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This paper examines sustainable supply strategies for essential and strategic resources in China, addressing both domestic requirements and global supply uncertainties. In the context of intense global competition for resources and substantial internal demand, China’s significant role as a major consumer and global supplier is pivotal in the dynamics of the global supply chain. This study highlights China’s dependence on imports for essential resources and the critical need for resilient supply chains to enhance national security and promote environmental sustainability. By referencing international experiences and accounting for China’s specific circumstances, this study proposes strategic initiatives, including updating the strategic resource catalog, imposing export controls on key minerals, promoting resource conservation, and enhancing global cooperation. These strategies aim to reduce external dependencies and support global resource sustainability. The proposed framework can help policymakers ensure long-term resource security and manage resources more effectively in complex global landscapes.

Micro-coordinate metrology is currently limited when the probing system works on the microscale, especially when measuring high aspect ratio microstructures with horizontal internal dimensions below $100~\mu \text{m}$ due to the oversized probe ball tip and short stylus length. The accuracy and reliability of the measurement are also influenced by the surface interface effects. To solve these existing problems, we developed a nano precision probing system with a micro monolithic tungsten ball tip. Initially, the surface interaction effects during the tip-surface approaching tests are investigated. On this basis, the probe was designed to use surface interaction forces as the triggering force. The sensing principle of the optimized optic lever light paths is investigated and analyzed to acquire the isotropic sensitivity. The elastic mechanism with isotropic stiffness suitable for small triggering forces is designed through ANSYS software. The modeling of the probe and the mechanical design as well as the assembly of the micro stylus are reported. Experimental tests demonstrate that the probe can operate in a noncontact mode with 1-nm resolution, and the repeatability is better than 16 nm. The permissible measurement range is $\pm 10~\mu \text{m}$ in the $x$ - and $y$ -axes and $10~\mu \text{m}$ in the $z$ -axis. The comprehensive uncertainty of the probing system is 16 nm. The probe is also verified by measuring a micro hole and a microgroove. The developed probing system is well-suited for high aspect ratio microstructure measurements with horizontal internal dimensions below $100~\mu \text{m}$ .

Microholes with diameters less than $200 \mu \text{m}$ and aspect ratios larger than 5:1 are widely used in industrial production. To measure the inner wall of these structures with nanometer accuracy, this study proposed and implemented a method using a self-developed micro coordinate-measuring machine equipped with a tungsten probe stylus. The probe stylus has a sphere diameter of approximately $60 \mu \text{m}$ , which makes it suitable for vertical insertion into the microholes. The self-fabricated tungsten probe tip’s radius error was measured and corrected using a ruby standard sphere. The tungsten probe stylus was fixed to the probe’s elastic mechanism and then inserted into the microhole’s interior through a vision-aided guidance system. Eight points uniformly distributed on the cross Section at different heights were measured, and the coordinates of the points were fit into a circular equation using the least-squares method. The measured diameter and roundness error were obtained from the fit equations. The experimental results show that the measurement uncertainties of the diameter and roundness error measurement are 192 and 226 nm ( ${K}$ = 2), respectively. This method can provide nanometer accurate measurements of the internal dimensions of microholes and microgrooves, as well as the dimensional and morphological characteristics of their inner walls. Equipped with a needle-tip probe, it can also be used to measure the roughness of the inner wall of microstructures.

This study summarizes and analyzes the gender and racial discrimination that musicians may face in the music labor market of the United States, with a focus on exploring gender and race interactions’ effects on the economic return of musicians. This study is based on a survey of 1,227 musicians in the United States in 2018, which was conducted by the Music Industry Research Association (MIRA) and the Princeton University Survey Research Center (SRC), in partnership with MusiCares. The survey reveals that females, who make up about one-third of the population of musicians, report experiencing high rates of discrimination and sexual harassment. When considering female musicians, 72% report that they have been discriminated against because of their gender, and 67% report that they have been the victim of sexual harassment; corresponding figures for U.S. women more generally are 28% and 42%, respectively. For non-White musicians, 63% said they faced racial discrimination, as compared to 36% of on-White self-employed workers nationwide who said the same. Although the descriptive statistics suggest that musicians are suffering from both gender and racial discrimination, no initial empirical evidence has been found that this would have a negative impact on musicians’ music-related earnings. The interaction effects between gender and race in both general and specific forms on music-related earnings are studied to further explore the possible effect of gender/racial discrimination on the economic return to musicians’ music-related activities; however, although some race-associated differences have been found, the evidence of racial discrimination on the economic return is not strong.JEL Classifications:J15, J16, J44, J49

