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Short texts on social platforms often suffer from insufficient emotional semantic expressions, sparse features, and polysemy. To enhance the accuracy achieved by sentiment analysis for short texts, this paper proposes an emoji-based multifeature fusion sentiment analysis model (EMFSA). The model mines the sentiments of emojis, topics, and text features. Initially, a pretraining method for feature extraction is employed to enhance the semantic expressions of emotions in text by extracting contextual semantic information from emojis. Following this, a sentiment- and emoji-masked language model is designed to prioritize the masking of emojis and words with implicit sentiments, focusing on learning the emotional semantics contained in text. Additionally, we proposed a multifeature fusion method based on a cross-attention mechanism by determining the importance of each word in a text from a topic perspective. Next, this method is integrated with the original semantic information of emojis and the enhanced text features, attaining improved sentiment representation accuracy for short texts. Comparative experiments conducted with the state-of-the-art baseline methods on three public datasets demonstrate that the proposed model achieves accuracy improvements of 2.3%, 10.9%, and 2.7%, respectively, validating its effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, utilities firms increase their commitments to corporate social responsibility (CSR), emphasizing on addressing environmental concerns over non‐environmental ones. The intensified focus on CSR is especially significant in utilities firms with substantial institutional ownerships. Concurrent to the increase in CSR, utilities firms also exhibit a decline in advertising expenditures, a trend more pronounced in firms facing more financial constraints. Our findings suggest that utilities firms substitute CSR for advertising following the Fukushima accident. This shift appears driven by investors' heightened focus on environmental issues in the aftermath of the accident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To evaluate the advantages and problems in the diagnosis and treatment of diabetic foot (DF) patients by analyzing the results of a 5-year follow-up of the organ system based (TOSF) treatment model. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted in 229 patients with diabetic foot. Chi-square test and rank-sum test were used to analyze the effects of patients' general condition, behavioral and nutritional status, degree of infection (inflammatory markers), comorbidity, diabetic foot grade/classification, and revascularization on readmission rate, amputation rate, all-cause mortality, incidence of other complications, and wound healing time. Logistic regression was used to analyze the risk factors affecting the prognosis of diabetic foot. Kaplan-Meier survival curve was used to analyze the differences in amputation rate and mortality rate at each time point. Results: This study showed that nutritional status, degree of infection, and revascularization influenced readmission rates. General condition, behavior and nutritional status, degree of infection, Wagner grade and revascularization affect the amputation rate. General conditions, behavioral and nutritional status, degree of infection, comorbidities, classification and revascularization affect the mortality of patients. Age and white blood cell(WBC) count affected the incidence of other complications. Influence of infection degree and Wagner grade and revascularization in patients with wound healing time. Revascularization was an independent protective factor for readmission, amputation, and mortality.Elevated serum inflammatory markers are an independent risk factor for amputation. Hypoproteinemia is an independent risk factor for mortality. Conclusion: In the "TOSF" diagnosis and treatment pattern, diabetic foot patients have a good prognosis. Special attention should be paid to the screening and revascularization of lower extremity vascular disease in patients with diabetic foot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obstruction and/or reflux compromise during venous emptying can facilitate different pathophysiologies in chronic venous insufficiency (CVI). We present a patient with persistent lower limb CVI edema caused by post-thrombotic syndrome (PTS), who responded well to femoral vein valve therapy via axillary vein bypass after unsuccessful valvuloplasty, and led a normal life. During a 12 month observation period, bridging vessels completely restored original anatomical structures. In a literature study, no similar surgeries were reported, but we show that this operation may be feasible in selected patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relationship Extraction (RE) is a central task in information extraction. The use of entity mapping to address complex scenarios with overlapping triples, such as CasRel, is gaining traction, yet faces challenges such as inadequate consideration of sentence continuity, sample imbalance and data noise. This research introduces an entity mapping-based method CasRelBLCF building on CasRel. The main contributions include: A joint decoder for the head entity, utilizing Bi-LSTM and CRF, integration of the Focal Loss function to tackle sample imbalance and a reinforcement learning-based noise reduction method for handling dataset noise. Experiments on relation extraction datasets indicate the superiority of the CasRelBLCF model and the enhancement on model's performance of the noise reduction method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The sandy environment is one of the typical environments in which helicopters operate. Air-sand two-phase flow in sandy environments may be an important factor affecting flight safety. Taking a typical example, this paper aims to investigate the aerodynamic and rotor trim characteristics of the UH-60 helicopter in sandy environments. Design/methodology/approach: A computational study is conducted to simulate the air-sand flow over airfoils based on the Euler–Lagrange framework. The simulation uses the S-A turbulence model and the two-way momentum coupling methodology. Additionally, the trim characteristics of the UH-60 rotor are calculated based on the isolated rotor trim algorithm. Findings: The simulation results show that air-sand flow significantly affects the aerodynamic characteristics of the SC1095 airfoil and the SC1094R8 airfoil. The presence of sand particles leads to a decrease in lift and an increase in drag. The calculation results of the UH-60 helicopter rotor indicate that the thrust decreases and the torque increases in the sandy environment. To maintain a steady forward flight in sandy environments, it is necessary to increase the collective pitch and the longitudinal cyclic pitch. Originality/value: In this paper, the aerodynamic characteristics of airfoils and the trim characteristics in the air-sand flow of the UH-60 helicopter are discussed, which might be a new view to analyse the impact of sandy environments on helicopter safety and manoeuvring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental pollution caused by the use of fossil fuels is becoming increasingly serious, necessitating the adoption of clean energy solutions. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have attracted great attention due to their high energy density and currently occupy a dominant commercial position. Metal oxide materials have emerged as promising anode materials for the next generation of LIBs, thanks to their high theoretical capacity. However, the practical application of these materials is hindered by their substantial volume expansion during lithium storage and poor electrical conductivity. In this work, a zinc/iron bimetallic hybrid oxide composite, ZnO/ZnFe2O4/NC, is prepared using ZIF-8 as a precursor (ZIF-8, one of the metal organic frameworks). The N-doped porous carbon composite improves the volume change and optimizes the lithium-ion and electron transport. Meanwhile, the ZnFe2O4 and ZnO synergistically enhance the electrochemical activity of the anode through the built-in heterojunction to promote the reaction kinetics at the interface. As a result, the material delivers an excellent cycling performance of 604.7 mAh g−1 even after 300 cycles of 1000 mA g−1. This study may provide a rational design for the heterostructure and doping engineering of anodes for high-performance lithium-ion batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate wind power data prediction is crucial to increase wind energy usage since wind power data are characterized by uncertainty and randomness, which present significant obstacles to the scheduling of power grids. This paper proposes a hybrid model for wind power prediction based on complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN), sample entropy (SE), bidirectional long short-term memory network (BiLSTM), and Markov chain (MC). First, CEEMDAN is used to decompose the wind power series into a series of subsequences at various frequencies, and then SE is employed to reconstruct the wind power series subsequences to reduce the model's complexity. Second, the long short-term memory (LSTM) network is optimized, the BiLSTM neural network prediction method is used to predict each reconstruction component, and the results of the different component predictions are superimposed to acquire the total prediction results. Finally, MC is used to correct the model's total prediction results to increase the accuracy of the predictions. Experimental validation with measured data from wind farms in a region of Xinjiang, and computational results demonstrate that the proposed model can better fit wind power data than other prediction models and has greater prediction accuracy and generalizability for enhancing wind power prediction performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we have investigated the effect of martensite/bainite dual phase content on the mechanical properties of EA4T high-speed axle steel. For evaluation and control of the strength, ductility, and toughness of steel, the microstructure of lath martensite (LM) and granular bainite (GB) was clarified through an optical microscope (OM), electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Besides, the tensile fracture morphology was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). For this purpose, this study conducted a quantitative analysis of the LM and GB fractions using the Pro Imaging software-2018 of OM. The remarkable effect of the LM/GB structure on mechanical properties is discussed. The results have shown that by increasing the volume fraction of the GB structure, the LM structure is refined and its microhardness and strength are improved. Meanwhile, the micro strength of LM follows the Hall–Petch relationship with the lath martensite packet size. Subsequently, the mechanical property prediction model of EA4T steel based on the LM/GB content was established by regression analysis of all experiment dates. When the LM fraction in the steel is about 40–70%, a superior combination of strength, ductility, and toughness can be obtained in EA4T steel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: WAC-antisense RNA1 (WAC-AS1) is a newly identified long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) implicated in the prognosis and development of a few types of tumors. However, the correlations of WAC-AS1 with immune infiltration and patient prognosis in pan-cancer remain unclear. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the prognostic value and immunological functions of WAC-AS1 across 33 different types of cancers. Methods: To investigate the potential oncogenic roles of WAC-AS1, bioinformatics analyses were performed using the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype Tissue-Expression (GTEx) datasets. The correlations of WAC-AS1 with prognosis, clinical phenotype, tumor mutational burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI), tumor regulation-related genes, tumor microenvironment, immune cell infiltration, and drug resistance to commonly used chemotherapy drugs in different types of tumors were explored. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) and Gene Set Variation Analysis (GSVA) were performed to explore the biological functions of WAC-AS1 in tumors. In situ hybridization (ISH) was performed in tissue microarray (TMA) to confirm the expression of WAC-AS1 in multiple tumor tissues. Results: WAC-AS1 showed aberrant expression in most cancers when compared to the normal tissues. It also has prognostic value in multiple types of cancers. Elevated WAC-AS1 expression was associated with poor prognosis and overall survival in adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA), and liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC). A significant negative correlation between WAC-AS1 expression and overall survival was observed in brain lower-grade glioma (LGG), pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD), and skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM). The expression of WAC-AS1 also showed a correlation with clinical stage in six types of tumors, and with tumor mutational burden and microsatellite instability in several different types of cancers. The immune scores of those cancers were found to be significant. Additionally, the effectiveness of fluorouracil and four other anticancer drugs was significantly different based on the expression of WAC-AS1 in these cancers. Moreover, the ISH results showed in six types of tumors, the expression of WAC-AS1 was consistent with the Pan-cancer analysis using TCGA and GTEx database. Conclusions: These results indicate an intensive involvement of WAC-AS1 in the regulation of immune responses, immune cell infiltration, and malignant properties in various types of cancers, suggesting that WAC-AS1 may serve as a prognostic marker across diverse types of cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a four-antenna module in a capsule endoscopy is proposed for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) operation to achieve the purpose of real-time transmission of high-resolution images with high data rates. For compactness, the proposed design adopts conformal architecture and fully utilizes the inner wall space of the capsule body to accommodate four antennas in the very limited space of the capsule endoscope. For the availability of MIMO operation, three different technical approaches are used to decouple or improve the isolation between neighboring antenna elements and