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Although Ru‐based materials are among the outstanding catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), the instability issue still haunts them and impedes the widespread application. The instability of Ru‐based OER catalysts is generally ascribed to the formation of soluble species through the over‐oxidation of Ru and structural decomposition caused by involvement of lattice oxygen. Herein, an effective strategy of selectively activating the lattice oxygen around Ru site is proposed to improve the OER activity and stability. Our synthesized spinel‐type electrocatalyst of Ru and Zn co‐doped Co3O4 showed an ultralow overpotential of 172 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and a long‐term stability reaching to 100 hours at 10 mA cm−2 for alkaline OER. The experimental results and theoretical simulations demonstrated that the lattice oxygen site jointly connected with the octahedral Ru and tetrahedral Zn atoms became more active than other oxygen sites near Ru atom, which further lowered the reaction energy barriers and avoided generating excessive oxygen vacancies to enhance the structural stability of Ru sites. The findings hope to provide a new perspective to improve the catalytic activity of Ru‐incorporated OER catalysts and the stability of lattice‐oxygen‐mediated mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Ru‐based materials are among the outstanding catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), the instability issue still haunts them and impedes the widespread application. The instability of Ru‐based OER catalysts is generally ascribed to the formation of soluble species through the over‐oxidation of Ru and structural decomposition caused by involvement of lattice oxygen. Herein, an effective strategy of selectively activating the lattice oxygen around Ru site is proposed to improve the OER activity and stability. Our synthesized spinel‐type electrocatalyst of Ru and Zn co‐doped Co3O4 showed an ultralow overpotential of 172 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and a long‐term stability reaching to 100 hours at 10 mA cm−2 for alkaline OER. The experimental results and theoretical simulations demonstrated that the lattice oxygen site jointly connected with the octahedral Ru and tetrahedral Zn atoms became more active than other oxygen sites near Ru atom, which further lowered the reaction energy barriers and avoided generating excessive oxygen vacancies to enhance the structural stability of Ru sites. The findings hope to provide a new perspective to improve the catalytic activity of Ru‐incorporated OER catalysts and the stability of lattice‐oxygen‐mediated mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prognosis of thyroid cancer in patients varies significantly based on different pathological types or distinct clinical situations. Investigating the expression of immune checkpoint molecules PD-L1 and B7-H3 in high-risk thyroid cancer and their correlation with clinicopathological features and prognosis will contribute to the development of novel therapeutic strategies. A retrospective sample of 202 patients with thyroid cancer who underwent surgery at the Cancer Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences was collected, including 33 cases of anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC), 21 cases of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) with distant metastasis (DM), 7 cases of differentiated high-grade thyroid carcinoma (DHGTC), and 109 cases of aggressive subtypes of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) (including 28 cases of tall cell PTC, 31 cases of diffuse sclerosing PTC, 20 cases of solid PTC, 15 cases of columnar cell PTC, and 15 cases of hobnail PTC). In the control group, there were 32 cases of classic PTC. The differences in protein expression between PD-L1 and B7-H3 in several high-risk thyroid cancers and normal tissues and controls were compared by immunohistochemical staining, and the clinicopathological features and prognostic relevance were statistically analyzed. The expression of PD-L1 in ATC (P < 0.001), tall cell PTC (P = 0.031), and DHGTC (P = 0.003) was significantly higher than that in classic PTC. The expression of B7-H3 in ATC (P < 0.001), DTC with DM (P = 0.001), diffuse sclerosing PTC (P = 0.013), columnar cell PTC (P = 0.007), solid PTC (P < 0.001), hobnail PTC (P < 0.001), and DHGTC (P < 0.001) was significantly higher than that in classic PTC. In ATC, PD-L1 expression correlated significantly with extrathyroidal extension (ETE) (P = 0.027) and B7-H3 expression correlated significantly with male patients (P = 0.031) and lymph node metastasis (LNM) (P = 0.026). The positive expression of B7-H3 (P = 0.041) was an independent risk factor for disease progression in ATC. B7-H3 positive expression (P = 0.049), PD-L1 positive expression (P = 0.015), and tumor diameter ≥ 2 cm (P = 0.038) were independent risk factors for disease progression in patients with DTC with DM. PD-L1 positive expression (P = 0.019) and tumor diameter ≥ 2 cm (P = 0.018) were independent risk factors for disease progression in patients with aggressive subtypes of PTC. B7-H3 and PD-L1 are expected to be effective prognostic indicators for patients with aggressive thyroid cancer, which can help in optimization of individualized treatment strategies. Immunotherapy targeting these two molecules may provide new and complementary ideas for the treatment of high-risk/refractory thyroid cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately estimating shrub biomass in arid and semi-arid regions is critical for understanding ecosystem productivity and carbon stocks at both local and global scales. Due to the short and sparse features of shrubs, capturing the shrub biomass accurately by satellite observations is challenging. Previous studies mostly used ground samples and satellite observations to estimate shrub biomass by establishing a direct connection, which was often hindered by the limited number of ground samples and spatial scale mismatch between samples and observations. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide opportunities to obtain more samples that are in line with the aspects of satellite observations (i.e., scale) for regional-scale shrub biomass estimations accurately with low costs. However, few studies have been conducted based on the air-space-ground-scale connection assisted by UAVs. Here we developed a framework for estimating 10 m shrub biomass at a regional scale by integrating ground measurements, UAV, Landsat, and Sentinel-1/2 observations. First, the spatial distribution map of shrublands and non-shrublands was generated in 2023 in the Helan Mountains of Ningxia province, China. This map had an F1 score of 0.92. Subsequently, the UAV-based shrub biomass map was estimated using an empirical model between the biomass and the crown area of shrubs, which was aggregated at a 10 m × 10 m grid to match the spatial resolution of Sentinel-1/2 images. Then, a regional-scale estimation model of shrub biomass was developed with a random forest regression (RFR) approach driven by ground biomass measurements, UAV-based biomass, and the optimal satellite metrics. Finally, the developed model was used to produce the biomass map of shrublands over the study area in 2023. The uncertainty of the resultant biomass map was characterized by the pixel-level standard deviation (SD) using the leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) method. The results suggested that the integration of multi-scale observations from the ground, UAVs, and satellites provided a promising approach to obtaining the regional shrub biomass accurately. Our developed model, which integrates satellite spectral bands and vegetation indices (R2 = 0.62), outperformed models driven solely by spectral bands (R2 = 0.33) or vegetation indices (R2 = 0.55). In addition, our estimated biomass has an average uncertainty of less than 4%, with the lowest values (<2%) occurring in regions with high shrub coverage (>30%) and biomass production (>300 g/m2). This study provides a methodology to accurately monitor the shrub biomass from satellite images assisted by near-ground UAV observations as well as ground measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The current work was carried out to enhance the quality (including product colour, rehydration performance, textural properties, product cracking rate and sensory evaluation) of microwave freeze‐dried prepared taro balls, a popular starch‐based food product, by synergistic addition of guar gum and sodium bicarbonate. The results showed that taro balls with added sodium bicarbonate had the shortest freeze‐drying time (153 min), but the high‐cracking rate (66.67%) was not acceptable to consumers. The addition of guar gum could effectively reduce the cracking rate (17.5%) during freeze‐drying of taro balls, but did not significantly improve sensory evaluation