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The application of microwave heating technology can significantly enhance the water evaporation rate of emulsified asphalt mixtures post paving. To improve the microwave absorption and curing performance of these mixtures, SiC-Fe3O4 composite material (SF) was incorporated. This addition aims to enhance the microwave absorption efficiency and accelerate the curing process of emulsified asphalt mixtures under microwave heating. This study begins with an analysis of the microwave absorption principles pertinent to emulsified asphalt mixtures. Subsequently, the microwave heating temperature fields of ordinary emulsified asphalt mixture (EAM), SiC emulsified asphalt mixture (S-EAM), Fe3O4 emulsified asphalt mixture (F-EAM), and SiC-Fe3O4 emulsified asphalt mixture (SF-EAM) were simulated using COMSOL Multiphysics finite element software (COMSOL 6.2). The early strength variations in SF-EAM under different microwave heating durations were then examined through adhesion tests, leading to the proposal of a microwave heat curing process for SF-EAM. Finally, the wear resistance, water damage resistance, rutting resistance, and skid resistance of SF-EAM post-microwave curing were evaluated through wet wheel wear tests, wheel track deformation tests, and road friction coefficient tests. The results indicate that the optimal microwave heating time is 90 s, with the microwave absorption performance of the materials ranked as follows: EAM, S-EAM, F-EAM, and SF-EAM, from lowest to highest. The road performance of SF-EAM complies with specification requirements, and its wear resistance, water damage resistance, and rutting resistance are notably improved after microwave heating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In situ analysis of Li plating/stripping processes and evolution of solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) are critical for optimizing all‐solid‐state Li metal batteries (ASSLMB). However, the buried solid‐solid interfaces present a challenge for detection which preclude the employment of multiple analysis techniques. Herein, by employing complementary in situ characterizations, morphological/chemical evolution, Li plating/stripping dynamics and SEI dynamics were directly detected. As a mixed ionic‐electronic conducting interface, Li|Li10GeP2S12 (LGPS) performed distinct interfacial morphological/chemical evolution and dynamics from ionic‐conducting/electronic‐isolating interface like Li|Li3PS4 (LPS), which were revealed by combination of in situ atomic force microscopy and in situ X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Though Li plating speed in LGPS was higher than LPS, speed of SSE decomposition was similar and ~85 % interfacial SSE turned into SEI during plating and remained unchanged in stripping. To leverage strengths of different SSEs, an LPS‐LGPS‐LPS sandwich electrolyte was developed, demonstrating enhanced ionic conductivity and improved interfacial stability with less SSE decomposition (25 %). Using in situ Kelvin probe force microscopy, Li‐ion behavior at interface between different SSEs was effectively visualized, uncovering distribution of Li ions at LGPS|LPS interface under different potentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In situ analysis of Li plating/stripping processes and evolution of solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) are critical for optimizing all‐solid‐state Li metal batteries (ASSLMB). However, the buried solid‐solid interfaces present a challenge for detection which preclude the employment of multiple analysis techniques. Herein, by employing complementary in situ characterizations, morphological/chemical evolution, Li plating/stripping dynamics and SEI dynamics were directly detected. As a mixed ionic‐electronic conducting interface, Li|Li10GeP2S12 (LGPS) performed distinct interfacial morphological/chemical evolution and dynamics from ionic‐conducting/electronic‐isolating interface like Li|Li3PS4 (LPS), which were revealed by combination of in situ atomic force microscopy and in situ X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Though Li plating speed in LGPS was higher than LPS, speed of SSE decomposition was similar and ~85 % interfacial SSE turned into SEI during plating and remained unchanged in stripping. To leverage strengths of different SSEs, an LPS‐LGPS‐LPS sandwich electrolyte was developed, demonstrating enhanced ionic conductivity and improved interfacial stability with less SSE decomposition (25 %). Using in situ Kelvin probe force microscopy, Li‐ion behavior at interface between different SSEs was effectively visualized, uncovering distribution of Li ions at LGPS|LPS interface under different potentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large-scale, high-speed, long-runout landslide occurred in Xinmo Village, Maoxian, Sichuan Province, China, on June 24, 2017. It was characterized by fast sliding speed, rapid volume growth, and large impact area. The dynamic process of such landslides and the influence of erosion on the dynamic process are studied by field investigation, numerical inversion and simulation. The results showed that entrainment erosion was a major factor of landslide volumetric change and a salient feature of the landslide process. An exponential equation relating the erosion rate and the deposition volume was established. Moreover, the study found that a slight change of the erosion rate (1e-4) also had a significant impact on the lateral spreading, longitudinal runout, and vertical erosion. As the erosion rate increased, the lateral spreading, longitudinal runout, and vertical erosion of this type of landslide became more obvious. By using the coefficient of variation method, it was obtained that the erosion rate had a greater influence on the vertical erosion than on the lateral spreading and longitudinal runout. In the study of the velocity of the rock avalanche under different erosion conditions, it was found that the erosion amount and the landslide velocity were not strictly linearly related. This study has important significance for understanding the dynamic process and erosion effect of rock avalanche, and provides useful references and insights for future research in related fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetized disk winds and wind-driven accretion are an essential and intensively studied dispersion mechanism of protoplanetary disks (PPDs). However, the stability of these mechanisms has yet to be adequately examined. This paper employs semi-analytic linear perturbation theories under nonideal magnetohydrodynamics, focusing on disk models whose magnetic diffusivities vary by a few orders of magnitude from the disk midplane to its surface. Linear modes are distinguished by their symmetry with respect to the midplane. These modes have qualitatively different growth rates: symmetric modes almost always decay, while at least one antisymmetric mode always has a positive growth rate. This growth rate decreases faster than the Keplerian angular velocity with cylindrical radius R in the disk and scales steeper than R −5/2 in the fiducial disk model. The growth of antisymmetric modes breaks the reflection symmetry across the disk equatorial plane, and may occur even in the absence of the Hall effect. In the disk regions where fully developed antisymmetric modes occur, accretion flows appear only on one side of the disk, while disk winds occur only on the other. This may explain the asymmetry of some observed PPD outflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enhancement of construction safety performance heavily relies on effective safety training. While virtual reality (VR) technologies have been utilized to improve construction safety training programs, the extent and mechanisms of improvement brought by VR remain unexplored. This study provided explanations on how the effectiveness of VR-based safety training for a heterogeneous workforce was achieved by investigating two mechanisms, namely embodied cognition and emotion arousal, from the physiological perspective. Randomized controlled experiments were conducted with three forms of safety training, namely paper-based training, VR-based learning, and VR-based experiencing, for both novice learners (NPs) and learners with prior knowledge (PPs). Digital eye-tracking and physiological devices and measurements were used to collect objective data. The results revealed better hazard recognition performance in both VR-based learning and VR-based experiencing groups than that in paper-based training groups. The results also revealed that VR-based learning was more effective for NPs than for PPs in acquiring safety knowledge, but VR-based experiencing was more effective for PPs than for NPs in stimulation of emotions. This means that the NPs benefit more from embodied cognition provided by the immersive environment of VR-based learning, and the PPs would be trained better with emotional arousal from the thrill of VR-based experiencing. The discovered mechanisms of embodied cognition and emotion arousal shed light on the underlying processes that contribute to the positive outcomes and promotion of VR-based training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to expand the photoresponsive spectrum of TiO 2 and improve its catalytic activity under visible light, the hollow urchin-like composites of TiO 2 @g-C 3 N 4 /GQDs (TCN/GQDs) with a core-shell structure