Search

A miniaturized high-power integrated passive front-end is proposed in this article. A two-way power combiner, a cascaded four-port $E$ -plane waveguide circulator, and a power limiter are incorporated into the front-end. The combined power is incident to the four-port waveguide circulator, and the forward output power of the circulator is incident to the antenna element, while the received power from the antenna is incident to the receiver with a limited range by the power limiter. The cross section size of the passive front-end is small as $0.85\times 0.8\,\,\lambda $ , which makes it suitable for high-power active array antenna applications. The experiments show that from 8 to 9 GHz, the insertion loss in the transmitting path is 0.25 dB, the insertion loss in the receiving path is smaller than 1.4 dB, the return loss is larger than 20 dB, and the isolation is higher than 20 dB. High-power tests indicate that the power capacity of the passive front-end is no less than 5 kW with a 50-ns pulsewidth and a 0.5% duty cycle.

Asia Minor bluegrass (Polypogon fugaxNees ex Steud.) is one of the major grass weeds in winter crops in China, with populations having developed resistance to herbicides (such as clodinafop-propargyl). In this study, the methods for tissue culture and genetic transformation were established for this weedy species. Callus induction, adventitious bud differentiation and rooting were achieved by using mature seeds of clodinafop-propargyl-susceptible P. fugax, and by manipulating concentration combinations of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), 6-benzyl aminopurine (6-BA), and naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA). Genetic transformation was conducted by co-culturing generated calli with Agrobacterium tumefaciensEHA105 containing pOx (HA)-GFP plasmids, and regenerated transgenic plants were obtained by hygromycin screening. The green fluorescent protein (GFP) visual analysis showed GFP gene expression in transgenic calli, and RT-qPCR confirmed the stable expression of the exogenous hygromycin gene in P. fugaxtransgenic plants. Furthermore, Southern hybridization analysis confirmed the transgene integration. This transformation efficiency was 7%. These results indicated successful establishment of a reliable and efficient A. tumefaciens-mediated genetic transformation system, which will provide opportunities to better understand the evolution of herbicide resistance and the resistance genetics.

This article presents a miniaturized microwave sensor based on a cylindrical cavity for detecting the concentration of water-glucose solutions. To enhance the sensitivity, the cavity is modified in which two symmetrical metal wires with respect to its center are embedded. Compared with the conventional cavity, in the wired measurement, the modified sensor has increased sensitivities by 53% and 44% in terms of shifts of reflection and transmission resonant frequencies ${f}_{{11}}$ and ${f}_{{21}}$ , which are 17.86 and 14.16 MHz/1% concentration, respectively. In addition, semiwireless and passive full-wireless measurement methods are proposed. With a measuring distance of 30 cm, experimental results show that the sensitivities of the semiwireless measurement are 8.82 and 6.11 MHz/1% for ${f}_{{11}}$ and ${f}_{{21}}$ , which are increased by 50% and 35%, respectively, compared with the conventional cavity. The proposed full-wireless measurement with advantages including passivity, long-distance, and low-cost has a high sensitivity of 2.74 MHz/1% with the reading distance of 30 cm. Compared with other microwave glucose sensors, the proposed sensor has a better performance and the wireless methods are novel, which are expected to be used in biological and chemical sensors.

Objective: Metabolic disorders are regarded as hallmarks of multiple myeloma (MM) and are responsible for rapid cancer cell proliferation and tumor growth. However, the exact biological roles of metabolites in MM cells have not been fully explored. This study aimed to explore the feasibility and clinical significance of lactate for MM and investigate the molecular mechanism of lactic acid (Lac) in the proliferation of myeloma cells and cell sensitivity to bortezomib (BTZ). Methods: Metabolomic analysis of the serum was carried out to obtain metabolites expression and clinical characteristics in MM patients. The CCK8 assay and flow cytometry were used to detect cell proliferation, apoptosis, and cell cycle changes. Western blotting was used to detect the potential mechanism and apoptosis- and cycle-related protein changes. Results: Lactate was highly expressed in both the peripheral blood and bone marrow of MM patients. It was significantly correlated with Durie-Salmon Staging (DS Staging) and the International Staging System (ISS Staging) and the serum and urinary involved/uninvolved free light chain ratios. Patients with relatively high lactate levels had a poor treatment response. Moreover, in vitroexperiments showed that Lac could promote the proliferation of tumor cells and decrease the proportion of G0/G1-phase cells, which was accompanied by an increased proportion of S-phase cells. In addition, Lac could decrease tumor sensitivity to BTZ by disrupting the expression of nuclear factor kappa B subunit 2 (NFkB2) and RelB. Conclusion: Metabolic changes are important in MM cell proliferation and treatment response; lactate could be used as a biomarker in MM and as a therapeutic target to overcome cell resistance to BTZ.