Pedestrian trajectory prediction is a crucial task for many domains, such as self-driving, navigation robots and video surveillance. The performance of trajectory prediction can be improved in various patterns, including using a more effective network, considering more complicated social interactions, and utilizing sufficient information. On the one hand, the change of subsequent trajectory depends on the geographical scene and the social interaction with other pedestrians in the same scene. On the other hand, the subsequent trajectory also makes some real-time adjustments according to the judgment of pedestrian behavior. Therefore, we propose a novel behavior recognition module to obtain extra pedestrian behavior information. To guarantee the precision and diversity of prediction, this paper builds the Geographical, the Social and the Behavior feature modules based on the GAN framework to process information. As a result, we present a trajectory prediction approach, referred to as the BR-GAN, which exploits geographical, social and behavior context-aware. The BR-GAN achieves greater accuracy in parts of the ETH/UCY datasets compared with some baselines. We will republic all of them on https://github.com/HITjian/Pedestrian-trajectoty-prediction-based-on-behavior-recognition.

With the insertion a segment of polarization-maintaining fiber (PMF) inside the cavity, abundant dynamics of group velocity locked vector solitons (GVLVSs) in Er-doped fiber laser have been investigated by using graphene oxide/polyvinyl alcohol (GO/PVA) film as a saturable absorber (SA). The generated Kelly sidebands in emission spectra reveal peak-valley or valley-peak alternation and slightly shift in two orthogonal components, which are the characteristics of GVLVSs. Through proper adjustment of polarization controllers (PCs) inside the EDFLs cavity, versatile vector soliton dynamics such as polarization locked GVLVSs (PL-GVLVSs), polarization rotation GVLVSs (PR-GVLVSs), dual wavelength GVLVSs, bound state GVLVSs, bunch GVLVSs and harmonic mode-locking GVLVSs (HML-GVLVSs) have been observed. The separation between two emission peaks from the dual wavelength GVLVSs was controlled by the Lyot filter and related to the insertion length of PMF inside the cavity. Unlike PL-GVLVSs, the period-doubling phenomenon has been found in two orthogonal components of the PR-GVLVSs. Besides, the bound state GVLVSs were generated showing strongly modulated interference fringes in emission spectrum. For the bunch and HML GVLVSs, the number of solitons inside the cavity increased with the pump power, and it showed the quintuple solitons and the 7th HML-GVLVSs at the highest pump power.

The only treatment tested for growth hormone receptor (GHR) defective Laron Syndrome (LS) is injections of recombinant insulin-like-growth factor 1 (rhIGF1). The response is suboptimal and associated with progressive obesity. In this study, we treated 4–5-week-old Laron dwarf mice (GHR−/−) with an adeno-associated virus expressing murine GHR (AAV-GHR) injection at a dose of 4 × 1010vector genome per mouse. Serum growth hormone (GH) levels decreased, and GH-responsive IGF1, IGF binding protein 3 (IGFBP3) and acid labile subunit (ALS) increased. There was a significant but limited increase in body weight and length, similar to the response to rhIGF1 treatment in LS patients. All the major organs increased in weight except the brain. Our study is the first to use gene therapy to treat GH-receptor deficiency. We propose that gene therapy with AAV-GHR may eventually be useful for the treatment of human LS.

