Search

Aiming at the problems of finger interruptions, microcracks and shadow defects of solar cells that are not easy to detect and will reduce the efficiency of the cells, a solar cell defect localization detection algorithm based on improved G-SSD network is proposed. For object detection algorithms, the detection of small targets is challenging. Firstly, the input scale and network model are improved for the detection of small-scale targets. Secondly, in order to reduce the weight of the network model, a more lightweight network GhostNet is selected instead of VGG-16 in the experiment to reduce the computational cost of the network model. Finally, the EL image is input into the network for classification and positioning, and the prediction results are integrated and the final detection results are output. Experimental results show that compared with the original model, the mean (mAP) of the improved G-SSD is increased by 0.68%, effectively reduces some computing costs.

Guomei Shi,1,2,* Dongdong Ke,2,3,* Pengyu Gong,4,5 Peng Yu,2,6 Junshan Zhou,5 Meng Wang,5 Xiaohao Zhang,5 Xiaorong Wang,1,2 Minwang Guo,1,2 Mingyang Xu,1,2 Rujuan Zhou1,2 1Department of Neurology, the Taixing People’s Hospital, Taixing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 2Stroke Center, the Taixing People’s Hospital, Taixing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Rehabilitation, the Taixing People’s Hospital, Taixing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Neurology, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Neurology, Nanjing First Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 6Department of Radiology, the Taixing People’s Hospital, Taixing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Rujuan Zhou, Tel +86-13951158499, Email zhourujuan123@163.comBackground: White matter hyperintensity (WMH) is associated with risk of acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and poor outcomes after AIS. The purpose of this prospective study was to evaluate the association between serum YKL-40 levels and WMH burden in patients with AIS.Methods: From February 2020 to March 2021, a total of 672 consecutive AIS patients with magnetic resonance imaging data were prospectively recruited form two centers. Serum YKL-40 levels were quantified using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The burden of WMH was semiquantitatively measured by the Fazekas visual grading scale. According to severity of overall WMH, patients were dichotomized into none–mild WMH group (Fazekas score 0– 2) or moderate–severe WMH group (Fazekas score 3– 6). Besides, based on severity of periventricular WMH (PV-WMH) and deep WMH (D-WMH), patients were categorized as none–mild (Fazekas score 0– 1) or moderate–severe (Fazekas score 2– 3).Results: Among the 672 patients, 335 (49.9%) participants were identified with moderate–severe overall WMH, 326 (48.5%) with moderate–severe PV-WMH and 262 (39.0%) with moderate–severe D-WMH. Compared with the first quartile of serum YKL-40, the adjusted odds ratio (OR) of the fourth quartile for moderate–severe PV-WMH was 2.473 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.316– 4.646; P=0.005). No significant association was observed between YKL-40 and overall WMH (OR 0.762; 95% CI 0.434– 1.336; P=0.343) or D-WMH (OR 0.695; 95% CI 0.413– 1.171; P=0.172).Conclusion: Our results suggested that higher YKL-40 levels appeared to be associated with PV-WMH, but not with overall WMH or D-WMH in patients with AIS.Keywords: acute ischemic stroke, YKL-40, white matter hyperintensities, biomarkers

Objective. To sort out the application and status quo of some domestic crowdsourcing models, explore the factors affecting multilingual manual annotation through experiments and offer suggestions. Methodology. Crawling the government news texts in Mandarin, Cantonese, English, and Portuguese in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao, and enter them into the database. Combine it with corpus tagging uses the established web platform to practice crowdsourcing and collect a large number of annotation results and behavior data. Results. Made assumptions about factors that may affect the quality of manual annotation, used SPSS and other data analysis software to evaluate the degree of interpretation of the assumptions, provided a regression formula for calculating the accuracy, and provided constructive suggestions for the corpus annotation quality assurance projects. Limitations. More corpus information in more languages and more professional annotators are needed. Conclusions. The study found that the accuracy of annotation is strongly related to the attributes of the corpus itself, such as the total number of vocabularies, the number of rare words, the complexity of parts of speech, etc., and the condition of languages are different from each other.

