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Research compendium for the manuscript Pesigan, I. J. A., Sun, R. W., & Cheung, S. F. (2023). betaDelta and betaSandwich: Confidence intervals for standardized regression coefficients in R. Multivariate Behavioral Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/00273171.2023.2201277

We propose an efficient circuit structure of variational quantum circuit \textit{Ans\"{a}tze} used for the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) algorithm in calculating gapped topological phases on the currently feasible noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers. An efficient circuit \textit{Ansatz} should include two layers: the initialization layer and the variational layer. In the initialization layer, a fixed depth circuit state with a compatible entanglement structure to the target topological phase is constructed. The circuit state is further adjusted subsequently to capture the details of the local correlations, which is dictated with the Hamiltonian, in the parametrized variational layer. Based on this strategy, we design a circuit \textit{Ansatz} to investigate the symmetry-protected topological Haldane phase in a \textit{non-exactly} solvable alternating spin-$1/2$ Heisenberg chain by VQE calculations. Main characterizations of the Haldane phase, including the long-ranged string order, the four-fold nearly degenerate ground states associated with four different localized edge mode patterns for the system with open boundaries, and the two-fold degeneracy of the entanglement spectrum, are all observed for the optimized shallow circuit state with only one depth variational layer both in numerical simulations and on real quantum computers. We further demonstrate that the computational capacity (i.e., expressibility) of this quantum circuit \textit{Ansatz} is determined not by the system size but only by the intrinsic correlation length of the system, thus implying that the scalable VQE calculation is possible., Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures

AIM: To evaluate the effects of intravitreal slow-release dexamethasone on traumatic proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) and Müller cell gliosis and preliminarily explored the possible inflammatory mechanism in a rabbit model induced by penetrating ocular trauma. METHODS: Traumatic PVR was induced in the right eyes of pigmented rabbits by performing an 8-mm circumferential scleral incision placed 2.5 mm behind the limbus, followed by treatment with a slow-release dexamethasone implant (Ozurdex) or sham injection. Left eyes were used as normal controls. The intraocular pressure (IOP) was monitored using an iCare tonometer. PVR severity was evaluated via anatomical and histopathological examinations every week for 6wk; specific inflammatory cytokine and proliferative marker levels were measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, Western blot, protein chip analysis, or immunofluorescence staining. RESULTS: During the observation period, PVR severity gradually increased. Intense Müller cell gliosis was observed in the peripheral retina near the wound and in the whole retina of PVR group. Ozurdex significantly alleviated PVR development and Müller cell gliosis. Post-traumatic inflammation fluctuated and was persistent. The interleukin-1β (IL-1β) mRNA level was significantly upregulated, peaking on day 3 and increasing again on day 21 after injury. The expression of nod-like receptor family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) showed a similar trend that began earlier than that of IL-1β expression. Ozurdex suppressed the expression of IL-1β, NLRP3, and phosphorylated nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB). The average IOP after treatment was within normal limits. CONCLUSION: The present study demonstrates chronic and fluctuating inflammation in a traumatic PVR rabbit model over 6wk. Ozurdex treatment significantly inhibites inflammatory cytokines expression and Müller cell gliosis, and thus alleviates PVR severity. This study highlights the important role of IL-1β, and Ozurdex inhibites inflammation presumably via the NF-κB/NLRP3/IL-1β inflammatory axis. In summary, Ozurdex provides a potential therapeutic option for traumatic PVR.

Rugose corals are one of the major fossil groups in shallow-water environments. They played an important role in dividing and correlating Carboniferous strata during the last century, when regional biostratigraphic schemes were established, and may be useful for long-distance correlation. Carboniferous rugose corals document two evolutionary events. One is the Tournaisian recovery event, with abundant occurrences of typical Carboniferous rugose corals such as columellate taxa and a significant diversification of large, dissepimented corals. The other is the changeover of rugose coral composition at the mid-Carboniferous boundary, which is represented by the disappearance of many large dissepimented taxa with complex axial structures and the appearance of typical Pennsylvanian taxa characterized by compound rugose taxa. The biostratigraphic scales for rugose corals show a finer temporal resolution in the Mississippian than in the Pennsylvanian, which was probably caused by the Late Paleozoic Ice Age that resulted in glacial–eustatic changes and a lack of continuous Pennsylvanian carbonate strata. The Pennsylvanian rugose corals are totally missing in the Cimmerian Continent. High-resolution biostratigraphy of rugose corals has so far only been achieved in few regions for the Mississippian timescale. In most regions, more detailed taxonomic work and precise correlations between different fossil groups are needed.