between diagonal antenna elements. System considerations (interaction between the electronic components and the antenna in the endoscope) and specific absorption ratio (SAR) evaluation are performed to verify the robustness and human safety of the proposed design, respectively. In addition, link margin analysis and MIMO channel parameter studies are carried out to verify the wireless telemetry performance and MIMO operation performance, respectively. Antenna prototypes were fabricated and implanted in minced pork for ex-vivo measurements (S-parameters, gain, and radiation patterns). The measured overlapping impedance bandwidth of the four antenna elements is 120 MHz, which can fully cover the 915 MHz industrial scientific medical (ISM) band. The measured isolation between the neighboring antenna elements and the diagonal antenna elements is better than 20 and 10 dB, respectively. The measured maximum peak realized gain is −18.1 dBi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of electric vehicle (EV) technology under the background of double carbon, a reasonable evaluation of the network planning of EV charging stations is conducive to the long-term stable development of the EV industry. Therefore, this paper proposes a comprehensive evaluation system and method for EV charging networks under the traffic network and power grid coupling. First, an EV travel model is developed based on the travel probability matrix to analyze the spatial and temporal characteristics of EVs. Secondly, the coupling relationship among users, charging network, road network, and the power grid is analyzed, four criteria of user feedback, charging network operation, road network operation impact, and power grid operation impact are proposed, and corresponding evaluation indexes are constructed under each criterion to form a comprehensive evaluation index system. Furthermore, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and entropy weighting method are used to assign weights to the index layer and the criterion layer respectively, and the improved TOPSIS evaluation method is used to quantitatively analyze the impact of charging networks on different subjects for comprehensive evaluation. Finally, through the comprehensive evaluation of different charging network planning schemes, the effectiveness of the comprehensive evaluation method and model proposed in this paper is verified, which can provide a reference basis for the planning and improvement of EV charging station networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to realize sensorless control of permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) with high performance in low speed region, a novel rotor position observer scheme based on finite control set model predictive control (FCS-MPC) is presented in this paper. Firstly, the FCS-MPC is used to predict the current and drive the PMSM by selecting the optimal control quantity that minimizes the cost function. Next, an adaptive second-order generalized integrator (ASOGI) with adaptive center frequency adjustment was designed to replace the band-pass filter (BPF) in the rotor position observer. The ASOGI can calculate the high frequency value that can be used for position estimation by the controller switching frequency. The current ripple inherent in the FCS-MPC is considered as the response current obtained by the high frequency injection (HFI) method. The current ripple after ASOGI filtering is input to the phase-locked loop (PLL) for phase locking to obtain the estimated rotor position. In addition, adaptive linear (Adaline) neural networks are used to identify sensitive motor parameters online to avoid mismatch of model parameters, which causes degradation of control performance. Simulation experiments and hardware experiments show that this scheme is excellent in both static and dynamic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional charging stations have a single function, which usually does not consider the construction of energy storage facilities, and it is difficult to promote the consumption of new energy. With the gradual increase in the number of new energy vehicles (NEVs), to give full play to the complementary advantages of source-load resources and provide safe, efficient, and economical energy supply services, this paper proposes the optimal operation strategy of a PV-charging-hydrogenation composite energy station (CES) that considers demand response (DR). Firstly, the operation mode of the CES is analyzed, and the CES model, including a photovoltaic power generation system, fuel cell, hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, hydrogenation, and charging, is established. The purpose is to provide energy supply services for electric vehicles (EVs) and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) at the same time. Secondly, according to the travel law of EVs and HFCVs, the distribution of charging demand and hydrogenation demand at different periods of the day is simulated by the Monte Carlo method. On this basis, the following two demand response models are established: charging load demand response based on the price elasticity matrix and interruptible load demand response based on incentives. Finally, a multi-objective optimal operation model considering DR is proposed to minimize the comprehensive operating cost and load fluctuation of CES, and the maximum–minimum method and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) are used to transform this into a linearly weighted single-objective function, which is solved via an improved moth–flame optimization algorithm (IMFO). Through the simulation examples, operation results in four different scenarios are obtained. Compared with a situation not considering DR, the operation strategy proposed in this paper can reduce the comprehensive operation cost of CES by CNY 1051.5 and reduce the load fluctuation by 17.8%, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed model. In addition, the impact of solar radiation and energy recharge demand changes on operations was also studied, and the resulting data show that CES operations were more sensitive to energy recharge demand changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, an antenna with quasi-isotropic radiation pattern is proposed in a 915 MHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band for robust communication with external devices. The overall structure of the proposed antenna is a folded inverted-F antenna (FIFA). In the simulation, the proposed antenna is integrated with dummy electronics to form a fully encapsulated capsule endoscope architecture. These dummy electronics are encapsulated in a copper cylindrical bucket used as the antenna ground to avoid electromagnetic (EM) interference between these dummy electronics and the antenna. The spherical phantom model is used in the initial design of the proposed antenna. Subsequently, an anatomical realistic phantom was used to evaluate the performance of the proposed antenna in a more realistic human environment. The simulated gain variation (GV) of the proposed antenna in the regular spherical phantom is about 8 dB, and the reflection and other factors caused by the irregular shape of the realistic human tissue environment lead to the GV of the antenna in the anatomically realistic phantom that