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ZnO-based photocatalytic materials have received widespread attention due to their usefulness than other photocatalytic materials in organic dye wastewater treatment. However, its photocatalytic efficiency and surface stability limit further applicability. This paper uses a one-step carbonization method to prepare multifunctional ZnO/carbon hybrid nanofiber mats. The carbonization creates a π-conjugated carbonaceous structure of the mats, which prolongs the electron recovery time of ZnO nanoparticles to yield improved photocatalytic efficiency. Further, the carbonization reduces the fiber diameter of the carbon hybrid nanofiber mats, which quadruples the specific surface area to yield enhanced adsorption and photocatalytic performance. At the same time, the prepared nanofiber mats can increase the evaporation rate of water under solar irradiation to a level of 1.46 kg·m−2·h−1 with an efficiency of 91.9%. Thus, the nanofiber mats allow the facile incorporation of photocatalysts to clean contaminated water through adsorption, photodegradation, and interfacial heat-assisted distillation mechanisms.

Objective Through the study of 4‐dimensional (4D) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) for lung tumor, the delineation of the lung tumor target area was analyzed, the accurate target area was received, and the radiation dose of normal tissue was compared . Methods The average 4DPET volume, 3DPET volume, average 4DCT volume, and 3DCT volume of 10 tumors were compared. Taking the relative difference between the average 4D volume and the 3D volume as the difference of the volumes, the influence of the tumor size and the range of motion for 4D volume and 3D volume were studied respectively, then the target areas were delineated respectively, and the radiation doses of the normal tissues associated with the respective target areas were compared after the intensity‐modulated radiation therapy plan was formulated. Results The PET volumes of all tumors were smaller than those of CT, no matter 4D or 3D, from small to large, the volume sizes were 3DPET volume, average 4DPET volume, 3DCT volume and average 4DCT volume. The relative volume difference was related to the respiratory movement and the size of the tumors. The average 4DPET volume was 22.8% larger than the average 3DPET volume, and the volume ratio was 1.23. The volume of the average 4DCT was 15.4% larger than that of the average 3DCT, and the volume ratio was 1.16. The average volume of 4DCT was 59.5% larger than that of 4DPET. When the movement amplitude of the tumor was greater than 3 mm and less than 5 mm, the larger the tumor volume, the larger the volume ratio of the average 4DCT volume to the average 4DPET volume, with the maximum value being 1.54. When the tumor movement amplitude was greater than 5 mm, the ratio was about 1.4. When the volume of conventional 3DCT was larger than 5 cm3, the ratio of the average 4DCT volume to the average 4DPET volume was 1.9. The planning target area internal target volume (ITV)3DCT was much larger than that of ITV3DPET, intersected ITV4DCTave and ITV4DPETave, the dose V20 and V5 of normal lung tissue, and the dose V30 of heart were increased accordingly. Of these, the dose of lung and heart of ITV4DPETave was the lowest. The V20 and V5 of lung of ITV4DPETave was about 2% lower than ITV4DCTave. Conclusion To delineate lung tumor targets at various positions, particular attention should be paid to the effect of breathing exercises on large movements and large volumes. The target volume seemed to be overestimated by 4DCT, and the average multiphased 4DPET volume was more accurate for delineating the target area while reducing the radiation dose of the lung.

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have demonstrated gratifying results at learning discriminative features. However, when applied to unseen domains, state-of-the-art models are usually prone to errors due to domain shift. After investigating this issue from the perspective of shortcut learning, we find the devils lie in the fact that models trained on different domains merely bias to different domain-specific features yet overlook diverse task-related features. Under this guidance, a novel Attention Diversification framework is proposed, in which Intra-Model and Inter-Model Attention Diversification Regularization are collaborated to reassign appropriate attention to diverse task-related features. Briefly, Intra-Model Attention Diversification Regularization is equipped on the high-level feature maps to achieve in-channel discrimination and cross-channel diversification via forcing different channels to pay their most salient attention to different spatial locations. Besides, Inter-Model Attention Diversification Regularization is proposed to further provide task-related attention diversification and domain-related attention suppression, which is a paradigm of "simulate, divide and assemble": simulate domain shift via exploiting multiple domain-specific models, divide attention maps into task-related and domain-related groups, and assemble them within each group respectively to execute regularization. Extensive experiments and analyses are conducted on various benchmarks to demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance over other competing methods. Code is available at https://github.com/hikvision-research/DomainGeneralization., ECCV 2022. Code available at https://github.com/hikvision-research/DomainGeneralization