Multimodal abstractive summarisation (MAS) aims to generate a textual summary from multimodal data collection, such as video‐text pairs. Despite the success of recent work, the existing methods lack a thorough analysis for consistency across multimodal data. Besides, previous work relies on the fusion method to extract multimodal semantics, neglecting the constraints for complementary semantics of each modality. To address those issues, a multilayer cross‐fusion model with the reconstructor for the MAS task is proposed. Their model could thoroughly conduct cross‐fusion for each modality via layers of cross‐modal transformer blocks, resulting in cross‐modal fusion representations with consistency across modalities. Then the reconstructor is employed to reproduce source modalities based on cross‐modal fusion representations. The reconstruction process constrains the fusion representations with the complementary semantics of each modality. Comprehensive comparison and ablation experiments on the open domain multimodal dataset How2 are proposed. The results empirically verify the effectiveness of the multilayer cross‐fusion with the reconstructor structure on the proposed model. We propose a novel MCR model for the video‐containing multimodal abstractive summarisation task, aiming to model the thoroughly consistent and complementary semantics in multimodal data. We design the cross‐fusion module implemented by the cross‐modal transformer blocks to process text and video source inputs and model the consistency semantics among modalities. Moreover, we use the reconstructor to capture the complementary semantics in source modalities. The backflows from multimodal fusion representations to source inputs can be learnt together as the constraints.

Delayed sowing mitigates lodging in wheat. However, the mechanism underlying the enhanced lodging resistance in wheat has yet to be fully elucidated. Field experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of sowing date on lignin and cellulose metabolism, stem morphological characteristics, lodging resistance, and grain yield. Seeds of Tainong 18, a winter wheat variety, were sown on October 8 (normal sowing) and October 22 (late sowing) during both of the 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 growing seasons. The results showed that late sowing enhanced the lodging resistance of wheat by improving the biosynthesis and accumulation of lignin and cellulose. Under late sowing, the expression levels of key genes (TaPAL, TaCCR, TaCOMT, TaCAD, and TaCesA1, 3, 4, 7, and 8) and enzyme activities (TaPAL and TaCAD) related to lignin and cellulose biosynthesis peaked 4–12 days earlier, and except for the TaPAL, TaCCR, and TaCesA1genes and TaPAL, in most cases they were significantly higher than under normal sowing. As a result, lignin and cellulose accumulated quickly during the stem elongation stage. The mean and maximum accumulation rates of lignin and cellulose increased, the maximum accumulation contents of lignin and cellulose were higher, and the cellulose accumulation duration was prolonged. Consequently, the lignin/cellulose ratio and lignin content were increased from 0 day and the cellulose content was increased from 11 days after jointing onward. Our main finding is that the improved biosynthesis and accumulation of lignin and cellulose were responsible for increasing the stem-filling degree, breaking strength, and lodging resistance. The major functional genes enhancing lodging resistance in wheat that are induced by delayed sowing need to be determined.

To compare the short-term outcomes of a new gastrointestinal decompression tube combined with conservative treatment in patients with esophagojejunal anastomotic leakage (EJAL) after total gastrectomy. We retrospectively analyzed the data of 81 patients with EJAL who had undergone total gastrectomy and Roux-en-Y reconstruction at Fujian Medical University Union Hospital between January 2014 and December 2021. The patients were divided into experimental (12 patients with new gastrointestinal decompression tube plus conservative treatment) and control (69 patients with conservative treatment) groups, according to the different treatment methods they received. Anatomic defect size linearly correlated with time to clinical success, hospital stay, and hospital cost in the control group. The two groups showed no significant differences in anastomotic defect size, time of defect after surgery, hospitalization cost, and time of antibiotic use. However, the time to clinical success was significantly shorter in the experimental group than in the control group (16.0 ± 8.3 vs. 23.6 ± 17.8, P= 0.04), as was the length of hospital stay (30.1 ± 6.3 vs. 36.8 ± 16.7, P= 0.017). Furthermore, when the defect size was ≥ 4 mm, the time to clinical success, hospital stay, and hospital cost in the experimental group were lower than those in the control group (P< 0.05). Placement of a new gastrointestinal decompression tube is a safe treatment. When the defect size is ≥ 4 mm, the time to clinical success, length of hospital stay, and hospital cost can be reduced.

