynamical system perspective. We review the applications of a dynamical system approach to a sporting activity, which includes continuous, discrete, and switching dynamics. Continuous dynamics identified switching between in- and anti-phase synchronization, controlled by an interpersonal distance of 0.1 m during expert kendo matches, using a relative phase analysis. As discrete dynamics, return map analysis was applied to the time series of movements during kendo matches, and six coordination patterns were classified. Furthermore, state transition probabilities were calculated based on the two states, which clarified the coordination patterns and switching behavior. We introduced switching dynamics with temporal inputs to clarify the simple rules underlying the complex behavior corresponding to switching inputs in a striking action as a non-autonomous system. As a result, we determined that the time evolution of the striking action was characterized as fractal-like movement patterns generated by a simple Cantor set rule with rotation. Finally, we propose a switching hybrid dynamics to understand both court-net sports, as strongly coupled interpersonal competition, and weakly coupled sports, such as martial arts.

The effect of ferromagnetic CaMnO3 (CMO) addition on structural, magnetic, dielectric, and ferroelec-tric properties of BiFeO3 are presented. X ray diffraction and Raman investigation allowed the identifi-cation of single pseudo cubic perovskite structure. The magnetic measurement showed that the pre-pared films exhibit a ferromagnetic behavior at low temperature with both coercive field and remnant magnetization increased with increasing CMO content. However, a deterioration of magnetization was observed at room temperature. Ferroelectric study revealed an antiferroelectric like behavior with a pinched P-E hysteresis loop for 5%CMO doping BFO resulting in low remnant polarization and double hysteresis loops. Whereas, high remnant polarization and coercive field with a likely square hysteresis loop are obtained for 10 % CMO addition. Furthermore, a bipolar resistive switching behavior with a threshold voltage of about 1.8V is observed for high doped film that can be linked to the ferroelectric polarization switching.

In current study we have obtained Co2FeSi-glass coated microwires with different geometrical aspect ratio, ρ = d/Dtot (diameter of metallic nucleus, d and total diameter, Dtot). The structure and magnetic properties are investigated at a wide range of temperature. XRD analysis illustrates a notable changing in the microstructure by increasing the aspect ratio of Co2FeSi glass coated microwires. Amorphous structure is detected for the sample with the lowest aspect ratio (ρ = 0.23), whereas a growth of crystalline structure is observed in the other samples (aspect ratio ρ = 0.30 and 0.43). This change at the microstructure properties correlates with dramatic changing in magnetic properties. For the sample with the lowest ρ -ratio, non-perfect square loops are obtained with low normalized remanent magnetization. A notable enhancement in the squareness and coercivity are obtained by increasing ρ -ratio. Changing the internal stresses strongly affects the microstructure, resulting in a complex magnetic reversal process. The thermomagnetic curves show large irreversibility for the Co2FeSi with low ρ -ratio. Meanwhile, if we increase the ρ -ratio, the sample shows perfect ferromagnetic behavior without irreversibility. The current result illustrates the ability to control the microstructure and magnetic properties of Co2FeSi-glass-coated microwires by changing only their geometric properties without performing any addition heat treatment. The modification of geometric parameters of Co2FeSi glass-coated microwires allows to obtain microwires which exhibit an unusual magnetization behavior that offers opportunities to understand the phenomena of various types of magnetic domain structures, which is essentially helpful for designing sensing devices based on thermal magnetization switching.

Soft set theory is a mathematical tool for dealing with uncertainty. This paper investigates limits of interval type of soft sets (for short, it-soft sets). The concept of it-soft sets is first introduced. Then, limits of it-soft sets are proposed and their properties are obtained. Next, point-wise continuity of it-soft sets and continuous it-soft sets are discussed. Finally, an application for rough sets is given.

For a dynamical system, it is known that the existence of a Lyapunov density implies almost global stability of an equilibrium. It is then natural to ask whether the existence of a common Lyapunov density for a nonlinear switched system implies almost global stability, in the same way as a common Lyapunov function implies global stability for nonlinear switched systems. In this work, the answer to this question is shown to be affirmative as long as switchings satisfy a dwell-time constraint with an arbitrarily small dwell time. As a straightforward extension of this result, we employ multiple Lyapunov densities in analogy with the role of multiple Lyapunov functions for the global stability of switched systems. This gives rise to a minimum dwell time estimate to ensure almost global stability of nonlinear switched systems, when a common Lyapunov density does not exist. The results obtained for continuous-time switched systems are based on some sufficient conditions for the almost global stability of discrete-time non-autonomous systems. These conditions are obtained using the duality between Frobenius-Perron operator and Koopman operator.

In recent times, the soft robotics field is gaining numerous research focus owing to its high level of manipulation capabilities unlike traditional rigid robots, which gives room for an increasing use in other areas. However, compared to traditional rigid gripper robots, being capable of controlling/obtaining overall body stiffness when required is yet to be further explored since soft gripper robots have inherently less rigid properties. unlike previous designs with very complex variable stiffness systems, this paper demonstrates a soft gripper design with minimum system complexity while being capable of varying the stiffness of a continuum soft robotic actuator and proves to have potential applications in gripping objects of various shapes, weights & sizes. The soft gripper actuator comprises two separate mechanisms; the pneumatic mechanism for bending control and the mechanical structure for stiffness variation by pulling tendons using stepper motors which compresses the actuator, thereby changing the overall stiffness. The pneumatic mechanism was first fabricated and then embedded into another silicon layer during which it was as well merged with the mechanical structure for stiffness control. By first pneumatically actuating the actuator which causes bending and then pulling the tendons, we found out that the actuator stiffness value can be increased up to 145 % its initial value, and the gripper can grasp & lift a weight of up to 2.075 kg.

Background: Sarcoma may show similarities to malignant melanoma in terms of morphologic and immunohistochemical aspects, hence making it difficult to differentiate between these two neoplasms during the diagnostic process. This systematic review aims to summarize available evidence on cases of sarcoma that were initially diagnosed as melanoma. Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted including MEDLINE/Pubmed, EMBASE and SCOPUS through March 2023. We included case series and case reports of sarcoma patients that were initially diagnosed as malignant melanoma. PRISMA guidelines were followed. Results: Twenty-three case reports and four case series with a total of 34 patients were included. The clinical presentation was heterogeneous, and the most involved anatomical regions were lower limbs (24%), head/neck (24%) and upper limbs (21%). IHC positivity was reported for S100 (69%), HMB45 (63%), MelanA (31%) and MiTF (3%). The main reasons for second assessment were unusual presentation (48%) and uncertain diagnosis (28%). EWSR1 translocation was investigated in 17/34 patients (50%) and found positive in 16/17 (94%). The final diagnosis was clear cell sarcoma (50%) or other soft tissue sarcomas (50%). Conclusions: Melanoma and some histotypes of sarcoma share many similarities. In case of atypical lesions, a second diagnosis should be considered, and ESWR1 translocation should be investigated.

Palpation is a simple but effective method to differentiate tumors from healthy tissues. Development of miniaturized tactile sensors embedded on endoscopic or robotic devices are the key toward precise palpation diagnosis and the subsequent timely treatment. This paper reports on the fabrication and characterization of a novel tactile sensor with mechanical flexibility and optical transparency that can be easily mounted on soft surgical endoscopes and robotics. Utilizing the pneumatic sensing mechanism, the sensor offers a high sensitivity of 1.25 mbar and negligible hysteresis, enabling the detection of phantom tissues with different stiffnesses ranging from 0 to 2.5 MPa. Our configuration combining pneumatic sensing and hydraulic actuating also eliminates electrical wiring from the functional elements located at the robot end-effector, thereby enhancing the system safety. The optical transparency path in the sensors together with its mechanical sensing capability open interesting possibility in early detection of solid tumor as well as in the development of all in-one soft surgical robots that can perform visual/mechanical feedback and optical therapy.