and textural properties. The combination of sodium bicarbonate and guar gum demonstrated satisfactory positive effects in increasing the rehydration rate of freeze‐dried taro balls (53.67%), maintaining the whiteness (WI = 84.52) and reducing the cracking rate (21.67%). Although sodium bicarbonate alone produced the best results in terms of sensory ratings and textural properties, there was no significant difference between the effects of sodium bicarbonate alone and the combination of the two food additives on rehydrated taro balls. Therefore, the combination of sodium bicarbonate and guar gum is an appropriate hybrid strategy for producing high quality freeze‐dried taro balls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The inherent poor cooking quality and poor texture of mixed‐grain pasta limit consumer acceptance. This study systematically investigated the effect of curdlan in the processing of sweet potato puree oat mixed‐grain noodles, and comprehensively analysed a number of key indicators such as cooking characteristics, moisture state, texture properties, microstructure, starch crystallinity characteristics, short‐range ordered structure and thermal properties. At the production practice level, the study clearly indicated that the 0.6% curdlan addition ratio was the best solution in sweet potato puree oat mixed‐grain noodles processing. This finding not only significantly reduces the fracture rate, water absorption rate and cooking loss rate during the cooking process, but also significantly improves the quality and yield of the product, and brings significant improvement in the taste and texture of the noodles, which is of great significance for industrial production. In the microstructural and molecular studies, we revealed how curdlan could enhance the structural stability and mechanical strength of noodles by promoting the uniform distribution of starch granules in the gluten protein network. Further, through X‐ray diffraction, ordered structure and thermal property analyses, we have found that colchicine can effectively regulate the interactions of hydrogen bonding between starch and the content of straight‐chain and branched‐chain starch, which significantly reduces the crystallinity, ordered short‐chain structure and enthalpy of pasting of starch in the pasta. These in‐depth research results not only help us to understand more comprehensively the formation mechanism of the modification of pasta quality by curdlan, but also provide a solid theoretical foundation and practical guidance for the improvement of pasta quality in mixed grains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performing remote sensing scene classification (RSSC) directly on satellites can alleviate data downlink burdens and reduce latency. Compared to convolutional neural networks (CNNs), the all-adder neural network (A2NN) is a novel basic neural network that is more suitable for onboard RSSC, enabling lower computational overhead by eliminating multiplication operations in convolutional layers. However, the extensive floating-point data and operations in A2NNs still lead to significant storage overhead and power consumption during hardware deployment. In this article, a shared scaling factor-based de-biasing quantization (SSDQ) method tailored for the quantization of A2NNs is proposed to address this issue, including a powers-of-two (POT)-based shared scaling factor quantization scheme and a multi-dimensional de-biasing (MDD) quantization strategy. Specifically, the POT-based shared scaling factor quantization scheme converts the adder filters in A2NNs to quantized adder filters with hardware-friendly integer input activations, weights, and operations. Thus, quantized A2NNs (Q-A2NNs) composed of quantized adder filters have lower computational and memory overheads than A2NNs, increasing their utility in hardware deployment. Although low-bit-width Q-A2NNs exhibit significantly reduced RSSC accuracy compared to A2NNs, this issue can be alleviated by employing the proposed MDD quantization strategy, which combines a weight-debiasing (WD) strategy, which reduces performance degradation due to deviations in the quantized weights, with a feature-debiasing (FD) strategy, which enhances the classification performance of Q-A2NNs through minimizing deviations among the output features of each layer. Extensive experiments and analyses demonstrate that the proposed SSDQ method can efficiently quantize A2NNs to obtain Q-A2NNs with low computational and memory overheads while maintaining comparable performance to A2NNs, thus having high potential for onboard RSSC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vibration signals collected by acceleration sensors are interspersed with noise interference, which increases the difficulty of fault diagnosis for rolling bearings. For this reason, a rolling bearing fault diagnosis method based on complete ensemble empirical model decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) and improved convolutional neural network (CNN) is proposed. Firstly, the original vibration signal is decomposed into a series of intrinsic modal function (IMF) components using the CEEMDAN algorithm, the components are filtered according to the correlation coefficients and the signals are reconstructed. Secondly, the reconstructed signals are converted into a two-dimensional grey-scale map and input into a convolutional neural network to extract the features. Lastly, the features are inputted into a support vector machine (SVM) with the optimised parameters of the grey wolf optimiser (GWO) to perform the identification and classification. The experimental results show that the rolling bearing fault diagnosis method based on CEEMDAN and CNN-SVM proposed in this paper can significantly reduce the noise interference, and its average fault diagnosis accuracy is as high as 99.25%. Therefore, it is feasible to apply it in the field of rolling bearing fault diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper was to evaluate the effect of spray drying (SD), spray freeze‐drying (SFD), freeze‐drying (FD), and microwave freeze‐drying (MFD) on the characteristics of fish oil (FO) microcapsules. The physicochemical properties, morphology, fatty acid composition, and stability of the microcapsules were analyzed. The encapsulation efficiencies of microcapsules dried by SD, SFD, FD, and MFD were 86.98%, 77.79%, 63.29%, and 57.89%, respectively. SD microcapsules exhibited superior properties in terms of effective loading capacity, color, and flowability. Conversely, SFD microcapsules demonstrated improved solubility. Microencapsulation positively affected the thermal stability of FO, but the content of unsaturated fatty acids decreased. The findings from the storage experiment indicated that the oxidative stability of SD fish oil microcapsules was marginally lower compared to microcapsules produced through three alternative drying techniques, all of which were based on the FD concept. The comparison of various drying methods and their effects on the quality of FO microcapsules offers valuable insights that can serve as a foundation for the industrial production of high‐quality microcapsules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enhance the value proposition of sweet potato and oat while broadening their applicability in further processing, this study systematically investigated the impact of oat flour incorporation ratios (5%–25% of sweet potato dry weight) on the quality attributes of sweet potato–oat composite dough and its resulting steamed cake products. The results showed that the addition of oat flour could promote the rheological, water retention, and thermomechanical properties of the composite dough and improve the internal microstructure, specific volume, texture, and other processing properties of the steamed cake products. The rheology, water retention, and protein stability of the dough were maximized when the proportion of oat flour was 25%. The textural properties of steamed cakes, hardness, elasticity, cohesion, adhesion, chewiness, and recovery significantly increased (p < 0.05) and viscosity significantly decreased (p < 0.05) with the addition of oat flour. It is noteworthy that thermodynamic properties, internal structure of the dough, and air holding capacity, which are critical for processing, showed the best results at 20% oat flour addition. Therefore, the addition of 20%–25% oats is recommended to produce composite doughs with optimal quality and processing characteristics. Practical Application: As living standards improve, traditional cereals may no longer able to meet people's health needs. Therefore, there is an urgent consumer demand for nutritious, tasty alternatives to staple foods. In this study, oat flour and sweet potato mash were mixed to make sweet potato–oat cake, and the effect of ingredient ratio on the performance and quality of composite dough containing sweet potato–oat flour was analyzed, thus proposing an innovative approach to the research, development, and industrial production of sweet potato and oat food products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passive translational acceleration (PTA) has been demonstrated to induce the stress response and regulation of autonomic balance in healthy individuals. Electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate variability (HRV) measurements are reliable indicators of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and can be used to assess stress levels. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential of combining EDA and HRV measurements in assessing the physiological stress response induced by PTA. Fourteen healthy subjects were randomly assigned to two groups of equal size. The experimental group underwent five trials of elevator rides, while the control group received a sham treatment. EDA and HRV indices were obtained via ultra-short-term analysis and compared between the two groups to track changes in the ANS. In addition, the complexity of the EDA time series was compared between the 4 s before and the 2–6 s after the onset of PTA to assess changes in the subjects' stress levels in the experimental group. The results revealed a significant increase in the skin conductance response (SCR) frequency and a decrease in the root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) and high frequency (HF) components of HRV. In terms of stress assessment, the results showed an increase in the complexity of the EDA time series 2–6 s after the onset of PTA. These results indicate an elevation in sympathetic tone when healthy subjects were exposed to a translational transport scenario. Furthermore, evidence was provided for the ability of EDA complexity to differentiate stress states in individual trials of translational acceleration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voltage‐gated ion channels prevalent in neurons play important roles in generating action potential and information transmission by responding to transmembrane potential. Fabricating bio‐inspired ionic transistors with ions as charge carriers will be crucial for realizing neuro‐inspired devices and brain‐liking computing. Here, we reported a two‐dimensional nanofluidic ionic transistor based on a MXene membrane with sub‐1 nm interlayer channels. By applying a gating voltage on the MXene nanofluidic, a transmembrane potential will be generated to active the ionic transistor, which is similar to the transmembrane potential of neuron cells and can be effectively regulated by changing membrane parameters, e.g. thickness, composition, and interlayer spacing. For the symmetric MXene nanofluidic, a high on/off ratio of ~2000 can be achieved by forming an ionic depletion or accumulation zone, contingent on the sign of the gating potential. An asymmetric PET/MXene‐composited nanofluidic transitioned the ionic transistor from ambipolar to unipolar, resulting in a more sensitive gate voltage characteristic with a low subthreshold swing of 560 mV/decade. Furthermore, ionic logic gate circuits, including the "NOT", "NAND", and "NOR" gate, were implemented for neuromorphic signal processing successfully, which provides a promising pathway towards highly parallel, low energy consumption, and ion‐based brain‐like computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voltage‐gated ion channels prevalent in neurons play important roles in generating action potential and information transmission by responding to transmembrane potential. Fabricating bio‐inspired ionic transistors with ions as charge carriers will be crucial for realizing neuro‐inspired devices and brain‐liking computing. Here, we reported a two‐dimensional nanofluidic ionic transistor based on a MXene membrane with sub‐1 nm interlayer channels. By applying a gating voltage on the MXene nanofluidic, a transmembrane potential will be generated to active the ionic transistor, which is similar to the transmembrane potential of neuron cells and can be effectively regulated by changing membrane parameters, e.g. thickness, composition, and interlayer spacing. For the symmetric MXene nanofluidic, a high on/off ratio of ~2000 can be achieved by forming an ionic depletion or accumulation zone, contingent on the sign of the gating potential. An asymmetric PET/MXene‐composited nanofluidic transitioned the ionic transistor from ambipolar to unipolar, resulting in a more sensitive gate voltage characteristic with a low subthreshold swing of 560 mV/decade. Furthermore, ionic logic gate circuits, including the "NOT", "NAND", and "NOR" gate, were implemented for neuromorphic signal processing successfully, which provides a promising pathway towards highly parallel, low energy consumption, and ion‐based brain‐like computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The current study introduces a novel infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying technique for the dehydration of green soybeans, which aims to enhance the drying quality and efficiency. The investigation involves an examination of the flow pattern in the spouted bed to obtain relevant data, followed by an optimization of the entire drying process. The drying process of green soybeans was simulated using SolidWorks and ANSYS Fluent software, based on the principles of computational fluid dynamics. RESULTS: The simulation test results showed that the simulation outcomes were consistent with the experimental data. The optimal conditions for the process of green soybean infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying were found to be an inlet speed of 8 m/s and a temperature of 50 °C with the wavelength and power settings of the infrared board at 10 μm and 500 W, respectively. CONCLUSION: The simulation method selected in this article, based on gas–solid two‐phase flow dynamics, is feasible for green soybean infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying process. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rice–duckweed coculturing as an advanced technique has proven effective for weed control. However, the complex environmental interactions underlying its effectiveness remain unclear. In this study, a controlled pot experiment was conducted to isolate the shading effect of duckweeds (Landoltia punctata and Spirodela polyrhiza) from their intricate environmental interactions with paddy weeds (Cyperus difformis, Eclipta prostrata, and Ammannia auriculata). The results revealed that as the duckweeds grew, there were notable decreases in total weed density (52.41–77.01%) and biomass (42.33–99.23%) while rice biomass remained unaffected. Duckweed covering allowed less than 8.64% of light to pass through and led to decreases in environmental temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen concentration in the floodwater, but had little impact on inorganic nitrogen levels. Through screening with random forest analysis and structural equation modelling, it was found that weed density and biomass were predominantly influenced by the reduced light transmittance (54.1% and 77.2%, p ≤ 0.001) resulting from duckweed covering while the decline in dissolved oxygen content partly influenced weed density (18%). In conclusion, this study's results bring a different perspective, confirming the sunlight-shading effect of duckweed as a critical mechanism significantly inhibiting the germination and growth of weeds. These findings provide a scientific basis for the improved application of ecological weed control methods in paddy fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ferroptosis is an emerging type of regulated cell death usually accompanied by the accumulation of ferrous ions (Fe2+) and lipid peroxides. As the metabolic hub of the body, the liver is crucial for iron storage and lipid metabolism. The liver seems to be closely related to ferroptosis through iron and lipid metabolism. Liver disease greatly threatens host health, and exploring effective interventions is essential. Mounting studies have demonstrated that ferroptosis is one of the possible pathogenic mechanisms involved in liver disease. Targeting ferroptosis may provide a promising opportunity for treating liver disease. However, drugs targeting ferroptosis are extremely limited. Therefore, it is an urgent need to develop new and safe ferroptosis regulators. Natural active compounds (NAC), especially those derived from traditional Chinese medicine, have recently shown great therapeutic potential in liver disease via modulating ferroptosis-related genes or pathways. Here, we outline the molecular mechanism of ferroptosis and systematically summarize the regulatory function of NAC on ferroptosis in liver disease. Finally, we discuss the application prospects and potential problems concerning NAC as ferroptosis regulators for managing liver disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Chlorogenic acid (CA) is a natural antioxidant with multiple biological activities, but its stability is poor. In