The division and identification of urban functional areas is of great significance for analyzing the distribution status of urban functional areas and understanding the internal spatial structure of cities.This has stimulated the demand for multi-source geospatial data fusion,especially the fusion of urban remote sensing data and social sensing data.However,how to realize the fusion of urban remote sensing and social sensing data is a technical problem effectively.In order to realize the fusion of urban remote sensing and social sensing data and improve the accuracy of urban function recognition,taking remote sensing images and social sensing data as examples,introducing a multi-modal data fusion mechanism,and proposing a joint deep learning and ensemble learning model to infer urban regional functions.The model uses DenseNet and DPN network to extract urban remote sensing image features and social sensing features from multi-source geospatial data,and carries out multi-level data fusion of feature fusion,decision fusion and hybrid fusion to identify urban functions.The proposed model is verified on the URFC dataset,and these three evaluation index values of hybrid fusion overall classification accuracy,Kappa coefficient and average F1 are 74.29%,0.67,71.92%,respectively.Compared with the best classification method of single modal data,the three evaluation indexes of the proposed fusion model are increased by 18.83%,0.24,35.46% respectively.The experimental results show that the data fusion model has better classification performance,so that it can effectively fuse remote sensing image data and social sensing data,and realize the accurate identification of urban regional functions.

Natural edible fungal polysaccharides are of research and application value for the prevention of diseases by improving the microenvironment within the intestine. Inonotus obliquus polysaccharide (IOP) extracts have strong antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and other biological activities, and as such, it could be used as prebiotics to improve the viability of intestinal microbes, maintain intestinal homeostasis and improve intestinal immunity. The effects of sex on intestinal microbiota after IOP absorption was determined. In this study, IOP had different effects on the intestinal flora of male and female rats, with the diversity and richness showing opposite changes. At the same time, after IOP intervention, changes in the dominant intestinal flora of female rats was less compared with that of males. In addition, while Clostridia, Lactobacillus and Roseburia were the dominant intestinal microbes in female rats, males had mainly Bacteroidota from different families and genera, along with an increasing proportion of Muribaculaceae from different families and genera. IOP could further regulate the intestinal microenvironment of male and female SD rats by enhancing the vitality of their dominant microorganisms, and for both sexes, this enabled the screening of dominant microflora that were conducive to the balance of the intestinal flora. These results help to understand the effects of sex-related differences on the composition of the intestinal microbiota as well as on diseases.

Background: Musculocontractural Ehlers–Danlos syndrome (mcEDS) is a rare heritable connective tissue disease with various symptoms. The diagnosis of mcEDS is difficult because of the large overlap of clinical symptoms between different EDS subtypes.Methods: We performed karyotype analysis, gene copy number variation detection, whole-exome sequencing, and Sanger sequencing to reveal the underlying genetic etiology of a fetus with structural abnormalities in feet and kidneys.Results: A likely pathogenic mutation [NM_130468.3 c.958C>T (p.Arg320*)] and an uncertain significance mutation [NM_130468.3 c.896A>G (p.Tyr299Cys)] were identified in the carbohydrate sulfotransferase 14 (CHST14) gene by whole-exome sequencing and validated by Sanger sequencing.Conclusion: The two identified mutations appear highly likely to be the genetic causes of the fetal structural abnormalities.

In this work, Nb-doped 0.75SrTiO3-0.25BiFeO3 (ST-BF) lead-free ceramics are designed and synthesized using a conventional solid-state reaction method. The influence of Nb doping on the microstructure, dielectric, and electrical properties are systematically investigated. With the increase of Nb concentration, the crystal structure of ST-BF remains pseudo-cubic as exhibited in the X-ray diffraction patterns. The grain size is found to increase from 0.33 to 6.23 μm, and then decrease to 1.88 μm by Nb doping, along with a clear heterogeneous core–shell microstructure. A relatively low dielectric loss (∼0.1, at 1 kHz) and a stable dielectric constant (∼700, at 1 kHz) are obtained for the 0.03 Nb-doped ST-BF composition at room temperature. Impedance spectroscopy analysis shows that Nb doping in ST-BF increases the total resistivity, forming an electrically conductive core and a nonconductive shell, with enhanced activation energy. The results may provide a feasible approach to develop novel ST-based lead-free dielectric ceramics for capacitor applications