Objective To investigate the effect of RNA demethylase ALKBH5 on migration and invasion of gastric cancer (GC) cells and its potential mechanism. Methods Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) was employed to determine the correlation of ALKBH5 expression variations with overall survival (OS) in GC patients (n=371). The mouse models of orthotopic transplantation and metastasis were established to evaluate the correlation of between ALKBH5 expression and GC cells metastasis. After ALKBH5 knockdown and overexpression cells were constructed, the effect of ALKBH5 on migration and invasion of GC cells was explored with Transwell chamber assay. Furthermore, m6AVAR online database (http://m6Avar.renlab.org/index.html) was used to predict the m6A modification sites of Wnt activating targets; Western blotting and quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) combined with actinomycin D were applied to detect the protein expression and mRNA stability of downstream targets in Wnt signaling pathway. Results TCGA analysis showed that GC patients with lower ALKBH5 expression had shorter OS time. In vivo experiments confirmed that the low expression of ALKBH5 was involved in the distant metastasis of GC cells, and knockdown of ALKBH5 promoted the migration and invasion of GC cells. m6A modification sites were found in the mRNAs of Wnt downstream targets MYC, CD44 and c-Met, and the absence of ALKBH5 indicated increased protein expression and mRNA stability of these molecules. Conclusion The loss of ALKBH5 expression promotes the migration and invasiveness of GC cells and sustains the activation of Wnt signaling pathway.

The Kyushu-Palau Ridge (KPR), a remnant arc on the Philippine Sea Plate (PSP), is subducting beneath the Kyushu, southwest Japan. Influenced by the subducting KPR, the Kyushu subduction zone corresponding to the KPR is significantly different from Shikoku subduction zone in terms of gravity anomalies, seismicity, the stress state, and the subducting slab morphology. Significant negative free-air and Bouguer gravity anomalies are observed in a prolonged area of KPR, southeast of the Miyazaki Plain, indicating that this is where KPR overlaps the overriding plate. The gravity anomaly in this area is much lower than that in other areas where the inferred KPR extends, suggesting that the subduction of the buoyant KPR may cause the lower mantle density to decrease. More earthquakes have occurred in Hyuga-nada region where the KPR subducts than in Shikoku forearc and other areas in the Kyushu forearc, indicating that the subduction of the KPR enhances the local coupling between the subducting and overriding plates. The centroid moment tensor (CMT) mechanism of earthquakes shows that stress is concentrated in the accumulated crust beneath the Kyushu forearc corresponding to the KPR, and the shallow thrusting events in the obducting plate are caused by the KPR subduction. The buoyant KPR, with a large volume of low-density sediments, was responsible for the differences of the subduction depth and dip angle of the subducting Philippine Sea (PS) slab between northern Kyushu and Shikoku. The seismic gaps and the sudden change of the dipping angle of the subducting PS slab indicate that slab tear may have occurred along the west side of the KPR beneath southwest Kyushu. A two-tear model was proposed, and the subduction of the buoyant KPR was believed to play an important role in the slab tear.