heterojunction was synthesized through a hydrothermal method and calcination. Potassium titanium oxalate, melamine, and citric acid were utilized as the raw materials for this synthesis process. The TCN/GQDs composites were subjected to a range of analyses to examine their microstructure and photoelectric properties. The findings indicated that the synthesized composites effectively enhanced the absorption spectrum of TiO 2 in the visible light range by creating the stable heterojunctions among TiO 2 , g-C 3 N 4 and GQDs. Additionally, the ability of these composites to degrade toxic organic pollutants under visible light was studied by using several different organic dyes and antibiotics. The results demonstrated that the TCN/GQDs composites exhibited efficient visible light catalytic degradation capability on organic pollutants, and the degradation efficiency could approach to 100 % under visible light in a short time. Furthermore, the photocatalyst exhibited hardly change of degradation efficiency towards organic pollutants even after 5 cycles of testing, suggesting its commendable performance in visible light catalysis and potential for repeated utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Displacer type pulse tube refrigerator with inertance tube or orifice is tested. • Efficiency of single-stage refrigerator can be improved by adding inertance tube. • The lowest temperature decreases of two-stage refrigerator from 18.9 K to 15.6 K. Displacer type pulse tube refrigerator (DPTR) can get high efficiency with strong phase shifting and acoustic work recovery to advantages. However, the optimal match of gas driving displacer can only be reached at one point, while the linear motor driving displacer has a complex structure. And for two-stage DPTR, more parameters need to be optimized such as step ratio. A well-matched displacer costs a lot and asks high quality manufacturing. In this work, an orifice and an inertance tube were added to the single-stage DPTR and two-stage DPTR as an additional adjustment parameter. For single stage DPTR, the experimental results indicate that the lowest temperature decreases from 44.7 K to 42.1 K after a suitable inertance tube was added. The cooling power can be increased with almost same efficiency by adding an orifice with appropriate opening turn. After adding an additional inertance tube of the two-stage DPTR, the lowest temperature of 15.6 K was achieved, while the lowest temperature of 15.7 K was achieved by installing an orifice to the two-stage DPTR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro-mesoporous silicon materials were prepared using silicate filtrate produced from fly ash as a silicon source. Then, the micro-mesoporous silica material was used as the carrier and amine compounds as modifiers to prepare a micro-mesoporous CO 2 adsorbent. Afterwards, the structural properties, surface groups, thermal stability of micro-mesoporous silicon materials and micro-mesoporous CO 2 adsorbent were studied. The results reveal that the micro-mesoporous CO 2 adsorbent maintains the same micro-mesoporous structure as the micro-mesoporous silica material. And the thermal stability temperatures of adsorbent is below 383 K. Later, the CO 2 adsorption performance and kinetic characteristics of adsorption process were studied through thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and adsorption column experiments. The results indicated that the optimal CO 2 adsorption capacity of 2.31 mmol/g-adsorbent was achieved at 343 K, and the adsorption capacity remained basically unchanged after 10 adsorption/desorption cycles. Dynamics studies have shown that the Avrami fraction model fits the CO 2 isothermal adsorption curve very well, and the fitting results reveal that the intra-particle diffusion dominates the speed of the adsorption process. Additionally, the Yasyerli deactivation model can perfectly fit the CO 2 adsorption breakthrough curve, and the fitting results indicate that the CO 2 adsorption process is the deactivation process of the adsorbent. Finally, the adsorption/desorption kinetic simulation parameters can be used for the design and optimization of CO 2 adsorption and desorption processes in industry. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic evolved under control measures is crucial to tackle the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread. Laos, a country bordering China but with late occurrence and low burden of COVID-19 compared to its neighbouring countries, was used for a case study. Methods: A transmission model with disease reporting was proposed to investigate the impact of control measures on the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread in Laos from April 2021 to May 2022. It was assumed that the transmission rate changed with people's behaviours, control measures and emerging variants; susceptibility decreased with vaccination and infection. Bayesian inference was used for model calibration to data of confirmed cases, deaths, and recoveries, and the deviance information criterion was used to select the best model variant. Results: Our model including Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), behaviour change, vaccination, and changing variants well explained the three waves in Laos. The Alpha variant was estimated to have a basic reproduction number of 1.55 (95% CrI: 1.47–1.64) and was replaced by the Delta variant from September 2021 which was 1.88 (95% CrI: 1.77–2.01) times more transmissible; the Delta variant was replaced by Omicron variant from March 2022 which was 3.33 (95% CrI: 2.84–3.74) times more transmissible. The Delta variant was the most severe with a case fatality rate of 1.05% (95% CrI: 0.96–1.15%) while the Alpha variant and Omicron variant were much milder. The ascertainment rate was low and variable: first decreasing from 13.2 to 1.8% by 23 May 2021, and then increasing to 23.4% by 15 March 2022. Counterfactual simulations indicated that vaccination played strong roles in reducing infections even under the emergence of immune escape variants while behaviour change delayed but might not flatten the peak of outbreaks. Conclusions: The three waves of Laos' epidemics were due to the invasion of more transmissible and immune escape variants that affected the herd immunity built via vaccination and infection. Even with immunity waning and the escape of new variants, vaccination was still the major contributor to control COVID-19 and combining behaviour changes and vaccination would best suppress future outbreaks of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plate tectonics plays an essential role in the redistribution of life-essential volatile elements between Earth's interior and surface, whereby our planet has been well tuned to maintain enduring habitability over much of its history. Here we present an overview of deep carbon recycling in the regime of modern plate tectonics, with a special focus on convergent plate margins for assessing global carbon mass balance. The up-to-date flux compilation implies an approximate balance between deep carbon outflux and subduction carbon influx within uncertainty but remarkably limited return of carbon to convecting mantle. If correct, carbon would gradually accumulate in the lithosphere over time by (i) massive subsurface carbon storage occurring primarily in continental lithosphere from convergent margins to continental interior and (ii) persistent surface carbon sinks to seafloors sustained by high-flux deep CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. Further assessment of global carbon mass balance requires updates on fluxes of subduction-driven carbon recycling paths and reduction in uncertainty of deep carbon outflux. From a global plate tectonics point of view, we particularly emphasize that continental reworking is an important mechanism for remobilizing geologically sequestered carbon in continental crust and sub-continental lithospheric mantle. In light of recent advances, future research is suggested to focus on a better understanding of the reservoirs, fluxes, mechanisms, and climatic effects of deep carbon recycling following an integrated methodology of observation, experiment, and numerical modeling, with the aim of decoding the self-regulating Earth system and its habitability from the deep carbon recycling perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, an enhanced compressible two-phase flow model is advanced, considering the effect of chemical reactions within a detailed mechanism. In this model, two immiscible fluids (liquid and gaseous mixture) are accurately separated with the resolved interface. Unlike the classical five-equation two-phase flow model, the thermal properties of gases are no longer assumed to be constant but rather vary as functions of temperature. A modified mechanical relaxation procedure is proposed and employed at the gas-liquid interface to prevent the occurrence of nonphysical pressure oscillation. In the gaseous mixture, numerous gas components are included and resolved by their mass fraction among the gaseous mixture. In this model, the heat release effect is simulated by a detailed chemistry. Furthermore, the numerical results of several benchmark problems in one dimension and two dimensions demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed compressible multiphase flow model, such as the air shock tube, the gaseous detonation tube, the shock-droplet interaction, and especially the