In order to understand the species composition, quantity and spatial distribution of both typical shrub communities and their plant propagule bank and their relationship with aboveground plant communities along mountain river, Dicun stream, which was the source of the Jiulong River in the west of Fujian Province, was chosen to study. The seed germination method was used to identify the species of the propagules and the Jaccard similarity index to analyze the similarity between the aboveground plant community and its plant propagules. The results showed that: (1) The number of species in the aboveground communities of the Dicun stream was larger than that of the propagules. (2) The shrub community contained 76 plants belonging to 25 families and 64 genera, and 33 plants belonging to 14 families and 32 genera were found in the propagules. (3) The density of the propagule bank decreased with increasing soil depth, the seeds in the propagule bank were mainly distributed in the shallow soil 0.5 cm, and the number of seeds in the upper layer were 57.8% of the total number of seeds. The Jaccard similarity index of the shrub community in the Dicun Stream Basin was between 0.167 and 0.467, and the similarity between adjacent plots was relatively high, but the similarity between interval plots was relatively low. (4) The number of species shared by the propagules and the aboveground communities in the survey plot was low, the similarity was low, and there was no significant correlation between the density of the propagule bank and the density of aboveground communities. In summary, there were various reasons for the differences between the density and composition of propagules. The difference between the seed bank and the existing community could have been because the seeds in the propagule bank were not all from the existing community, but were from the long-term accumulation of different succession stages.

Introduction Breast cancer is a common malignancy in females worldwide. In this study, we investigated the role of activating transcription factor 3 (ATF3) and ADP-ribosylation factor like-4 (ARL4) in human breast cancer, and the associated mechanisms. Materials and Methods We measured ATF3 and ATL4C expressions in 15 paired breast cancer tissues using qRT-PCR, Western blotting and IHC. Cell growth, migration and invasion were tested in ATF3 or ARL4C overexpression breast cancer cells. TCGA database analysis was done to identify the correlation between ATF3 and ARL4C. We evaluated the binding of ATF3 to ARL4C promoter sequences and the effect of hypermethylation and demethylation of ATF3. A meta-analysis was done to investigate the relationship between the expression of ATF3 and/or ARL4C and the poor prognoses. Results Our results showed that ATF3 and ARL4C were decreased in breast cancer specimens at both mRNA and protein levels. Restoration of ATF3 or ARL4C reduced breast cancer tumorigenesis, evidenced by decreased cell growth, migration and invasion. The expression of ATF3 was positively correlated with ARL4C in breast cancer specimens, and ATF3 was shown to bind to the ARL4C promoter sequences. Furthermore, the expression of ATF3 was negatively regulated by hypermethylation, and demethylation of ATF3 stimulated ATF3 expression, which further promoted ARL4C transcription. Finally, a meta-analysis showed that patients with breast cancer with lower expression levels of ATF3 and/or ARL4C had worse prognoses. Conclusion Our results suggest that the ATF3/ARL4C axis may be a prospective biomarker for diagnosis and determination of prognosis, and a potential target for breast cancer treatment.

We provide an efficient and accurate method for converting Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov wave functions into matrix product states (MPSs). These wave functions, also known as Bogoliubov vacua, exhibit a peculiar entanglement structure that the eigenvectors of the reduced density matrix are also Bogoliubov vacua. We exploit this important feature to obtain their optimal MPS approximation and derive an explicit formula for corresponding MPS matrices. The performance of our method is benchmarked with the Kitaev chain and the Majorana-Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice. The approach facilitates the applications of Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov wave functions and is ideally suited for combining with the density-matrix renormalization group method., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, published version

Thermal interface material (TIM) is pivotal for the heat dissipation in high-density electronic packaging. Recently, carbon-based materials have been used as important TIM located between the integrated heat spreader and heat sink in a flip-chip package, termed as TIM2. Due to the extremely high thermal conductivity of carbon fiber, the thermal pad with array of aligned carbon fibers presents high through-plane thermal conductivity, and the introduction of Al 2 O 3 particles also proves to facilitate the heat transfer and mechanical properties of the composites. In this work, we generate the microstructures of carbon fiber/ Al 2 O 3 thermal pad with high filler density (>70 vol %), and simulate their thermal and mechanical properties by GeoDict, an efficient software for modeling of materials, including visualization, property characterization, simulation-based design. To deeply understand the influence of the filler content and formula, intrinsic properties of the additives, and interfacial thermal resistance between various components on the effective properties of the composites, we employ orthogonal experimental design to give a comprehensive perspective with reduced computation cost. The simulation results and numerical analysis provide the potential to develop TIM2 with improved properties.