Melastomataceae has abundant morphological diversity with high economic and ornamental merit in Myrtales. The phylogenetic position of Myrtales is still contested. Here, we report the chromosome-level genome assembly of Melastoma dodecandrumin Melastomataceae. The assembled genome size is 299.81 Mb with a contig N50 value of 3.00 Mb. Genome evolution analysis indicated that M. dodecandrum, Eucalyptus grandis, and Punica granatumwere clustered into a clade of Myrtales and formed a sister group with the ancestor of fabids and malvids. We found that M. dodecandrumexperienced four whole-genome polyploidization events: the ancient event was shared with most eudicots, one event was shared with Myrtales, and the other two events were unique to M. dodecandrum. Moreover, we identified MADS-box genes and found that the AP1-like genes expanded, and AP3-like genes might have undergone subfunctionalization. The SUAR63-like genes and AG-like genes showed different expression patterns in stamens, which may be associated with heteranthery. In addition, we found that LAZY1-like genes were involved in the negative regulation of stem branching development, which may be related to its creeping features. Our study sheds new light on the evolution of Melastomataceae and Myrtales, which provides a comprehensive genetic resource for future research.

Surgical resection of huge hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC, ≥ 10 cm) is potentially curative. More adjuvant treatments are needed to reduce relapses in these patients. We evaluated the influence of postoperative adjuvant transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (PA-TACE) on the prognosis of huge HCC.

Background:Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is an inflammatory musculoskeletal disease associated with psoriasis (PsO) that appears approximately 7-8 years after psoriasis and remains undiagnosed in most of patients, which is disabled and difficult to treat. So early risk assessment is particularly important. However, at present, the risk assessment of the status quo is not optimistic. The aim of this study was to establish and validate a prediction model for assessing the risk of PsA in psoriasis patients.Methods:Ambispective cohort study was conducted. Demographic and clinical records were collected and followed up and blindly reviewed. Single and multiple factors analysis were used to analyze the factors influencing PsA, and Logistic regression equation models were developed to verify their predictive value.Results:Among 1141 Pso patients, 221 patients had PsA. Logistic regression equation model showed that Arthralgia (OR= 438.079; 95% CI: 175.154-1095.682), nail dystrophy (OR= 7.453; 95% CI: 4.116-13.498), scalp lesions (OR= 3.047; 95% CI: 1.297-7.159), Inverse (intertriginous) lesions (OR= 2.45; 95% CI: 1.382-4.342) and BMI (OR= 0.909; 95% CI: 0.846-0.977) were identified as potential predictors affecting the risk of transition from PsO to PsA. And the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of PsA was drawn, the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.974 (95% CI 0.963 - 0.985), the prediction sensitivity was 96.40%, the specificity was 92.10%, the calibration curve showed that the predicted results was in good agreement with the observed results.Conclusion:The independent predictors of PsA involve Arthralgia, nail dystrophy, scalp lesions, Inverse (intertriginous) lesions, BMI. The Logistic prediction model based on these predictors has reliable predictive value and can help early clinical assessment and treatment.

Quantifying and comparing the amount of adaptive evolution among different species is key to understanding how evolution works. Previous studies have shown differences in adaptive evolution across species; however, their specific causes remain elusive. Here, we use improved modeling of weakly deleterious mutations and the demographic history of the outgroup species and ancestral population and estimate that at least 20% of nonsynonymous substitutions between humans and an outgroup species were fixed by positive selection. This estimate is much higher than previous estimates, which did not correct for the sizes of the outgroup species and ancestral population. Next, we jointly estimate the proportion and selection coefficient (p+and s+, respectively) of newly arising beneficial nonsynonymous mutations in humans, mice, and Drosophila melanogasterby examining patterns of polymorphism and divergence. We develop a novel composite likelihood framework to test whether these parameters differ across species. Overall, we reject a model with the same p+and s+of beneficial mutations across species and estimate that humans have a higher p+s+compared with that of D. melanogasterand mice. We show that this result cannot be caused by biased gene conversion or hypermutable CpG sites. We discuss possible biological explanations that could generate the observed differences in the amount of adaptive evolution across species.