detonation-droplet interaction that has received little focused interest and investigations. Moreover, a self-developed adaptive mesh refinement strategy is performed for a high efficiency of numerical solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main pathological features noted in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the presence of plagues of aggregated β-amyloid (Aβ1–42)-peptides. Excess deposition of amyloid-β oligomers (AβO) are known to promote neuroinflammation. Sequentially, following neuroinflammation astrocytes become activated with cellular characteristics to initiate activated astrocytes. The purpose of this study was to determine whether total flavonoids derived from Dracocephalum moldavica L. (TFDM) inhibited Aβ1–42-induced damage attributed to activated C8-D1A astrocytes. Western blotting and ELISA were used to determine the expression of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), and complement C3 to establish the activation status of astrocytes following induction from exposure to Aβ1–42. Data demonstrated that stimulation of C8-D1A astrocytes by treatment with 40 μM Aβ1–42 for 24 hr produced significant elevation in protein expression and protein levels of acidic protein (GFAP) and complement C3 accompanied by increased expression and levels of inflammatory cytokines. Treatment with TFDM or the clinically employed drug donepezil in AD therapy reduced production of inflammatory cytokines, and toxicity initiated following activation of C8-D1A astrocytes following exposure to Aβ1–42. Therefore, TFDM similar to donepezil inhibited inflammatory secretion in reactive astrocytes, suggesting that TFDM may be considered as a potential compound to be utilized in AD therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A calix[3]carbazole-based cavitand was conveniently synthesized. It was found that the cavitand with adjustable conformation could show excellent complexation with fullerenes C60 and C70 in both solution and the solid state. Moreover, the crystal structures of the host–guest complexes show that the cavitand can stack into channel-like architectures, in which fullerenes are orderly arranged inside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The occurrence of surgical site infection (SSI) after lumbar spinal fusion is a serious complication. Therefore, an increasing number of clinicians are applying vancomycin powder topically in the surgical field to reduce the incidence of SSI. However, there is concern that topical vancomycin powder application may affect intervertebral fusion. The purpose of this study was to analyse the effect of clinically relevant topical vancomycin doses on the rate of intervertebral fusion after lumbar fusion and to further investigate the effect of vancomycin powder on the prevention of SSI. The clinical data of 192 patients with degenerative lumbar spine disease admitted from January 2019 to June 2022, all of whom underwent posterior lumbar fusion, were retrospectively analysed. According to the infection prevention protocol, they were divided into a vancomycin group and a control group (no vancomycin), and the vancomycin group was sub-divided into 0.5 g, 1.0 g, and 1.5 g vancomycin groups. General information and surgical evaluation indexes were compared between the control and vancomycin groups and intervertebral fusion was compared between the vancomycin groups at 6 months and 12 months, postoperatively. The rate of SSI in the vancomycin group was 0.0%, which was significantly lower than that in the control group (5.3%, P < 0.05), and intervertebral fusion was good in all 3 vancomycin groups at 6 months and 12 months postoperatively, with no statistically-significant differences (P > 0.05). Topical application of 0.5 g, 1.0 g, or 1.5 g vancomycin powder did not affect the rates of intervertebral fusion after lumbar fusion. In addition, topical application of vancomycin powder significantly reduced the rates of SSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explicit safety knowledge contained in regulations in the form of texts and tables is crucial for construction safety management. However, the presence of rich semantic content within texts and the intricate layout of complex tables makes domain information extraction challenging. Therefore, this research proposed a hybrid approach to map safety knowledge graphs by automatically extracting information from both texts and tables in a scenario-oriented manner, combining rules and deep learning methods to achieve a balance between scene applicability and method flexibility. Furthermore, metrics from social network analysis (SNA) were applied to evaluate and verify the quality of the constructed knowledge graph. For extracting semantic information from text, the proposed approach supplemented the semantics information of the sentence and balanced the granularity of knowledge by combining the BERT-BiLSTM-CRF-based named entity recognition (NER) model and semantic role labeling (SRL)-based information extraction model. For irregular tables, a unified automatic extraction method was developed to process nested tables without preprocessing. The experiment constructed a comprehensive and scenario-oriented knowledge graph with 907 nodes, and showed high precision and recall for texts (89.37%, 85.42%) and tables (97.11%, 85.22%) on the test data. SNA results showed the proposed method ensured information richness and structural complexity. The construction safety knowledge graph constructed in this research offers three significant practical advantages. First, the proposed framework provides a solution for automatically integrating regulations into a knowledge graph with rich semantics and comprehensive information. Considering both sentence semantics and entity granularity enhances the application of Chinese regulatory clauses to specific construction scenarios. Second, the knowledge graph incorporated both textual semantics and tabular data, which assists managers in querying more accurate and comprehensive safety requirements. The comprehensive knowledge graph allows managers to quickly locate the necessary construction requirements on a larger scale and make more comprehensive and accurate construction decisions, effectively improving work efficiency and decision-making quality. Third, metrics from SNA suggested that the proposed method maintained the amount and diversity of regulatory information, while strengthening the compactness of the community structure and providing specific and clear requirements for the construction situation, operation procedures, and threshold definition. As a result, it is easier for managers to understand and process the safety information, perform construction operations in accordance with regulatory requirements, ensure the compliance of the operation, and further improve construction safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RAB3B is essential for the transportation and secretion within cells. Its increased expression is linked to the development and progression of various malignancies. However, understanding of RAB3B's involvement in carcinogenesis is mostly limited to specific cancer subtypes. Hence, exploring RAB3B's regulatory roles and molecular mechanisms through comprehensive cancer datasets might offer innovative approaches for managing clinical cancer. To examine the potential involvement of RAB3B in the development of cancer, we analyzed data from various sources including The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Genotype-Tissue Expression Project (GTEx), cBioPortal, HPA, UALCAN, and tissue microarray (TAM). Using bioinformatics techniques, we examined the correlation between RAB3B expression and prognosis, tumor heterogeneity, methylation modifications, and immune microenvironment across different cancer types. Our findings indicate that elevated RAB3B expression can independently predict prognosis in many tumors and has moderate accuracy for diagnosing most cancers. In most cancer types, we identified RAB3B mutations that showed a significant correlation with tumor mutational burden (TMB), mutant-allele tumor heterogeneity (MATH), and microsatellite instability (MSI). Abnormal DNA methylation patterns were also observed in most cancers compared to normal tissues. Additionally, we found significant correlations between RAB3B expression, immune cell infiltration, and immune scores across various cancers. Through pan-cancer analysis, we observed significant differences in RAB3B expression levels between tumors and normal tissues, making it a potential primary factor for cancer diagnosis and prognosis. The IHC results revealed that the expression of RAB3B in six types of tumors was consistent with the results of the pan-cancer analysis of the database. Furthermore, RAB3B showed potential associations with tumor heterogeneity and immunity. Thus, RAB3B can be utilized as an auxiliary diagnostic marker for early tumor detection and a prognostic biomarker for various tumor types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Backgrounds: Oral squamous cell carcinoma is a malignant tumor of the head and neck, and its molecular mechanism remains to be explored. Methods: By analyzing the OSCC data from the TCGA database, we found that SLC2A3 is highly expressed in OSCC patients. The expression level of SLC2A3 was verified by RT-PCR and western blotting in OSCC cell lines. The function of SLC2A3 in OSCC cell lines and Lactic acid in SLC2A3-knockdown