In this study, a new red mud/fly ash composite material (RFCM) for phosphate removal was prepared by granulation and activation methods, using bauxite residue (red mud, RM) as the main raw material, adding with some fly ash and a few adhesives. The effects of different types of RM and adhesives on RFCM for phosphate removal were discussed. It was found that RFCM prepared from sintering red mud and cement waste performed better on phosphate removal than that prepared from Bayer red mud and common industrial adhesives. After calcination activated at appropriate temperature around 800-900℃, the specific surface area of RFCM increased, and new substances with hydroxyl (-OH) appeared on the surface of RFCM, which were the functional groups for phosphate removal. Mechanism of RFCM for phosphate removal was speculated as a combination of physical adsorption, chemical adsorption and chemical precipitation, which mainly depended on ligand exchange and chemical reaction. This research will provide a potential application of bauxite residue in environmental remediation.

Nitric oxide (NO) is known to modulate the action of several phytohormones. This includes the gaseous hormone ethylene, but the molecular mechanisms underlying the effect of NO on ethylene biosynthesis are unclear. Here, we observed a decrease in endogenous NO abundance during apple (Malus domestica) fruit development and exogenous treatment of apple fruit with a NO donor suppressed ethylene production, suggesting that NO is a ripening suppressor. Expression of the transcription factor MdERF5 was activated by NO donor treatment. NO induced the nucleocytoplasmic shuttling of MdERF5 by modulating its interaction with the protein phosphatase, MdPP2C57. MdPP2C57-induced dephosphorylation of MdERF5 at Ser260 is sufficient to promote nuclear export of MdERF5. As a consequence of this export, MdERF5 proteins in the cytoplasm interacted with and suppressed the activity of MdACO1, an enzyme that converts 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) to ethylene. The NO-activated MdERF5 was observed to increase in abundance in the nucleus and bind to the promoter of the ACC synthase gene MdACS1 and directly suppress its transcription. Together, these results suggest that NO-activated nucleocytoplasmic MdERF5 suppresses the action of ethylene biosynthetic genes, thereby suppressing ethylene biosynthesis and limiting fruit ripening.

The raphidophyte Heterosigma akashiwo is a harmful algal species. The bloom of this organism has been associated with the massive mortality of fish in many coastal waters. To investigate the molecular mechanism of H. akashiwo blooms, having a reliable reference transcriptome of this species is essential. Therefore, in this study, a full-length transcriptome of H. akashiwo was obtained by single-molecule real-time sequencing. In total, 45.44 Gb subread bases were generated, and 16,668 unigenes were obtained after the sequencing data processing. A total of 8666 (52.00%) unigenes were successfully annotated using seven public databases. Among them, mostly phosphorus and nitrogen metabolism genes were detected. Moreover, there were 300 putative transcription factors, 4392 putative long non-coding RNAs, and 7851 simple sequence repeats predicted. This study provides a valuable reference transcriptome for understanding how H. akashiwo blooms at a molecular level.

The ichthyotoxic raphidophyte Heterosigma akashiwo is associated with harmful algal blooms (HABs). Although the influence of H. akashiwo on fish has been reported, little is known of its effects on other marine organisms, such as shellfish. In this study, the physiological and transcriptomic responses of the Asiatic hard clam Meretrix meretrix to H. akashiwo were investigated. The results showed that clam survival was not influenced by H. akashiwo (at a concentration of 2 × 104 cells/mL), and M. meretrix eliminated the alga effectively after 48 h in co-culture. H. akashiwo did not alter the antioxidant capacity of the clams. However, 544 unigenes were found to be differentially expressed between the control and H. akashiwo-treated clams. Interestingly, the significant up-regulation of lysosome-related genes and transport proteins suggested remodeling of the clam metabolism possibly for digestion of H. akashiwo. In summary, our results indicate that the clam M. meretrix can effectively feed on H. akashiwo, and intensification of shellfish farming may be helpful to control and mitigate H. akashiwo blooms.