The booming growth of flexible and stretchable electronic devices with increasing power density calls for novel highly efficient thermal interface materials (TIMs) with versatile functions, such as high deformability and excellent resilience. Soft polymer composites such as silicone gap pad are expected to reduce the contact resistance and thermal impedance, but the huge mismatch of the thermal expansion coefficient between the heat sink and the microelectronic chip and stretching behavior make them under stress, especially in the way of tensile stress in stretchable electronic devices. So far, few researchers have reported study about the effect of tensile behavior on the properties of TIMs. In this work, DMA (dynamic mechanical analysis) was used to characterize the resilience, creep and stress relaxation characteristics of silicones gap padsIt was found that as the strain increases, the rebound ratio increases at the first and then decreases, reaching the maximum at 20% of its maximum stretching length. When the term of time is considered, the plasticity of the tensile behavior is not linearly related to time but decelerates as time increases. In five cycles of loading-unloading, the increase in stretch length can enhance the degree of plastic deformation significantly, while the stretch rate has no correspond with it. This research can provide important guidance for the application of TIMs in stretchable electronic devices industry.

The thermal interface material in direct contact with chip, termed as TIM1, is a kind of composite material with thermally conductive particulate fillers. To better understand the thermal conduction mechanism and promote the design of TIM1, numerical studies are very essential. In this work, we compare two numerical methods, finite element method (FEM) and GeoDict, to compute the effective thermal conductivity of the particulate composites, in which the interface thermal resistance is considered. Firstly, we employed the Monte-Carlo algorithm as well as energy minimization method to generate the representative volume elements (RVEs), and the particulate fillers are dispersed randomly in the RVEs. The interface thermal resistance is introduced in the numerical modeling by an imperfect interface between various components. The effective thermal conductivity is evaluated over RVEs by FEM and GeoDict, respectively, with the efficiency and accuracy of the two algorithms compared. The drawback of FEM is that its pre-treatment is quite difficult for particulate composites of high filler content because of the requirements of fine mesh, which also calls for a large demand of memory. In contrast, GeoDict solved the problem using fast Fourier transform algorithm based on pixels of the RVEs, showing high efficiency and can be extended to any kind of additives. Finally, we show that GeoDict could be an efficient tool for high-throughput screening of formulas of TIM1 for advanced electronic packaging.

The thermal interface materials (TIMs) used between a chip and a heat spreader in electronic packaging composes polymeric materials filled with particulate fillers. In this work, we focus on the numerical modeling and design of the particle-laden polymers with high packing density, in which two kinds of particles are mixed. Specifically, $\mathbf{\mathrm{A}1_{2}\mathrm{O}_{3}}$ and AIN, which are commonly used in the electronic packaging industry, are taken as the particulate fillers. Firstly, a series of microstructures of Al 2 O 3 / AIN filled polymer composites with 75 vol% filler volume fraction are generated in GeoDict software with changing the relative content of Al 2 O 3 and AIN. The diameters of the Al 2 O 3 and AIN particles obey orthogonal logarithmic distribution and Gaussian distribution, respectively. Then the thermal conductivities of the structures are simulated under various microscopic factors, such as particle-particle and particle-matrix interfacial thermal resistance, etc. The results are analyzed taken advantage of the orthogonal experimental design, showing that the particle-particle interfacial thermal resistance plays dominant role in the thermal properties of the particulate composites. We demonstrate that such technique can be used to optimize the design of particulate TIMs.

Due to the atmospheric turbulence, the static aberration, tracking and pointing errors of telescopes, the point spread functions (PSFs) in different fields of view are different. Meanwhile, there are different PSFs in the images obtained by different telescopes. The quality of co-adding image is limited by the image with the poorest quality, and finally the resolution and sensitivity of the quad-channel telescope will also be affected. Dividing the image into some regions with the same type of PSF, and deconvolving these regions can improve the quality of the co-adding image. According to this theory, an image restoration algorithm based on the PSF clustering is proposed. Firstly, this paper makes the PSF clustering analysis by using Self-Organizing Maps, and makes the image segmentation based on the result of the PSF clustering analysis, then using the clustered PSFs to make deconvolutions on the sub-images. Then, the restored sub-images after deconvolution are joined together. Finally, by through the image registration and co-adding, the image with a high signal to noise ratio can be obtained. The result shows that the signal to noise ratio of the astronomical images are improved with our method, and the detection capability on faint stars is also improved.