this article, CA‐load pea protein nanoparticles (PPCNPs) were constructed by an anti‐solvent method to enhance CA stability and characterised by multiple technologies. The results exhibited that the particle size of PPCNPs ranged from 211.62 to 429.79 nm, and the zeta potential ranged from −41.21 to −35.85 mV. PPCNPs had the highest encapsulation efficiency (61.2%) at the CA/pea protein isolate (PPI) mass ratio of 1:20. The loading capacity increased with the ratio of CA/PPI ranging from 1.3% to 3.8%. SEM showed that the nanoparticle surface was an irregular lamellar structure. FTIR showed that O–H and C–H functional group interactions occurred between CA and PPI. DSC results showed that CA was encapsulated in PPCNPs with an amorphous structure. During in vitro digestion, the ABTS radical scavenging ability and retention ratio of CA in PPCNPs was higher than that of free CA. Moreover, PPCNPs increased the bio‐accessibility of CA in vitro by 7.75%, compared with unencapsulated CA. These results suggested that PPCNPs constructed by the anti‐solvent method can reduce the degradation of CA and improve the biological activity of CA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction defects in grouting sleeves can jeopardize the safety of precast reinforced concrete structures. Thus, efficient and accurate defect detection is critical in engineering construction. In this paper, a defect detection method based on piezoelectric wave theory was proposed. Two piezoelectric ceramics were arranged within the grouting sleeve. One piezoelectric ceramic was affixed on the top of the steel bar, while the other was embedded in the grouting material, serving as the driver and sensor, respectively. The compactness defects, air cavity defects, steel anchoring defects, and water–binder ratio defects were set in the grouting sleeves, and the trends in time domain signals and signal evaluation indicators based on the wavelet packet total energy value (WPTEV) of different specimens were investigated. Based on the WPTEV, the evaluation index (EI) was proposed. In addition, the effect of the grouting material's age on the piezoelectric wave signal was verified. Furthermore, the influence of grouting material defects on signals was simulated in ABAQUS, and the time domain signals and wavelet packet energy of sensor signals for specimens with varying defect dimensions were evaluated. The results showed that: (1) The defects in the grouting materials reduced the stress waves propagated through the grouting materials, resulting in a decrease in attenuation and an increasing trend in the signal; (2) The peak-to-peak values of piezoelectric ceramic sensors and the WPTEV of the signal increased with the degree of defects, and the WPTEV was more pronounced. For specimen M68, the WPTEV was 3.3 times that of the healthy specimen, however, the peak-to-peak value was only 2.3 times that of the healthy specimen; (3) The degree of defects was accurately determined by the defect evaluation index (EI) based on the WPTEV; (4) The signal was significantly attenuated with the increase in the age of the grouting material, especially in the first three days, and finally the signal achieved a stable value; (5) The numerical simulation indicated that the defects in the length and thickness of the air cavity in the grouting material were efficiently detected by the proposed piezoelectric arrangement in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The edible rose (Rosa Crimson Glory) petals were dried using infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying technology. The effects of different drying temperature conditions (30, 35, 40, 45, and 50°C, as well as stepped heating drying [SHD] and stepped cooling drying) on the drying characteristics, physicochemical properties, antioxidant capacity, and changes in volatile flavor compounds of the rose petals were investigated. The results showed that the drying time was shortened with increasing drying temperature. Both variable temperature drying processes gave the shortest drying times. Optimal color retention of rose petals was achieved at a constant temperature of 40°C and SHD. Increased drying temperature resulted in higher water‐soluble polysaccharide content in the dried rose petals, whereas lower temperatures facilitated anthocyanin preservation. The variable temperature drying processes favored the retention of water‐soluble polysaccharides in rose petals, but not anthocyanins. Regarding antioxidant capacity, the samples dried at 40°C and those subjected to the two variable temperature drying processes performed better. This study also analyzed the differences in volatile flavor compounds of rose petals dried under different drying conditions. It was found that the majority of volatile flavor compounds in the rose petals dried by SHD exhibited higher content levels than the other drying conditions. Therefore, considering a thorough evaluation of all relevant factors, it was clear that utilizing the SHD process was the most efficient method for obtaining the best quality rose petals overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whey protein isolates (WPIs) were treated at 50, 60, 70, and 80°C to obtain thermally modified WPI. Gum arabic (GA) and thermal modification of WPI were used as novel wall materials to improve the quality of Cornus officinalis flavonoid (COF) microcapsules using microwave freeze‐drying technique in this study. Results showed that all the thermal modification treatment decreased emulsifying activity index of WPI, whereas the solubility and emulsifying stability index (ESI) of WPI gradually increased with the increase of heating temperature. Compared to the untreated protein, the thermal modification treatment at 70°C increased the solubility and ESI of WPI by 14.91% ± 0.71% and 26.70% ± 0.94%, respectively. The microcapsules prepared with the modified protein at 60°C had the highest encapsulation efficiency (95.13% ± 2.36%), the lowest moisture content (1.42% ± 0.34%), and the highest solubility (84.41% ± 0.91). Scanning electron microscopy images showed that COF microcapsules were uniformly spherical, and the sizes of the microcapsules were in the following order: 12.42 ± 0.37 µm (80°C) > 11.7 ± 0.23 µm (untreated group) > 9.44 ± 0.33 µm (60°C) > 9.24 ± 0.14 µm (50°C) > 7.69 ± 0.29 µm (70°C). In the simulated in vitro digestion experiments, the release rate of COF microcapsules in the gastric digestion phase was less than that in the intestinal digestion phase, and it reached 66.46% at intestinal digestion phase. These results suggested that heated WPI and GA could be an effective nanocarrier to enhance the stability of COF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bozhong 19-6 Condensate gas field is the first giant gas field discovered in the Bohai Bay Basin in recent years. The gas field reservoir has diverse reservoir space and strong heterogeneity.In this paper, we systematically summarize tectonic fractures development patterns and explore the main factors controlling fractures development and clarify the influence of fractures on reservoir quality through core and microscopic thin section observations, physical property data, imaging logging data. The results show that the major types of tectonic fractures in study area are shear fractures, followed by tensile fractures. Study area mainly developed high-angle fractures and completely filled fractures, fractures are commonly filled with carbonate and clay cement. Four groups of tectonic fractures were found in the study area, which corresponds to the four fracture formation period. Tectonic movement controls the fractures development in study area, the multi-stage tectonic movement had caused a complex fractures network system. The faults control the development of associated fractures formation in the fractures zone, different faults control the fractures formation and orientations in the vicinity. Rock type and minrals content is the basis of forming different fractures, such as the high felsic content is the basis of developed fractures in metamorphic rocks, and rock layer thickness, reservoir porosity and permeability are important factors of the fractures development heterogeneity longitudinally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) methods have become a research hotspot in remote sensing scene classification to reduce dependence on labeled samples. However, most current methods focus on extracting domain invariant features, ignoring the problem of large intraclass differences and the imbalanced sample numbers between categories in remote sensing images. To address these issues, we propose a remote sensing scene domain adaptive method based on middle-layer feature extraction and nuclear norm maximization (MFE-NM). In the MFE module, the middle-layer features of the feature extractor are randomly extracted and processed. Since the receptive field of the middle-layer features is smaller and the resolution is higher, the effective use