The dinoflagellate

Talaromyces marneffei is a thermally dimorphic fungus that affects multiple organs and frequently invades immunocompromised individuals. However, only a few studies have reported the presence of intestinal infection associated with T. marneffei. Herein, we reported a case of intestinal T. marneffei infection in a man who complained of a 1-month history of intermittent fever, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. The result of the human immunodeficiency virus antibody test was positive. Periodic acid-Schiff and Gomorrah’s methylamine silver staining of the intestinal biopsy tissue revealed T. marneffei infection. Fortunately, the patient’s symptoms rapidly resolved with prompt antifungal treatment. In addition, we summarized and described the clinical characteristics, management, and outcomes of patients with intestinal T. marneffei infection. A total of 29 patients were identified, the majority of whom (65.52%) were comorbid with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. The main clinical features included anemia, fever, abdominal pain, diarrhea, weight loss, and lymphadenopathy. The transverse and descending colon, ileocecum, and ascending colon were the most common sites of lesions. A considerable number of patients (31.03%) developed intestinal obstruction, intestinal perforation, and gastrointestinal bleeding. Of the 29 patients, six underwent surgery, 23 survived successfully with antifungal treatment, five died of T. marneffei infection, and one died of unknown causes. T. marneffei intestinal infection should be considered when immunodeficient patients in endemic areas present with non-specific symptoms, such as fever, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Appropriate and timely endoscopy avoids delays in diagnosis. Early aggressive antifungal therapy improves the clinical outcomes of patients.

Background The mortality of acute ischemic stroke patients caused by vertebrobasilar artery occlusion (VBAO) is high and mechanical thrombectomy has gradually become a promising treatment for acute ischemic stroke. This study analyzed the efficacy of mechanical thrombectomy and the risk factors associated with poor outcomes in VBAO patients caused by severe local atherosclerotic stenosis. Methods This retrospective study enrolled patients with acute ischemic stroke caused by VBAO between March 1, 2016 and August 31, 2019. Patient demographic and clinical data were collected retrospectively. All enrolled patients were retrospectively interviewed for at least 3 months. Patients with a modified Rankin scale (mRS) score between 0 and 3 points were defined as having satisfactory outcomes while those with more than 3 points were defined as having unsatisfactory outcomes. In-hospital mortality, the rates of recanalization, and the rates of intracerebral hemorrhage were also recorded. Multivariable logistic regression was used to determine the risk factors of unsatisfactory outcomes in enrolled patients. Results A total of 65 patients were enrolled in this study with a median age 69.0 (63.0-78.0) years and 48 patients (73.8%) were male. Approximately 50% of patients had a mRS score of 0 or 1 point within 90 days after treatment with mechanical thrombectomy and 14 patients had a mRS score of 6 points. A total of 11 patients died in hospital. Out of the 65 patients, 7 required recanalization and 9 patients suffered from intracerebral hemorrhage. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that older age, lower baseline posterior circulation acute stroke prognosis early CT score (pcASPECTS), higher baseline National Institutes of Health stroke scale (NIHSS) score, and residual stenosis were independent risk factors of both unsatisfactory outcomes and mortality of VBAO patients. Conclusions This study confirmed the important role of mechanical thrombectomy in the treatment of acute ischemic stroke caused by VBAO and may provide some guidance for improving the prognosis of patients.

Stone cells are sclerenchyma cells formed by deposition of lignin, which is the most significant factor limiting the quality of pears. Ca2+ was known to inhibit stone cells in pear fruits, but the underlying molecular mechanism remains unclear. Our study revealed that exogenous CaCl2 (Ca2+) treatment of “Nanguo” pear (Pyrus ussuriensis) suppressed the synthesis of lignin and stone cell production. We further analysed the transcriptomes using RNA-seq, identified a transcription factor, PuDof2.5, and its targets gene PuPRX42-like (lignin polymerase gene) expression decreased in CaCl2-treated samples, which are involved in suppressing lignin biosynthesis in pear fruit. PuDof2.5 was found to bind directly to the PuPRX42-like promoter and induced its transcription. Taken together, our results revealed that Ca2+ modulated the key lignin biosynthetic transcription factor PuDof2.5 to suppress stone cell production in pear fruits.