Photothermal evaporation materials have drawn attention owing to their high solar energy utilization. In this work, a series of three-level pore structure hydrogels (TLPSHs) consisting of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), graphene oxide (GO) or reduced graphene oxide (rGO) are prepared. The hydrogel with PVA crosslinked with rGO shows the most promising properties mainly owing to its three-level pore structure being a combination of nanosized pores for low enthalpy water evaporation and a broad distribution of micronsized pores facilitating water transport into said nanosized pores. When varying the content of rGO/PVA between 5 and 15 wt%, the 10 wt% loading gives the highest water evaporation rate and energy conversion efficient owing to its microstructure combining intra water hydrogen disruption and water transport. The TLPSHs with 88 % porosity has more than 97 % sunlight absorption throughout the UV–Vis-NIR spectrum and stable evaporation rate (1.65 kg m-2h−1) under 1 sun irradiation. The hydrogel rejects salt by having a higher temperature than the surrounding seawater which causes salt to precipitate in the water rather than on the hydrogel evaporator when the saturation limit is reached. Lastly, the scalability and real life applicability is demonstrated through outdoor experiments on seawater.

Nanofiber membranes have attracted considerable interest in water filtration owing to their unique structure and excellent performance, but large pore size and wide pore size distribution combined with weak inter-fiber strength are major limitations for practical applications. This work describes a facile and efficient method for nanofiber membrane fabrication with stable mechanical properties, high separation and excellent antifouling performance. The nanofiber membranes are prepared from a mixture of a low melting point polymer (thermoplastic polyurethane, TPU, Tm = 52 °C) and a structural skeleton-forming polymer (polyacrylonitrile, PAN, Tm = 317 °C) that undergoes electrospinning and hot-pressing. Hot-pressing treatment at 50–80 °C and 2 MPa melts the TPU phase to create inter-fiber connections, thereby reducing the nanofiber membrane pore size and improving its dimensional stability and mechanical properties. The connectivity of the nanofiber membrane can be controlled by adjusting the ratio of TPU and PAN in the nanofiber and the hot-pressing temperature. The tensile strength and Young's modulus of the hot-pressed membrane are 24.5 MPa and 630.6 MPa, which are 4.8 times and 6.0 times higher than the nascent membrane, respectively. The membrane pressed at 80 °C shows excellent filtration performance, with a high pure water flux of 8490 L m−2 h−1 and active sludge and 100 nm SiO2 suspension retention efficiency of 99.99%. In addition, the hot-pressed membranes exhibited excellent antifouling performance and mechanical properties, meet the reusability and long-term service demand. Therefore, hot-pressed composite nanofiber membranes made of low melting point thermoplastic polymer and a skeleton polymer provide a facile and economical approach for the development of high-performance separation media.

Aerosol nanoparticle deposition onto a surface under a temperature gradient is commonly applied in the chemical and medical industries. In this study, a numerical investigation with a two-phase model is used to investigate the deposition characteristics of nanosized particles in a 90° square bend. The effects of variations in the gas phase physical parameters, such as density, viscosity, and thermal diffusivity with changing temperatures are studied. The main forces acting on the particles are the drag forces, Brownian forces, and thermophoretic forces. A discrete phase model (DPM) based on the FLUENT software is used to investigate particle transfer. The results show that in a temperature gradient flow, particles move towards the colder wall, and some of them strike and deposit onto its surface. The particle deposition efficiency increases with the temperature gradient rising. The Brownian force plays a more important role in particle deposition when smaller particles are used. Because of inertia and gravity, particle deposition on the four surfaces of a 90° square bend tube is inhomogeneous. The deposition efficiency on the floor surface increases with increasing particle diameter. On the contrary, larger particles decrease the deposition efficiency on the ceiling surface.

Zeolites have been widely used in the adsorption and removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In this study, we investigated the adsorption properties of 9 commercial zeolites and MCM-41 mesoporous silica for p-xylene. And then zeolites with hierarchical structures were prepared by alkali (0.1–0.8 mol•L−1 mixed alkali solution) modification and their adsorption and desorption properties were investigated for various VOCs. The structure of these materials was thoroughly characterized, and the relationship between the adsorption capacity and physical parameters was investigated. It was found that the pore diameter and Si/Al ratio were the most important parameters for p-xylene adsorption under humid conditions, which should be optimized simultaneously to achieve satisfactory adsorption capacity. And the best adsorption capacity could reach approximately 100 mg•g−1 in humid conditions. Meanwhile, enhancing the diffusion of the VOC molecules in microporous zeolites with micron crystals through the manufacture of hierarchical structure was also important. The adsorption capacity of the modified zeolites increased by more than 25%, and the desorption temperature decreased. It showed that the alkali modification not only improved the utilization efficiency of the adsorption sites, but also facilitated desorption, which is crucial for adsorbing materials.