The aim of this study was to compare radiofrequency ablation (RFA) with minimally invasive liver surgery (MIS) in the treatment of small hepatocellular carcinoma (SHCC) and to assess short-term and long-term clinical outcomes. PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of science, and CBM were systematically searched for articles from inception to July 2018, comparing RFA and MIS in SHCC treatment. We evaluated overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), local recurrence, and complication rates, as well as hospitalization duration and operation times. Six retrospective studies were analyzed, including a total of 597 patients, 313 treated with RFA and 284 treated with MIS. OS rates were significantly higher in patients treated with MIS at 3 years, when compared to RFA (OR 0.55; 95% CI 0.36 to 0.84). The 3-year DFS MIS rates were also superior to RFA (OR 0.63; 95% CI 0.41 to 0.98). In contrast, when compared to MIS, RFA demonstrated a significantly higher rate of local intrahepatic recurrences, (OR 2.24; 95% CI 1.47 to 3.42), and a lower incidence of postoperative complications (OR 0.34; 95% CI 0.22 to 0.53), as well as shorter operation times (OR − 145.31, 95% CI − 200.24 to − 90.38) and hospitalization duration (OR − 4.02,95% CI − 4.94 to − 3.10). We found that MIS led to higher OS, DFS, and lower local recurrences in SHCC patients. Meanwhile, RFA treatments led to significantly lower complication rates, shorter operation times, and hospitalization duration. Considering long-term outcomes, MIS was found to be superior to RFA. However, RFA may be an alternative treatment for patients presenting a single SHCC nodule (≤ 3 cm), given its minimally invasive nature and its comparable long-term efficacy with MIS. Nevertheless, our findings should be explained with caution due to the low level of evidence obtained.

The reasonable pricing of high-speed railway tickets and the optimal allocation of transport resource capacity can not only enhance competitiveness in the transport market, but also reasonably coordinate the revenue of the enterprise and utilities to passengers. This study uses price signals to adjust resource capacity allocation; and develops a co-optimisation model of resource capacity allocation and fare rates of high-speed trains in different train operation routes. The developed model aims at the comprehensive optimisation of railway enterprise's revenue and passengers' travel benefits, with the ratio of supply-demand and the floating rate of the fare as the main constraints. The Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) algorithm is applied to obtain the seat resource allocation scheme and the optimal fare rate for each train operation route. Finally, the case analysis is carried out to test the model and the algorithm. Based on a statistical analysis of actual ticket sale data of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway for a certain month, the optimal unit fare and optimal seat resource allocation scheme are obtained to meet the corresponding passenger demand. The case analysis shows that after optimisation by the proposed method, the total value of the objective function is 2.04% higher than that before optimisation.

The phase stability and electronic and mechanical properties of rare earth (RE) carbides (La2C3, LaC2, Ce2C3, CeC2, and CeC) were investigated using first-principles calculations based on density functional theory. The calculated equilibrium lattice constants and cell volume agree well with available experimental data. The cohesive energy and formation enthalpy of these carbides show that they are thermodynamically and mechanically stable except LaC. The strong covalent bonding exists in these compounds, and the covalent bonds are mainly determined to be RE–C and C–C bonds. The hardness of RExCycompounds is less than 10 GPa, and the bulk modulus, shear modulus, and Young’s modulus of Ce2C3are the largest. The values of B/G(ratio of bulk modulus to shear modulus) and Poisson’s ratio indicate that all the compounds have good ductility, and the ductility of CeC is larger than others. The Debye temperature of Ce2C3is 429.67 K, which is the highest in those of experimental compounds.

The reactions of Z-isomers and E-isomers usually are different in consideration of the regioselectivity of chemoselectivity. The syntheses of Z-isomers are not feasible in many cases. The energy transfer (EnT) E/Z-photoisomerization might yield the Z-isomers. In this work, CBZ6was proven to be an EnT photocatalyst for the E→ Z-isomerization of C–C or C–N double bonds. The transformations of in situ generated Z-isomers of oximes and stilbenes consequently afforded the desired reversed Beckmann rearrangement products and phenanthrenes, respectively.