Background: Nonspecific terminal ileal ulcers are one of the common ulcerative diseases in terminal ileum. However, the studies about treatment efficacy are scarce. We aimed to investigate the efficacy of mesalazine in the treatment of this disease.Methods: Eighty-two patients with nonspecific terminal ileal ulcers who sought outpatient medical treatment in the Division of Gastroenterology, Wuhan Union Hospital, from April 2016 to January 2019 were enrolled and randomly divided into two groups. The experimental group took mesalazine orally, 4.0 g/d, once a day for 3 months. The control group was followed up without special intervention. The primary endpoint was the endoscopic remission rate at the 6th and 12th month. Secondary endpoints included the clinical remission rate at the 1st, 6th and 12th month and adverse events (ChiCTR1900027503).Results: About the endoscopic efficacy, the remission rate of the experimental group and control group was 73.2 versus 61.0% at the 6th month (RR = 1.20, 95%CI 0.88∼1.63, p = 0.24) and 87.8 versus 78.0% at the 12th month (RR = 1.13, 95%CI 0.92∼1.37, p = 0.24). About the clinical efficacy, the remission rate was 70.3 versus 43.8% at the 1st month (RR = 1.61, 95%CI 1.03∼2.51, p = 0.03), 83.8 versus 68.8% at the 6th month (RR = 1.22, 95%CI 0.93∼1.60, p = 0.14) and 91.9 versus 81.3% at the 12th month (RR = 1.13, 95%CI 0.93∼1.37, p = 0.34). During follow-up, no patients were diagnosed with Crohn’s disease or intestinal tuberculosis, and no patients developed significant complications.Conclusion: For patients with nonspecific terminal ileal ulcers, there is no disease progression over a short term. In addition, there is no significant difference in clinical or endoscopic efficacy between patients who received mesalazine and patients who are followed up without special intervention.

Stone cells are sclerenchyma cells formed by deposition of lignin, which is the most significant factor limiting the quality of pears. Ca

The plant hormone ethylene is important for the ripening of climacteric fruit, such as pear (Pyrus ussuriensis), and the brassinosteroid (BR) class of phytohormones affects ethylene biosynthesis during ripening via an unknown molecular mechanism. Here, we observed that exogenous BR treatment suppressed ethylene production and delayed fruit ripening, whereas treatment with a BR biosynthesis inhibitor promoted ethylene production and accelerated fruit ripening in pear, suggesting BR is a ripening suppressor. The expression of the transcription factor BRASSINAZOLE-RESISTANT 1PuBZR1 was enhanced by BR treatment during pear fruit ripening. PuBZR1 interacted with PuACO1, which converts 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) to ethylene, and suppressed its activity. BR-activated PuBZR1 bound to the promoters of PuACO1 and of PuACS1a, which encodes ACC synthase, and directly suppressed their transcription. Moreover, PuBZR1 suppressed the expression of transcription factor PuERF2 by binding its promoter, and PuERF2 bound to the promoters of PuACO1 and PuACS1a. We concluded that PuBZR1 indirectly suppresses the transcription of PuACO1 and PuACS1a through its regulation of PuERF2. Ethylene production and expression profiles of corresponding apple (Malus domestica) homologs showed similar changes following epibrassinolide treatment. Together, these results suggest that BR-activated BZR1 suppresses ACO1 activity and the expression of ACO1 and ACS1, thereby reducing ethylene production and suppressing fruit ripening. This likely represents a conserved mechanism by which BR suppresses ethylene biosynthesis during climacteric fruit ripening.

Humans can recognize someone’s identity through their voice and describe the timbral phenomena of voices. Likewise, the singing voice also has timbral phenomena. In vocal pedagogy, vocal teachers listen and then describe the timbral phenomena of their student’s singing voice. In this study, in order to enable machines to describe the singing voice from the vocal pedagogy point of view, we perform a task called paralinguistic singing attribute recognition. To achieve this goal, we first construct and publish an open source dataset named Singing Voice Quality and Technique Database (SVQTD) for supervised learning. All the audio clips in SVQTD are downloaded from YouTube and processed by music source separation and silence detection. For annotation, seven paralinguistic singing attributes commonly used in vocal pedagogy are adopted as the labels. Furthermore, to explore the different supervised machine learning algorithm for classifying each paralinguistic singing attribute, we adopt three main frameworks, namely openSMILE features with support vector machine (SF-SVM), end-to-end deep learning (E2EDL), and deep embedding with support vector machine (DE-SVM). Our methods are based on existing frameworks commonly employed in other paralinguistic speech attribute recognition tasks. In SF-SVM, we separately use the feature set of the INTERSPEECH 2009 Challenge and that of the INTERSPEECH 2016 Challenge as the SVM classifier’s input. In E2EDL, the end-to-end framework separately utilizes the ResNet and transformer encoder as feature extractors. In particular, to handle two-dimensional spectrogram input for a transformer, we adopt a sliced multi-head self-attention (SMSA) mechanism. In the DE-SVM, we use the representation extracted from the E2EDL model as the input of the SVM classifier. Experimental results on SVQTD show no absolute winner between E2EDL and the DE-SVM, which means that the back-end SVM classifier with the representation learned by E2E as input does not necessarily improve the performance. However, the DE-SVM that utilizes the ResNet as the feature extractor achieves the best average UAR, with an average 16% improvement over that of the SF-SVM with INTERSPEECH’s hand-crafted feature set.