In this work, a reflective polarization conversion metasurface (PCM) with symmetrical L-shaped patches is proposed which enables to switch between different polarization modes by PIN diodes, i.e., linear-to-linear (LTL) cross-polarization and linear-to-circular (LTC) polarization. Because of multimodes activated in the structure, the PCM shows an ultrawide bandwidth both for LTL and LTC polarization conversion. A microstrip line-based dc biasing network composed of radial stubs is introduced to isolate RF currents, which can resolve problems raised by RF-lumped choke inductors in the ultrawide bandwidth. A prototype with $15\times15$ units is fabricated. The simulated and measured results show that when the PIN diodes are forward biased, the PCM achieves LTC polarization conversion in the range of 5.96–15.34 GHz (relative bandwidth of 88.4%) with the axial ratio (AR) less than 3 dB; when the PIN diodes are reverse biased, the PCM achieves LTL polarization conversion in the range of 6.05–14.76 GHz (relative bandwidth of 83.75%) with the polarization conversion ratio (PCR) higher than 90%. The proposed PCM is expected to be potentially applied to a broad scanning range array, intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs), and remote sensing.

This article presents a new measurement method for liquid concentrations based on two inductively coupled resonators with enhanced sensitivity compared with traditional methods in microwave frequency ranges. The equivalent circuit of the coupled resonators is proposed with its eigenequation having three eigenfrequencies derived. We demonstrate that, compared to a single resonator, the sensitivity of the center eigenfrequency shift to the changed capacitance increases by an order of magnitude if the product of the coupling coefficient and $Q$ -factor of the second resonator is close to unity. In addition, that the reflection magnitude changes with the varied capacitance is also giant under impedance matching condition at the down and up eigenfrequencies. Based on the proposed method, a sensor composed of an open quarter-wavelength microstrip-line resonator (OQMR) and a split-ring resonator (SRR) for detecting concentrations of water–glucose solutions is designed. By adjusting the sample volume and the distance between two resonators, different coupling coefficients and $Q$ -factors can be attained, enabling marked increases in the sensitivity. Experimental and simulated results show that the sensitivity of the center eigenfrequency shift and of the reflection magnitude change to the concentration are as high as 9.4 MHz/(mg/mL) and 5.41 dB/(mg/mL), respectively, both of which are excellent compared to other sensors.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the clinical application and efficacy of a super-low-positioned intestinal decompression tube in the treatment of intestinal obstruction. Methods: A total of 130 patients with postoperative small bowel obstruction were included in this study. The patients were divided into a super-low-positioned intestinal decompression group and a conventional intestinal decompression group. The clinical data, treatment outcomes, and complications were compared between the two groups. Results: The technical success rate of placing the super-low-positioned intestinal decompression tube was 100%, with no intraoperative complications. The patients in the super-low-positioned intestinal decompression group had a significantly shorter hospital stay (8.3 ± 5.2 vs 17.7 ± 13.3, P&lt; 0.001) and a higher non-operative treatment success rate (83.6% vs 57.9%, P= 0.001) compared to the conventional intestinal decompression group. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the placement of a super-low-positioned intestinal decompression tube was an independent protective factor for treatment outcomes (P= 0.001). The hospital stay was significantly shorter in the super-low-positioned intestinal decompression group compared to the conventional group in both successful non-operative treatment patients (6.9 ± 3.0 vs 11.2 ± 7.5, P&lt; 0.001) and failed non-operative treatment patients (16.2 ± 7.4 vs 26.6 ± 14.4, P&lt; 0.001). The super-low-positioned intestinal decompression tube effectively relieved the “Self-strangulation” phenomenon in patients with intestinal obstruction. Conclusion: The super-low-positioned intestinal decompression tube is a safe and effective method for the treatment of intestinal obstruction, with better treatment outcomes and shorter hospital stays compared to conventional intestinal decompression. Further prospective studies are needed to validate these findings.