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Integrated with orthogonal design method and numerical simulation, injection molding process of the Y-type electrical connectors was conducted to study the influence of process parameters on volume shrinkage rate and maximum warpage, which are regarded as product quality indices. The multi-indices valuation model for the main influencing factors of the process is developed. The influencing sensitivity to the multi-objective of the processing parameters, such as melt temperature, mold temperature, injection time and holding pressure, is determined by range analysis. Through analyzing the diagrams of influential factors, the optimized process parameter diagram is obtained and verified by simulation. The optimum parameters minimizing the warpage defect and shrinkage are: melt temperature (528K), mold temperature (338K), filling time (0.6s), holding pressure (100%) and holding time (10s). The results show that it is effective to balance the impact of process parameters on the shrinkage and warpage. The work can provide optimal design and process reference for the quality control and assembly precision.

Initial fabric anisotropy can greatly affect the shear behavior of particulate materials during shear. The bedding plane effect induced by particle orientation is one of the main fabric anisotropic factors that may affect other factors. It is hard to experimentally examine the effect of bedding direction of particles on the shear behavior of particulate materials, such as sand. A 2D discrete element method (DEM) is employed in this paper to study the influence of different orientations of oval particles on the behavior of dense assemblies under simple shear. As well as the macroscopic shear behavior, the evolution of particle orientation, contact normal, and inter-particle contact forces within the samples with different initial bedding angles during shear have been extensively examined. It was found that the initial bedding direction of the particles has great influence on the non-coaxiality between the directions of principal stress and principal strain increment. The bedding direction also affects the strength and dilatancy responses of DEM samples subjected to simple shear, and the samples with larger bedding angles exhibit higher shear strength and larger volume dilation. A modified stress-force-fabric relationship is proposed to describe the effect of particle bedding direction on the shear strength of samples, and the new equation can better describe the stress-force-fabric relationship of assemblies with initial anisotropic fabrics compared with the existing model.

The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) adlay has been used as a dietary supplement to promote health and treat various ailments for thousands of years. The effective and safe ingredients of TCM could be used as sources for developing new drugs. This paper reviews the main research and application of adlay seed in medicinal field in the following aspects: botanical resource, ethnopharmacological function, chemical constituents, pharmacology and pharmacokinetics, safety evaluation and toxicity, and clinical application. We hope that the review could help researchers mine the scientific values of adlay seed, innovative drug design, provide the guidance for the application in clinical therapy, and enhance the academic level and clinical efficacy of adlay seed.

This paper compares the importance of English proficiency (EP) on earnings among the foreign-born immigrants from 1980 to 2000 and shows its importance varied over time. The key issue examined is changes in the impact of being in a minority-language enclave and its interactions with the return to EP. Results show that the negative effects of enclaves were the greatest in 1990 and such effects were significantly stronger among those fluent English speakers. The relationship between EP and the enclave effects is explored, which confirms their strong interaction in 1990. However, the evidence of fluent speakers' large migrations from enclaves between 1990 and 2000 is not strong, as of the 24 foreign language groups, 13 showed decreases in fluency in enclaves relative to non-enclaves, while 11 showed increases in fluency in enclaves relative to non-enclaves. This may relate to non-wage benefits of living in enclaves, such as social benefits.

Because the primary coding version for chromosome was adopted in previous genetic algorithm (GA), a large number of inexplicable individuals were created in this procedure and the priority of pre-processing methods could not be optimized when GA was used for simultaneously selecting wavelength and pre-processing treatments. To solve the problem, a novel interval integer genetic algorithm (NIGA) was presented in this work. After validating by a group of synthesizing data and two groups of real near spectra data, NIGA was better than anyone of the other usual methods such as partial least squares regression (PLSR), interval partial least squares regression (iPLS) and ant colony optimization genetic algorithm sample selection (ACOGASS). During its work, common pre-processing methods were classified into four categories, e.g. smoothing, derivative, correction and standardization. The parameters of these methods were directly encoded as NIGA chromosomes for auto-adjustment at maximum extent. On the other hand, partitioning full spectrum was used for reducing the random noise and computational complexity, extracting the available information to improve the ability of the model. Furthermore, this method can also work in different situations and demands with the other non-linear models.