Geochemical fingerprinting was used to identify the sources of fine sediments derived from three types of contrasting lithological zones and deposited in a reservoir in a medium-sized catchment over the past 60 years. The impact of grain-size sorting on the source of fine sediments in the reservoir was investigated. Overall, the fine sediment sources identified in the sediment cores indicated changing trends in sediment contribution from the three types of lithological zones during the past 60 years. Although the granite zone covers half of the catchment, has thicker soils, is more prone to soil erosion, and has been subjected to more human disturbance than the limestone and shale zones, it only provided 25% of the fine sediment in the cores. The limestone and shale zones, on the other hand, account for 23% and 15% of the catchment, respectively, but produce 42% and 33% of the fine sediment in the cores. This is due to grain-size sorting in the reservoir system during downstream sediment transit and deposition. These data show that grain-size sorting has had a significant impact on the sediment source. This study provides new insight into the source of sediments deposited in a reservoir system from different lithological zones at the scale of a medium-sized catchment across multi-decadal periods. Keywords: Sediment source; Composite fingerprinting techniques; Reservoir Contrasting lithologies

An impedimetric sensing strategy was developed for sensitively determining diethylstilbestrol (DES) based on a platform of porphyrin-containing covalent-organic framework (p-COF). The p-COF was synthesized using 5,10,15,20-tetra (4-aminophenyl) porphyrin (TAPP) and 1,3,6,8-tetrakis(4-formylphenyl) pyrene (TFPy) as building blocks via condensation reaction, for which p-COF was named as TAPP-TFPy-COF. Considering the large specific surface area (302.9 m

The ripening of climacteric fruits is mainly controlled by the plant hormone ethylene. The regulatory effect of sucrose on ethylene biosynthesis in fruits remains unclear. Here we examined ethylene production in two Ussurian pear (Pyrus ussuriensis) varieties, ‘Nanguo’ (NG) pear and its bud sport variety (BNG), which has a higher sucrose content. We found that the peak of ethylene release occurred earlier in BNG fruit than in NG fruit during ripening. The expression of the transcription factor PuWRKY31 was higher in BNG fruit than in NG fruit, and was induced by sucrose treatment. Furthermore, PuWRKY31 bound to the promoters of ethylene biosynthetic genes and upregulated their transcription. Our findings suggest a mechanism by which sucrose regulates ethylene biosynthesis in pears.

Aluminum/Polytetrafluoroethylene (Al/PTFE) reactive material occurs chemical reaction and release a large amount of energy under the impact load, which has the dual characteristics of strength and energy release, so it can be applied to the attack of confined space targets to enhance the damage effect on the target. In order to study the dynamic strength of enhanced Al/PTFE and the real-time impact release energy, based on the traditional formula Al/PTFE (26.5%/73.5%), enhanced Al/PTFE reactive material specimens were prepared by cold pressing and rapid cooling processes, and the dynamic mechanical properties of the specimens were tested by the Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) testing system. The experiments have been conducted by using two-stage light gas gun loading system combining with the impact release energy related testing system under vacuum condition. Meanwhile, the evolutionary process of reaction product was numerically simulated by ANSYS/Fluent, and the boundary conditions of the numerical simulation were defined by self-programmed UDF subroutine. Experiments, theoretical analysis and numerical simulation were adopted to obtain the real time energy release of Al/PTFE reactive materials at different impact velocities. The results show that the maximum dynamic failure strength of the enhanced Al/PTFE reactive projectile is 126 MPa, and the strain rate hardening phenomenon and viscoelastic effect are exhibited when the strain rate is in the range of 1500 ∼ 3000 s−1. When the strain rate is in the range of 3000 ∼ 4000 s−1, the specimen is insensitive to strain rate. When the impact velocities are 2.30 km/s and 2.54 km/s, the energies that the reactive projectiles release are 8.36 kJ/g and 8.38 kJ/g, respectively, and the reactive material reacts completely. When the impact velocities are 1.64 km/s, 1.80 km/s and 1.94 km/s, the projectiles have not fully reacted. The reactive degree of the reactive projectile increases with the increase of the impact velocity. For the complete reaction of Al/PTFE reactive projectile, the critical impact velocity of the enhanced reactive material is between 1.94 km/s and 2.30 km/s.