Information processing in the brain depends on specialized organization of neurotransmitter receptors and scaffolding proteins within the postsynaptic density. However, how these molecules are organized in situ remains largely unknown. In this study, template-free classification of oversampled sub-tomograms was used to analyze cryo-electron tomograms of hippocampal synapses. We identified type-A GABA receptors (GABAARs) in inhibitory synapses and determined their in situ structure at 19-Å resolution. These receptors are organized hierarchically: from GABAAR super-complexes with a preferred inter-receptor distance of 11 nm but variable relative angles, through semi-ordered, two-dimensional receptor networks with reduced Voronoi entropy, to mesophasic assembly with a sharp phase boundary. These assemblies likely form via interactions among postsynaptic scaffolding proteins and receptors and align with putative presynaptic vesicle release sites. Such mesophasic self-organization might allow synapses to achieve a 'Goldilocks' state, striking a balance between stability and flexibility and enabling plasticity in information processing.

With the increasing penetration of renewable energy, the uncertainty of its power output will pose severe challenges for the reactive voltage operation of the receiving power grid. In view of the situation, a mathematical model for reactive power regulation is established in this paper, and based on Model Predictive Control, we propose a multiple-timescale optimal reactive voltage control method to reduce the effects of wind and photovoltaic uncertainties on voltage control. The IEEE-57 node system with renewable energy integration is adopted to verify the proposed model, and the results are obtained via Whale optimization Algorithm based Simulated Annealing (WOASA), which proves that with the multiple time-scale control method, the operation safety can be effectively improved, which can unleash the potential of reactive power regulation at the receiving power grid.

RNA interference (RNAi), which employs double-strand RNA (dsRNA) or small interference RNA (siRNA), is a popular reverse genetic manipulation tool to study gene function. Presently, there is few reports on the implementation of RNAi on the insulin-like androgenic gland gene (IAG) in red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii. In this study, the effective sequence of siRNA and optimal injection dose were determined, and the effects of RNAi using dsRNA, siRNA, and long-term RNAi were investigated. The results showed that the doses of 0.5 and 1 µg/g of body weight of IAG-siRNA3 produced significantly better inhibition than 0.1 µg/g. qPCR assays showed that both dsRNA and siRNA silenced the IAG expression in five tissues (brain, ventral nerve cord, androgenic gland, testis, and vas deferens) in adult P. clarkii, with the effectiveness decreasing over time, inhibiting the production of spermatid. dsRNA exhibited a longer interference effect than siRNA in adults. For long-term interference (P. clarkii juveniles were injected 7 times with 1 µg/g of body weight of IAG-dsRNA), and found that the secondary sexual characteristics of juveniles were affected, while the control group developed normally. The results of this study could lay the foundation for crayfish sex reversal with IAG RNAi, and provide the reference for those studies in which the technique of RNAi was used.

Background. This study was aimed at systematically evaluating the clinical effect and safety of Xiao’er Xiaoji Zhike oral liquid in the treatment of Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (MPP) in children and providing evidence-based references for clinical application. Methods. The databases like Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China Network Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan Fang Database, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, PubMed, EmBase, and the Cochrane Library were systematically investigated via searching clinical trials about Xiao’er Xiaoji Zhike oral liquid in treating MPP from the establishment of these databases to Jun 8, 2020, the valid data from which were entered meta-analysis. The quality of evidence was assessed by GRADE criteria. Results. Totally, 15 trials and 1500 patients were involved in this review. It showed that clinical efficacy of trial group was more superior than control group at the outcome measures of cough disappearance time, lung rale disappearance time, fever subsidence time, total effective rate, lung X-ray infiltrates disappearing time, reduction of hospital stay, immunological indexes, and some other measures. And the differences between groups were statistically significant. There was no statistical difference in the adverse effects between two groups. Lung X-ray infiltrates disappearing time and cough disappearance time were separately high- and moderate-quality evidences while lung rale disappearance time and fever subsidence time were all low in accordance with GRADE criteria. Conclusions. In accordance with trials with low methodological quality, Xiao’er Xiaoji Zhike oral liquid combined with azithromycin seems to be safe and superior to azithromycin alone for the treatment of MPP in children. However, further trials with rigorous methodology need to be implemented for these potential benefits.