•radiomics and machine learning enhance the precision of clinical staging for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, thereby offering a more effective and non-invasive approach for patients.•The multilayer perceptron (MLP) demonstrates exceptional accuracy in the training set and exhibits outstanding performance in external validation.•The model also showed high accuracy for subgroup of patients (diagnosed by clinicians as cT1–2N0M0), indicating better clinical applicability.

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to investigate the effects of luteolin on colorectal cancer (CRC) and explore its underlying mechanism. HCT-116 and HT-29 cells were treated with luteolin, cisplatin, or selumetinib. The cell survival, cell proliferation, apoptosis and cell cycle distribution, and DNA damage were detected using Cell Counting Kit-8, colony formation, flow cytometry, and immunofluorescence staining analysis, respectively. Western blotting was used to detect the expression of apoptosis-related, cycle-related, DNA-damage-related, and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway-related proteins. Luteolin showed inhibitory effects on cellular growth by reducing cell survival and proliferation, inducing apoptosis and DNA damage, and arresting the cell cycle in a concentration-dependent manner in HCT-116 and HT-29 cells. Meanwhile, luteolin increased the expression of pro-apoptotic proteins, p-CHK1 (central to the induction of cell cycle arrest), and DNA excision repair protein and decreased anti-apoptotic proteins, G2-M phase-related proteins, and DNA repair proteins. The combination of cisplatin and luteolin significantly decreased cell survival and increased the apoptosis rate of HCT-116 and HT-29 cells compared with cisplatin alone. Bioinformatic analysis using the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database and STITCH and MalaCards databases showed that the MAPK pathway is involved in the pharmacology of luteolin. Furthermore, western blotting demonstrated that luteolin plays an inhibitory role by suppressing the MAPK signaling pathway in CRC, which is enhanced when combined with selumetinib. Luteolin can also prevent tumourigenesis in CRC in vivo. In conclusion, luteolin suppressed cell proliferation, blocked the cell cycle, and induced DNA damage and apoptosis progression in CRC cells by mediating the MAPK pathway

The general silhouette‐based gait recognition methods usually rely on binary human silhouette, which is easily affected by external factors, making it unsuitable for situations while wearing heavy clothes or carrying objects, etc. In this study, a new skeleton‐based gait recognition model is proposed. The model first extracts the spatial and temporal features of gait using the space and time relationship between body joints, and second, it eliminates redundant features by decomposing the feature map, to achieve a better recognition accuracy in the presence of external factors. Through abundant experiments on two common datasets, CASIA‐B and OUMVLP‐Pose, the proposed model has been proved to have higher recognition accuracy and remarkable robustness.

For hybrid AC/DC microgrid (HMG) under master–slave control strategy, DGs usually adopt constant power control (P control) in gird-connected mode and at least one DG adopts constant voltage control (V control) in islanding mode. However, when unplanned islanding happens, the voltage and current of the HMG will experience remarkable fluctuations, which affects the system’s stability. This paper presents a control method to achieve smooth switching from grid-connected to islanding mode by introducing state tracking control between P control and V control. The state tracking control can make the current reference signal of the V control track that of the P control in grid-connected mode. When unplanned islanding happens, the mutation of the current reference signal can be tuned into a smooth transition by the voltage loop’s PI controller, and the transient oscillations can be eliminated to realize smooth switching. The effectiveness of the proposed control method is verified by simulation results using MATLAB/Simulink.