OSCC cells were detected by colony formation, CCK8, transwell, and wound healing assays. The effect of SLC2A3 on tumor growth and metastasis was tested in vivo. GSEA and Western blot were used to analyze and validate tumor phenotypes and signaling pathway molecules. Results: We analyzed OSCC datasets in the TCGA database and found that SLC2A3 had abnormally high expression and was associated with poor prognosis. We also found that oral squamous cell carcinoma cells had increased proliferation, migration, invasion, EMT phenotype, and glycolysis due to SLC2A3 overexpression. Conversely, SLC2A3 knockdown had the opposite effect. Our in vivo experiments confirmed that SLC2A3 overexpression promoted tumor growth and metastasis while knockdown inhibited it. We also observed that high SLC2A3 expression led to EMT and the activation of the TGF-β signaling pathway, while knockdown inhibited it. Interestingly, exogenous lactic acid restored the EMT, proliferation, migration, and invasion abilities of oral cancer cells inhibited by knocking down SLC2A3. Conclusions: Our study reveals that SLC2A3 expression was up-regulated in OSCC. SLC2A3 activates the TGF-β signaling pathway through lactic acid generated from glycolysis, thus regulating the biological behavior of OSCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interfacial processes, mainly the lithium (Li) plating/stripping and the evolution of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI), are directly related to the performance of all‐solid‐state Li‐metal batteries (ASSLBs). However, the complex processes at solid‐solid interfaces are embedded under the solid‐state electrolyte, making it challenging to analyze the dynamic processes in real time. Here, using in situ electrochemical atomic force microscopy and optical microscopy, we directly visualized the Li plating/stripping/replating behavior, and measured the morphological and mechanical properties of the on‐site formed SEI at nanoscale. Li spheres plating/stripping/replating at the argyrodite solid electrolyte (Li6PS5Cl)/Li electrode interface is coupled with the formation/wrinkling/inflating of the SEI on its surface. Combined with in situ X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, details of the stepwise formation and physicochemical properties of SEI on the Li spheres are obtained. It is shown that higher operation rates can decrease the uniformity of the Li+‐conducting networks in the SEI and worsen Li plating/stripping reversibility. By regulating the applied current rates, uniform nucleation and reversible plating/stripping processes can be achieved, leading to the extension of the cycling life. The in situ analysis of the on‐site formed SEI at solid‐solid interfaces provides the correlation between the interfacial evolution and the electrochemical performance in ASSLBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interfacial processes, mainly the lithium (Li) plating/stripping and the evolution of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI), are directly related to the performance of all‐solid‐state Li‐metal batteries (ASSLBs). However, the complex processes at solid‐solid interfaces are embedded under the solid‐state electrolyte, making it challenging to analyze the dynamic processes in real time. Here, using in situ electrochemical atomic force microscopy and optical microscopy, we directly visualized the Li plating/stripping/replating behavior, and measured the morphological and mechanical properties of the on‐site formed SEI at nanoscale. Li spheres plating/stripping/replating at the argyrodite solid electrolyte (Li6PS5Cl)/Li electrode interface is coupled with the formation/wrinkling/inflating of the SEI on its surface. Combined with in situ X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, details of the stepwise formation and physicochemical properties of SEI on the Li spheres are obtained. It is shown that higher operation rates can decrease the uniformity of the Li+‐conducting networks in the SEI and worsen Li plating/stripping reversibility. By regulating the applied current rates, uniform nucleation and reversible plating/stripping processes can be achieved, leading to the extension of the cycling life. The in situ analysis of the on‐site formed SEI at solid‐solid interfaces provides the correlation between the interfacial evolution and the electrochemical performance in ASSLBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elaborated molecular architectures, specifically those bearing one or more carbon stereocenters, stand as an important class of carbocyclic and heterocyclic frameworks because they are frequently occurring core structures in numerous natural products and biologically active pharmaceutical molecules. Over the past few decades, the development of versatile synthetic approaches via cascade cyclization reactions of 1,6‐enynes for the construction of a series of fused and spiro compounds has been the focus of a great deal of research initiatives. These synthesis strategies are peculiarly fascinating in the context of the assembly of a wide array of pharmaceutical molecules, natural products, agrochemicals, and functional materials. In this review, recent developments in the transformations of 1,6‐enynes with diverse coupling reagents are summarized since 2018, which could be divided into five categories: 1) Introduction; 2) Transition metal catalyzed cyclization of 1,6‐enynes; 3) Metal‐free cyclization of 1,6‐enynes; 4) Visible‐light‐induced cyclization of 1,6‐enynes; 5) Electrocatalytic cyclization of 1,6‐enynes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we investigate acid fracturing, a promising method to increase the effectiveness of fractures in high temperature carbonate reservoirs. In order to determine the performance of acid fracturing in carbonate reservoirs, we conducted a lab scaled true triaxial acid fracturing experiment on high temperature carbonate rock. The fracture initiation, propagation behavior, and conductivity under the action of acid solution were analyzed. The 3-D micro computed tomography was applied to illuminate the fracture network patterns; coefficient of stress difference, acid etching time, and acid concentration were also analyzed. Results show acidification exhibits the lowest breakdown pressure compared with no-acidification, reduced by 58%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assembly of complete and circularized mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) is essential for population genetics, phylogenetics and evolution studies. Recently, Song et al. developed a seed-free tool called MEANGS for de novo mitochondrial assembly from whole genome sequencing (WGS) data in animals, achieving highly accurate and intact assemblies. However, the suitability of this tool for marine fish remains unexplored. Additionally, we have concerns regarding the overlap sequences in their original results, which may impact downstream analyses. In this Letter to the Editor, the effectiveness of MEANGS in assembling mitogenomes of cartilaginous and ray-finned fish species was assessed. Moreover, we also discussed the appropriate utilization of MEANGS in mitogenome assembly, including the implementation of the data-cut function and circular detection module. Our observations indicated that with the utilization of these modules, MEANGS efficiently assembled complete and circularized mitogenomes, even when handling large WGS datasets. Therefore, we strongly recommend users employ the data-cut function and circular detection module when using MEANGS, as the former significantly reduces runtime and the latter aids in the removal of overlapped sequences for improved circularization. Furthermore, our findings suggested that approximately 2× coverage of clean WGS data was sufficient for MEANGS to assemble mitogenomes in marine fish species. Moreover, due to its seed-free nature, MEANGS can be deemed one of the most efficient software tools for assembling mitogenomes from animal WGS data, particularly in studies with limited species or genetic background information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chaperonin containing tailless complex polypeptide 1 (CCT) is a molecular chaperone protein that consists of eight completely different subunits and assists in the folding of newly synthesized peptides. The zeta subunit of CCT is a regulatory factor for the folding and assembly of cytoskeletal proteins as individuals or complexes. In this study, the zeta subunit of Nosema bombycis (NbCCTζ) is identified for the first time. The complete ORF of the NbCCTζ gene is 1533 bp in length and encodes a 510 amino acid polypeptide. IFA results indicate that NbCCTζ is colocalized with actin and β-tubulin in the cytoplasm during the proliferative phase and that NbCCTζ is completely colocalized with NbCCTα in the cytoplasm of N. bombycis throughout the entire life cycle. Furthermore, the yeast two-hybrid assay revealed that the NbCCTζ interacts with NbCCTα. The transcriptional level of NbCCTζ is significantly downregulated by knocking down the NbCCTα gene, while the transcriptional level of NbCCTα is downregulated after knocking down the NbCCTζ gene. These results suggest that NbCCTζ may play a vital role in the proliferation of N. bombycis by coordinating with NbCCTα. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One new seco-cyclic phorbol derivative and one new phorbol 12-monoester, named 13-oxo-14-isopropylphorbol (2), 12-angelylphorbol (5), together with four known compounds, named 4a-deoxyphorbol, 13-oxo-14-isopropenylphorbol, 12-isobutyrylphorbol, and phorbol-12-(2-methylbutyrate) were obtained by hydrolyzing croton oil. The structures of the compounds were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis. These compounds showed no cytotoxicity (CC50 > 200 μM). Phorbol-12-monoesters 4–6 showed the weak inhibitory activities on syncytia formation induced by HIV-1IIIB (4, EC50 = 56.05 μM; 5, EC50 = 72.97 μM; 6, EC50 = 52.58 μM). The seco-cyclic phorbol derivatives (2, 3) showed no anti-HIV-1 activities (EC50 > 200 μM), which indicated that chemical cleavage of cyclopropanols might affect anti-HIV-1 activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thyroid hormone receptor interactor 6 (TRIP6) it is an adaptor protein belonging to the zyxin family of LIM proteins, participating in signaling events through interactions with various molecules. Despite this, TRIP6's role in colorectal cancer (CRC), particularly its correlation with glucose metabolism and immune cell infiltration, remains unclear. Through the TCGA and GEO databases, we obtained RNA sequencing data to facilitate our in-depth study and analysis of TRIP6 expression. To investigate the prognostic value of TRIP6 in CRC, we also used univariate Cox regression analysis. In addition, this study also covered a series of analyses, including clinicopathological analysis, functional enrichment analysis, glycolysis correlation analysis, immunoinfiltration analysis, immune checkpoint analysis, and angiogenesis correlation analysis, to gain a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of this biological phenomenon. It has been found that TRIP6 expression is significantly upregulated in CRC and correlates with the stage of the disease. Its overexpression portends a worse survival time. Functional enrichment analysis reveals that TRIP6 is associated with focal adhesion and glycolysis. Mechanistically, TRIP6 appears to exert its tumorigenic effect by regulating the glycolysis-related gene GPI. A higher level of expression of TRIP6 is associated with an increase in the number of iDC immune cells and a decrease in the number of Th1 immune cells. Also, TRIP6 may promote angiogenesis in tumor cells by promoting the expression of JAG2. Our study uncovers the upregulation of TRIP6 in CRC, illuminating its prognostic and diagnostic value within this context. Furthermore, we examine the relationship between TRIP6 expression levels, glycolysis, angiogenesis and immune cell infiltration. This underscores its potential as a biomarker for CRC treatment and as a therapeutic target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thyroid hormone receptor interactor 6 (TRIP6) it is an adaptor protein belonging to the zyxin family of LIM proteins, participating in signaling events through interactions with various molecules. Despite this, TRIP6's role in colorectal cancer (CRC), particularly its correlation with glucose metabolism and immune cell infiltration, remains unclear. Through the TCGA and GEO databases, we obtained RNA sequencing data to facilitate our in-depth study and analysis of TRIP6 expression. To investigate the prognostic value of TRIP6 in CRC, we also used univariate Cox regression analysis. In addition, this study also covered a series of analyses, including clinicopathological analysis, functional enrichment analysis, glycolysis correlation analysis, immunoinfiltration analysis, immune checkpoint analysis, and angiogenesis correlation analysis, to gain a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of this biological phenomenon. It has been found that TRIP6 expression is significantly upregulated in CRC and correlates with the stage of the disease. Its overexpression portends a worse survival time. Functional enrichment analysis reveals that TRIP6 is associated with focal adhesion and glycolysis. Mechanistically, TRIP6 appears to exert its tumorigenic effect by regulating the glycolysis-related gene GPI. A higher level of expression of TRIP6 is associated with an increase in the number of iDC immune cells and a decrease in the number of Th1 immune cells. Also, TRIP6 may promote angiogenesis in tumor cells by promoting the expression of JAG2. Our study uncovers the upregulation of TRIP6 in CRC, illuminating its prognostic and diagnostic value within this context. Furthermore, we examine the relationship between TRIP6 expression levels, glycolysis, angiogenesis and immune cell infiltration. This underscores its potential as a biomarker for CRC treatment and as a therapeutic target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction notice for an article titled "The deficiency of Maged1 attenuates Parkinson's disease progression in mice" published in the journal Molecular Brain. The authors identified an error in Figure 3a of the original article, where the images of KO mice for the Saline group were mistakenly assembled. The correct figure and caption have been provided in the correction notice. The correction has been made to the original article. [Extracted from the article]

The 2022 global outbreak of mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) spread primarily among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM), with the initial cluster being identified in England in May, 2022. Understanding its epidemiological characteristics and the reasons for its downturn in July, 2022, will help to control future outbreaks. We collated data for all diagnosed mpox cases (3621) from England from May 1, 2022, to Nov 16, 2022. Data from 75 individuals with mpox allowed estimation of the incubation period, while data from 121 case–contact pairs were used to estimate the serial interval. Six methods, including a structured dynamic compartmental transmission model, were used to estimate the basic reproduction number (R 0). The structured model assumed all male individuals with mpox were GBMSM, who were then stratified into subgroups for those at low risk and high risk for mpox. This best fitting model was used to estimate the reduction in transmissibility, and the effective infectious period (before isolating), that resulted in the outbreak downturn, and the effect of vaccination initiated from June 27, 2022. Bayesian methods were used for parameter estimation and model calibration. Most cases occurred in men (3544 of 3621, 97·9%). The median incubation period for mpox was 6·90 days (95% credible interval [CrI] 4·08–20·21), and the serial interval was 8·82 days (5·22–25·81). R 0 estimates ranged from 1·41 to 2·17. The structured transmission model estimated that 83·8% of infections (95% CrI 83·5–85·3) resulted from sexual partnerships with GBMSM individuals at high risk of mpox. The outbreak downturn probably resulted from a 44·5% reduction in the sexual partner rate among all GBMSM (24·9–55·8) and 20·0% reduction in the effective infectious period (4·1–33·9), preventing 165 896 infections (115 584–217 730). Vaccination marginally increased the number of infections prevented (166 081, 115 745–217 947), but minimised a resurgence in cases from January, 2023, and could have averted four times more infections if initiated earlier. Our findings were sensitive to assumptions regarding the vaccine's effectiveness and the GBMSM subgroup at high risk of mpox. The mpox outbreak in England probably resulted from high sexual partner rates among some GBMSM, with reductions in partner rates reversing the outbreak, and with vaccination minimising future outbreaks. National Institute for Health Research (UK). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burkitt lymphoma is a highly invasive non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Sporadic Burkitt's lymphoma is commonly found in the abdomen. However, Burkitt lymphoma infiltrating the uterus is uncommon in occurrence. We report the results of 18F-FDG PET/CT examination of a 36-year-old woman. The report indicates that in addition to the strong uptake of FDG imaging agent in the uterus, bilateral cervical and abdominal lymph nodes also have strong activity. At the same time, it was also found that bilateral small breast nodules, sacral canal and multiple bones in the whole body showed a radiation uptake pattern similar to that of the uterus. 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging can help determine the extent of the disease and the affected body area, which is helpful to guide the treatment decision. This case report shows the application of 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging in the diagnosis, staging and post-treatment evaluation of Burkitt lymphoma of the uterus. It provides very useful information for clinicians and helps to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and treatment effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neural architecture search (NAS) proves to be among the effective approaches for many tasks by generating an application-adaptive neural architecture, which is still challenged by high computational cost and memory consumption. At the same time, 1-bit convolutional neural networks (CNNs) with binary weights and activations show their potential for resource-limited embedded devices. One natural approach is to use 1-bit CNNs to reduce the computation and memory cost of NAS by taking advantage of the strengths of each in a unified framework, while searching the 1-bit CNNs is more challenging due to the more complicated processes involved. In this paper, we introduce Discrepant Child–Parent Neural Architecture Search (DCP–NAS) to efficiently search 1-bit CNNs, based on a new framework of searching the 1-bit model (Child) under the supervision of a real-valued model (Parent). Particularly, we first utilize a Parent model to calculate a tangent direction, based on which the tangent propagation method is introduced to search the optimized 1-bit Child. We further observe a coupling relationship between the weights and architecture parameters existing in such differentiable frameworks. To address the issue, we propose a decoupled optimization method to search an optimized architecture. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our DCP–NAS achieves much better results than prior arts on both CIFAR-10 and ImageNet datasets. In particular, the backbones achieved by our DCP–NAS achieve strong generalization performance on person re-identification and object detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study investigated the correlation between the expression of DARS2 and metabolic parameters of 18F-FDG PET/CT, and explored the potential mechanisms of DARS2 affecting the proliferation and glycolysis of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) cells. Methods: This study used genomics and proteomics to analyze the difference in DARS2 expression between LUAD samples and control samples. An analysis of 62 patients with LUAD who underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT examinations before surgery was conducted retrospectively. The correlation between DARS2 expression and PET/CT metabolic parameters, including SUVmax, SUVmean, MTV, and TLG, was examined by Spearman correlation analysis. In addition, the molecular mechanism of interfering with DARS2 expression in inhibiting LUAD cell proliferation and glycolysis was analyzed through in vitro cell experiments. Results: DARS2 expression was significantly higher in LUAD samples than in control samples (p < 0.001). DARS2 has high specificity (98.4%) and sensitivity (95.2%) in the diagnosis of LUAD. DARS2 expression was positively correlated with SUVmax, SUVmean, and TLG (p < 0.001). At the same time, the sensitivity and specificity of SUVmax in predicting DARS2 overexpression in LUAD were 88.9% and 65.9%, respectively. In vitro cell experiments have shown that interfering with DARS2 expression can inhibit the proliferation and migration of LUAD cells, promote cell apoptosis, and inhibit the glycolytic activity of tumor cells by inhibiting the expression of glycolytic related genes SLC2A1, GPI, ALDOA, and PGAM1. Conclusions: Overexpression of DARS2 is associated with metabolic parameters on 18F-FDG PET/CT, which can improve LUAD diagnosis accuracy. DARS2 may be a useful biomarker to diagnose, prognosis, and target treatment of LUAD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study investigated the correlation between the expression of DARS2 and metabolic parameters of 18F-FDG PET/CT, and explored the potential mechanisms of DARS2 affecting the proliferation and glycolysis of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) cells. Methods: This study used genomics and proteomics to analyze the difference in DARS2 expression between LUAD samples and control samples. An analysis of 62 patients with LUAD who underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT examinations before surgery was conducted retrospectively. The correlation between DARS2 expression and PET/CT metabolic parameters, including SUVmax, SUVmean, MTV, and TLG, was examined by Spearman correlation analysis. In addition, the molecular mechanism of interfering with DARS2 expression in inhibiting LUAD cell proliferation and glycolysis was analyzed through in vitro cell experiments. Results: DARS2 expression was significantly higher in LUAD samples than in control samples (p < 0.001). DARS2 has high specificity (98.4%) and sensitivity (95.2%) in the diagnosis of LUAD. DARS2 expression was positively correlated with SUVmax, SUVmean, and TLG (p < 0.001). At the same time, the sensitivity and specificity of SUVmax in predicting DARS2 overexpression in LUAD were 88.9% and 65.9%, respectively. In vitro cell experiments have shown that interfering with DARS2 expression can inhibit the proliferation and migration of LUAD cells, promote cell apoptosis, and inhibit the glycolytic activity of tumor cells by inhibiting the expression of glycolytic related genes SLC2A1, GPI, ALDOA, and PGAM1. Conclusions: Overexpression of DARS2 is associated with metabolic parameters on 18F-FDG PET/CT, which can improve LUAD diagnosis accuracy. DARS2 may be a useful biomarker to diagnose, prognosis, and target treatment of LUAD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation of the bearing capacity of strip footings generally assumes that the soil is either dry or fully saturated, which contradicts the actual condition in nature where the soil is often in a partially saturated state. Furthermore, infiltration has a significant impact on the shear strength of the soil. Following the upper bound theory of the limit analysis, this article provides a theoretical framework for assessing the bearing capacity under transient flow with linear variation in infiltration intensity for the first time. Firstly, the closed form of suction stress under linear transient infiltration is derived using Laplace transform and introduced into the Mohr–Coulomb criterion. A discrete failure mechanism with fewer variables and higher accuracy is provided to ensure kinematic admissibility. The upper bound solution for bearing capacity is obtained by solving the power balance equation. The present results are compared with results from the published literature and the finite element, confirming the validity and superiority of the theoretical framework provided. A parametric analysis is also conducted on three hypothetical soil types (fine sand, silt, and clay), and the results show that unsaturated transient infiltration has a positive influence on increasing the foundation bearing capacity. The magnitude of the influence is comprehensively controlled by factors such as soil type, saturated hydraulic conductivity, infiltration intensity, infiltration time, and water table depth. The increase in bearing capacity due to unsaturated transient infiltration can be incorporated into Terzaghi's equation as a separate component presented in tabular form for engineering design purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To elucidate the mechanism by which LINC00174 promotes colon cancer progression by targeting the microRNA-2467-3p (miR-2467-3p)/enolase 3 (ENO3) axis to regulate inflammation and glycolysis. Methods. The expression of LINC00174 and ENO3 in colon cancer tissues, its relationship with survival rate, and correlation were analyzed using bioinformatic analysis. The effects of LINC00174 overexpression and silencing on the biological behavior of and inflammation in colon cancer cells were analyzed via transfection experiments. The target relationships between miR-2467-3p or LINC00174 and ENO3 were verified using sequence prediction and the dual-luciferase reporter assay, respectively. Furthermore, LINC00174- and/or miR-2467-3p-overexpressing cells were prepared to determine the effects on ENO3 protein levels and glycolysis. Finally, the effects of LINC00174 and/or miR-2467-3p overexpression on colon cancer, ENO3 protein levels, and inflammation were analyzed using a tumor-bearing mice model. Results. LINC00174 and ENO3 were overexpressed and associated with a lower survival rate. LINC00174 was positively correlated with ENO3 in colon cancer tissues. Furthermore, the overexpression of LINC00174 in colon cancer cell lines promoted the proliferation, migration, and invasion of colon cancer cells and inflammation but inhibited apoptosis. The overexpression of miR-2467-3p inhibited ENO3 protein levels, which was attenuated via LINC00174 overexpression. Furthermore, it inhibited the biological behavior of and inflammation and glycolysis in colon cancer cells and blocked their LINC00174-induced promotion. Moreover, using animal experiments, the regulatory effects of LINC00174 on tumor growth, ENO3 protein levels, and inflammation via miR-2467-3p were confirmed. Conclusion. LINC00174 promotes the glycolysis, inflammation, proliferation, migration, and invasion of colon cancer cells and inhibits apoptosis. The cancer-promoting mechanism of LINC00174 is related to targeting miR-2467-3p to promote ENO3 protein levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In engineering mathematics, the unsaturated nature of soil has a significant impact on the seismic bearing capacity solution. However, it has generally been neglected in the published literature to date. Based on the kinematic approach of limit analysis, the present study proposes a method for calculating the bearing capacity of shallow strip footings located in unsaturated soils, taking four common types of soils as examples. The modified pseudo-dynamic (MPD) approach is used to calculate the seismic forces varying with time and space, and the layerwise summation method is used to derive the power generated by the seismic forces. In the calculation of internal energy dissipation, this paper introduces the effective stress based on the suction stress to derive the cohesion expression at different depths. The analytical formula of bearing capacity is obtained by the principle of virtual work, and its value is optimized by the Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) algorithm. In order to verify the validity of the proposed method, the present results are compared with the solutions published so far and a good agreement is obtained. Finally, a parametric study is performed to investigate the influence of different types of parameters on the bearing capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on moving-target detection and tracking in a three-dimensional (3D) space, and proposes a visual target tracking system only using a two-dimensional (2D) camera. To quickly detect moving targets, an improved optical flow method with detailed modifications in the pyramid, warping, and cost volume network (PWC-Net) is applied. Meanwhile, a clustering algorithm is used to accurately extract the moving target from a noisy background. Then, the target position is estimated using a proposed geometrical pinhole imaging algorithm and cubature Kalman filter (CKF). Specifically, the camera's installation position and inner parameters are applied to calculate the azimuth, elevation angles, and depth of the target while only using 2D measurements. The proposed geometrical solution has a simple structure and fast computational speed. Different simulations and experiments verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the outbreak of COVID-19, information technology played a critical role in promoting education all around the world. Online teaching boosts students' learning processes and has a good impact on their learning during the epidemic. Big data technology transforms traditional teaching approaches and learning processes by providing a rich learning resource for diverse teaching elements and improving teachers' teaching techniques. Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, online education spread quickly, and traditional instruction was abruptly switched to online mode, posing a number of issues for students and management. Choosing a decent teaching technique is not an easy option, and it is even more difficult when it comes to selecting the approach. We used the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP) method to evaluate four instructional methods based on seven criteria to solve this challenge. Fuzzy AHP is a powerful, simple, and direct way for determining which approach is the most efficient and effective. To simplify the selection process and address the issue of uncertainty, the Fuzzy AHP technique employs the geometric mean method. The Fuzzy AHP approach was found to be efficient and successful in the decision-making process in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We model the Alzheimer's disease‐related phenotype response variables observed on irregular time points in longitudinal Genome‐Wide Association Studies as sparse functional data and propose nonparametric test procedures to detect functional genotype effects while controlling the confounding effects of environmental covariates. Our new functional analysis of covariance tests are based on a seemingly unrelated kernel smoother, which takes into account the within‐subject temporal correlations, and thus enjoy improved power over existing functional tests. We show that the proposed test combined with a uniformly consistent nonparametric covariance function estimator enjoys the Wilks phenomenon and is minimax most powerful. Data used in the preparation of this article were obtained from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative database, where an application of the proposed test lead to the discovery of new genes that may be related to Alzheimer's disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Melanoma-associated antigen D1 (Maged1) has critical functions in the central nervous system in both developmental and adult stages. Loss of Maged1 in mice has been linked to depression, cognitive disorder, and drug addiction. However, the role of Maged1 in Parkinson's disease (PD) remains unclear. In this study, we observed that Maged1 was expressed in the dopaminergic (DA) neurons of the substantia nigra in mice and humans, which could be upregulated by the in vivo or in vitro treatment with 1-Methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) or 1-Methyl-4-phenylpyridinium iodide (MPP+). Genetic ablation of Maged1 in mice attenuated motor deficits, the loss of DA neurons, and disease progression induced by MPTP. Moreover, Maged1 deficiency protected DA neurons against MPP+-induced toxicity in primary cultured cells. Mechanistically, loss of Maged1 upregulated the Akt signaling pathway and downregulated the mTOR signaling pathway in SH-SY5Y cells, which may in turn attenuate the cell apoptosis and impairment of autophagy. Consistent with it, the degeneration of midbrain and striatum among elderly Maged1 knockout mice was relatively mild compared to those in wild-type mice under physiological conditions. Taken together, this study suggested that Maged1 deficiency inhibited apoptosis and enhanced autophagy, which may provide a new potential target for the therapy of PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the two-phase flow within multiple channels in a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is important to improve cell performance. In this study, the droplet behavior in multiple channels is predicted by the volume of fluid (VOF) method. In addition, the pressure drop and velocity and pressure distribution between the multiple channels are analyzed, and the effects of channel wettability, gas velocity, and structure parameters on the two-phase distribution within the multiple channels are investigated. The effect of different parameters on the droplet detachment time in multiple channels is evaluated by comparing the droplet movement time. The results show that the increase in amplitude and period leads to greater improvement in the water removal performance of the multiple channels. Additionally, the unevenness within the multiple channels is improved as the interval between channels decreases. The channels show better water removal performance at a channel period of 4, an amplitude of 1.2 mm, and an interval of 1 mm. With the lowering of the wall contact angle, the broken droplets tend to accumulate at the wall corners, and the time for the droplets to be removed increases significantly. It is also observed that as the inlet velocity increases, droplet breakup is more likely to occur in the third channel. At larger flow rates, the droplet detachment time from the channel decreases to some extent in all three channels, but the droplet detachment order is different due to the unevenness of the flow distribution of the two-phase flow in the multiple channels compared to a single channel. Therefore, this unevenness in the flow distribution is the cause of the different droplet detachment orders in the three channels. This study is important for the design of the flow channel and water management of the PEMFC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is widely used in clinical practice as an effective treatment for end-stage knee joint lesions. It can effectively correct joint deformities, relieve painful symptoms, and improve joint function. The reconstruction of lower extremity joint lines and soft tissue balance are important factors related to the durability of the implant; therefore, it is especially important to measure the joint lines and associated angles before TKA. In this article, we review the technological progress in the preoperative measurement of TKA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TMB-5 nucleating agent (NA) treated by different solvents were used as the β-NA of iPP. The effects of temperature on the crystalline structure of different iPP/TMB-5, as well as the crystallization and melting behaviors were investigated. It was found that strong polar solvent treated TMB-5 (TMB-5DMSO and TMB-5DMF) could induce more β-crystal at high Tc = 140 °C than the other TMB-5 NAs, while the β-crystal inducing efficiency of untreated TMB-5 (TMB-5UT) and non-polar solvent treated TMB-5 (TMB-5LP) is seriously reduced at high Tc = 140 °C. TMB-5DMSO can induce a high and stable content of β-crystal with Kβ = 83–94% within Tc = 90–140 °C, and TMB-5ODCB can induce a high content of β-crystal with Kβ > 91.3% within Tc = 90–130 °C. TMB-5DMF is the most temperature-sensitive one, but can induce a high fraction of β-crystal with Kβ > 92% both at low Tc = 90 °C and high Tc = 140 °C. High temperature pre-crystallization at Tpc = 150 °C tremendously reduces the β-crystal inducing efficiency of all TMB-5 NAs. TMB-5UT and TMB-5LP exhibit higher nucleating efficiency than TMB-5DMSO, TMB-5DMF and TMB-5ODCB. During the non-isothermal crystallization process, TMB-5UT induced β-crystal possesses higher structural perfection and stability, while TMB-5LP is more likely to induce α-crystal with considerable quantity and stability. The structural perfection and stability of TMB-5 induced β-crystal can be enhanced with appropriate increasing of Tc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pair of inherently chiral belt-shaped conjugated macrocycles were conveniently synthesized starting from 2,7-fluoren[3]arene triflate, and they not only exhibited green fluorescence, but also showed circularly polarized luminescence with a ‖glum‖ of 2.0 × 10−3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we explore the effect of different rectangular micro cavity geometric parameters on heat transfer capacity of