Lignin has interesting functionalities to be exploited in adhesives for medicine, foods and textiles. Nanoparticles (NPs) <100 nm coated with poly(L-lysine), PL and poly(L-glutamic acid) PGA were prepared from the laccase treated lignin to coat nanocellulose fibrils (CNF) with heat. NPs ca. 300 nm were prepared, β-casein coated and cross-linked with transglutaminase (Tgase) to agglutinate chamois specimens. Size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy were used to characterize polymerized lignin, zetapotential and dynamic light scattering (DLS) to ensure coating of colloidal lignin particles (CLPs). Protein adsorption on lignin was studied by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was exploited to examine interactions between different polymers and to image NPs with transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Tensile testing showed, when using CLPs for the adhesion, the stress improved ca. 10 and strain ca. 6 times compared to polymeric lignin. For the β-casein NPs the values were 20 and 8, respectively, and for the β-casein coated CLPs between these two cases. When NPs were dispersed in adhesive formulation, the Young's moduli confirmed significant improvement in the elasticity of the joints over the adhesive alone. Exploitation lignin in nanoparticulate morphology is a potential method to prepare bionanomaterials for advanced applications.

In this systematic survey, an overview of non-conventional and soft-actuators is presented. The review is performed by using well-defined performance criteria with a direction to identify the exemplary applications in robotics. In addition to this, initial guidelines to measure the performance and applicability of soft actuators are provided. The meta-analysis is restricted to four main types of soft actuators: shape memory alloys (SMA), fluidic elastomer actuators (FEA), dielectric electro-activated polymers (DEAP) and shape morphing polymers (SMP). In exploring and comparing the capabilities of these actuators, the focus was on seven different aspects: compliance, topology, scalability-complexity, energy efficiency, operation range, performance and technological readiness level. The overview presented here provides a state-of-the-art summary of the advancements and can help researchers to select the most convenient soft actuators using the comprehensive comparison of the performance criteria.

This paper investigates the dynamic tail dependence risk between BRICS economies and world energy market in the context of the COVID-19 financial crisis of 2020, to determine optimal investment decisions based on risk metrics. For this purpose, the study employs a combination of novel statistical techniques ranging from Markov Switching, GARCH and Vine copula. Using a dataset consisting of daily stock and world crude oil prices; we find high probability of transition between lower and higher volatility regimes. Furthermore, our results based on the C-Vine copula confirm the existence of two types of tail dependence: - symmetric tail dependence between South Africa and China; South Africa and Russia; and lower tail dependence between South Africa and India; South Africa and Brazil; South Africa and Oil. For the purpose of diversification in these markets, we formulate an asset allocation problem using C-vine copula-based returns and optimize it using Particle Swarm algorithm with a rebalancing strategy. The results show an inverse relationship between the risk contribution and asset allocation of South Africa and oil market supporting the existence of lower tail dependence between them. This suggests that when South African stocks are in distress, investors tend to shift their holdings in oil market. Similar results are found between China and oil. In the upper tail, South African asset allocation is found to have an inverse relationship with that of Brazil, Russia and India suggesting that these three markets might be good investment destinations when things are not good in South Africa and vice-versa.

Background: Continuous subcutaneous apomorphine infusion (CSAI), levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel infusion (LCIG), and deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) have markedly changed the treatment landscape of advanced Parkinson’s disease (aPD). Despite a similar outcome of all device-aided therapies (DATs), some patients switch or combine DATs. The aim of this retrospective study was to explore the frequency and reasons for switching between or combining DATs in two movement disorders centres in Slovenia and Israel. Methods: We collected and analysed demographic and clinical data from aPD patients who switched between or combined DATs. Motor and non-motor reasons and their frequency for switching/combining were examined, as was the effect of DAT using the Global Improvement subscale of the Clinical Global Impression Scale. Non-parametric tests were used to analyse the data. Results: Of 505 aPD patients treated with DATs at both centres between January 2009 and June 2021, we identified in total 30 patients (6%), who either switched DAT (N=24: 7 LCIG-to-STN-DBS, 1 LCIG-to-CSAI, 5 CSAI-to STN-DBS, 8 CSAI-to-LCIG, 1 STN-DBS-to-LCIG, 1 LCIG-to-CSAI-to-STN-DBS, and 1 STN-DBS-to-CSAI-to-LCIG) or combined DATs (N=6: 5 STN-DBS+LCIG and 1 STN-DBS+CSAI-to-STN-DBS+LCIG). In most of these patients, inadequate control of motor symptoms was the main reason for switching or combining DATs, but non-motor reasons (related to the disease and/or DAT) were also identified. Conclusions: Switching between and combining DATs is uncommon, but in some patients brings substantial clinical improvement and should be considered in those who have either inadequate symptom control on DAT treatment or have developed DAT related complications.

Laminate structures composed of stiff plates and thin soft interlayers are widely used in aerospace, automotive and civil engineering encouraging the development of reliable non-destructive strategies for their condition assessment. In the paper, elastodynamic behaviour of such laminate structures is investigated with emphasis on its application in ultrasonic based NDT and SHM for the identification of interlayer mechanical and interfacial contact properties. A particular attention is given to the practically important frequency range, in which the wavelength considerably exceeds the thickness of the film. Three layer model with spring-type boundary conditions employed for imperfect contact simulation is used for numerical investigation. Novel effective boundary conditions are derived via asymptotic expansion technique and used for analysis of the peculiar properties of elastic guided waves in considered laminates. It is revealed that the thin and soft film influences the behaviour of the laminate mainly via the effective stiffnesses being a combination of the elastic moduli of the film, its thickness and interface stiffnesses. To evaluate each of these parameters separately (or to figure out that the available experimental data are insufficient), a step-wise procedure employing the effective boundary conditions is proposed and tested versus the laser Doppler vibrometry data for Lamb waves in Aluminium/Polymer film/Alumunium structure. The possibility of using film-related thickness resonance frequencies to estimate the film properties and contact quality is also demonstrated. Additionally, the rich family of edge waves is also investigated, and the splitting of fundamental edge waves into pairs is revealed.

The aerospace industry develops prognosis and health management algorithms to ensure better safety on board. Particularly for in-flight controls where jamming is dreaded. For that, vibration signals are monitored to predict future defect occurrences. However, time series are not labeled according to severity level, and the user can only assess the system health from the data mining procedure. To that extent, we developed a clustering algorithm using a deep neural network core. We encoded the time series into pictures to be feed into an artificially trained neural network: U-NET. From the segmented output, one-dimensional information on cluster frontiers is extracted and filtered without any parameter selection. Then, a kernel density estimation finally transforms the signal into an empirical density. Ultimately, a Gaussian mixture model extracts the latter independent components. The method empowered us to reveal different degrees of severity faults in the studied data, with their respective likelihood without prior knowledge. We compared it to state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms. However, internal clustering results evaluation for time series is an open question. As state-of-the-art indexes were not producing relevant results, we built a new indicator to fulfill this task. We applied the whole method to an actuator consisting of an induction machine linked to a ball screw. This study lays the groundwork for future training of diagnosis and prognosis structures in the health management framework.