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have attracted significant attention for their high specific capacity, non-toxic and harmless advantages. However, the shuttle effect limits their development. In this work, small-sized tin disulfide (SnS2) nanoparticles are embedded between interlayers of two-dimensional porous carbon nanosheets (PCNs), forming a multi-functional nanocomposite (PCN-SnS2) as a cathode carrier for Li-S batteries. The graphitized carbon nanosheets improve the overall conductivity of the electrode, and the abundant pores not only facilitate ion transfer and electrolyte permeation, but also buffer the volume change during the charge and discharge process to ensure the integrity of the electrode material. More importantly, the physical confinement of PCN, as well as the strong chemical adsorption and catalytic reaction of small SnS2nanoparticles, synergistically reduce the shuttle effect of polysulfides. The interaction between a porous layered structure and physical-chemical confinement gives the PCN-SnS2-S electrode high electrochemical performance. Even at a high rate of 2 C, a discharge capacity of 650 mA h g−1is maintained after 150 cycles, underscoring the positive results of SnS2based materials for Li S batteries. The galvanostatic intermittent titration technique results further confirm that the PCN-SnS2-S electrode has a high Li+transmission rate, which reduces the activation barrier and improves the electrochemical reaction kinetics. This work provides strong evidence that reducing the size of SnS2nanostructures is beneficial for capturing and reacting with polysulfides to alleviate their shuttle effect in Li-S batteries.

The role of B7-1 in podocyte injury has received increasing attention. The aim of this study was to investigate whether losartan protects podocytes of patients with diabetic kidney disease (DKD) by regulating B7-1 and the underlying mechanisms. Rats with streptozotocin-induced DKD were treated with losartan for 8 weeks. Biochemical changes in blood and urine were analyzed. Kidneys were isolated for electron microscopy, immunofluorescence, real-time quantitative PCR (RT-PCR), and Western blot analysis. Immortalized mouse podocyte cells were cultured in normal or high glucose medium in the presence or absence of losartan for 48 h, and then the cells were collected for immunofluorescence, PCR, Western blotting and monolayer permeability detection. The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) 110α subunit and angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1R) plasmids were transfected into podocytes, respectively, and then Western blotting was performed to assess the expression of B7-1 protein. The results showed that losartan ameliorated podocyte structure and function in the rat model of DKD, and reduced the expression of B7-1 protein. Overexpression of PI3K 110a subunit in podocytes attenuated the inhibitory effect of losartan on B7-1 expression in high glucose-stimulated podocytes. The expression of B7-1 was significantly increased by overexpression of AT1R and significantly reduced by blocking PI3K 110a subunit. We conclude that losartan protects podocytes against high glucose-induced injury by inhibiting AT1R-mediated B7-1 expression. This effect is dependent on the AT1R-PI3K 110a subunit pathway.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) metastasis is largely responsible for HCC-associated recurrence and mortality. We aimed to identify metastasis-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) to understand the molecular mechanism of HCC metastasis. We first identified that miR-1258 was downregulated in HCC tissues both in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (SYSUCC) dataset. MiR-1258 expression negatively correlated with recurrence-free survival and overall survival of HCC patients. MiR-1258 overexpression inhibited migration and invasion of HCC cells both in vitro and in vivo, whereas miR-1258 downregulation promoted cell metastasis. Luciferase assays verified direct binding of miR-1258 to Smad2 and Smad3, thereby attenuating TGF-β/Smad signaling. We further established that lncRNA LINC01278 was a negative regulator of miR-1258. In vivo and in vitro assays demonstrated that LINC01278-mediated HCC metastasis was dependent on miR-1258 expression. Furthermore, miR-1258 downregulation in turn increased LINC01278 expression. We also observed that TCF-4 could bind to the LINC01278 promoter site. In addition, LINC01278 downregulation decreased migration and invasion of HCC cells induced by β-catenin and TGF-β1 both in vitro and in vivo. We uncovered a novel mechanism for β-catenin/TCF-4-LINC01278-miR-1258-Smad2/3 feedback loop activation in HCC metastasis, and the study indicated that LINC01278 could serve as a therapeutic target for HCC metastasis.