Intracranial infection is one of the most serious complications following neurosurgery. It is well acknowledged that bacteria and fungi are the main pathogens responsible for postoperative intracranial infection. However, the microbial community structure, including composition, abundance and diversity, in postoperative intracranial infection is not fully understood, which greatly compromises our understanding of the necessity and effectiveness of postoperative antibiotic treatment. The present study collected eight cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from patients with intracranial infection following neurosurgical procedures. High‑throughput amplicon sequencing for 16S rDNA and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) was performed using the Illumina MiSeq platform to investigate the microbial community composition and diversity between treated and untreated patients. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that the microbial composition and diversity in each patient group (that is, with or without antibiotic treatment) was similar; however, the group receiving antibiotic treatment had a comparatively lower species abundance and diversity compared with untreated patients. At the genus level, Acinetobacter and Staphylococcus were widely distributed in CSF samples from patients with postoperative intracranial infection; in particular, Acinetobacter was detected in all CSF samples. In addition, five ITS fungal libraries were constructed, and Candida was detected in three out of four patients not receiving antibiotic treatment, indicating that the fungal infection should be given more attention. In summary, 16S and ITS high‑throughput amplicon sequencing were practical methods to identify pathogens in the different periods of treatment in patients with postoperative intracranial infection. There was a notable difference in microbial composition and diversity between the treated and untreated patients. Alterations in the microbial community structure may provide a signal whether antibiotic treatment worked in postoperative intracranial infection and may assist surgeons to better control the progression of infection.

In this paper, a new proposed transformer winding fault detection method is adopted to test the common faults of the transformer, short circuit, and deformation. Taking the 10 kV three-phase double-winding transformer as the research object, the normal and faulty transformers are detected by the sweep impedance method. And the sweep impedance curve changes before and after the fault. The test results show that the difference of the sweep impedance curve of the transformer winding short circuit and the concave deformation fault is obvious. The fault can be judged by the sweep impedance spectrum. The feasibility and effectiveness of the sweep impedance method for transformer winding deformation detection are verified.

Flying Ad-Hoc Network (FANET) is a special type of Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET) consisted of a swarm of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs). Mission planning for effective cooperative UAV searching must take into account the connectivity of UAVs for information sharing among UAVs in the FANET. Traditional mission planning usually uses predefined routes or use simple mobility models to generate the trajectories of UAVs, which do not take network connectivity as an important factor for high-quality cooperative searching. On the other hand, many innovative FANET mobility models have been investigated only for FANET simulation. In this paper, we propose a framework applying a recent group mobility model to mission planning with consideration on the network connectivity. For this purpose, we extend the Spatiotemporally Correlated Group Mobility Model (STGM) with adaptivity on its parameters that decide the spatial or temporal correlations among UAVs. Next, we introduce an area information coverage metric to evaluate the quality of mission planning enhanced by this adaptive mobility model. Finally, an algorithm is designed to optimize the metric. The experimental results show that our framework gains impressive improvements on effective information collection by the UAV swarm.

Flying Ad-Hoc Network (FANET) is a special type of Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET) which consists of multiple networked Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Compared to traditional target search using a single UAV, multiple cooperative UAVs within a FANET have the potential to accomplish this work more efficiently, and multi-UAV cooperative target search has attracted increasing research attention in recent years. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive investigation on efficient multi-UAV cooperative search on moving targets. More specifically, we propose an adaptive Track-Explore adjustment strategy to dynamically assign the search task of each UAV at each time-step. Meanwhile, to improve the search performance, we introduce a novel on-line path planning method to guide the flying decision of each UAV. The proposed search framework is compared with random walk method and an ideal (not achievable) state in different scenarios, and the simulation results show that our FATES framework works efficiently on multiple moving targets search tasks with great adaptability and robustness.