This paper proposes a novel micro-grid structure, which can operate fully-autonomously with inherent seamless switching. It can operate independently in both grid-connected and islanded mode as a self-governed entity without relying on the utility grid. An AC/DC/AC converter is employed as the interface between the micro-grid and the utility grid, which enables the two entities to have different voltages in grid-connected mode. Seamless switching between operation modes can be achieved naturally. The micro-grid is regulated to exchange predefined amount of power with the utility grid in grid-connected mode. This will benefit the power dispatching algorithm of the power system. The predefined power is estimated based on power forecasting of local renewable generations and loads with consideration of the Sate of Charge (SOC) of the battery, and is updated and broadcasted every certain period. A small scale AC micro-grid with a rotating generator, battery storage and solar arrays etc. is built for investigation. Matlab/Simulink results are provided to validate the robustness and flexibility of proposed micro-grid and its operation strategy.

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) offer robust, high energy density solutions for soft robotics. The proposed end effector consists of three spring roll configuration DEAs, each acting as a robotic finger, using a 3M VHB-F9473PC adhesive membrane. The lateral force, bending angle and response time of the actuator are measured experimentally and compared with the predictions of an analytical model. The cylindrical actuator measures 70 mm in length and 15 mm in diameter and achieved a lateral force of 30 mN, a bending angle of 6.8 ° and a response time of ≈ 1 s. Spring roll configuration DEAs are shown to reduce the effects of viscoelasticity seen in the membrane, making the actuator more controllable at higher voltages. The dielectric constant of the membrane is shown to be a limiting factor of actuation, with a decrease in dielectric constant resulting in larger actuation. The end effector successfully gripped numerous light objects for extended periods, showing the applicability of spring roll DEAs for soft end effectors.

Quantum squeezing, an intriguing phenomenon that amplifies the uncertainty of one variable while diminishing that of its conjugate, may be studied as a time-dependent process, with exact solutions frequently derived from frameworks grounded in adiabatic invariants. Remarkably, we reveal that exact solutions can be ascertained in the presence of time-variant elastic forces, eschewing dependence on invariants or frozen eigenstates formalism. Delving into these solutions as an inverse problem unveils their direct connection to the design of elastic fields, responsible for inducing squeezing transformations onto canonical variables. Of particular note, the dynamic transformations under investigation belong to a class of gentle quantum operations, distinguished by their delicate manipulation of particles, thereby circumventing the abrupt energy surges commonplace in conventional control protocols.

Detection of human movement requires lightweight, flexible systems to detect mechanical parameters (like strain and pressure) not interfering with user activity, and that he/she can wear comfortably. In this work we address such multifaceted challenge with the development of smart garments for lower limb motion detection, like a textile kneepad and anklet in which soft sensors and readout electronics are embedded for detecting movement of the specific joint. Stretchable capacitive sensors with a three-electrode configuration are built combining conductive textiles and elastomeric layers, and distributed at knee and ankle. They show an excellent behavior in the ~30% strain range, hence the correlation between their responses and the optically tracked Euler angles is allowed for basic lower limb movements. Bending during knee flexion/extension is detected, and it is discriminated from any external contact by implementing in real time a low computational algorithm. The smart anklet is designed to address joint motion detection in and off the sagittal plane. In this work, ankle dorsi/plantar flexion, adduction/abduction, and rotation are retrieved. Both smart garments show a high accuracy in movement detection, with a RMSE less than 4° in the worst case.

Nonequilibrium work switching simulations and Jarzynski’s equation are a reliable method to compute free energy differences, ΔAlow→high, between two levels of theory, such as a pure molecular mechanical (MM) and a quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) description of a system of interest. Despite the inherent parallelism, the computational cost of this approach can quickly get very high. This is particularly true for systems where the core region, the part of the system to be described at different levels of theory, is embedded in an environment, such as explicit solvent water. We find that even for relatively simple solute–water systems, switching lengths of at least 5 ps are necessary to compute ΔAlow→high reliably. In this study, we investigate two approaches towards an affordable protocol, with emphasis on keeping the switching length well below 5 ps. Inserting a hybrid charge intermediate state with modified partial charges which resembles the charge distribution of the desired high level makes it possible to obtain reliable calculations with 2 ps switches. Attempts using step-wise linear switching paths, on the other hand, did not lead to improvement, i.e., faster convergence for all systems. To understand these findings, we analyzed the solutes’ properties as a function of partial charges used, the number of waters in direct contact with the solute, and studied the time needed for water molecules to reorient themselves upon a change in the solute’s charge distribution.

The Musa textilis var. Abuab has high fiber quality (FQ) but has low resistance against abaca bunchy top virus (AbBTV); the Musa balbisiana var. Pacol, has low FQ but high resistance against AbBTV. Their backcrosses (BC2 and BC3) possess both desirable traits. Analysis using RNA-seq showed that the regulatory divergence of Abuab and Pacol is largely explained by cis differences with 27.4% and 22.3% if we are to assess it using BC2 and BC3, respectively. Cis differences between the two genotypes are significantly reduced from BC2 to BC3 due to changes in genomic constitution. Trans, on the other hand, is robust to changes in allelic composition. All these are attributed to the loss of heterozygosity in the BC3 relative to BC2. Further analysis showed that both backcrosses exhibited genome-wide preferential expression of Pacol- over Abuab-specific alleles, despite the wider genetic presence of the latter in the hybrids. The ratio of the two genotype-specific expressed transcripts and the ratio of their corresponding genetic make-up are significantly disproportionate, a phenomenon which we refer here as “genome–transcriptome incongruence”. We also observed preferential expression switching in which several genes prefer Abuab- (or Pacol-) specific allele in the BC2 but switched to Pacol- (or Abuab-) specific allele in the BC3 genome.

COVID-19, a global health crisis, occurred unexpectedly and has led to global transformation over all countries in the world today. While COVID-19 had claimed lives and led to an economic crisis, the impacts on the financial market cannot be overemphasized. Considering the previous financial crisis, which occurred due to poor regulations and unchecked misconduct by financial market stakeholders, COVID-19 is the first to mention an indirect crisis that almost has no direct relationship to the financial system. Thus, this paper explores the impacts of COVID-19 from a stochastic approach on Local markets by applying the GARCH model to measure the level of volatility of two (2) US stock indexes (NASDAQ and NYSE) and a Europe index (EURONEXT). Our results show that volatility existed before COVID-19, but the volatility rate increased after COVID-19, possibly due to the COVID-19 shock. We also explore the Markov-Switching Dynamic Regression (MSDR) model to corroborate our findings. We validated that there is a very high persistent volatility for all the considered local markets at the early stage COVID-19 period.

Human rhabdomyosarcomas are rarely cured by surgical resection alone. This is also true for high grade soft tissue sarcomas in dogs. Dogs with spontaneous sarcoma are good models for clinical responses to new cancer therapies. Strategic combinations of immunotherapy and oncolytic virotherapy (OV) could improve treatment responses in canine and human cancer patients. To develop an appropriate combination of immunotherapy and OV for dogs with soft tissue sarcoma (STS), canine cancer cells were inoculated with myxoma viruses (MYXVs) and gene transcripts were quantified. Next, cytokine concentrations in canine cancer cells were altered to evaluate their effect on MYXV replication. These studies indicated that, as in murine and human cells, type I interferons (IFN) play an important role in limiting MYXV replication in canine cancer cells. To reduce type I IFN production during OV, oclacitinib (a JAK1 inhibitor) was administered twice daily to dogs for 14 days starting ~7 days prior to surgery. STS tumors were excised and MYXV deleted for serp2 (MYXV∆SERP2) was administered at the surgical site at two time points post-operatively to treat any remaining microscopic tumor cells. Tumor regrowth in dogs treated with OV was decreased relative to historical controls. However, regrowth was not further inhibited in patients given combination therapy.