CRISPR/Cpf1 has emerged recently as an effective tool for genome editing in many organisms, but its use in pigs to generate precise genetic modifications has seldom been described. Myostatin (MSTN) is a well-characterized negative regulator of muscle development, and natural mutations in this gene cause a double-muscled phenotype in many species. However, to the best of our knowledge, no naturally occurring mutation in MSTNhas been found in pigs. In addition, no living pig models with sophisticated modifications orthologous to natural mutations in MSTNhave yet been reported. In this study, we exploited the CRISPR/Cpf1 system to introduce a predefined modification orthologous to the natural MSTNmutation found in Belgian Blue cattle (thus known as the Belgian Blue mutation). Our research demonstrated that the cutting efficiency of CRISPR/Cpf1 was 12.3% in mixed porcine fetal fibroblasts in drug free medium, and 41.7% in clonal colonies obtained using G418 selection. Then, the Cpf1-sgRNA vector, ssODN template, and a self-excision cassette were co-transfected into porcine fetal fibroblasts. After G418 selection, 8 clonal colonies were examined and 5 with genetic modification were found. Of these 5, 2 harbored the precise 11-bp deletion. Using 1 heterozygous clonal colony, 2 cloned Duroc piglets were successfully generated, which was heterozygous for the Belgian Blue mutation. In summary, our results demonstrate that CRISPR/Cpf1 system can be used efficiently to generate double-stranded breaks, and also to mediate homologous recombination to introduce precise genomic modifications in pigs.

Liver is a major contributor of protein production physiologically. The aberrant state of protein synthesis leads to tumor progression. Eukaryotic elongation factor 1 alpha 1 (eEF1A1) is a major member of the eukaryotic elongation factor family that regulates protein synthesis. Although eEF1A1 plays an essential role in controlling the cell fate, its clinical significance in tumor development and progression has not been reported. Here, we aimed to uncover the expression and prognostic significance of eEF1A1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Our data indicated that eEF1A1 expression was elevated in HCC cell lines and clinical samples at both the mRNA and protein levels. Immunohistochemistry revealed that eEF1A1 expression was upregulated in HCC samples compared with corresponding non-tumorous tissues. In 50 HCC cases with portal vein embolus, higher eEF1A1 immunoreactivity was detected in tumor metastases compared with the primary lesions. Kaplan–Meier analysis indicated that increased eEF1A1 expression was closely associated with unfavorable post-surgical overall and disease-free survival in 453 HCC patients. Moreover, multivariate analysis indicated eEF1A1 as an independent predictor for overall and disease-free survival. Collectively, our study suggests eEF1A1 as a novel prognostic biomarker and potential therapeutic target for HCC patients.

The severe shuttling behavior in the discharging–charging process largely hampers the commercialization of lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries. Herein, we design a bifunctional separator with an ultra-lightweight MnO2coating to establish strong chemical adsorption barriers for shuttling effect alleviation. The double-sided polar MnO2layers not only trap the lithium polysulfides through extraordinary chemical bonding but also ensure the uniform Li+flux on the lithium anode and inhibit the side reaction, resulting in homogeneous plating and stripping to avoid corrosion of the Li anode. Consequently, the assembled Li–S battery with the MnO2-modified separator retains a capacity of 665 mA h g–1at 1 C after 1000 cycles at the areal sulfur loading of 2.5 mg cm–2, corresponding to only 0.028% capacity decay per cycle. Notably, the areal loading of ultra-lightweight MnO2coating is as low as 0.007 mg cm–2, facilitating the achievement of a high energy density of Li–S batteries. This work reveals that the polar metal oxide-modified separator can effectively inhibit the shuttle effect and protect the Li anode for high-performance Li–S batteries.

Na0.5Bi4.5−xEuxTi4O15(NBT-xEu3+) ceramics with x= 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, 0.25, 0.30 and 0.40 were prepared by conventional ceramics processing. NBT-0.25Eu3+ceramics show the strongest red and orange emissions corresponding to the 5D0→ 7F2(617 nm) and 5D0→ 7F1(596 nm) transitions, respectively. The strongest excitation band around 465 nm matches well with the emission wavelength of commercial InGaN-based blue LED chip, indicating that Eu3+-doped NBT ceramics may be used as potential environmental friendly red-orange phosphor for W-LEDs application. As an inherent ferroelectric and piezoelectric material, the electrical properties of this potentially multifunctional electro-optical material have been also studied. The introduction of Eu3+distinctly increased the Curie temperature (TC) of NBT-xEu3+ceramics from 640°C to 711°C as xranges from 0 to 0.40. For higher temperature applications, the electrical conductivity was also investigated. The conduction of charge carriers in high-temperature range originates from the conducting electrons from the ionization of oxygen vacancies. High TCand low tanδmakes Eu3+-doped NBTceramic also suitable for high temperature piezoelectric sensor applications and electro-optical integration.