is about 4 dB. The measurement of reflection coefficient and radiation pattern is carried out in a semisolid muscle-mimicking phantom using a fabricated prototype of the proposed antenna. The measured GV value is about 10.5 dB. Finally, the specific absorption ratio (SAR) was calculated to meet the human safety regulations and the communication link budget was calculated to evaluate the wireless biological telemetry performance of the proposed antenna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the effectiveness of long-term air pollution regulatory measures is important for control policy formulation. Efforts have been made using chemical transport modelling and statistical approaches to evaluate the efficacy of the Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP; 2013–2017) and the Blue Sky Protection Campaign (BSPC; 2018–2020) enacted in China. Changes in air quality due to reduction in emissions can be masked by meteorology, making it highly challenging to reveal the real effects of control measures. A knowledge gap still existed with respect to how sources changed before and after the CAAP and BSPC were implemented, respectively, particularly in coastal areas where anthropogenic emissions mixed with additional natural sources (e.g. marine aerosol). This work applied a machine-learning-based meteorological normalization approach to decouple the meteorological effects from air quality trend in a coastal city in northern China (Qingdao). Secondly, the relative changes in source contributions to ambient PM2.5 with a ∼ 10-year observation interval (2011–2012, 2016, and 2019) were also investigated. We discovered that the largest emission reduction section was likely from coal combustion as the meteorologically normalized SO2 dropped by ∼ 15.5 %yr-1 , and the annual average dispersion-normalized SO42- decreased by ∼ 41.5 %. Change in the meteorologically normalized NO2 was relatively stable (∼ 1.0 %yr-1), and NO3- changed inappreciably in 2016–2019 but was significantly higher than that prior to the CAAP. Crustal dust decreased remarkably after the CAAP began. Industrial emissions, for example, steel-related smelting, decreased after 2016 due to the relocation of steel-making enterprises. Note that vehicle emissions were increased in importance as opposed to the other primary sources. Similar to other megacities, Qingdao is also at risk of increased ozone pollution that in turn facilitates secondary-particle formation in the future. The policy assessment approaches applied in this work also work for other places where air quality management is highly in demand to reduce air pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge graph (KG) reasoning improves the perception ability of graph structure features, improving model accuracy and enhancing model learning and reasoning capabilities. This paper proposes a new GraphDIVA model based on the variational reasoning divergent autoencoder (DIVA) model. The network structures and calculation processes of the models are analyzed. The GraphSAGE algorithm is introduced into the path reasoning module to solve the inability of the original model to perceive the features of the graph structure, which leads to a decline in the accuracy rate. Hence, GraphDIVA can achieve a higher accuracy rate with fewer learning iterations. The experiments show the efficiency and effectiveness of our model and proves that our method has a better effect on the accuracy rate and training difficulty than the baseline model on the FB15k-237 and NELL-995 benchmark datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Esophageal cancer (EC) is a common form of malignant tumor in the digestive system that is classified into two types: Esophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCC) and esophageal adenocarcinoma. ESCC is known for its early onset of symptoms, which can be difficult to identify, as well as its rapid progression and tendency to develop drug resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. These factors contribute to the high incidence of disease and low cure rate. Therefore, a diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target need to be identified for ESCC. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are a class of molecules that are transcribed from DNA but do not encode proteins. Initially, ncRNAs were considered to be non-functional segments generated during transcription. However, with advancements in high-throughput sequencing technologies in recent years, ncRNAs have been associated with poor prognosis, drug resistance and progression of ESCC. The present study provides a comprehensive overview of the biogenesis, characteristics and functions of ncRNAs, particularly focusing on microRNA, long ncRNAs and circular RNAs. Furthermore, the ncRNAs that could potentially be used as diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for ESCC are summarized to highlight their application value and prospects in ESCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides an effective solution to the recovery issue of hot acid leaching residue (lead-silver residue) from the hydrometallurgical process of Zn, in the form of low-temperature alkaline smelting. Investigations were carried out to study lead-silver residue as the raw material, sodium carbonate and salt as flux, carbon powder as the reductive agent, and the effects of salt usages, melting temperature, melting time, carbon powder usages, and sodium carbonate usage. The influence of relative factors was also verified. Under the optimum conditions, that is, using salt and sodium carbonate mass ratio as 4/6, melting time 60 min, temperature 900 ℃, carbon powder usage 0.15 times the raw materials, and sodium carbonate usage 1.215 times the raw materials, the average direct recovery of lead and silver reached up to 85.1% and 87.5%, and the average residual rate of lead and silver in the molten residue were 11.0% and 7.8%, respectively. The mechanism of immobilizing sulfur was also studied. The analysis of the XRD pattern showed that iron exists as Fe3O4, sulfur and zinc exist as ZnS, and lead and silver exist as crude lead. This method has one-step lead and silver recovery and sulfur immobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. Dysregulation of cell cycle progression (CCP) is one of the hallmarks of cancer. Here, our study is aimed at developing a CCP-derived gene signature for predicting high-risk population of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods. Our study retrospectively analyzed the transcriptome profiling and clinical information of HCC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) projects. Uni- and multivariate cox regression models were conducted for identifying which hallmarks of cancer were risk factors of HCC. CCP-derived gene signature was developed with LASSO method. The predictive efficacy was verified by ROC curves and subgroup analyses. A nomogram was then generated and validated by ROC, calibration, and decisive curves. Immune cell infiltration was estimated with ssGSEA method. Potential small molecular compounds were predicted via CTRP and CMap analyses. The response to chemotherapeutic agents was evaluated based on the GDSC project. Results. Among hallmarks of cancer, CCP was identified as a dominant risk factor for HCC prognosis. CCP-derived