of the middle-layer features can reduce the impact of image feature heterogeneity caused by large intraclass differences in remote sensing images. In addition, it can be concluded that the constrained nuclear norm can simultaneously improve the prediction diversity and discriminability of the model through theoretical derivation. Therefore, the NM module is proposed to solve the problem of reduced prediction diversity caused by entropy minimization methods when dealing with scene classification problems with imbalanced sample numbers between categories. Extensive experiments and analyses on three public remote sensing datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and competitiveness of our proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyaniline (PANI) can achieve reversible optical modulation in visible and infrared (IR) bands under the action of voltage. However, PANI‐based electrochromic devices cannot cope with the dual detection of visible and IR light to realize the transmission of information due to the linkage restriction between the spectral modulation in the visible and IR region. Here, IR low‐absorptive inorganic pigments as colorants and IR high‐transparent polymer as a binder are utilized to prepare colored films with high transparency. A camouflage layer against visible light detection is constructed on the surface of IR electrochromic devices, and the information transmission is realized in the IR band by controlling the thermal radiation characteristics. Furthermore, thermochromic microcapsules (TMs) that change color under external thermal stimuli are introduced to fabricate a thermochromic and IR transparent functional layer, which is attached to the surface of IR electrochromic devices and endows the devices with separate spectral modulation ability in the visible and IR region. Multicolored displays are fabricated by arraying various devices. Moreover, visual patterns are prepared on the surface of IR electrochromic devices by dispensing technology. This configuration endows the device with a promising potential for anti‐counterfeiting, optical security, and related applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the effects of the covalent binding of flaxseed protein (FP) and chlorogenic acid (CA) on the structure and functional properties of FP–CA complexes fabricated using the alkali method. The results suggested that the encapsulation efficiency of CA encapsulated by FP ranged from 66.11% to 72.20% and the loading capacity of CA increased with an increasing addition ratio of CA with a dose-dependent relationship, which increased from 2.34% to 10.19%. The particle size, turbidity, zeta potential and PDI of FP and the FP–CA complexes had no significant discrepancy. UV–Vis and fluorescence spectra showed the existence of the interaction between FP and CA. SEM images showed that the surface of the FP–0.35%CA complex had more wrinkles compared to FP. Differential scanning calorimetry analysis indicated the decomposition temperature of FP at 198 °C was higher than that (197 °C) of the FP–0.35%CA complex, implying that the stability of the FP–CA complexes was lower than FP. The functional properties suggested that the FP–CA complex with 1.40% CA had a higher water holding capacity (500.81%), lower oil holding capacity (273.495%) and lower surface hydrophobicity. Moreover, the FP–CA complexes had better antioxidant activities than that of FP. Therefore, this study provides more insights for the potential application of FP–CA covalent complexes in functional food processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is widely used in nondestructive tests of asphalt pavements, but the characteristics of its detection data need to be extracted manually, and it is very difficult to determine the hidden distress efficiently and accurately inside the asphalt pavement. Therefore, to recognize hidden distress inside asphalt pavement intelligently and improve the efficiency and accuracy of GPR for asphalt pavement detection, this research used the convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm combined with GPR detection technology. Significantly, the image of the dielectric properties distribution of the road was obtained by processing the GPR detection data, and the GPR detection image data set was established. Moreover, this research dealt with the imbalance of the data set by weighting the loss value. Next, this research designed a CNN model with a simple structure, called visual GPR (VGPR), and used the GPR image data set to train, validate, and test the VGPR. Finally, the model was fine-tuned according to the results, and the optimal hyperparameters were selected. The results show that VGPR converges fast in the training process, and no obvious overfitting phenomenon exists. During the test, the weighted average F1 score in the comprehensive metrics reached 99.626%, indicating that VGPR has excellent generalization performance. When VGPR uses a graphics processing unit for computing, the image recognition efficiency can meet the engineering requirements. A comparison of VGPR with other CNN models reveals that when using the same GPR detection image data set, VGPR has the best recognition effect. In summary, the method detailed herein can quickly and accurately identify the hidden distress of the asphalt pavement and provide a guarantee for the maintenance and operation of the expressway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the shale oil production rate and save fracturing costs, based on dynamic production data, a production-oriented optimization method for fracture spacing of multi-stage fractured horizontal wells is proposed in this study. First, M. Brown et al.'s trilinear seepage flow models and their pressure and flow rate solutions are applied. Second, deconvolution theory is introduced to normalize the production data. The data of variable pressure and variable flow rate are, respectively, transformed into the pressure data under unit flow rate and the flow rate data under unit production pressure drop; and the influence of data error is eliminated. Two kinds of typical curve of the normalized data are analyzed using the pressure and flow rate solutions of M. Brown et al.'s models. The two fitting methods constrain each other. Thus, reservoir and fracture parameters are interpretated. A practical model has been established to more accurately describe the seepage flow behavior in shale oil reservoirs. Third, using Duhamel's principle and the rate solution, the daily and cumulative production rate under any variable production pressure can be obtained. The productivity can be more accurately predicted. Finally, the analysis method is applied to analyze the actual dynamic production data. The fracture spacing of a shale oil producing well in an actual block is optimized from the aspects of production life, cumulative production, economic benefits and other influencing factors, and some significant conclusions are obtained. The research results show that with the goal of maximum cumulative production, the optimal fracture spacing is 5.5 m for 5 years and 11.4 m for 10 years. All in all, the fracture spacing optimization and design theory of multi-stage fractured horizontal wells is enriched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lactobacillus plantarum is a kind of probiotic that benefits the host by regulating the gut microbiota, but it is easily damaged when passing through the gastrointestinal tract, hindering its ability to reach the destination and reducing its utilization value. Encapsulation is a promising strategy for solving this problem. In this study, transglutaminase (TGase)-crosslinked gelatin (GE)/sodium hexametaphosphate (SHMP) hydrogels were used to encapsulate L. plantarum. The effects of TGase concentration and drying method on the physiochemical properties of the hydrogels were determined. The results showed that at a TGase concentration of 9 U/gGE, the hardness, chewiness, energy storage modulus, and apparent viscosity of the hydrogel encapsulation system were maximized. This concentration produced more high-energy isopeptide bonds, strengthening the interactions between molecules, forming a more stable three-dimensional network structure. The survival rate under the simulated gastrointestinal conditions and storage stability of L. plantarum were improved at this concentration. The thermal stability of the encapsulation system dried via microwave vacuum freeze drying (MFD) was slightly higher than that when dried via freeze drying (FD). The gel structure was more stable, and the activity of L. plantarum decreased more slowly during the storage period when dried using MFD. This research provides a theoretical basis for the development of encapsulation technology of probiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the complex ocean environment, the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is subject to the multiple uncertainties including deterministic