CAP2 has been suggested as a potential diagnostic biomarker for early hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, its prognostic significance in HCC remains unclear. Here, we show that CAP2 expression is much higher in HCC tissues than that in paracarcinoma tissues, at both mRNA and protein levels. Data of immunohistochemistry (IHC) revealed that CAP2 was markedly up-regulated in 77.3% of HCC cases. High CAP2 expression, defined by the median score of IHC, was present in 53.3% of the patients. Kaplan-Meier analysis indicated that high CAP2 expression was associated with poor overall survival (P< .0001), disease-free survival (P= .013) and recurrence probability (P= .004) in a training cohort of 312 HCC patients. The prognostic implication of CAP2 in HCC was further confirmed in a validation cohort of 208 HCC patients and by stratified survival analysis. Multiple Cox regression analysis indicated CAP2 as an independent predictor for overall survival (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.615, 95% confidence interval: 1.345-1.938, P< .001). Collectively, we conclude that CAP2 is increased in HCC and is a novel unfavorable biomarker for prognostic prediction for patients with this deadly disease.

Double Helix Resistor (DHR) can be used to establish AC resistance standard. Because the short-term stability of the DHR is very important during the process of quantity value dissemination, the DHR should be kept in a temperature-controlled environment. This paper presents a Fuzzy-PID temperature control method based on MSP430F149, the overshoot and adjustment time of the temperature control system can be reduced by using the Fuzzy control rules to adjust PID parameters. A special resistance box is designed to place DHR and decrease the exterior EMI effectively. At last, Fluke 8508A is used to measure the resistance of DHR. The measurement results show that the short-time relative stability of DHR is enhanced to 3×10-7 after applying the presented temperature control system.

Bismuth layer-structured ferroelectric ceramics of Na0.5Bi4.5−x(Nd0.5Ce0.5)xTi4O15(NBT-x, 0.0 ⩽ x⩽ 0.4) were synthesized by a traditional solid-state reaction. The effect of (Nd,Ce) substitution for A-site on the microstructure and electrical properties of Na0.5Bi4.5Ti4O15(NBT)-based piezoelectric ceramics was investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed that the (Nd,Ce)-modified NBT ceramics have a pure four-layer Aurivillius type structure. The piezoelectric properties of NBT ceramics were significantly improved by the modification of neodymium and cerium. The Curie temperature TCgradually decreased from 638 °C to 618 °C with increasing the (Nd,Ce) modification. The piezoelectric constant d33, mechanical quality factor Qm, dielectric loss tanδand Curie temperature TCof the Na0.5Bi4.3(Nd0.5Ce0.5)0.2Ti4O15ceramic were found to be 28 pC/N, 3239, 0.0032 and 630 °C, respectively. Thermal annealing studies indicated that the (Nd,Ce)-modified NBT ceramics possess stable piezoelectric properties, demonstrating that the Na0.5Bi4.3(Nd0.5Ce0.5)0.2Ti4O15ceramic is a promising candidate for high temperature applications.

The residues of salt lake brine from which potassium had been removed were used to extract Rb+and Cs+together with a sulphonated kerosene (SK) solution of 1.0 mol/L 4-tert-butyl-2-(α-methylbenzyl) phenol (t-BAMBP). Rb+and Cs+were enriched and separated effectively by precipitating Mg2+before extraction and by scrubbing out K+and Na+repeatedly before stripping. The effects of the volume ratio of organic phase to aqueous extraction phase (O/A), alkalinity of aqueous phase (c(OH)−), interference from K+and Mg2+, and ratio the volume of organic phase to aqueous scrubbing phase (O/A′) were investigated. The experimental brine was extracted optimally by 5-stage extraction with 1.0 mol/L t-BAMBP in SK, c(OH−)=1 mol/L, and O/A=1:1. The scrubbing yield of rubidium was only about 10.5% when the extraction solvent was washed 3 times with 1×10−4mol/L NaOH at O/A′=1:0.5. After 5-stage countercurrent extraction, the final extraction yields of Rb+and Cs+reached 95.04% and 99.80%, respectively.