gene signature displayed the favorable predictive efficacy in HCC prognosis independent of other clinicopathological parameters. A nomogram was generated for optimizing risk stratification and quantifying risk evaluation. CCP-derived signature was in relation to immune cell infiltration, HLA, and immune checkpoint expression. Combining CTRP and CMap analyses, fluvastatin was identified as a promising therapeutic agent against HCC. Furthermore, CCP-derived signature might be applied for predicting the response to doxorubicin and gemcitabine. Conclusion. Collectively, CCP-derived gene signature was a promising marker in prediction of survival outcomes and therapeutic responses for HCC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An electrically small three-dimensional (3-D) antenna is proposed to generate a quasi-isotropic radiation pattern. The proposed antenna consists of a single layer conductor with bilateral symmetrical structure before being wrapped in a cylindrical foam. An H-shaped inductive coupling element is used to feed the antenna to obtain a magnetic dipole and a pair of short electric dipoles after the antenna is wrapped in a cylindrical foam. Therefore, by combining orthogonal complementary dipoles with the same radiation intensity and quadrature phase difference, a quasi-isotropic radiation pattern can be obtained. As a proof of this design, a 3-D antenna structure operating at 2.45 GHz is designed, fabricated and measured. It has been shown that the gain variation of the proposed electrically small antenna (ka = 0.48) in total space is 2.72 dB in simulation and 3.53 dB in measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a novel parametric equivalent magnetic network (EMN) modeling approach for multiobjective optimization of a surface-mounted permanent magnet (SPM) machine. The key is to apply variable meshes under adjustable topology to establish parametric EMN model. First, a novel adjustable cross-shape mesh method with variable sizes and regular permeance is proposed, which can flexibly vary with parameters. The meshes are combined in EMN model to simultaneously achieve high accuracy, high computing efficiency, and structural parameterization. Second, comprehensive sensitivity analyses are utilized to separate variable EMN parameters with the parametric feature. Significant variables are employed in multiobjective differential evolution algorithm with response surface models. Then, the optimal parameters are balanced and determined from Pareto front with improved torque performance. Finally, a prototype is manufactured, and the effectiveness of the proposed EMN-based optimization design method is verified by finite-element analysis and experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Angiotensin I, II (AI, AII) and aldosterone are unstable in plasma specimens at room temperature, making it difficult for collect samples for remote regions in centralized and collaborative studies. Here we introduce a stable storage method which do not require cold conditions.. Methods Acetonitrile was added to the plasma to 60%, and then the supernatants were kept at 4°C and room temperature for 0, 1, 2, 3, 10 and 30 days. AI, AII and aldosterone were extracted and analyzed by chemiluminescence immunoassays. Results AI, AII and aldosterone were well retained in the supernatant under this method. The intra- and inter-day CVs of this method were all below 10%. The levels of AI, AII and aldosterone by this method remained stable for 30 days at room temperature. Conclusion Addition of 60% acetonitrile in the plasma provides a stable storage method for clinical AI, AII and aldosterone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a comprehensive multiobjective optimization design method for a new spoke-type permanent magnet machine with auxiliary salient poles for the improvement of torque performance. The key of this method is to consider the deterministic and robust performances simultaneously. First, the sensitivity analysis is adopted to classify design parameters into different levels and the corresponding optimization techniques are skillfully employed to realize the tradeoff design based on the appropriate model constructed by the response surface methodology. However, inevitable perturbations especially during the mass production will result in big fluctuations of torque performances and affect the reliability and quality of the machine, which are often neglected in deterministic design. Therefore, a robust design method, i.e., the design for six sigma, is presented to address the parametric uncertainties. Afterward, the Monte Carlo analysis is used to obtain the statistic samples and the barebones multiobjective particle swarm optimization algorithm is employed to find the robust optimal solution. The corresponding electromagnetic performances and reliability of the products are compared and analyzed. Finally, a prototype is manufactured and tested to verify the validity of the proposed optimization design method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to meet the industrial manufacturing requirements for high-quality powders, a novel hybrid method for the preparation of spherical fine metal powders by centrifugal atomization of mono-sized droplets obtained by the pulsated orifice ejection method was proposed. The Sn–Pb powders with small size, narrow size distribution, high sphericity, and no satellite powders were obtained by this method. The impact of different process parameters on the powder size, particle size distribution, and powder morphology was investigated. The powder size decreased with the increase of the disk diameter, melting temperature, and rotation speed, and the size of the powder particles exhibited a normal bimodal distribution. The width of the liquid flow lines on the rotation disk was expected to be proportional to the size of the powder. The smallest median particle size D50 of the powders obtained was 21.3 μm with the disk diameter of 15 mm, the melting temperature was 573 K, and the rotation speed was 48000 r/min. The difference between the experimental and theoretical values of the particle sizes was analyzed as well. The median diameter D50 is smaller by a considerable margin compared to traditional theoretical values. In addition, the disintegration mode of the liquid film during the atomization process was also discussed. The direct drop formation mode was considered to exist in this novel method that suggests the possibility to implement the microrefinement and improve the controllability of metal powder preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to study the relationship among soil, water and ice in the thermal conductivity of soil during freezing, we establish the thermal conductivity calculation model based on frozen soil skeleton. The skeleton model consists of the soil skeleton and the ice skeleton, as well as the relationship among the three phases of soil, water and ice. When the temperature decreases to the initial freezing temperature, the pore water far away from the soil particles freezes into ice nuclei first. With the decrease of temperature, the ice core gradually expands to form a perforated pore ice skeleton. The unfrozen water in the frozen soil exists between the soil skeleton and the ice skeleton. According to the ideal