uncertainties and stochastic uncertainties, which greatly degrade the control performance. To solve this problem, a novel robust control strategy using combined uncertainty and disturbance estimator (UDE) and unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is proposed for the path-following control (PFC) of the underactuated AUV under multiple uncertainties in this paper. First, the UDE technique is adopted to handle the deterministic uncertainties, including deterministic components of environmental disturbances, parameter uncertainties, and unmodeled dynamics, etc. Second, the uncertainty of unactuated lateral channel, which cannot be dealt with by the UDE, is treated as an unknown parameter. Also, to tackle the stochastic uncertainties, which is often ignored in previous studies, including stochastic components of environmental disturbances, measurement noise, and the estimation errors of UDE which are treated as the process noise, the augmented UKF technique is adopted to jointly estimate the system states and the lateral channel unknown parameter. Finally, extensive numerical simulations and comparative analyses are presented to verify the efficiency and robustness of the proposed control strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle re-identification research under surveillance cameras has yielded impressive results. However, the challenge of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based vehicle re-identification (ReID) presents a high degree of flexibility, mainly due to complicated shooting angles, occlusions, low discrimination of top–down features, and significant changes in vehicle scales. To address this, we propose a novel dual mixing attention network (DMANet) to extract discriminative features robust to variations in viewpoint. Specifically, we first present a plug-and-play dual mixing attention module (DMAM) to capture pixel-level pairwise relationships and channel dependencies, where DMAM is composed of spatial mixing attention (SMA) and channel mixing attention (CMA). First, the original feature is divided according to the spatial and channel dimensions to obtain multiple subspaces. Then, a learnable weight is applied to capture the dependencies between local features in the mixture space. Finally, the features extracted from all subspaces are aggregated to promote their comprehensive feature interaction. In addition, DMAM can be easily plugged into any depth of the backbone network to improve vehicle recognition. The experimental results show that the proposed structure performs better than the representative method in the UAV-based vehicle ReID. Our code and models will be published publicly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fault slip induced by gas injection and extraction cycles in underground gas storage (UGS) sites have been reported in many countries. Knowledges of the contemporary in situ stress condition and its evolution with gas injection and extraction cycles are crucial to estimate the fault-slip tendency ( T s ). Using the Wx-1 UGS reservoir in the Turpan Basin (China) as an example, we studied the evolution of the stress state and fault-slip tendency associated with the injection and extraction cycles. To assess the minimum horizontal stress (Shmin) in the storage reservoir and its caprock, we conduct flowback-assisted minifrac tests to measure the magnitudes. The magnitudes of maximum horizontal stress (Shmax) were estimated and constrained by multiple sources. The 3D in situ stress field was constructed by the finite-element method (FEM), constrained by field stress measurements. Using coupled reservoir–geomechanical simulations, we estimated the changes in stress state over time and the tendency for fault slip in response to gas injection and extraction. The results showed that (1) the in situ stress state at Wx-1 UGS field is a strike-slip (SS) faulting stress state; (2) for fault-slip analysis, decoupled analysis considering only the pore pressure-induced fault slip can overestimate the pore pressure needed to cause the fault slip ( P sf ), while coupled analysis using a poroelastic FEM formulation considers both pore pressure and injection-induced shear stress changes and can provide more reasonable estimates of P sf ; (3) both the mean effective stresses ( p ′ ) and shear stresses (τ ) changes with the injection and extraction cycles; (4) the fault-slip tendency increases continuously with gas injection and decreases with gas extraction; (5) the faults striking at low angles with respect to the orientation of Shmax are critically stressed in the contemporary in situ stress field, and the possibility of injection-induced fault slippage is the controlling factor of the maximum operation pressure (MOP) of this UGS site. Highlights: Flowback-assisted minifrac tests were conducted in the low-permeability caprock formations to measure the in situ stress conditions efficiently. 3D in situ stress field was constructed by FEM simulations and constrained by minifrac tests. Coupled reservoir–geomechanics simulations were used to investigate the in situ stress evolution with gas injection and production cycles and to analyze the fault-slip tendency. The slip tendency undergoes temporal changes due to the fluctuation of both shear stress and mean effective stress during injection and extraction cycles. The maximum operation pressure (MOP) of this UGS site is determined by the likelihood of fault slippage caused by injection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Global warming leading to heat stress (HS) is becoming a major challenge for broiler production. This study aimed to explore the protective effects of seaweed (Enteromorpha prolifera) polysaccharides (EPS) on the intestinal barrier function, microbial ecology, and performance of broilers under HS. A total of 144 yellow-feathered broilers (male, 56 days old) with 682.59 ± 7.38 g were randomly assigned to 3 groups: 1) TN (thermal neutral zone, 23.6 ± 1.8 °C), 2) HS (heat stress, 33.2 ± 1.5 °C for 10 h/d), and 3) HSE (HS + 0.1% EPS). Each group contained 6 replicates with 8 broilers per replicate. The study was conducted for 4 weeks; feed intake and body weights were measured at the end of weeks 2 and 4. At the end of the feeding trial, small intestine samples were collected for histomorphology, antioxidant, secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA) content, apoptosis, gene and protein expression analysis; cecal contents were also collected for microbiota analysis based on 16S rDNA sequencing. Results: Dietary EPS promoted the average daily gain (ADG) of broilers during 3–4 weeks of HS (P < 0.05). At the end of HS on broilers, the activity of total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD), glutathione S-transferase (GST), and the content of sIgA in jejunum were improved by EPS supplementation (P < 0.05). Besides, dietary EPS reduced the epithelial cell apoptosis of jejunum and ileum in heat-stressed broilers (P < 0.05). Addition of EPS in HS group broilers' diet upregulated the relative mRNA expression of Occludin, ZO-1, γ-GCLc and IL-10 of the jejunum (P < 0.05), whereas downregulated the relative mRNA expression of NF-κB p65, TNF-α and IL-1β of the jejunum (P < 0.05). Dietary EPS increased the protein expression of Occludin and ZO-1, whereas it reduced the protein expression of NF-κB p65 and MLCK (P < 0.01) and tended to decrease the protein expression of TNF-α (P = 0.094) in heat-stressed broilers. Furthermore, the proportions of Bacteroides and Oscillospira among the three groups were positively associated with jejunal apoptosis and pro-inflammatory cytokine expression (P < 0.05) and negatively correlated with jejunal Occludin level (P < 0.05). However, the proportions of Lactobacillus, Barnesiella, Subdoligranulum, Megasphaera, Collinsella, and Blautia among the three groups were positively related to ADG (P < 0.05). Conclusions: EPS can be used as a feed additive in yellow-feathered broilers. It effectively improves growth performance and alleviates HS-induced intestinal injury by relieving inflammatory damage and improving the tight junction proteins expression. These beneficial effects may be related to inhibiting NF-κB/MLCK signaling pathway activation and regulation of cecal microbiota. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risley-prism-based image sensors can expand the imaging field of view through beam control. The larger the top angle of the prism, the higher the magnification of the field of view, but at the same time, it aggravates the problem of imaging aberrations, which also puts higher requirements on the aberration correction method for the Risley-prism-based image sensor. To improve the speed, accuracy, and stability of the aberration correction process, an automatic calibration method for the Risley-prism-based image sensor is proposed based on a two-axis turntable. The image datasets of the calibration plate with different prism rotation angles and object distances are acquired using a two-axis turntable. Then, the images of the calibration plate are pre-processed using the bicubic interpolation algorithm. The calibration parameters are finally calculated, and parameter optimization is performed. The experimental results verify the feasibility of this automated calibration method. The reprojection error of the calibration is within 0.26 pixels when the distance of the imaging sensor is 3.6 m from the object, and the fine aberration correction results are observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most energy-saving testing methods for plunger pumps use hydraulic motors. The loading test of coal mine emulsion pumps generally uses an overflow valve as the loading unit, which is characterized by high energy consumption. The coal mine emulsion pump uses emulsion as the transmission medium, and the viscosity and lubricity of the emulsion are much lower than those of hydraulic oil, which creates great difficulties in the development of high water-based hydraulic products. The nominal flow rate of the emulsion motor is much smaller than that of the emulsion pump, and there is no mature and reliable water-based flow control valve. Based on the above reasons, traditional energy-saving testing methods cannot be utilized for the testing process of emulsion pumps. The loading test of emulsion pumps generally uses an overflow valve as the loading unit, and during the testing process, all electrical energy is converted into internal energy, resulting in very high energy consumption. This article proposes an energy-saving testing system for emulsion pumps based on multiple emulsion motors in parallel. In order to solve the flow regulation problem of each parallel branch, a flow-intelligent control algorithm is proposed that utilizes the pressure difference flow characteristics of digital relief valves combined with artificial neural network predictive control. Firstly, the feasibility of the proposed system and method is theoretically verified through the analysis of the mathematical model of the digital relief valve. Secondly, further verification is carried out by establishing simulation and testing platforms. The simulation results show that the energy recovery efficiency of the system exceeds 53%. The experimental results show that the proposed testing system has a pressure control error of less than 1%, a flow control error of about 5%, and a maximum overshoot of about 9 L/min relative to the steady-state flow rate. The control accuracy and system stability are high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous studies have reported that transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation can significantly decrease the time to emergence from intraperitoneal ketamine-xylazine anaesthesia in rats. However, how transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation modulates neural activity in anaesthetized rats is unclear. Methods: In this study, to answer this question, we used low-intensity transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) to stimulate the brain tissue of propofol-anaesthetized mice, recorded local field potentials (LFPs) in the mouse motor cortex and electromyography (EMG) signals from the mouse neck, and analysed the emergence and recovery time, mean absolute power, relative power and entropy of local field potentials. Results: We found that the time to emergence from anaesthesia in the TUS group (20.3 ± 1.7 min) was significantly less than that in the Sham group (32 ± 2.6 min). We also found that compared with the Sham group, 20 min after low-intensity TUS during recovery from anaesthesia, (1) the absolute power of local field potentials in mice was significantly reduced in the [1–4 Hz] and [13–30 Hz] frequency bands and significantly increased in the [55–100 Hz], [100–140 Hz] and [140–200 Hz] frequency bands; (2) the relative power of local field potentials in mice was enhanced at [30–45 Hz], [100–140 Hz] and [140–200 Hz] frequency bands; (3) the entropy of local field potentials ([1-200 Hz]) was increased. Conclusion: These results demonstrate that low-intensity TUS can effectively modulate neural activities in both awake and anaesthetized mice and has a positive effect on recovery from propofol anaesthesia in mice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced ready-to-eat foods, which can be consumed directly or only need simple processed before consumption, refer to the products that processing with cutting-edge food science and technology and have better quality attribute. Cold chain and chemical addition are commonly used options to ensure microbial safety of high moisture advanced ready-to-eat foods. However, this requires freezing/thawing processing at high cost or has undesirable residue. Dehydration treatment has the potential to compensate those shortcomings. This article reviewed the positive effects of dehydration on advanced ready-to-eat foods, current application status of dehydration technologies, novel dehydration related technologies and the pathogenic bacteria control of products. It is observed that dehydration treatment is receiving increasing attention for ready-to-eat foods including space foods, 3 D-printed personalized foods and formula foods for special medical purposes. Recently developed drying technologies such as pulsed spouted microwave freeze-drying and infrared freeze-drying have attracted much interest due to their excellent drying characteristics. Finally, intelligent drying, dehydration-nano-hybridization and dehydration-induced multi-dimensional modification technology are some of the emerging R and D areas in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A microfluidic chip is adopted to study the droplet dynamic behaviors when flowing through the T-junction. Large ranges of initial length (Lo/w = 0.8–2.8), capillary number (Cao = 0.030–0.165), and viscosity ratio (λo = 0.16–5.90) are considered to identify the deformation characteristics and the breakup results. Three flow patterns are categorized in the T-junction, and critical conditions are expressed as power law relations between the normalized length and the capillary number. The coupling competition exists between outer neck thinning and inner droplet shifting, which influences the deformation process. A state diagram indicating the number of breakups is built through two key features of the shifting behavior, namely, the shifting distance and the shifting velocity. With increasing viscosity ratio, thresholds of both breakups decrease due to the reduced deformation resistance caused by vortex flow and the weakened coupling effect, resulting from the suppressed shifting behavior. The shell thickness via twice-breakup pattern depends solely on the viscosity ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Coulomb interaction effect in disordered conductors has long been a topic of fundamental importance and intense attention. Here, we systematically study the influence of this effect on the electrical transport of a series of ∼ 1 μ m thick Sn-doped indium oxide (ITO) films grown at different oxygen partial pressures. We find that both the electrical conductivity σ and Hall coefficient R H vary linearly with T from ∼ 35 K down to ∼ 4 K. The extracted electron screening factor F ~ σ of each film is nearly in agreement with the corresponding theoretical value. Moreover, the F ~ σ values increase with decreasing carrier concentration in the ITO films, which originates from less screening effect of electrons and enhanced Coulomb interaction. These features are consistent with conventional three-dimensional Coulomb interaction theories. We explore the long-standing puzzle of the carrier concentration dependence of F ~ σ. Our results provide the fundamental physics to modulate the intensity of the Coulomb interaction effect, which may be useful to optimize the performance of electron transport for nanoscale electronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of flexible indium tin oxide (ITO-free) electrochromic devices has steadily attracted widespread attention in wearable devices. Recently, silver nanowire/poly(dimethylsiloxane) (AgNW/PDMS)-based stretchable conductive films have raised great interest as ITO-free substrate for flexible electrochromic devices. However, it is still difficult to achieve high transparency with low resistance due to the weak binding force between AgNW and PDMS with low surface energy because of the possibility of detaching and sliding occurring at the interface. Herein, we propose a method to pattern the pre-cured PDMS (PT-PDMS) by stainless steel film as a template through constructed micron grooves and embedded structure, to prepare a stretchable AgNW/PT-PDMS electrode with high transparency and high conductivity. The stretchable AgNW/PT-PDMS electrode can be stretched (5000 cycles), twisted, and surface friction (3M tape for 500 cycles) without significant loss of conductivity (ΔR/R ≈ 16% and 27%). In addition, with the increase