State Grid’s intelligent transportation inspection system has taken “self and environmental awareness” as one of its core functions. Among them, environmental modeling and intelligent reconfiguration are the basis for panoramic information collection and organization of field operations, using multiple sensing technologies and high efficiency. The intelligent image processing algorithm eliminates the need to additionally deploy base stations or sensors at the job site, and can directly form 3D model by scanning the environment directly at the job site through the portable terminal. Furthermore, the various types of information on the site are mainly spatial dimensions, and the time dimension and logical relationship are supplemented by reorganization. This technology will provide new automation and intelligent solutions for grid field operations, improve operation modes, improve work efficiency, and achieve active safety protection.

Additional file 1: Table S1. Baseline characteristics between plaque rupture and plaque erosion. Table S2. Presictive models of PR established using ARPG/GVT single or combined with traditional risk factors. Table S3. The correlation between glucose-related variables and plaque morphological characteristics using Spearman correlation.

The flame propagation of nanoaluminum cloud in different atmospheres such as CO2, air, and O2 was experimentally studied in a transparent quartz tube. Measurements of the flame length, height, propagation velocity, and temperature indicate that these parameters undergo regular changes in different atmospheres. The maximum measured temperature in CO2 was lower than that in air. On the basis of these results, the flame propagation mechanism of a nanoaluminum cloud is discussed. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the combustion products consist of uniform spherical particles. On the other hand, the X-ray diffraction analysis indicated the presence of Al, γ-Al2O3, θ-Al2O3, and α-Al2O3 in the combustion products of nanoaluminum cloud in air and the existence of Al, θ-Al2O3, α-Al2O3, and Al2OC when the cloud burns in CO2.

The Cimmerian continent is composed of a series of blocks that were attached to the northern margin of Gondwana during the Carboniferous-Permian time, and as a consequence therefore, developed glacial sediments during the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA). These blocks rifted from Gondwana in the Early Permian, and then drifted towards the tropical area, and as a result their deposits are characterized by the mixture of warm and cool water sediments. With these previously acknowledged diagnostic features, the recognized Cimmerian blocks include Shan-Thai, Tengchong, Baoshan, Lhasa, southern Qiangtang, southern Afghanistan, and southern Iran. Carboniferous and Permian sediments and faunas in these blocks are reviewed in detail here, and disclose the most significant character of Cimmerian blocks, that is the absence of upper Carboniferous sediments, which makes them more similar to Australia and India/Pakistan, and significantly different from South China and other Tethyan regions. By the same token, central Iran, central Afghanistan, and central Pamir should be excluded from the Cimmerian blocks for distinct geological histories. The lower Carboniferous sediments present in all the Cimmerian blocks are composed of Tournaisian and Visean stages, characterized by chert nodules or lenses and oolites. Tournaisian brachiopod Syringothyris, rugose coral Cyathaxonia fauna and Siphonophyllia, and Visean bryozoan Fenestella are typical components, but overall the early Carboniferous fauna shows a Eurasian affinity. Lower Permian deposits are glacial-marine siliciclastic sequence containing cool/cold-water bivalves, small solitary non-dissepimented corals, characteristic brachiopods, low diversified but highly abundant fusulinds Pseudofusulina and Eoparafusulina, which belong to the Peri-Gondwanan fauna. The basaltic magmatism event that took place in the Cimmerian blocks was mainly in the Artinskian, which was most likely related to the initial rifting of the Cimmerian from the northern margin of Gondwana. Upper Lower Permian to Middle Permian include siliciclastics and carbonates in which cold- and warm-water mixed fauna and warm-water genera developed indicating the northward drifting of Cimmerian blocks. The marine fossils in this period are named as the Cimmerian fauna to include such characteristic taxa as the rugose coral Thomasiphyllum, fusulinids Monodiexodina and Eopolydiexodina, as well as some tropically-distributed Tethyan elements. The Upper Permian are mainly dolomitic limestones which contain the typical Cimmerian foraminifera Shanita and Hemigordius in addition to other Tethyan taxa such as the compound coral Waagenophyllum.