model of spherical contact, we put forward the hybrid heat transfer mode which is composed of soil skeleton and ice skeleton, which are independent of each other, soil skeleton mixed with unfrozen water and ice skeleton mixed with unfrozen water. We also establish the three-phase composite heat transfer model of soil, water and ice based on saturated frozen soil and the thermal conductivity model of frozen soil. According to the model, we can obtain the thermal conductivity of frozen soil below 0 °C. Compared with the calculated values of Johansen method and the mixed flow method, the results of transient method show that the calculated value of composite heat transfer method is larger than the measured value in the range of -5 ~0 °C, the reason is that the pore ice skeleton is not mature. When the temperature is below -5 °C, the calculated value of the composite heat transfer method is larger than the measured value, which is due to the hydrothermal migration in the frozen soil. The calculated values of the composite heat transfer method are between those of the Johansen method and those of the mixed flow method. The overall calculation accuracy is better than that of the Johansen method, and the relative difference between the calculated values and the measured values is less than 10%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three tectonic units have been recognized in the Chifeng area, Inner Mongolia, from north to south, including the Qiganmiao accretionary prism, Jiefangyingzi arc belt and Sidaozhangpeng molasse basin, which formed an Andean‐type active continent margin during the early to middle Paleozoic. The Qiganmiao accretionary prism is characterized by a mélange that consists of gabbro, two‐mica quartz schist and basic volcanic rock blocks and heterogeneously deformed marble matrix. Two zircon U‐Pb ages of 446.0±6.3 Ma and 1104±27 Ma have been acquired and been interpreted as the metamorphic and forming ages for the gabbro and two‐mica quartz schist, respectively. The prism formed during the early to middle Paleozoic southward subduction of the Paleo Asian Ocean (PAO) and represents a suture between the North China craton (NCC) and Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB). The Jiefangyingzi arc belt consists of pluton complex and volcanic rocks of the Xibiehe and Badangshan Formations, and Geochronology analysis indicates that the development of it can be divided into two stages. The first stage is represented by the Xibiehe Formation volcanic rocks, which belong to the subalkaline series, enriched LREE and LILE and depleted HFSE, with negative Eu anomalies, and plot in the volcanic arc field in discrimination diagrams. These characters indicate that the Xibiehe Formation results from to the continental arc magmatic activity related to the subduction of the PAO during 400‐420 Ma. Magmatism of the second stage in 380‐390 Ma consists of the Badangshan Formation volcanic rocks. Geochemistry analysis reveals that rhyolite, basaltic andesite and basalt of the Badangshan Formation were developed in continental margin arc setting. Moreover, the basaltic andesite and basalt display positive Sr anomalies, and the basalt have very low Nb/La values, suggesting that fluid is involved in magma evolution and the basalts were contaminated by continental crust. The sequence of Sidaozhangpeng molasse basin is characterized by proximity, coarseness and large thickness, similar to the proximity molasses basin. According to our field investigation, geochronological and geochemical data, combined with previous research in this area, a tectonic evolutionary model for Andes‐type active continental margin of the CAOB has been proposed, including a development of the subduction‐free PAO before 446 Ma, a subduction of the PAO and arc‐related magmatism during 446‐380 Ma, and formation of a molasse basin during 380‐360 Ma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern sparse-to-dense optical flow estimation algorithms usually achieve state-of-art performance. Those algorithms need two steps: matching and interpolation. Matching is often unreliable for very large displacement optical flow due to illumination changes, deformations and occlusion etc. Moreover, conspicuous errors around motion discontinuities still keep serious as most methods consider edge only at interpolation step. The context-adaptive matching (CAM) is proposed for optical flow which is better at large displacement and edge preserving. The CAM is selective in feature extraction, adaptive in flow propagation and search radius adjusting. Selective features are proposed to consider edge preserving in matching step. Except for the usually used SIFT descriptor, the local directional pattern flow (LDPF) is introduced to keep more edge structure, and the oriented fast and rotated brief (ORB) is utilized to select out several most similar candidates. Unlike coarse-to-fine matching, which proposed a propagation step with only neighbors, we propose adaptive propagation to extend the matching candidates in order to improve the possibility of getting right correspondences. Furthermore, guided by prior knowledge and taking advantage of upper layers results, adaptive radius instead of constrained radius are proposed at finer layers. The CAM interpolated by EpicFlow is fast and robust for large displacements especially for fast moving objects and also preserves the edge structure well. Extensive experiments show that our algorithm is on par with the state-of-art optical flow methods on MPI-Sintel, KITTI and Middlebury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the unbalanced radial force of in-wheel switched reluctance motors effect on vehicle performance under stability condition. First, the IWM-EV vehicle model which highlights the new factors of the rotor, stator, SRM vertical force, and airgap deflection was adopted. And the vehicle comparison models were established to make a contrastive study about IWM-EV new structure effects. Then, Routh’s stability criterion method was adopted to judge the vehicle system’s stability condition. It includes two parts: characteristic polynomial of the vehicle system which is served to calculate the IWM-EV system Routh array and Routh’s stability criterion which is used to judge the vehicle system’s stability condition. The effect of the new structure on vehicle performance was further discussed under stability condition. It mainly includes two aspects: vehicle vibration mode analysis which is used to study vehicle vibration characteristics and amplitude-frequency analysis which is served to research transfer response characteristics of the vehicle system. The result shows that the new structure of IWM-EV has a negative effect on vehicle stability performance. The SRM vertical force will change vehicle stability characteristic. In some severe cases, it will even destroy IWM-EV’s stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biochar is derived from the pyrolysis of biomass, and when buried in soil, can act as a long-term soil carbon store. Evidence suggests that biochar can improve soil fertility and crop production in some circumstances. However, the potential for promoting crop growth in agroecosystems is poorly understood, with different reports of soil properties following biochar application. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the spatial variability of soybean growth parameters in different biochar application rates and the reasons for the results obtained. The study used field plots with five biochar application rates (0, 20,40, 80, and 160 t·ha−1). There were 15 field plots in total and the trial was fully randomized with three replications. The biochar was mixed into the topsoil (0–20 cm depth) before the soybean was sown. Soybean growth parameters were determined during the flowering–podding phase. The results showed that biochar not only improved the growth parameters of soybean, but also reduced growth differences in the same treatment, and higher biochar application rates would result in a larger effect size in a certain range (0–103.4 t·ha−1). The leaf area in the no biochar treatment showed moderate variation, whereas the growth parameters (height, stem diameter, and leaf area) showed weak variation in the other biochar treatments; and the growth parameters, when the soybean were subjected to the biochar treatments, had moderate spatial dependence. In addition, the introduction of geostatistical theory can provide a theoretical foundation for further studying biochar–soil–crop system and the spatial variability of soybean growth and their relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Binary code is a kind of special representation of data. With the binary format, hashing framework can be built and a large amount of data can be indexed to achieve fast research and retrieval. Many supervised hashing approaches learn hash functions from data with supervised information to retrieve semantically similar samples. This kind of supervised information can be generated from external data other than pixels. Conventional supervised hashing methods assume a fixed relationship between the Hamming distance and the similar (dissimilar) labels. This assumption leads to too rigid requirement in learning and makes the similar and dissimilar pairs not distinguishable. In this paper, we adopt a large margin principle and define a Hamming margin to formulate such relationship. At the same time, inspired by support vector machine which achieves strong generalization capability by maximizing the margin of its decision surface, we propose a binary hash function in the same manner. A loss function is constructed corresponding to these two kinds of margins and is minimized by a block coordinate descent method. The experiments show that our method can achieve better performance than the state-of-the-art hashing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims/hypothesis: 'Glucotoxicity' is a term used to convey the negative effect of hyperglycaemia on beta cell function; however, the underlying molecular mechanisms that impair insulin secretion and gene expression are poorly defined. Our objective was to define the role of transcription factor v-ets avian erythroblastosis virus E26 oncogene homologue 1 (Ets-1) in beta cell glucotoxicity. Methods: Primary islets and Min6 cells were exposed to high glucose and Ets-1 expression was measured. Recombinant adenovirus and transgenic mice were used to upregulate Ets-1 expression in beta cells in vitro and in vivo, and insulin secretion was assessed. The binding activity of H3/H4 histone on the Ets-1 promoter, and that of forkhead box (FOX)A2, FOXO1 and Ets-1 on the Pdx-1 promoter was measured by chromatin immunoprecipitation and quantitative real-time PCR assay. Results: High glucose induced upregulation of Ets-1 expression and hyperacetylation of histone H3 and H4 at the Ets-1 gene promoter in beta cells. Ets-1 overexpression dramatically suppressed insulin secretion and biosynthesis both in vivo and in vitro. Besides, Ets-1 overexpression increased the activity of FOXO1 but decreased that of FOXA2 binding to the pancreatic and duodenal homeobox 1 (PDX-1) homology region 2 (PH2), resulting in inhibition of Pdx-1 promoter activity and downregulation of PDX-1 expression and activity. In addition, high glucose promoted the interaction of Ets-1 and FOXO1, and the activity of Ets-1 binding to the Pdx-1 promoter. Importantly, PDX-1 overexpression reversed the defect in pancreatic beta cells induced by Ets-1 excess, while knockdown of Ets-1 prevented hyperglycaemia-induced dysfunction of pancreatic beta cells. Conclusions/interpretation: Our observations suggest that Ets-1 links glucotoxicity to pancreatic beta cell dysfunction through inhibiting PDX-1 expression in type 2 diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Band selection is an essential step toward effective and efficient hyperspectral image classification. Traditional supervised band selection methods are often hindered by the problem of lacking enough training samples. To address this problem, we propose a semisupervised band selection method that allows contribution from both labeled and unlabeled hyperspectral pixels. This method first builds a hypergraph model from all hyperspectral samples to measure the similarity among pixels. We show that hypergraph can capture relationship among pixels in both spectral and spatial domain. In the second step, a semisupervised learning method is introduced to propagate class labels to unlabeled samples. Then a linear regression model with group sparsity constraint is used for band selection. Finally, hyperspectral pixels with selected bands are used to train a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. The proposed method is tested on three benchmark datasets. Experimental results demonstrate its advantages over several other band selection methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The vehicle stability involves many aspects, such as the anti-rollover stability in extreme steering operations and the vehicle lateral stability in normal steering operations. The relationships between vehicle stabilities in extreme and normal circumstances obtain less attention according to the present research works. In this paper, the coupling interactions between vehicle anti-rollover and lateral stability, as well as the effect of road excitation, are taken into account on the vehicle rollover analysis. The results in this paper indicate that some parameters influence the different vehicle stabilities diversely or even contradictorily. And it has been found that there are contradictions between the vehicle rollover mitigation performance and the lateral stability. The direct cause for the contradiction is the lateral coupling between tyres and road. Tyres with high adhesion capacity imply that the vehicle possesses a high performance ability to keep driving direction, whereas the rollover risk of this vehicle increases due to the greater lateral force that tyres can provide. Furthermore, these contradictions are intensified indirectly by the vertical coupling between tyres and road. The excitation from road not only deteriorates the tyres’ adhesive condition, but also has a considerable effect on the rollover in some cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The purpose of present study was to examine the expression of cancer stem cell marker Bmi-1 in breast cancer tissue and to evaluate the clinical implication of Bmi-1 expression for these patients. Methods: A total of 171 breast cancer patients who received surgical treatment in our hospital were enrolled