The rolling bearing is widely used as the mechanical rotating parts, whose state directly determines the performance of the whole machine. Since there exist the problems of low accuracy in traditional single sensor detection and lack of stable diagnostic system, acceleration and acoustic emission can be combined to conduct the study on the fault diagnosis of rolling bearing. The wavelet technology should be used to reduce the noise of the signal obtained by two kind of sensors. Hilbert technique is used to demodulate the signal after noise reduction, and the frequency domain envelope will be got. The eigenvector is obtained by calculating the frequency energy of the fault signal. Then Multi-sensor information fusion system is established by BP neural network in which the suitable samples is selected to train until the error meets the requirement, and the diagnosis of rolling bearing fault is realized.

With the rapid development of VLSI technique and the continuous improvement of application requirement, problems such as power consumption and clock skew of integrated circuit have become more and more serious. Because of having several advantages such as low power, high performance and elimination of global clock, asynchronous circuit and its design methodology have been paid more attention in recent years. An asynchronous design and implementation flow based on Balsa and synchronous tools has been firstly proposed in this paper, and GTECH-based optimization scheme and Black-box-based optimization scheme are embedded to reduce area and power. And then design methodology mixed with asynchronous circuit and synchronous circuit is proposed to meet the low power requirement of RFID baseband processor. Finally, our proposed RFID is carried out with an 180nm CMOS technology. Experimental results show that the power of our proposed RFID is less than one third of those of its synchronous counterparts, and our proposed RFID baseband processor can be easily integrated into an UHF RFID chip.

There is a need for new antimalarials, ideally with novel mechanisms of action. Benzoxaboroles have been shown to be active against bacteria, fungi, and trypanosomes. Therefore, we investigated the antimalarial activity and mechanism of action of 3-aminomethyl benzoxaboroles against Plasmodium falciparum Two 3-aminomethyl compounds, AN6426 and AN8432, demonstrated good potency against cultured multidrug-resistant (W2 strain) P. falciparum (50% inhibitory concentration [IC50] of 310 nM and 490 nM, respectively) and efficacy against murine Plasmodium berghei infection when administered orally once daily for 4 days (90% effective dose [ED90], 7.4 and 16.2 mg/kg of body weight, respectively). To characterize mechanisms of action, we selected parasites with decreased drug sensitivity by culturing with stepwise increases in concentration of AN6426. Resistant clones were characterized by whole-genome sequencing. Three generations of resistant parasites had polymorphisms in the predicted editing domain of the gene encoding a P. falciparum leucyl-tRNA synthetase (LeuRS; PF3D7_0622800) and in another gene (PF3D7_1218100), which encodes a protein of unknown function. Solution of the structure of the P. falciparum LeuRS editing domain suggested key roles for mutated residues in LeuRS editing. Short incubations with AN6426 and AN8432, unlike artemisinin, caused dose-dependent inhibition of [(14)C]leucine incorporation by cultured wild-type, but not resistant, parasites. The growth of resistant, but not wild-type, parasites was impaired in the presence of the unnatural amino acid norvaline, consistent with a loss of LeuRS editing activity in resistant parasites. In summary, the benzoxaboroles AN6426 and AN8432 offer effective antimalarial activity and act, at least in part, against a novel target, the editing domain of P. falciparum LeuRS.