Conogethes punctiferalis(Guenée) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) was originally considered as one species with fruit-feeding type (FFT) and pinaceae-feeding type (PFT), but it has subsequently been divided into two different species of Conogethes punctiferalisand Conogethes pinicolalis. The relationship between the two species was investigated by phylogenetic reconstruction using maximum-likelihood (ML) parameter estimations. The phylogenetic tree and network were constructed based upon sequence data from concatenation of three genes of mitochondrial cytochrome coxidase subunits I, II and cytochrome bwhich were derived from 118 samples of C. punctiferalisand 24 samples of C. pinicolalis.The phylogenetic tree and network showed that conspecific sequences were clustering together despite intraspecific variability. Here we report the results of a combined analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences from three genes and morphological data representing powerful evidence that C. pinicolalisand C. punctiferalisare significantly different.

Energy consumption analysis models of ship energy system were established. The performance indexes, such as energy loss ratio, waste heat recovery rate and waste heat recovery perfect degree were defined. A 70000 - ton crude oil carrier was taken as an example for energy consumption analysis. The results show that the waste heat recovery rate of exhaust smoke was 15.69%, and the waste heat recovery perfect degree was 52.76%.

This paper take the signalized intersection of Erdos Street-South of Xilinguole Road in Hohhot as an example, by collecting traffic data of intersections, use the improved gray clustering evaluation model to evaluate atmospheric environmental impact from signalized intersection traffic flow. The evaluation results are in line with the actual situation and measures are proposed for improving intersection atmospheric environment.

The cadmium removed from sediment by rhamnolipid biosurfactant was explored in laboratory scale. The results suggest that the biosurfactant can remove cadmium from the sediment efficiently, 40% more than SDS. 200 mg/L rhamnolipid biosurfactant can get 84.02% cadmium removal efficiency from the sediment which contained 0.42 mg/g cadmium. pH affect cadmium removal by rhamnolipid, the best pH was 10. Leaching could also affect cadmium removal, there was a remarkable increasing of cadmium removal efficiency after the second washing, and after 48 h leaching cadmium removal and cadmium absorption got the balance.

Artificial organic polymer flocculants has been widely applied in water treatment; however, disadvantages of nonbiodegradable and poisonous may cause another environmental problem. This paper established an effective water treatment technique using Abelmoschus moschatu (Okra) in combining of glue extraction process and flocculating process, with fully consideration of factors such as treating time, cost, and efficiency. Results showed that ethanol extraction was an effective method for extraction of glue form Okra. After being soaked in distilled water overnight with ratios of material to solvent, and was extracted by ethanol with volume percentage of 50% at stable temperature of 70 °C for one hour, the extraction rate of Okra glue could be as high as 18.38%. The glue usage of 0.015-0.020 g.L-1 and flocculating time of five minutes could be the optimal usage in treating suspending liquid of kaolin, with the turbidity of 3.0 g.L-1. The processes are low cost, simple, efficient, and low pollution, having broad application prospects.

A new IAQ improved ventilation system-reversible ventilation system was designed. This system's working principle was introduced. For analyzing the superiority of reversible ventilation system, the conceptions of effective fresh air ratio and minimum effective fresh air ratio were described. The formula of effective fresh air ratio was deduced. The formula can be used to analyze the different air outputs of reversible ventilation system and conventional general ventilation system, in rooms with the same degree of fresh air. It can be taken as the guide for design and actual applications of reversible ventilation system.

By using the finite element method, the settlement of soft soil subgrade with a crust layer has been investigated. To find the influence of thickness of the crust layer on the settlement, four different thicknesses, which are 0.0m, 1.5m, 3.5m and 5.5m, are selected. Besides, the settlement during the construction and post construction are also analyzed. It is found that the crust layer can reduce the settlement and uneven settlement of subgrade effectively. Besides, the settlement of the subgrade decreases with the increase of the thickness of crust layer. Moreover, with the increase of time, the uneven settlement of the pavement increases gradually. And when the time is up to a certain degree, the uneven settlement tends to be stable.