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

Background. Shoulder in CrossFit should have a balance between mobility and stability. Glenohumeral internal rotation deficit and posterior shoulder stiffness are risk factors for overhead shoulder injury. Objective. To determine the effectiveness of instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization and horizontal adduction stretch in CrossFit practitioners’ shoulders. Methods: Twenty-one regular CrossFitters were allocated to experimental (stretching with isometric contraction and instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization) or control group (instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization). Each session lasted 5 minutes, 2 days a week, over a period of 4 weeks. Shoulder internal rotation and horizontal adduction (digital inclinometer), and posterior shoulder stretch perception (Park scale) were evaluated. Shapiro-Wilk test was used to analyze the distribution of the sample. Parametric student's t-test was used to obtain the intragroup differences. The inter- and intra-rater differences were calculated using a repeated measures ANOVA. Results. Changes were found in the experimental group following intervention (p < 0.05), and when comparing baseline and follow-up assessments (p < .05) in all variables. Significant differences were found in the control group following intervention (p < 0.05), in right horizontal adduction and left internal rotation. When comparing perception of internal rotation and horizontal adduction in both groups in the three assessments significant differences were found. Conclusions. Instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization can improve shoulder horizontal adduction and internal rotation. An instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization technique yields the same results alone as those achieved in combination with post-isometric stretch with shoulder adduction.

Background. Diesel exhaust particles (DEPs) have a great impact on general increase of atopic diseases worldwide. However, it is still unknown whether DEPs induce systemic B-cell IgE class switching in secondary lymphoid organs or locally in lungs, in inducible bronchial-associated lymphoid tissue (iBALT). The aim of this work was to identify the exact site of DEPs mediated B-cell IgE class switching and pro-allergic antibodies production. Methods. We immunized BALB/c mice with different OVA doses (0.3 and 30 µg) intranasally in the presence and absence of two types of DEPs, SRM1650B and SRM2786. We used low (30 µg) and high (150 µg) DEPs doses in our study. Results. Only high DEP dose induced IgE production regardless of particle type. Local IgE class switching was stimulated upon treatment with both types of particles with both low and high antigen doses. Despite the similar ability of two standard DEP samples to stimulate IgE production, their ability to induce iBALT formation and growing, was markedly different upon co-administration together with low antigen doses. Conclusion. DEPs induced local IgE class switching takes place in pre-existing iBALTs, independently of de novo iBALT formation, at least in the case of SRM1650B co-administrated with low antigen doses.

In recent years, numerous topologies of single phase and three phase Field Excited Flux-Switching Machine (FEFSM) have been developed for several applications. Comparative study of three types of single-phase low-priced Field Excited Flux-Switching Machine (FEFSM) is presented in this paper. Both the conventional 8S/4P sub-part rotor design and 6S/3P salient rotor design have an overlapped winding arrangements between armature coil and field excitation coil that depicts high copper losses as well as results in increased size of motor. Additionally, FEFSM with salient structure of the rotor have high flux strength in the stator-core that has much impact on high iron losses. Copper consumption and iron loss being a crucial proportion in total machine losses. Therefore a novel topology of single phase modular rotor field excited FSM with 8S/6P configuration is proposed, which enable non-overlap arrangement between armature coil and FEC winding that facilitates devaluation in the copper losses. The proposed modular rotor design acquires reduced iron losses as well as reduced active rotor mass comparatively to conventional rotor design. It is very persuasive to analyze the best range of speed for these rotors to avoid cracks and deformation, the maximum tensile strength (can be measured with principal stress in research) of the rotor analysis is conducted using JMAG. A deterministic optimization technique is used to enhance the performance of 8S/6P modular rotor design. The electromagnetic performance of conventional sub-part rotor design, F1-A3-3P design and proposed novel-modular rotor design are analyzed by 3D-Finite Element Analysis (3D-FEA), includes flux linkage, flux distribution, flux strength, back-EMF, cogging torque, torque characteristics, iron losses and efficiency.

This study aims to elucidate a soft computing approach for quantitative assessment of the scoring grade or rubrics for students in an outcome based education system. The intended approach resorts to a fuzzy membership based assessment of the different parameters of the scoring system, thereby yielding a novel and humanly assessment technique. The selection of the membership functions is based on the human behavior so as to make a realistic representation of the scoring strategy. The novelty of the proposed strategy lies in assigning fuzzy membership based weighted scores instead of simply assigning score bands to rubric categories, as is performed in normal rubrics based assessment. Comparative results demonstrated on a case study of Indian education scenario reveal the effectiveness of the proposed strategy over other fuzzy membership and normal rubrics based assessment procedures.

Orbital fractures are a common finding in facial trauma and serious complications may arise when orbital reconstruction is not done properly. The virtual planning can be used to manufacture patient-specific titanium orbital implants (PSI) through the process of selective laser melting. This method is currently considered the most accurate technique for orbital reconstruction. Even with the most accurate tehniques of bone reconstruction, there are still situations where enophthalmos is present after reconstruction which may be produced by intraorbital soft tissue atrophy. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the orbital soft tissue after postraumatic reconstruction of the orbital walls fractures. 10 patients diagnosed with unilateral orbital fractures were included in this study. A CT scan of the head region with thin slices (0.6mm) and soft and bone tissue windows was done. After data processing, the STL files were exported and the intraorbital fat tissue volume and the muscular tissue volume were masured. The volumes of affected orbit tissues were compared with the volumes of the healthy orbit tissues for each patient. Our findings conclude that a higher or a lower grade of fat and muscular tissue loss is present in all cases of reconstructed orbital fractures.

A better understanding of diseases progress in tissues vest on the accurate understanding of tissues under mechanical loading. Also, development of therapies for injuries may depend on the available mechanical data for soft tissues. In this study, the raw data of biaxial tensile testing of sclera soft tissue is presented in this paper. Biaxial mechanical testing of soft tissues presents details understanding of how soft tissues behave when compared to uniaxial testing. Biomechanical properties of soft tissues are vital in the development of accurate computational models. Reliable computational models of studying mechanisms of diseases depends mainly on the accurate and more details mechanical behavior of soft tissues. These accurate and detailed computational models may be utilized to further develop the understanding and therapies of various diseases. The mechanical tensile testing was conducted on the passive sheep sclera. Engineering stress vs strain of several samples of the sheep sclera are further presented determined from force and displacement experimental data. The goal of this paper is to make available biaxial data of sheep sclera soft tissue that can be further utilized.

A real-time two-way direct load control (TWDLC) of central air-conditioning chillers in wide area is proposed to provide demand response. The proposed TWDLC scheme is designed to optimize the load shedding ratio of every customer under control to ensure the target load to be shed is met at every scheduling period. In order to overcome the load reduction uncertainties of TWDLC, an innovative solution is proposed by applying a certain degree of loosening on the constraint of the actual shed load. Fuzzy linear programming is utilized to solve the optimization problem with fuzzy constraints. The proposed fuzzy linear programming problem is solved by delicately transforming it into a regular liner programming problem. A selection scheme used to obtain the feasible candidates set for load shedding at every sampling interval of TWDLC is also designed along with the fuzzy linear programming.