The pricing decision of consumer goods manufacturing enterprise is a very important part in its business strategies. Price of the product is directly related to the ability to obtain the expected earnings. In this paper, based on the analysis of the characteristics of durable consumer goods and the factors that affect the price, considering the continuous product innovation and diversification of consumer demand, psychological factors of consumers, as well as the price timeliness, starting from the quantitative point of view, a dynamic pricing model of durable consumer goods aimed at the maximum value of products was set up. Finally, a numerical example solving by the genetic algorithm was given to verify the feasibility of the model.

There are relevant reports on preparing TiB2 particle reinforced metal matrix composite (MMC) anti-wearing coating by plasma spraying and HVOF spraying methods successfully. The research uses electric arc spraying with low cost and convenient operation to prepare four TiB2 particle reinforced composite coatings with high bonding strength and uniform microstructure. It makes comparative study on elevated temperature erosion actions of coating and 45CT of electric arc spraying. The results indicate the coating has excellent erosion wearing resistance. TiB2 particles in M-TiB2 coating have small size, have good unity with metallic matrix, and are distributed on metallic matrix with high hardness relatively uniformly, and porosity of coating is low. Such MMC coating microstructure feature avoids micro-cutting of coating effectively, and reduces plastic deformation and material transfer of wearing surface. The coating has excellent erosion resistance.

With the development of modern industry, more and more semiconductor-based devices have been used widely. Such equipment presents nonlinear impedance to the utility, generating large harmonic currents with well known adverse effects, such as low power factor, low efficiency and destruction of other equipment. Also, some precision instruments and communication equipment will be interfered. Therefore, utility power quality has become an important issue recently. This paper presents a hybrid active filter including two functions: current harmonic detection and reactive power compensation. The current harmonic detection is based on. The reactive power compensation utilizes the measured voltage and the estimated fundamental current to calculate reactive power. After the above information has been calculated, the corrective current reference signals can be generated for the active filter. In this way, the two control functions are integrated together so that one active filter can accomplish two functions simultaneously. The system is modeled in MATLAB SIMULINK to consist of the non-linear loads, with a hybrid active filter to compensate for the harmonic current and reactive power. The simulation results show that the proposed hybrid active power filter has the expected performance.

The boiler system in power plant consists mainly of a steam-water system and combustion system, which produce a high-pressure superheated steam to drive a generator in order to produce power. The steam temperature control of the boiler system is a critical operational consideration. Parameters of boiler producing process must be controlled strictly. But the boiler system has high nonlinearity, large delay, strong coupling and load disturbance. Therefore it is difficult to develop practical mathematical model of the control object using the traditional PID control. In order to realize the optimal control of steam temperature, this paper presents the adaptive fuzzy-PID control Strategy. Simulation results based on MATLAB show that the proposed strategy can largely improve the system response performance compared with the traditional PID control

The research uses electric arc spraying with low cost and convenient operation to prepare four TiB2 particle reinforced composite coatings with high bonding strength and uniform tissue. It makes comparative study on elevated temperature erosion actions of coating and 45CT of electric arc spraying. The results indicate the coating has excellent erosion wearing resistance. TiB2 particles in M-TiB2 coating have small size, have good unity with metallic matrix, and are distributed on metallic matrix with high hardness relatively uniformly, and porosity of coating is low. The coating has excellent erosion resistance.

Peroxynitrite can be highly efficient catalyzed to harmless products with a turnover frequency 34.5 s-1 by micromolar concentration of water-soluble iron porphyrin, 5, 10, 15, 20-tetrakis-(4-carboxyphenyl)-porphyrin-Fe(III)-chloride (T(p-COOH)PPFe(III)Cl). Then we used spectroscopic and kinetic to study its decomposition mechanism and rate in bionic environment (25 mM sodium bicarbonate). The data reveal that this catalytic reaction is a recyclable reaction. Peroxynitrite is decomposed to nitrate (NO3-) and nitrite (NO2-) through forming [oxoFe(IV)]+ intermediate. Moreover, the [oxoFe(IV)]+ intermediate is reduced back to the starting porphyrin. It is noted that the oxidized iron porphyrin can be reduced by the reducing agent in the solution. In addition, we also find the catalytic rate constant is higher in the presence of sodium bicarbonate than the absence of sodium bicarbonate. They are 1.26×106 M-1s-1 and 1.17×106 M-1s-1, respectively.