Summary Water displacement method is used to study the influence of temperatures (60–80°C), additives (Na2CO3, NaCl, Na2CO3/NaCl) and concentrations on the reaction characteristics and kinetics of Al–H2O. Results show that the reaction rate and the hydrogen yield are enhanced with the increase of the temperature or by adding Na2CO3. The reaction rate is decreased by adding NaCl, but which has less effect on the hydrogen yield. For the mixture additive, Na2CO3 plays a key role in improving the hydrogen yield and the reaction rate. The influence degree of different factors is analyzed by orthogonal method. The most obvious factor is additive, but additive concentration has a minimum influence. The solid products are collected and analyzed by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. Al, Al(OH)3 and AlO(OH) are detected. The spherical particles are obviously found at the initial reaction stage. However, they change to flocs at the end of reaction. Kinetic analysis shows that the reaction mechanism of Al–H2O is changed by adding Na2CO3 or mixture, but it is not affected by adding NaCl. Moreover, the apparent activation energy of Al–H2O is 74.49 kJ mol−1, while it is only 43.03 kJ mol−1 for Al–H2O with 5 wt% Na2CO3 addition. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The mixture of NiCl2 and Na2CO3 was used to achieve a sustained and steady reaction of Al and H2O within a certain period of time. The effects of mixing ratio, mixture concentration and temperature on the reaction of Al and H2O were studied. The results indicate that two conditions are required to achieve the constant reaction rate. One condition is that the mixture should to be mixed at the volume ratio of 1:1. Another condition is the low concentration of mixture that is less than 1.00 wt %. In addition, the reaction rate can be increased by increasing the mixture concentration as long as the concentration is lower than 1.00 wt %. The hydrogen yield and the reaction rate are increased with increasing the reaction temperature. Furthermore, the reaction temperature also affects the steady reaction time.

The method of controlling highly eccentric accompanying flight orbit using the solar wing is proposed in this paper. The formation is maintained by controlling the orbit of the accompanying satellite (follower). The accompanying satellite rotates around its inertial principal axis with a constant angular velocity. The control on the accompanying satellite is divided into the in-plane control and out-of-plane control. The in-plane control is superior to the out-of-plane control. The out-of-plane control force is applied when the in-plane error is eliminated or the in-plane control force can not be supplied due to some geometrical factors. By the sliding mode control method, the magnitude and direction of the control force required by the in-plane orbit control are calculated. Then accordingly, the expression of the solar wing orientation with respect to the satellite body in the control process is derived, so that by adjusting the orientation of the solar wing, the required control force can be obtained. Finally, the verification on this method is performed by numerical simulations, including the orbit adjustment, error elimination, and the orbit maintenance. It is shown that this method can keep the error less than 5 m, and it is feasible for the space formation flight.

With the large-scale integration of renewable energy sources (e.g., wind power), the system inertial response and primary frequency regulation are affected. The virtual synchronous generator technology, which makes it possible for wind power units to adjust the frequency, provides a new way of approaching this problem. In this paper, we set up the related constraints that fit the optimal dispatch framework with a primary reserve representing the primary frequency response between the conventional synchronous generator and the wind power units, and the technical parameters of the virtual synchronous generator. Meanwhile, we use the robust day-ahead optimization dispatch model considering the wind power integrated primary frequency control in the real-time operation with the scenario of the wind power output showing the uncertainty of wind power. Based on the model, we identify the key set using an iterative method and obtain the maximum power loss. Through the proposed model, we could provide the day-ahead unit output and real-time primary reserve, thus ensuring the reliable operation of the system. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by a computational experiment.

Four new compounds, 4-O-trans-caffeoylgluconic acid (1), 2-O-trans-caffeoylgluconic acid (2), 3-O-trans-caffeoylgluconic acid (3), 5-O-trans-caffeoylgluconic acid (4), together with three known ones including 6-O-trans-caffeoylgluconic acid (5), neochlorogenic acid (6), chlorogenic acid (7) were obtained from the fruits of Evodia rutaecarpa. Their structure elucidation was achieved by the methods of spectroscopic analyses, including HR-ESI-MS, NMR, and by comparison with literatures. The hepatotoxicity of compounds 1–3 was evaluated by CCK-8 method.

Additional file 1: Figure S1. PC-9 and PC-9/PEM do not express FGFR1 or FGFR4 proteins. Figure S2 PD173074 sensitized PC-9/PEM to erlotinib but BLU-554 and nintedanib did not. Figure S3. Representative pictures and body weights of xenografts. Figure S4. Establishment of erlotinib-resistant NSCLC cell lines. Figure S5. Sequence alignment between PTK2 (Y407 to F729) and FGFR1 (Y463 to L819). Table S1. The sequences for primers used in RT- qPCR.