pool boiling. In this work, FORTRAN language was used for programming, establishes a pool boiling model of two-dimensional rectangular micro cavity heating surface based on pseudo-potential hybrid thermal lattice Boltzmann method, and carries out computational fluid dynamics simulation. Rectangular micro pits are uniformly distributed on the heating surface to form the texture. The coupling effects of three different microstructure parameters such as width (30 l.u., 50 l.u., 70 l.u.), height (30 l.u., 50 l.u., 70 l.u.) and spacing (30 l.u., 50 l.u., 70 l.u.) on pool boiling heat transfer performance were studied. The bubble behavior and boiling heat transfer on the heating surface of micro cavity were studied. It is found that the rectangular micro cavity structure can promote the heat transfer performance of pool boiling. The uniform microstructure provides a stable vaporization core and promotes early bubble coalescence. It is confirmed that the width and spacing have a great impact on the heat flux, where smaller widths are conducive to boiling heat transfer. With increasing micro cavity spacing, the heat transfer performance first improves and then worsens. If the spacing is too wide, film boiling will occurs and the heat transfer capacity will deteriorate rapidly. However, the depth has little effect on boiling heat transfer capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work aims to provide a deep learning framework to segment woods from tree point clouds. We develop a novel preprocessing layer before the classical sampling and convolution structure called the projection layer to organize 3D point clouds into 2D points. Input data are transformed into projection data along axis and planes for the subsequent convolution process, which helps decrease the complexity of networks. In order to obtain optimal and effective projection data for capturing local features, we formulate the 2D transformation in the learning process using two learnable angle parameters. The projection map is updated in the learning process for capturing geometric structure information, which plays an important role in wood point segmentation. Experiments show that we have achieved the loss and misclassification error of 0.41% and 8%, respectively, on wood points extraction from handheld laser scanning data. Besides, we also achieve the correctness, completeness and F -score of 90.4%, 91.5% and 0.91, respectively, in a public vehicle laser scanning dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to appraise the performance of the steel pipe pile performance in harbor engineering. The load transfer mechanism and pile-soil interaction could not be clearly understood using the traditional measurement. In this case, fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and Brillouin optical time domain reflectometry (BOTDR) were applied simultaneously at an open-ended steel pipe pile field test in Ganyu Port, China. Results showed that the fiber optic sensing system accurately measured the axial force, side friction, and bearing behaviors of open-ended steel pipe piles based on strain data. During the pile driving stage, the system captured the bending deformation and eccentric load on the upper part of the pile above the mud surface, identifying the relatively large tensile strain at the final stage of driving. For the static load test, the strain and resistance distribution obtained by sensing systems suggested that 80% of pile compression was concentrated in the upper 20 m, and the maximum force was observed at the location of soil surface. The precision of high strain dynamic tests is limited for complex field conditions and model's parameters-setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the interaction characteristics between the gaseous detonation and the water droplet are numerically investigated, utilizing a modified compressible two-phase flow model coupling with detailed hydrogen-oxygen chemistry. Firstly, an analysis is conducted on the propagation behaviors of the cellular detonation obstructed by the droplet. It is found that the cellular detonation undergoes reflection, diffraction, local extinction, and re-ignition upon the obstruction, and these behaviors vary with the droplet relative positioning with multi-dimensional structures of the cellular detonation, particularly in terms of the extinction degree caused by the diffraction and the relative positioning of the re-ignition region. Further, the droplet deformation characteristics are detailly analyzed. It has been revealed that the deformation behavior of the shocked droplet under planar detonation is consistent with that under high-speed airflow. However, for the droplet shocked by the cellular detonation, several windward surface pits are induced due to impaction from transverse shocks and direct hitting of the triple-point. The emergence of these pits notably precedes the onset of surface instabilities caused by high-speed airflow erosion. Further investigation has revealed that post-detonation flow, through the entrainment effect of the central pit, progressively penetrates and segregates the droplet into upper and lower segments, and this penetrating effect heavily depends on the droplet relative positioning. Moreover, the side pit, whose presence is significantly determined by whether there is direct impaction of the triple-point on the droplet windward side, is crucial for the deformation around the droplet equator and the subsequent shedding of smaller droplets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advances of deep neural networks (DNNs) promote low-level vision applications in real-world scenarios, e.g., image enhancement, dehazing. Nevertheless, DNN-based methods encounter challenges in terms of high computational and memory requirements, especially when deployed on real-world devices with limited resources. Quantization is one of effective compression techniques that significantly reduces computational and memory requirements by employing low-bit parameters and bit-wise operations. However, low-bit quantization for computational imaging (Q-Imaging) remains largely unexplored and usually suffer from a significant performance drop compared with the real-valued counterparts. In this work, through empirical analysis, we identify the main factor responsible for such significant performance drop underlies in the large gradient estimation error from non-differentiable weight quantization methods, and the activation information degeneration along with the activation quantization. To address these issues, we introduce a differentiable quantization search (DQS) method to learn the quantized weights and an information boosting module (IBM) for network activation quantization. Our DQS method allows us to treat the discrete weights in a quantized neural network as variables that can be searched. We achieve this end by using a differential approach to accurately search for these weights. In specific, each weight is represented as a probability distribution across a set of discrete values. During training, these probabilities are optimized, and the values with the highest probabilities are chosen to construct the desired quantized network. Moreover, our IBM module can rectify the activation distribution before quantization to maximize the self-information entropy, which retains the maximum information during the quantization process. Extensive experiments across a range of image processing tasks, including enhancement, super-resolution, denoising and dehazing, validate the effectiveness of our Q-Imaging along with superior performances compared to a variety of state-of-the-art quantization methods. In particular, the method in Q-Imaging also achieves a strong generalization performance when composing a detection network for the dark object detection task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conversion of carbon dioxide (CO 2) into fuel using solar energy holds significant promise. However, the inefficient use of light and poor production activity have hindered its development. Here, we propose a simple in situ annealing oxidation method by coating a layer of TiO 2 outside TiN, a material with a favorable price and localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect, to create an L-TiNO composite. The yield of CO over L-TiNO (50.8 μmol g−1 h−1) is 56.4 times that over TiO 2 (0.9 μmol g−1 h−1) under visible light irradiation in pure aqueous environment, with a selectivity of 95.98%. In-situ Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) measurements reflect the CO 2 -COOH*-CO conversion route happening on L-TiNO. Characterizations like the Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) technique confirm the generation of built-in electric field, which facilitates efficient carrier separation and migration. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations support that L-TiNO with LSPR effect alters the shape of absorbed CO 2 to facilitate generation COOH* via forming hydroxyl end group (Ti-OH) and promotes CO* desorption to CO(g). This work provides valuable insights into the coupling of plasmonic materials with semiconductors to achieve efficient solar energy utilization. [Display omitted] • The TiN coating with a layer of TiO 2 was synthesized. • The yield of CO over L-TiNO is higher than that of TiO 2. • Density functional theory (DFT) calculations support that L-TiNO with LSPR effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]