of stretch (stretching to 10–80%), the AgNW/PT-PDMS electrode transmittance increased, and the conductivity increased at first and then decreased. It is possible that the AgNWs in the micron grooves are spread during PDMS stretching, resulting in a larger spreading area and higher transmittance of the AgNWs film; at the same time, the nanowires between the grooves come into contact, thus increasing conductivity. An electrochromic electrode constructed with the stretchable AgNW/PT-PDMS exhibited excellent electrochromic behavior (transmittance contrast from ~61% to ~57%) even after 10,000 bending cycles or 500 stretching cycles, indicating high stability and mechanical robustness. Notably, this method of preparing transparent stretch electrodes based on patterned PDMS provides a promising solution for developing electronic devices with unique structures and high performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improvements in and the assessment of land use efficiency are crucial pillars for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study reviews 208 representative papers, oral reports, and project reports to provide a systematic and comprehensive understanding of the current status and future trends of research on land use efficiency assessment. The findings reveal that (1) the number of papers on land use efficiency assessment is rapidly increasing, with research primarily focused on environmental science and ecology (n = 157, 75.48%). (2) Quantitative models are gaining popularity for land use efficiency assessment, with more than 46.63% of the studies adopting the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. (3) The definition and analysis perspectives of land use efficiency are diverse, but research on relative land use efficiency and comprehensive analysis perspectives accounts for a significant proportion. (4) Constructing a large and complex model that incorporates geospatial effects, big data, and computer technology is a hot topic for future research methods. On the other hand, conducting land use efficiency research on a global scale is more conducive to achieving the SDGs. (5) The core to improving land use efficiency lies in the joint implementation of multi-pronged measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Infrared‐assisted spouted bed drying (IRSBD) is an innovative hybrid drying technology based on infrared drying and spouted bed drying, which has the advantages of higher drying efficiency and better uniformity. Temperature is an important process parameter that affects drying characteristics and product quality. Considering the overall quality of the product, drying at a constant temperature may not be the best solution. However, there is a lack of research on dynamically varying drying schemes. In this study, the effects of constant and variable temperature drying processes on the drying characteristics, uniformity, energy consumption, and quality of Chinese yams were evaluated. Results: The shortest drying time and lowest energy consumption were obtained by IRSBD at 70 °C, followed by staged rising temperature drying (SRTD). However, SRTD achieved the best drying uniformity. The Peleg model could describe the dehydration kinetics of dried yams well (R2 > 0.99). A high drying temperature (70 °C) favored the preservation of bioactive compounds (polyphenols and flavonoids) and gave the best antioxidant activity and equilibrium rehydration ratio of dried yams but resulted in poor color. Samples dried with SRTD showed comparable good antioxidant activity and better color than those dried at 70 °C. Conclusion: A reasonable variable temperature drying scheme using IRSBD is considered to be better when considering the drying performance and overall quality of the products. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delayed ripening in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) increases the supply of fruit during the growing season. Small heat shock proteins (sHSPs) are expressed during specific periods of plant growth and development. SlHSP17.7 gene is specifically expressed at different stages of fruit ripening; however, the mechanism by which SlHSP17.7 (Solyc06g076540.1.1) regulates tomato fruit ripening remains unclear. SlHSP17.7-RNA interference (RNAi) lines were already generated from Solanum chmielewskii in previous study. The transverse diameter, vertical diameter, average single fruit weight, and abscisic acid (ABA) levels of all fruit remarkably decreased. The fruit became hard at the mature-green stage, and the hardness gradually decreased as the fruit ripened. The expression of fruit softening-related genes significantly increased from the mature-green to completely mature stages. Silencing SlHSP17.7 through RNAi delayed ripening by 10 days. These results suggest that SlHSP17.7 may delay fruit ripening by regulating the ABA content. This study provides a new theoretical basis for regulating fruit ripening by sHSPs and broadens the understanding of the regulation pathways of fruit ripening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous development of conventional oil and gas resources, the strategic transformation of energy structure is imminent. Shale condensate gas reservoir has high development value because of its abundant reserves. However, due to the multi-scale flow of shale gas, adsorption and desorption, the strong stress sensitivity of matrix and fractures, the abnormal condensation phase transition mechanism, high-speed non-Darcy seepage in artificial fractures, and heterogeneity of reservoir and multiphase flows, the multi-scale nonlinear seepage mechanisms are extremely complicated in shale condensate gas reservoirs. A certain theoretical basis for the engineering development can be provided by mastering the percolation law of shale condensate gas reservoirs, such as improvement of productivity prediction and recovery efficiency. The productivity evaluation method of shale condensate gas wells based on empirical method is simple in calculation but poor in reliability. The characteristic curve analysis method has strong reliability but a great dependence on the selection of the seepage model. The artificial intelligence method can deal with complex data and has a high prediction accuracy. Establishing an efficient shale condensate gas reservoir development simulation technology and accurately predicting the production performance of production wells will help to rationally formulate a stable and high-yield mining scheme, so as to obtain better economic benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensors have been used in various agricultural production scenarios due to significant advances in the Agricultural Internet of Things (Ag-IoT), leading to smart agriculture. Intelligent control or monitoring systems rely heavily on trustworthy sensor systems. Nonetheless, sensor failures are likely due to various factors, including key equipment malfunction or human error. A faulty sensor can produce corrupted measurements, resulting in incorrect decisions. Early detection of potential faults is crucial, and fault diagnosis techniques have been proposed. The purpose of sensor fault diagnosis is to detect faulty data in the sensor and recover or isolate the faulty sensors so that the sensor can finally provide correct data to the user. Current fault diagnosis technologies are based mainly on statistical models, artificial intelligence, deep learning, etc. The further development of fault diagnosis technology is also conducive to reducing the loss caused by sensor failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-stage fractured horizontal wells are extensively used in unconventional reservoir; hence, optimizing the spacing between these hydraulic fractures is essential. Fracture spacing is an important factor that influences the production efficiency and costs. In this study, maximum fracture spacing in low-permeability liquid reservoirs is studied by building an integrated flow model incorporating key petrophysical characteristics. First, a kinematic equation for non-Darcy seepage flow is constructed using the fractal theory to consider the non-homogeneous characteristics of the stimulated rock volume area (StRV) and its stress sensitivity. Then, the kinematic equation is used to build an integrated mathematical model of one-dimensional steady-state flow within the StRV to analytically determine the pressure distribution in StRV. The resultant pressure distribution is utilized to propose an optimal value for the maximum fracture spacing. Finally, the effects of fractal index, initial matrix permeability, depletion, and stress sensitivity coefficient on the limit disturbed distance and pressure distribution are studied. This study not only enriches the fundamental theory of nonlinear seepage flow mechanics but also provides some technical guidance for choosing appropriate fracture spacing in horizontal wells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]