Table S1. Relationship between selected 3′UTR polymorphisms and risk of lung cancer according to multiple inheritance models. Table S2. The relationship of selected 3′UTR polymorphisms with lung cancer according to the gender stratification. Table S3. The relationship of selected 3′UTR polymorphisms with lung cancer according to the age stratification. Table S4. Relationship between selected 3′UTR polymorphisms and risk of lung adenocarcinoma. Table S5. Relationship between selected 3′UTR polymorphisms and risk of lung squamous cell carcinoma. Table S6. Relationship between selected 3′UTR polymorphisms and risk of lung small cell carcinoma. Table S7. Relationship of clinical stage with selected 3′UTR polymorphisms in lung cancer patients. Table S8. Relationship of lymphatic metastatic status with 3′UTR polymorphisms in lung cancer patients. Table S9. Haplotype frequencies and their associations with lung cancer risk. (DOCX 130 kb)

During the optical observation of space objects, it is difficult to enable the background stars to get matched when the telescope pointing error and tracking error are significant. Based on the idea of decreasing redundancy matching, an effective recognition method for background stars is proposed in this paper. The simulative images under different conditions and the observed images are used to verify the proposed method. The experimental results show that the proposed method has raised the rate of recognition and reduced the time consumption, it can be used to match star patterns accurately and rapidly.

Wind energy is a commonly utilized renewable energy source, due to its merits of extensive distribution and rich reserves. However, as wind speed fluctuates violently and uncertainly at all times, wind power integration may affect the security and stability of power system. In this study, we propose an ensemble model for probabilistic wind speed forecasting. It consists of wavelet threshold denoising (WTD), recurrent neural network (RNN) and adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). Firstly, WTD smooths the wind speed series in order to better capture its variation trend. Secondly, RNNs with different architectures are trained on the denoising datasets, operating as submodels for point wind speed forecasting. Thirdly, ANFIS is innovatively established as the top layer of the entire ensemble model to compute the final point prediction result, in order to take full advantages of a limited number of deeplearningbased submodels. Lastly, variances are obtained from submodels and then prediction intervals of probabilistic forecasting can be calculated, where the variances inventively consist of modeling and forecasting uncertainties. The proposed ensemble model is established and verified on less than one-hour-ahead ultra-short-term wind speed forecasting. We compare it with other soft computing models. The results indicate the feasibility and superiority of the proposed model in both point and probabilistic wind speed forecasting.

III-V semiconductor nanowires have attracted extensive research interests over the past few decades due to their unique geometry and great potential for promoting new functionalities in future electronics, light-emitting diodes and solar cells. However, in order to push this technology beyond the laboratory level, it is essential to combine it with the current Si-based semiconductor industry for affordable production. The synthesis of III-As nanowires relies mostly on the use of Au as seed particle, which as a result of high diffusivity of Au in Si, limits the possibility to integrate III-As nanowires into Si devices.The purpose of this thesis is trying to get a better understanding of which properties might be desirable for a material to act as seed particle to assist nanowire growth.This thesis studies Sn-seeded growth of GaAs, InAs and InGaAs nanowires by MOVPE, and how the growth process can be controlled to tailor the nanowire morphology and crystal phase to some exten. The in-situ formation of Sn particles on various substrates has been investigated. The temperature range and the flow of growth precursors for Sn-seeded nanowire growth differ a lot from nanowire growth from Au seed particles. In contrast to Au-seeded nanowires, Sn-seeded GaAs and InAs nanowires mostly exhibit zincblende crystal phase. Furthermore, a big advantage of using Sn as seed material is the simultaneous incorporation of the particle material into the nanowire during growth, leading to nanowires with high n-type doping profile.

Online_Appendices for Correlation-Based Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling: Effects of Parameter Covariance on Point and Interval Estimates by Shu Fai Cheung, Rong Wei Sun, and Darius K.-S. Chan in Organizational Research Methods

Automated tape placement is an important automated process used for fabrication of large composite structures in aeronautical industry. The carbon fiber composite parts realized with this process tend to replace the aluminum parts produced by high-speed machining. It is difficult to determine the appropriate width of the composite tape in automated tape placement. Wrinkling will appear in the tape if it does not suit for the mould surface. Thus, this paper deals with establishing placement suitability criteria of the composite tape for the mould surface. With the assumptions for ideal mapping and by applying some principles and theorems of differential geometry, the centerline trajectory of the composite tape is identified to follow the geodesic. The placement suitability of the composite tape is examined on three different types of non-developable mould surfaces and four criteria are derived. The developed criteria have been used to test the deposition process over several mould surfaces and the appropriate width for each mould surface is obtained by referring to these criteria.