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Abstract Background Breast cancer (BC) poses significant burdens on women globally. While past research suggests a potential link between bone mineral density (BMD) and BC risk, findings remain inconsistent. Our study aims to elucidate the causal relationship between BMD and BC in East Asians using bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR). Methods Genetic association data for bone mineral density T-scores (BMD-T) and Z-scores (BMD-Z) (Sample size = 92,615) and BC from two different sources (Sample size1 = 98,283; Sample size2 = 79,550) were collected from publicly available genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with BMD-T and BMD-Z as phenotype-related instrumental variables (IVs) were used, with BC as the outcome. As the primary means of causal inference, the inverse variance weighted (IVW) approach was employed. Heterogeneity analysis was conducted using Cochran’s Q test, while MR-Egger regression analysis was implemented to assess the pleiotropic effects of the IVs. Sensitivity analyses were performed using methods such as MR-Egger, weighted median, and weighted mode to analyze the robustness and reliability of the results. The MR-PRESSO method and the RadialMR were used to detect and remove outliers. The PhenoScanner V2 website was utilized to exclude confounding factors shared between BMD and BC. Besides, the Bonferroni correction was also used to adjust the significance threshold. Then, the meta-analysis method was applied to combine the MR analysis results from the two BC sources. Finally, a reverse MR analysis was conducted. Results The results of the IVW method were consolidated through meta-analysis, revealing a positive correlation between genetically predicted BMD-T ( $$\:OR\:=\:1.22$$ , $$\:95\%\:CI:\:1.13-1.33$$ , $$\:P

ObjectivesHypertension and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) are common diseases in women at different stages, which affect women’s physical and mental health, and the impact of the latter on the offspring cannot not be ignored. Observational studies have investigated the correlation between uterine leiomyoma (UL) and the above conditions, but the relationship remains unclear. In this study, we employed two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to assess the association between UL and hypertension, HDP, as well as blood pressure.MethodsWe collected genetic association data of UL (35,474 cases), hypertension (129,909 cases), HDP (gestational hypertension with 8,502 cases, pre-eclampsia with 6,663 cases and eclampsia with 452cases), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (both 757,601 participants) from published available genome-wide association studies (GWAS). The single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with UL phenotype were used as instrumental variables, and hypertension, three sub-types of HDP, SBP and DBP were used as outcomes. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method was employed as the primary method of causal inference. Heterogeneity was assessed using Cochran’s Q test, and sensitivity analyses were conducted using MR-Egger regression and MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier (MR-PRESSO) tests to evaluate the pleiotropy of instrumental variables. PhenoScanner search was used to remove confounding SNP. Robustness and reliability of the results were assessed using methods such as the weighted median and weighted mode.ResultsThe IVW analysis revealed a positive correlation between genetically predicted UL and SBP [odds ratio (OR)= 1.67, 95% confidence interval (CI):1.24~2.25, P = 0.0007], and no statistical association was found between UL and hypertension, HDP, or DBP. The MR-Egger regression suggested that the above causal relationships were not affected by horizontal pleiotropy. The weighted median method and weighted model produced similar results to the IVW.ConclusionBased on large-scale population GWAS data, our MR analysis suggested a causal relationship between UL and SBP. Therefore, women with UL, especially pregnant women, should pay attention to monitoring their blood pressure levels. For patients with hypertension who already have UL, interventions for UL may serve as potential therapeutic methods for managing blood pressure.

Liquid spontaneously spreads on rough lyophilic surfaces, and this is driven by capillarity and defined as capillary wicking. Extensive studies on microtextured surfaces have been applied to microfluidics and their corresponding manufacturing. However, the imbibition at mesoscale roughness has seldom been studied due to lacking fabrication techniques. Inspired by the South American pitcher plant Heliamphora minor, which wicks water on its pubescent inside wall for lubrication and drainage, we implemented 3D printing to fabricate a mimetic mesoscopic trichomes array and investigated the high-flux capillary wicking process. Unlike a uniformly thick climbing film on a microtextured surface, the interval filling of millimeter-long and submillimeter-pitched trichomes creates a film of non-uniform thickness. Different from the viscous dissipation that dominated the spreading on microtextured surfaces, we unveiled an inertia-dominated transition regime with mesoscopic wicking dynamics and constructed a scaling law such that the height grows to 2/3 the power of time for various conditions. Finally, we examined the mass transportation inside the non-uniformly thick film, mimicking a plant nutrition supply method, and realized an open system siphon in the film, with the flux saturation condition experimentally determined. This work explores capillary wicking in mesoscopic structures and has potential applications in the design of low-cost high-flux open fluidics.