Zero-trust security architecture reconstructs the trust foundation of access control based on authentication and authorization by continuously authenticating the terminal during the authentication process and not relying solely on geographic location/user attributes as the sole basis for the trust assessment. However, due to the fine-grained verification of identity under the zero-trust security architecture, there is a need for multiple authentication and authorization processes. If a single policy engine has unknown vulnerabilities and unknown backdoors to be maliciously attacked, or DDOS attacks initiated by known vulnerabilities cannot be prevented, the policy engine based on this control center architecture cannot meet the requirements of system security and reliability. Therefore, it is proposed to apply the SPA single-package authorization and endogenous security architecture to the zero-trust authentication system, which can realize the reliability, dynamism and diversity of system defense. Through the experimental antiattack analysis and antiattack test, the test from the proposed scheme found that when the system introduces the endogenous security architecture, the security of the system can be improved due to the complexity of the attack process and the increase in the cost of the attack. The test through both the security and system overhead found that the scheme can effectively improve the security of the system while ensuring the quality of network services, compared to the traditional scheme. It was found that the scheme can effectively improve the security of the system while ensuring the quality of network services and has better adaptability than the traditional zero-trust authentication scheme.

Aiming at the lack of dynamic and comprehensiveness of trust evaluation methods in current adjudication algorithms, an adjudication algorithm for mimic API gateway based on trust distribution is proposed. The algorithm comprehensively considers the direct and indirect trust relationships between equipment executives from the perspective of trust distribution, and on this basis introduces a dynamic penalty strategy, which greatly improves the dynamics and effectiveness of the algorithm. In addition, the algorithm is simulated and tested in the simulated API gateway environment, and the simulation results show that the proposed algorithm has significantly improved the reliability and security of trust evaluation compared with the previous adjudication algorithms.

In this work, we experimentally perform time delay interferometry by using a transfer oscillator, which is capable of reducing the laser frequency noise and the clock noise simultaneously in the post processing. The iodine frequency reference is coherently downconverted to the microwave frequency using a laser frequency comb. The residual noise of the downconversion network is 5 × 10−6Hz/Hz1/2 at 0.7 mHz, and 4 × 10−6Hz/Hz1/2 at 0.1 Hz, indicating high homology between the optical frequency and the microwave frequency. We carry out time delay interferometry with the aid of the electrical delay module, which can introduce large time delays. The results show that the laser frequency noise and the clock noise can be reduced simultaneously by ten and three orders of magnitude, respectively, in the frequency band from 0.1 mHz to 0.1 Hz. The performance of the noise reduction can reach 6 × 10−8Hz/Hz1/2 at 0.1 mHz, and 7 × 10−7Hz/Hz1/2 at 1 mHz, meeting the requirements of the space-borne gravitational wave detection. Our work will be able to offer an alternative method for the frequency comb-based time delay interferometry in the future space-borne gravitational wave detectors.

Hydroxysafflor yellow A (HSYA) is a water-soluble component of the safflower (Carthamus tinctorius), and research has revealed that HSYA exhibits antitumor effects. In the present study, the effects of HSYA on the autophagy of a Hep-G2 liver cancer cell line, as well as the underlying mechanisms, were investigated. Hep-G2 cells were treated with HSYA and the viability of cells was measured using an MTT assay. Western blotting and immunofluorescence assays were performed to determine the expression of light chain 3 II (LC3-II) and p62, as well as the autophagy regulators Beclin 1 and ERK1/2. Transmission electron microscopy was performed to observe the formation of autophagosomes. The combined effects of HSYA and the autophagy inhibitor chloroquine (CQ) were also determined. The results revealed that the viability of Hep-G2 cells decreased with increasing concentrations of HSYA. Furthermore, LC3-II expression increased significantly and the level of p62 decreased significantly in the HYSA group compared with the control group. Additionally, an increase in Beclin 1 expression and a decrease in phosphorylated-ERK1/2 expression was observed in Hep-G2 cells treated with HYSA. Following treatment with CQ and HSYA, a significant increase in the viability of Hep-G2 cells was observed compared with the HSYA group. Collectively, the results indicated that HSYA induced autophagy by promoting the expression of Beclin 1 and inhibiting the phosphorylation of ERK in liver cancer cells. Therefore, HSYA may serve as a potential therapeutic agent for liver cancer.