In this paper, a recent meta-heuristic optimization algorithm called the discrete-continuous hyper-spherical search algorithm is used to solve the mixed-integer nonlinear problem of soft open points (SOPs) and renewable distributed generators allocation along with new network reconfiguration methodology under different loading conditions to minimize the total power loss in balanced distribution systems. Multi-scenario studies, which aim to improve the investigation of the overall performance of the strategies, are conducted on IEEE 33-node and 83-node balanced distribution systems. The contributions of SOP losses to the total active losses, as well as the effect of increasing the number of SOPs connected to the system, are investigated to determine the real benefits gained from their allocation. The results obtained validate, with proper justifications, the effectiveness of allocating both SOPs and renewable distributed generators with the proposed network reconfiguration methodology to provide the best operation of distribution networks with minimum losses and enhanced power quality performance. It was also shown that SOPs successfully assist the growing integration plans of the renewable distributed generators units and can address issues related to voltage violations and network losses efficiently.

Resistive random-access memory has emerged as a promising non-volatile memory technology, garnering substantial attention due to its potential for high operational performance, low power consumption, and scalability. Two-dimensional nanostructured materials play a pivotal role in RRAM devices, offering enhanced electrical properties and physical attributes that contribute to overall device improvement. In this study, self-rectifying switching behavior in RRAM devices is proposed based on molybdenum disulfide nanocomposites decorated with palladium on SiO2/Si substrates. The integration of Pd and MoS2 at the nanoscale effectively mitigates leakage currents decreasing from cross-talk in the RRAM array, eliminating the need for a separate selector device. The successful demonstration of the expected RRAM switching behavior follows the application of a Pd nanoparticle coating. The fabricated Pd-MoS2 synaptic device showed a high current ratio for forward/reverse current higher than 60 at a low resistance state and observed a memory on/off ratio of 103 performing stable resistance switching behavior.

As a behavior of bilingual individuals and an indispensable part of bilingual speech, code-switching has been investigated by many researchers. However, there are many variables influencing code-switching, and each variable has the potential to be a confounding variable. Among these variables is the gender; however, whether there are significant gender differences and what are the gender differences in code-switching remains unknown for Mandarin Mandarin-English child bilinguals, as previous literature diverse on the existence of gender differences. Therefore, this paper seeks potential code-switching and distribution of code-switching by quantitative analysis of speech data in Singapore Bilingual Corpus. The results indicate that gender differences are significant in the amount of intra code-switching. However, neither considerable gender difference is observed in the amount of inter nor the code-switching related environment.

This paper presents a symmetrical topology for the design of solid-state transformer, made up of power switching converters, to replace conventional bulky transformers. The proposed circuitry not only reduces the overall size but also provides power flow control with the ability to be interfaced with renewable energy resources (RESs) to fulfill the future grid requirements at consumer end. Solid state transformer provides bidirectional power flow with variable voltage and frequency operation and has the ability to maintain unity power factor, and current total harmonic distortion (THD) for any type of load within defined limits of IEEE standard. Solid State Transformer offers much smaller size as compared to that of the conventional iron core transformer. MATLAB/Simulink platform is adopted to test the validity of the proposed circuit for different scenarios by providing the simulation results evaluated at 25 kHz switching frequency.

Adaptive Sliceable-Bandwidth Variable Transceivers (S-BVTs) are key enabler for future optical networks. In particular, those based on Discrete MultiTone (DMT) modulation and Direct Detection (DD) can be considered a flexible solution suitable to address the cost efficiency requirement of optical metro networks. In this paper, we propose to use this cost-effective S-BVT option/implementation in optical metro networks adopting switching nodes based on Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA) technology. Bit loading (BL) and power loading (PL) algorithms are applied to the Digital Signal Processing (DSP) modules, to maximize the performance and/or the capacity as well as enhance the flexibility and adaptability of the system. Our analysis considers switching nodes based on SOAs with and without filtering elements and fiber spans of 25 km. We present the results up to 100 km, with and without SOA-based nodes. Firstly, we analyze the adaptive BVT transmission using the Margin Adaptive (MA) BL/PL algorithm at a fixed bit rate of 28 Gb/s. The possibility of controlling the SOAs current is a key factor to face the transmission impairments due to the fiber and the filtering elements. We also analyze the system considering Rate Adaptive (RA) transmission at a fixed target BER of 3.8·10⁻³, showing that a maximum capacity above 34 Gb/s can be achieved for a single span of 25 km. Although the cascading of filtering elements still constitutes a limiting factor, we show that an improvement of the net bit rate performance can be obtained thanks to the combined use of S-BVT and SOA technology at the switching nodes, resulting in a promising approach for designing future optical metro networks.

Two beneficial characteristics of aircraft generators are having armature windings and PM excitation sources placed on the stator side (maintenance and thermal management) and having a clear-cut rotor without permanent magnets or excitation windings (vulnerable at high speeds due to associated centripetal mechanical stresses). Within this framework, a doubly-salient permanent magnet (DSPM) generator was conceived by optimizing the stator size and rotor structure to minimize the torque ripple and maximize the RMS voltage value per turn of each generator phase. A Multi-Objective Design Strategy based on a 2D finite element analysis was used, being set to have characteristics closest to optimal for a Boeing 767 turbine, that is, the necessary electromotive force for a required power of 90 kW at 3000 rpm, feeding a simplified Boeing 767 electrical power distribution system. The results show that the machine could not deliver the required power at 3000 rpm since the 2D finite elements analysis demonstrates that the 2D model gives optimistic results when compared with the 3D FEM model. However, with a 3D finite element analysis of the machine feeding the aircraft load, it was seen that the machine’s efficiency is 92%, suggesting this machine can be a plausible solution.

In this study, we investigate the magnetization behavior of coaxial nanowires fabricated through the sol-gel electrospinning method. Our analysis uncovers a significant reduction in coercivity for CoFe2O4 nanowires when BaTiO3 is used as the shell material, effectively transforming them from hard to soft magnetic. This intriguing behavior is attributed to the magnetization reversal effect at the interface between ferromagnetic and paramagnetic regions, and it is also observed in NiFe2O4 and Fe2O3 nanowires. Surprisingly, introducing a GdBa2Cu3O7 shell induces a similar effect. Additionally, we employ magnetic impedance measurements on the coaxial nanowires, unveiling their potential for magnetic field sensing applications.

Soft drinks exist in various forms and brands and are marketed by different brewery industries across the country. Nigeria been an underdeveloped country were aforesaid health problems are common, people tends to consume them lots believing it gives more energy. This study was therefore set to assess the sugar content from different soft drinks sold in Nigeria. Ten (10) soft drinks registered and licensed in Nigeria by their respective companies were purchased from a supermarket in Ihumudumu environment of Ekpoma, Nigeria. The sugar contents were assessed using standard methods. Result showed significant differences (p<0.05) in ranges of 0.36g/100ml (Limca) to 3.88g/100ml (Teem Bitter Lemon). Conclusively, the sugar contents were all below recommended value and it can be consumed by those who need low sugar in the body.

In this study, we present the concept of interval-valued fuzzy soft point and then introduce the notions of neighborhood and quasi-neighbourhood of it in interval-valued fuzzy soft topological spaces. Separation axioms in interval-valued fuzzy soft topology, so-called $q$-$T_{i}$ for $ i=0,1,2,3,4 ,$ is introduced and some of its basic properties are also studied.