Effects of the single addition of nitrogen (N) and boron (B) and the combined addition of N and B on continuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagrams and properties of the three Mo–V–Ti micro-alloyed steels were investigated by means of a combined method of dilatometry and metallography. Microstructures observed in continuous cooled specimens were composed of pearlite (P), quasi-polygonal ferrite (QPF), granular bainite (GB), acicular ferrite (AF), lath-like bainite (LB) and martensite (M) depending on the cooling rates and transformation temperatures. Single addition of 12 ppm B effectively reduced the formation of QPF and broadened the cooling rate region for LB and M. Added N makes the action of B invalid and the QPF region was prominently broadened, and even though the cooling rate is higher than 50°C s−1, it cannot obtain full bainite.

A new idea of using a stiffer metallic compound Mg 2 Si to enhance the damping capacities of pure magnesium and its alloys is successfully attempted. The present paper focuses on the relation between damping capacities and the addition amount of Si. The results show that damping capacities increase with increasing amount of Si. Particular emphasis is placed on the increasing dislocation density around matrix–particulate interface and the refinement of grain size promoted by big growth restriction factor of Si.

The structural, electronic and elastic properties of B2 structure Hafnium compounds were investigated by means of first-principles calculations based on the density functional theory within generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and local density approximation (LDA) methods. Both GGA and LDA methods can make acceptable optimized lattice parameters in comparison with experimental parameters. Therefore, both GGA and LDA methods are used to predict the electronic and elastic properties of B2 HfX (X = Os, Ir and Pt) compounds. Initially, the calculated formation enthalpies have confirmed the order of thermodynamic stability as HfPt > HfIr > HfOs. Secondly, the electronic structures are analyzed to explain the bonding characters and stabilities in these compounds. Furthermore, the calculated elastic properties and elastic anisotropic behaviors are ordered and analyzed in these compounds. The calculated bulk moduli are in the reduced order of HfOs > HfIr > HfPt, which has exhibited the linear relationship with electron densities. Finally, the anisotropy of acoustic velocities, Debye temperatures and thermal conductivities are obtained and discussed.

Four diastereomeric NADH model compounds were synthesized by the reaction of a pinyl substituted Hantzsch ester with dimethylaluminum amide. The reduction of methyl benzoylformate with these models gave both enantiomers of methyl mandelate.

Several microphone arrays, such as planar four-element array, symmetric three-dimensional square array, planar five-element cross array are common single arrays, which to be used in passive acoustic location with a relatively high frequency. In different articles, an array may be placed in a different way, for example, turned the array at an angle along the z-axis (e.g.90ia). The relationship between the basic array and rotating array is one research on this paper. Some articles proposed to increase the number of sensors in the single array can improve detection accuracy, its essence is to increase the delay information that can reduce the location error of the array. Inspired by this, the other research is the impact of utilization of the delay information on the location accuracy of single array, which has a certain number of sensors.

This study investigated the cytotoxicity and mechanism of action of AS703026, a novel, selective, orally bioavailable MEK1/2 inhibitor, in human multiple myeloma (MM). AS703026 inhibited growth and survival of MM cells and cytokine-induced osteoclast differentiation more potently (9- to 10-fold) than AZD6244. Inhibition of proliferation induced by AS703026 was mediated by G0-G1 cell cycle arrest and was accompanied by reduction of MAF oncogene expression. AS703026 further induced apoptosis via caspase 3 and Poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) cleavage in MM cells, both in the presence or absence of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs). Importantly, AS703026 sensitized MM cells to a broad spectrum of conventional (dexamethasone, melphalan), novel or emerging (lenalidomide, perifosine, bortezomib, rapamycin) anti-MM therapies. Significant tumour growth reduction in AS703026- vs. vehicle-treated mice bearing H929 MM xenograft tumours correlated with downregulated pERK1/2, induced PARP cleavage, and decreased microvessels in vivo. Moreover, AS703026 (200 nmol/l) was cytotoxic against the majority of tumour cells tested from patients with relapsed and refractory MM (84%), regardless of mutational status of RAS and BRAF genes. Importantly, BMSC-induced viability of MM patient cells was similarly blocked within the same dose range. Our results therefore support clinical evaluation of AS703026, alone or in combination with other anti-MM agents, to improve patient outcome.