in this study. Bmi-1 expression in breast cancer tissue was assayed by immunohistochemistry. Statistical analyses were applied to test the relationship between expression of Bmi-1 and clinicopathologic features and patient survival. The relationship between Bmi-1 and the basal-like phenotype of breast cancer also was analyzed in this study. Results: Positive Bmi-1 expression was detected in 89 of 171 (52%) invasive breast cancers patients. The Bmi-1 status was significantly correlated to histological grade III ( p = 0.001) and basal-like phenotype ( p < 0.001). The 5 year overall survival of the patients with Bmi-1-positive and -negative cancers were 78 and 91.9%, respectively ( p = 0.03). Histological grade ( p = 0.046) and Bmi-1 status ( p = 0.012) were detected as the independent prognostic factors in the Cox regression test. Conclusions: Bmi-1 status is an independent prognostic factor, which also is associated with tumor histological grade and basal-like phenotype. The high proportions of positive Bmi-1 expression in basal-like breast cancer may be related to the high aggressiveness behavior of this subtype of breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation has strong intermittency and volatility due to its high dependence on solar radiation and other meteorological factors. Therefore, the negative impact of grid-connected PV on power systems has become one of the constraints in the development of large scale PV systems. Accurate forecasting of solar power generation and flexible planning and operational measures are of great significance to ensure safe, stable, and economical operation of a system with high penetration of solar generation at transmission and distribution levels. In this paper, studies on the following aspects are reviewed: (1) this paper comprehensively expounds the research on forecasting techniques of PV power generation output. (2) In view of the new challenge brought by the integration of high proportion solar generation to the frequency stability of power grid, this paper analyzes the mechanisms of influence between them and introduces the current technical route of PV power generation participating in system frequency regulation. (3) This section reviews the feasible measures that facilitate the inter-regional and wide-area consumption of intermittent solar power generation. At the end of this paper, combined with the actual demand of the development of power grid and PV power generation, the problems that need further attention in the future are prospected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation has strong intermittency and volatility due to its high dependence on solar radiation and other meteorological factors. Therefore, the negative impact of grid-connected PV on power systems has become one of the constraints in the development of large scale PV systems. Accurate forecasting of solar power generation and flexible planning and operational measures are of great significance to ensure safe, stable, and economical operation of a system with high penetration of solar generation at transmission and distribution levels. In this paper, studies on the following aspects are reviewed: (1) this paper comprehensively expounds the research on forecasting techniques of PV power generation output. (2) In view of the new challenge brought by the integration of high proportion solar generation to the frequency stability of power grid, this paper analyzes the mechanisms of influence between them and introduces the current technical route of PV power generation participating in system frequency regulation. (3) This section reviews the feasible measures that facilitate the inter-regional and wide-area consumption of intermittent solar power generation. At the end of this paper, combined with the actual demand of the development of power grid and PV power generation, the problems that need further attention in the future are prospected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is suggested as the consequence of emphysematous destruction of vascular bed and hypoxia of pulmonary microenvironment, mechanisms underpinning its pathogenesis however remain elusive. The dysregulated expression of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH)-oxidases and superoxide generation by pulmonary vasculatures have significant implications in the hypoxia-induced PH.Methods: In this study, the involvement of NADPH oxidase subunit 4 (NOX4) in pulmonary arteriolar remodeling of PH in COPD was investigated by ascertaining the morphological alteration of pulmonary arteries and pulmonary blood flow using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI), and the expression and correlation of NOX4 with pulmonary vascular remodeling and pulmonary functions in COPD lungs.Results: Results demonstrated that an augmented expression of NOX4 was correlated with the increased volume of pulmonary vascular wall in COPD lung. While the volume of distal pulmonary arteries was inversely correlated with pulmonary functions, despite it was positively associated with the main pulmonary artery distensibility, right ventricular myocardial mass end-systolic and right ventricular myocardial mass end-diastolic in COPD. In addition, an increased malondialdehyde and a decreased superoxide dismutase were observed in sera of COPD patients. Mechanistically, the abundance of NOX4 and production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells could be dynamically induced by transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β), which in turn led pulmonary arteriolar remodeling in COPD lungs.Conclusion: These results suggest that the NOX4-derived ROS production may play a key role in the development of PH in COPD by promoting distal pulmonary vascular remodeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aldosterone excess causes insulin resistance in peripheral tissues and directly impairs the function of clonal β-cell. The aim of this study was to investigate the molecular mechanisms involved in the aldosterone-induced impairment of clonal β-cells. As expected, aldosterone induced apoptosis and β-cell dysfunction, including impairment of insulin synthesis and secretion, which were reversed by Glucocorticoid receptor (GR) antagonists or GR-specific siRNA. However, mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonists or MR-specific siRNA had no effect on impairment of clonal β-cells induced by aldosterone. Besides, aldosterone significantly decreased expression and activity of MafA, while activated JNK and p38 MAPK in a GR-dependent manner. In addition, JNK inhibitors (SP600125) and/or p38 inhibitors (SB203580) could abolish the effect of aldosterone on MafA expression and activity. Importantly, overexpression of JNK1 or p38 reversed the protective effect of a GR antagonist on the decrease of MafA expression and activity. Furthermore, aldosterone inhibits MafA expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional level through activation of JNK and p38, respectively. Consequently, overexpression of MafA increased synthesis and secretion of insulin, and decreased apoptosis in clonal β-cells exposed to aldosterone. These findings identified aldosterone as an inducer of clonal β-cell failure that operates through the GR-MAPK-MafA signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]