The problem of optimal scheduling in a system with parallel queues and a single server has been extensively studied in the queueing theory. However, such systems have mostly been studied by assuming homogeneous attributes of arrival and service processes, or in heterogeneous case a Markov random process was usually assumed. In this paper, we explore the possibility of combining simulation and neural network paradigms for optimal scheduling in a heterogeneous system with an arbitrary inter-arrival and service time distributions. The service of any queue by the server is exhaustive. Further routing of the server after the queue has been emptied is as instructed by the trained neural network. Any change in the queue that currently has a server is accompanied by a switching cost. The simulated annealing optimization algorithm which is used to optimize the parameters of the neural network was adapted for numerically evaluated average cost function. A Markov decision problem was formulated for the corresponding markovian queueing system to verify the results of solving the optimization problem. In addition to comparing the actual values of the average cost, the parameter values of the neural network trained on the optimal control policy of the Markov model are also used to determine the domains of parameters required for the simulated annealing defined on a finite discrete domain. Numerical analysis shows the effectiveness of this approach. Moreover, a comparison of the results for different distributions illustrates the insensitivity of the optimal control policy to the shape of the distributions for the same two first moments. Thus, the optimal control policy for an exponential model can be used as a suboptimal one for the general system.

The structural evolution and phase composition of multi-block thermoplastic polyurethanes, with different nature of the soft segments based on poly(butylene adipate) (PBA), were analyzed during in-situ thermal treatments. A combination of synchrotron small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, and FTIR spectroscopy was used to determine the influence of macrodiol nature and crystallization conditions on the polymorphic behavior of PBA. Using a new synthesis scheme, a relatively high degree of crystallinity for urethane blocks was achieved, which depends on the diisocyanate type in the structure of the soft segment. The hard segment domains impose geometrical constraints on PBA, thereby altering its crystallization process compared to the neat oligomer. Thus, crystallization after annealing at a low temperature (80 °C) is fast, predominantly yielding a metastable β-phase. When heated to 180 °C, which is higher than the hard-segment melting temperature, a phase-separated structure is observed. Subsequent crystallization is slower, favoring the formation of the stable α-PBA modification. The phase separation can be observed even after the hard block melting. A notably slow crystallization from an isotropic melt was documented after the disruption of phase separation at 230 °C.

In this paper, chaos sequence is used to replace the traditional Spread Spectrum sequence. From the perspective of the communication partner, a new method of generating the initial value of chaotic sequence is proposed, which is more suitable for the multi-base Spread Spectrum System and easy to extract. In order to further improve the error performance of the system and ensure the integrity of the system, an improved suboptimal soft information extraction method based on log-likelihood ratio (LLR) is proposed in the channel coding module, which can further improve the error performance of the system. On this basis, we choose the synchronization mode of multiple transmission of one reference signal to solve the problem that chaotic sequence is difficult to obtain synchronization because of its aperiodic characteristics. Finally, the system is simulated in the channel with low SNR. The simulation results show that chaotic sequence as Spread Spectrum code can make the signal transmit accurately in the worse channel environment. The performance gain of applying soft information decoding decision in the M-ary Spread Spectrum System with chaotic sequence as Spread Spectrum code can reach 5.2dB compared with the traditional Direct Spread Spectrum System.

Software engineering is a comprehensive process that requires developers and team members to collaborate across multiple tasks. In software testing, bug triaging is a tedious and time-consuming process. Assigning bugs to the appropriate developers can save time and maintain their motivation. However, without knowledge about a bug's class, triaging is difficult. Motivated by this challenge, this paper focuses on the problem of assigning the suitable developer to new bug by analyzing the history of developers’ profiles and analyzing history of bugs for all developers using machine learning-based recommender systems. Explainable AI (XAI) is AI that humans can understand. It contrasts with "black box" AI, which even its designers can't explain. By providing appropriate explanations for results, users can better comprehend the underlying insight behind the outcomes, boosting the recommender system's effectiveness, transparency, and confidence. In this paper, we propose two explainable models for recommendation. The first one is an explainable recommender model for personalized developers generated from bug history to know what the preferred type of bug is for each developer. The second model is an explainable recommender model based on bugs to generate the best developer for each bug from bug history.

Recently, resistive random access memory (RRAM) has been an outstanding candidate among various emerging nonvolatile memories for high density storage and in-memory computing applications. However, the traditional RRAM, which accommodates two states depending on applied voltage, cannot meet the high density requirement in the era of big data. Many research groups have demonstrated that RRAM possesses the possibility of multi-level cell to overcome the demand of mass storage. Among numerous semiconductor materials, gallium oxide, as the fourth-generation semiconductor material, is highly-profile due to its excellent material proper-ties, and already be widely used in optoelectronics, high-power, resistive switching device and so on, due to its wide bandgap and transparent properties. In this study, we have successfully demonstrated the Al/GO/Ga2O3/ITO RRAM to achieve the possibility of two-bit storage. Compared to the single-layer counterpart, the bilayer structure has excellent electrical properties and stable reliability. The endurance characteristics could be enhanced above 100 switching cycles with an ON/OFF ratio of over 103. Moreover, the filament models are also described in this thesis to clarify the transport mechanisms.

Europium is the most-studied and least-well-understood rare earth ion (REI) dopant in GaN. While attempting to increase the efficiency of red GaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) by implanting Eu⁺ into p-type GaN templates, the Strathclyde University group, in collaboration with IST Lisbon and Unipress Warsaw, discovered hysteretic photochromic switching (HPS) in the photoluminescence spectrum of doubly doped GaN(Mg):Eu. Our recent work, summarised in this contribution, has used time-, temperature- and light-induced changes in the Eu intra-4f shell emission spectrum to deduce the microscopic nature of the Mg-Eu defects that form in this material. As well as shedding light on the Mg acceptor in GaN, we propose a possible role for these emission centres in quantum information and computing.

Since the first description of bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (BRONJ) numerous research groups have focused on possible pathological mechanisms including the suppression of the bone turnover of the jaw, antiangiogenic effects and soft tissue toxicity. In our review we focused on summarizing the role of the soft tissues in the development and progression of BRONJ. The biological behavior of fibroblasts can be significantly influenced by bisphosphonates (BP) such as a concentration dependent reduction of cell viability. High concentrations of BP can induce apoptosis and necrosis of the cells. Comparable effects could be detected for keratinocytes. Compared to non-nitrogen containing bisphosphonates nitrogen-containing BP have worse effects on cell biology by blocking the mevalonate pathway. Next to this the cell architecture and the expression levels of several genes and proteins are significantly disturbed by BP. These inhibitory effects of BP are in accordance with BP related reduced angiogenesis and neovascularization and could underline the hypothesis that inhibition of fibroblasts and keratinocytes results in delayed wound healing and can induce and trigger BRONJ.

Plasmonic nanocomposites have the ability to enhance light-matter interaction due to the 1 plasmonic effects leading to promising potential applications. In this paper, we theoretically study the 2 group index of the silver nanoparticle-gold nanoparticle-quantum dot plasmonic hybrid system in 3 the optical region of the electromagnetic spectrum using the density matrix approach. The quantum 4 dot is considered to be a three-level atomic system of a lambda configuration, interacting with strong 5 control and weak probe fields. We find that the plasmonic hybrid system exhibits at near resonance a 6 strong switching between slow and fast light, which can be controlled by the inclination angle of the 7 gold nanoparticle and the size of the metals nanoparticles, in addition to the strength and detuning 8 of the control field. Thus, the silver nanoparticle-gold nanoparticle-quantum dot could potentially be 9 used in optoelectronic devices.10

Plasmonic nanocomposites have the ability to enhance light-matter interaction due to the plasmonic effects leading to promising potential applications. In this paper, we theoretically study the group index of the silver nanoparticle-gold nanoparticle-quantum dot plasmonic hybrid system in the optical region of the electromagnetic spectrum using the density matrix approach. The quantum dot is considered to be a three-level atomic system of a lambda configuration, interacting with strong control and weak probe fields. We find that the plasmonic hybrid system exhibits at near resonance a strong switching between slow and fast light, which can be controlled by the inclination angle of the gold nanoparticle and the size of the metals nanoparticles, in addition to the strength and detuning of the control field. Thus, the silver nanoparticle-gold nanoparticle-quantum dot could potentially be used in optoelectronic devices.