A new method for preparing superhydrophobic nickel coating by magnetic field induced selective scanning electrodeposition based on additive manufacturing is proposed in this paper in which ferromagnetic nano-nickel particles (Nip) are added to the plating solution and the adsorption regulation of Nip achieve by changing the presence of the magnetic field. Adjusting the magnetic field strength can change the density of the coating micro-nano hierarchical structure, thereby affecting the hydrophobicity. The forming mechanism is mainly divided into four steps: pre-coating, loose adsorption, strong adsorption, and hierarchical structure formation. The surface roughness of the superhydrophobic coating reaches 17.584 μm. The pristine coating spontaneously changed from hydrophilic to superhydrophobic after being exposing to air for 5 days (CA = 155.4°). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis shows that this phenomenon is due to the oxidation of the coating to produce NiO and adsorbing a large amount of hydrocarbons. At the same time, the electrochemical test result shows that the superhydrophobic coating has great corrosion resistance.

A magnetic field-assisted scanning electrodeposition was used to prepare stable superhydrophilic Ni-SiC coating on copper sheets in this paper. The Ni-SiC mixed powder was added to a plating solution, and the magnetic field was parallel to the direction of the electric field. The freshly prepared coating exhibited strong hydrophilicity, completely wetting the coating within 2 s. After standing for 12 weeks in the air, the coating remained superhydrophilic. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed rough hierarchical structure and micro-gaps present on the surface. The formation of the hierarchical structure is the result of the coaction of a magnetic field and an electric field. Additionally, energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) detected high surface energy SiC on the surface of the samples. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results showed that the coating could maintain superhydrophilicity due to no excessive oxygen adsorption and SiC adsorption.

Ni-Co alloys and Ni-Co-SiC composite coatings were manufactured by magnetic field-induced jet electrodeposition. The microstructure and nanoparticles distribution of the coatings were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, and X-ray diffraction. The surface roughness, adhesion and corrosion resistance of the coatings were measured using a three-dimensional profilometer, a scratch tester, and an electrochemical workstation. The cellular protrusions on the composite coatings decreased with the addition of nano-SiC particles. However, a large number of small spherical structures grew into large cellular protrusions with an extremely high SiC concentration under traditional jet electrodeposition. The composite coatings under magnetic field-induced jet electrodeposition showed a uniform growth and no protrusions, the nano-SiC particles were also uniformly distributed. The Ni-Co-SiC composite coating exhibited a single-phase solid solution structure, and its adhesion increased to 33.2 N, which was 2.65 times that of the Ni-Co alloy coating. The corrosion current density of the composite coating was 4.768 μAcm−2, which was sufficient to protect sintered NdFeB magnets.

In view of the corrosion failures of sintered NdFeB magnets in engineering, an Ni-Ni(S)-Ni(P) multilayer coating was prepared here via friction-assisted jet electroplating. As a comparison, Ni, Ni(S), Ni(P) single-layer, and Ni-Ni(S)-Ni(P) multilayer coatings were fabricated via jet electroplating without friction. The results revealed that the multilayer coating exhibited better physical and chemical properties compared to the single-layer coatings. After adding friction technology, the surface of the coating was smoother and the original cellular processes disappeared. In addition, the adhesion of the multilayer coating was up to 32.52 N, and the microhardness of the multilayer coatings increased from 557.43 HV to 626.5 HV, which was an increase of 12.39%. In terms of corrosion resistance, the self-corrosion potential of multilayers was up to −0.509 V, and the corrosion current density was as low as 3.564 × 10−6 A/cm2. Friction-assisted jet electroplating can effectively protect sintered NdFeB materials.