The switched inertance hydraulic system (SIHS) is a novel high-bandwidth and energy-efficient digital device which can adjust or control flow and pressure by a means that does not rely on throttling the flow and dissipation of power. An SIHS can provide an efficient step-up or step-down of pressure or flow rate by using a digital control signal. In this article, analytical models of an SIHS in a four-port high-speed switching valve configuration are proposed, and the system dynamics and performance are investigated theoretically and experimentally. The flow responses, system characteristics and power consumption can be predicted effectively and accurately by using the proposed models, which were validated by comparing with experiments and with numerical simulation. The four-port configuration is compared with the three-port configuration, and it is concluded that the former one is less efficient for valves of the same size, but provides a bi-direction control capability. As bi-direction control is a common requirement, this constitutes an important contribution to the development of efficient digital hydraulics.

Fifteen new diterpenoids, namely xishaklyanes A-O (1-15), along with three known related ones (16-18), were isolated from the soft coral Klyxum molle collected from Xisha Islands, South China Sea. The stereochemistry of the new compounds were elucidated by a combination of detailed spectroscopic analyses, chemical syntheses, quantum chemical calculations and comparison with the reported data. The absolute configuration of compound 18 was established by the modified Mosher's method for the first time. In bioassay, some of these compounds exhibited considerable antibacterial activities on fish pathogenic bacteria, and compound 4 showed the most effective activity with MIC of 0.225 g/mL against Lactococcus garvieae.

The increasing trend of studying the innate softness of robotic structures and amalgamating it with the benefits of the extensive developments in the field of embodied intelligence has led to sprouting of a relatively new yet extremely rewarding sphere of technology. The fusion of current deep reinforcement algorithms with physical advantages of a soft bio-inspired structure certainly directs us to a fruitful prospect of designing completely self-sufficient agents that are capable of learning from observations collected from their environment to achieve a task they have been assigned. For soft robotics structure possessing countless degrees of freedom, it is often not easy (something not even possible) to formulate mathematical constraints necessary for training a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) agent for the task in hand, hence, we resolve to imitation learning techniques due to ease of manually performing such tasks like manipulation that could be comfortably mimicked by our agent. Deploying current imitation learning algorithms on soft robotic systems have been observed to provide satisfactory results but there are still challenges in doing so. This review article thus posits an overview of various such algorithms along with instances of them being applied to real world scenarios and yielding state-of-the-art results followed by brief descriptions on various pristine branches of DRL research that may be centers of future research in this field of interest.

The aim of this article is introduced the concept of double framed T-soft fuzzy set (DFT-soft fuzzy set) which is the combination of soft set and fuzzy set. We also defined the notions and apply this concept in BCK/BCI-algebras. By using example, we also discussed the concept of double framed T-soft fuzzy algebra (DFT-soft fuzzy algebra) and double framed B-soft fuzzy algebra (DFB-soft fuzzy algebra) and also investigated their properties. Each double framed T-soft fuzzy algebra is double framed B-soft fuzzy algebra but by using example, we proved that converse may or may not be possible.

Five new cembrane-type diterpenes, lobocalines A–E (1–5), and four new steroids, lobocalines F–I (9–12), along with six known related compounds (6–8 and 13–15) were isolated from the Yalong Bay soft coral Lobophytum catalai. The structures of the new compounds were elucidated by extensive spectroscopic analysis, NMR calculation with DP4+ analysis, time-dependent density functional theory-electronic circular dichroism (TDDFT-ECD) calculations, X-ray diffraction analyses, and the comparison with the reported spectroscopic data of known compounds. Further, with the aid of X-ray diffraction analysis, the structure of lobocrasol B (15) was firmly revised as 15a. In in vitro bioassays, compound 2 showed moderate antibacterial activities against fish pathogenic bacteria Streptococcus parauberis KSP28 and Phoyobacterium damselae FP2244 with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 8.7 and 17.3 µg/mL, respectively. All the steroids exhibited antibacterial activities against the S. parauberis KSP28 with MIC values ranging from 12.3 to 53.6 µg/mL. Compounds 2, 7 and 14 have remarkable inhibitory effects on the hemolysin production of Staphylococcus aureus, while compounds 8–12 have medium inhibitory effects on the pyocyanin production in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

In this study, the motion characteristics of soft alginate microrobots were investigated with wireless magnetic fields in complex fluidic environments. Our aim is to explore the various motion modes that arise as a result of shear forces in viscoelastic fluids. Polyacrylamide (PAA), a water-soluble polymer, was characterized to produce a dynamic environment with a non-Newtonian fluid. The robots were fabricated by an extrusion-based microcentrifugal droplet method. We successfully demonstrated the feasibility of both wiggling and tumbling motions using snowman-shaped microbots. It is found that wiggling motion is primarily influenced by the interaction between the viscoelastic fluid environment and the non-uniform magnetization of the microbots. Additionally, it is discovered that modifying the viscoelasticity properties of the fluid can affect the motion behavior of the microbots. Furthermore, we observed that swarms of microbots exhibit non-uniform behavior within complex environments. Our velocity analysis has provided valuable insights into the relationship between applied magnetic fields and motion characteristics, enabling a more realistic understanding of surface locomotion in the context of targeted drug delivery.

An attractive option for realizing applications in radiation environments is to employ All-Programmable System-on-Chips (APSoCs) thanks to their high-performance computing and power efficiency merits. Despite APSoC's advantages, like any other electronic device, they are prone to radiation effects. Processors found in APSoCs must, therefore, be adequately hardened against ionizing-radiation to become a viable alternative for harsh environments. This paper proposes a novel triple-core lockstep (TCLS) approach to secure the Xilinx Zynq-7000 APSoC dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor against radiation-induced soft errors by coupling it with a MicroBlaze TMR subsystem in Zynq's programmable logic (PL) layer. The proposed strategy uses software-level checkpointing principles along with roll-back and roll-forward mechanisms (i.e. software redundancy), and hardware-level processor replication as well as checker circuits (i.e. hardware redundancy). Results of fault injection experiments show that the proposed solution achieved high soft error security by mitigating about 99% of bit-flips injected into both ARM cores' register data.

In this paper we evaluate the effects of hard and soft constraints on the Iterative Data Snooping (IDS), an iterative outlier elimination procedure. Here, the measurements of a levelling geodetic network were classified according to the local redundancy and maximum absolute correlation between the outlier test statistics, referred to as clusters. We highlight that the larger the relaxation of the constraints, the higher the sensitivity indicators MDB (Minimal Detectable Bias) and MIB (Minimal Identifiable Bias) for both the clustering of measurements and the clustering of constraints. There are circumstances that increase the family-wise error rate (FWE) of the test statistics, increase the performance of the IDS. Under a scenario of soft constraints, one should set out at least three soft constraints in order to identify an outlier in the constraints. In general, hard constraints should be used in the stage of pre-processing data for the purpose of identifying and removing possible outlying measurements. In that process, one should opt to set out the redundant hard constraints. After identifying and removing possible outliers, the soft constraints should be employed to propagate their uncertainties to the model parameters during the process of least-squares estimation.

In some applications of microgrid and distributed generation, it is required to feed islanded or stand-alone loads with high-quality voltage to provide low total harmonic distortion (THD). To fulfil these demands, an LC filter is connected to the output terminals of power electronics converters. A cascaded voltage and current control loop with pulse-width modulation schemes are used to regulate the voltage and current in these systems. However, these strategies have some drawbacks, particularly when multiple-input multiple-output plants (MIMO) are controlled using single-input single-output (SISO) design methods. This methodology usually produces a sluggish transient response and cross-coupling between different control loops. In this paper, a model predictive control (MPC) strategy based on the concept of optimal switching sequences (OSS) is designed to control voltage and current in an LC filter connected to a three-level neutral-point clamped converter. The strategy solves two well-formulated optimisation problems to achieve control of the LC filter variables and the voltages of the DC-link capacitors. Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) results are obtained to validate the feasibility of the proposed strategy, using a PLECS-RT HIL platform and a DSP Microlab Box controller. In addition to the good dynamic performance of the proposed OSS-MPC, it is demonstrated by the HIL results that the control algorithm is capable of obtaining low total harmonic distortion (THD) in the output voltage for different conditions.

We consider a stochastic production planning problem with regime switching. There are k≥1 regimes corresponding to different economic cycles. The problem is to minimize the production costs and analyze the problem by the value function approach. Our main contribution is to show that the optimal production is characterized by an exact solution of an elliptic system of partial differential equations. A verification result is given for the determined solution.

Using optical characterization, it is evident that the spin state of the spin crossover molecular complex [Fe{H2B(pz)2}2(bipy)] (pz = tris (pyrazol-1-1y)-borohydride, bipy = 2,2’-bipyridine) depends on the ferroelectric polarization of an adjacent thin film of the polymer ferroelectric polyvinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene (PVDF-HFP). The UV-Vis spectroscopy reveals that room temperature switching of [Fe{H2B(pz)2}2(bipy)] molecules in bilayers of PVDF-HFP/[Fe{H2B(pz)2}2(bipy)] as a function of ferroelectric polar polarization. The electric polarity dependence of bilayers of PVDF-HFP/[Fe{H2B(pz)2}2(bipy)] shows a strong dependence on the thickness of the PVDF-HFP layer. The PVDF-HFP/[Fe{H2B(pz)2}2(bipy)] interface may affect polarization retention in the PVDF-HFP thin film limit.

Financial system is essentially chaotic and unstable if there is not any external inputs. By means of Lyapunov function method, design of switching law, novel fuzzy assumption, $L^p$ estimation technique and Laplace semigroup theory, the author presents the boundedness and LMI-based (globally) asymptotical input-to-state stability criteria of financial systems. Particularly, the globally asymptotical stability in the meaning of switching implies that when the time $t$ is big enough, the dynamic of any subsystem must approach its unique equilibrium point. Besides, the global financial crisis often erupts periodically, which illuminates that the global stability in the classical sense is actually meaningless. So the stability in the meaning of switching proposed in this paper is suitable and appropriate. Numerical examples illuminate the effectiveness of the obtained results.

Designing the future energy supply in accordance with ambitious climate change mitigation goals is a challenging issue. Common tools for planning and calculating future investments in renewable and sustainable technologies are often linear energy system models based on cost optimisation. However, input data and the underlying assumptions of future developments are subject to uncertainties that negatively affect the robustness of results. This paper introduces a quadratic programming approach to modifying linear, bottom-up energy system optimisation models in order to take cost uncertainties into account. This is accomplished by implementing specific investment costs as a function of the installed capacity of each technology. In contrast to established approaches like stochastic programming or Monte Carlo Simulation, the computation time of the quadratic programming approach is only slightly higher than that of linear programming. The model’s outcomes were found to show a wider range as well as a more robust allocation of the considered technologies than the linear model equivalent.

Energy-efficient microprocessors are essential for a wide range of applications. While near-threshold computing is a promising technique to improve energy efficiency, optimal supply demands from logic core and on-chip memory are conflicting. In this paper, we perform static reliability analysis of 6T SRAM and discover the variance among different sizing configuration and asymmetric minimum voltage requirements between read and write operations. We leverage this asymmetric property in near-threshold processors equipped with voltage boosting capability by proposing an opportunistic dual-supply switching scheme with a write aggregation buffer. Our results show that proposed technique improves energy efficiency by more than 21.45% with approximate 10.19% performance speed-up.

Background: Skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI) are common presentations to the emergency department. However, this is less common after contact with contaminated water, both salt or fresh. This review presents the diagnosis and the management of water-related soft tissue sepsis in this vulnerable and difficult to treat subgroup of necrotizing soft tissue sepsis. Methods: A summative literature overview regarding bacterial and fungal SSTI after contact with contaminated water, with practical diagnostic and management aspects addressed. Results: The literature indicates that these remain difficult to treat wounds and organisms. An approach using appropriate diagnostic tools with both medical and surgical management strategies is provided. Conclusion: SSTI due to water contamination of wounds involve unusual organisms with unusual resistance patterns and require a nuanced and directed diagnostic approach with adaptation of the normal antibiotic or antifungal selection to achieve cure, along with aggressive debridement and wound care.

Background: PRAME, NY-ESO-1 and SSX2 are cancer testis antigens (CTAs), which in normal tissues are expressed in testicular germ cells with re-expression in numerous cancer types. Their ability to elicit humoral and cellular immune responses have rendered them promising targets for cancer immunotherapy, but they have never been studied in a large and well-characterized cohort soft tissue sarcomas (STS). Methods: On protein level, we examined PRAME, NY-ESO-1 and SSX2 expression in tumour tissues of 249 STS using immunohistochemistry. We correlated expression levels with clinicopathological parameters including Tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) counts, grading and long- term survival. Results: Expression of PRAME, NY-ESO-1 and SSX2 was observed in 25 (10%), 19 (8%), and 11 (4%) of 249 specimens with distinct patterns for histo subtypes. Expression of PRAME was associated with shorter patient survival (p=0.005) and higher grade (G2 vs G3, p=0.001) while NY-ESO-1 expression was correlated with more favourable survival (p=0.037) and low grade (G2 vs G3, p=0.029). Both PRAME and NY-ESO-1 expression was more frequent in STS with low TILs counts. Conclusions: CTAs PRAME, NY-ESO-1 and SSX2 show distinct expression patterns in different STS subtypes. These results may guide future immunotherapeutic approaches in STS.

In this paper, single and repetitive frequency UIS characteristics of 1200 V asymmetric (AT)and double trench silicon carbide (DT-SiC) metal–oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) under different working conditions are investigated by experiment and simulation. For asymmetric trench SiC MOSFETs, the failure mode is all thermal runaway under working conditions. However, the failure mode of double trench SiC MOSFETs mostly is gate oxide rupture, which indicates an instable avalanche robustness under UIS stress. The variations of measured parameters are recorded to evaluate typical electrical features of device failure. Furthermore, TCAD simulation is used to reveal the electro-thermal stress inside the device during avalanche. Additionally, failed devices are decapsulated to verify the location of failure point from the perspective of the semiconductor die. Finally, a new type of stepped-oxide vertical power DT MOSFET with P-type shielding and current spread layers is proposed for improvement of gate dielectric reliability.

In this paper, the stabilization and high efficiency of an unstable Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) of a Nd : YVO4 laser with a KTP intracavity is carried out by using a passive Q-switching crystal and a parametric modulation method (harmonic modulation) is shown. The harmonic modulation was defined as um(t) = Amsin(2π fmt), with modulation amplitude as Am(Vpp), and modulation frequency as fm(Hz), applied to the pumping of the Nd : YVO4 -KTP laser to control the amplitude and frequency of the emission, thus stabilizing the dynamic states of this laser. The promising application of this green light source is materialized when such light is necessary for high-density optics, such as in the treatment materials industry or in some aesthetic applications.