As a novel radar system, the Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) radar with waveform diversity has demonstrated excellent performance in several aspects, including target detection, parameter estimation, radio frequency stealth, and anti-jamming characteristics. After nearly 20 years of in-depth research by scholars, the MIMO radar theory based on orthogonal waveforms has significantly improved. It has been widely applied in fields such as automobile-assisted driving and safety defense. In recent years, with the introduction of the concepts of electromagnetic environment perception and knowledge aid, and the application requirements of radar-active anti-jamming, radio frequency stealth, and detection-communication integration, multiple new theories and methods have been generated for the MIMO radar in system architecture, transmit waveform design, and signal processing. This paper aims to review and summarize the research works on MIMO radar published in the past 20 years, including: the principle of the orthogonal-waveform MIMO radar, its target detection performance analysis and typical applications; waveform design and characteristics of the orthogonal-waveform MIMO radar; knowledge-aided cognitive MIMO waveform design and algorithm; MIMO detection-communication integrated waveform design and algorithm; MIMO radar parameter estimation; MIMO radar target detection; and MIMO radar resource management and scheduling. Finally, the paper discusses the clutter suppression and Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) of MIMO radar in airborne applications, the signal processing of MIMO radar in imaging, and the signal processing of chirp millimeter-wave (mmWave) MIMO radar based on time division multi-waveform diversity.

Abstract This study discusses the integrated system of full‐duplex (FD) multiple‐input‐multiple‐output (MIMO) communication and MIMO radar, which has been rarely considered in published studies. Such an integrated system is composed of a base station and several uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) users, and is supposed to simultaneously implement three functionalities, that is, target detection, UL and DL communications. The degrees of freedom of system design involve the precoding and combining schemes for UL and DL communications, as well as the receiving filter for radar echo. An optimization problem is developed to maximise a compound communication sum‐rate metric subject to the SINR constraint imposed on target detection performance. The resulted non‐convex and NP‐hard problem is first divided into two sub‐problems. Then, for one of the sub‐problems that is still intractable, its solution is iteratively obtained based on the fractional programing technique and the consensus alternating direction method of multipliers algorithm. In the simulation part, the convergence performance and computational efficiency of the proposed algorithm are illustrated. In addition, the target detection performance, DL and UL communication performance of the integrated system are also evaluated.

Abstract In this study, a communication‐awareness adaptive resource scheduling (CARS) strategy for multiple target tracking in a multiple radar system (MRS) is proposed. The CARS strategy aims to maximise the tracking performance of MRS, whilst minimising the interference from MRS to communication systems (CSs), whose mechanism is to simultaneously control the revisit frame interval of each target and determine the activation of radar nodes, the radar‐target assignment and the allocation of transmitted power. Mathematically, the CARS strategy is formulated as an optimization problem, which contains both the continuous variable and the discrete (integer) variable. To tackle the resultant mixed‐integer, non‐convex, and non‐linear problem efficiently, incorporating with the proposed hybrid particle swarm optimization algorithm based on the Kullback–Leibler divergence, a two‐stage solution technique is developed to obtain the near‐optimal solution. Numerical simulation results are provided to validate the proposed CARS strategy and demonstrate its superiority over the traditional scheduling strategies.

Abstract Radar and communication are two key applications of radio technology, and they occupy a large portion of the frequency spectrum. Traditionally, radar and communication systems are operated at different frequencies, owing to their different functions and application areas. For instance, radar was mainly employed for sensing (target detection, localization, recognition, imaging, etc.) in the military field, while wireless communication was mainly for information delivery. However, along with the fast development of radio technologies and huge demand for information, the radio frequency (RF) spectrum is becoming increasingly congested, and the spectra of the radar system will be overlaid with those of wireless communication devices. Moreover, radar and communication are becoming increasingly merged in both technologies and applications. Besides the military field, radar has been widely employed in daily life including weather service, air traffic control, autonomous driving and security monitoring. Meanwhile, these applications rely Largely on information transmission through wireless communications. In this regard, integration of radar and communication (IRC) has proved to be a very promising development to address the spectrum congestion issue between radar and communications devices. This also brings us a number of key challenges in signal processing for both implementation of IRC and joint optimization between the two systems.

The present study focuses on investigating the influence of oil and solid body temperatures on elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) film formation. Experimental and numerical simulation methods are employed to examine three heating methods: oil and ball heating, disc heating, and entire system heating. A preliminary comparison between the measured results and numerical simulations confirms the impact of heating methods on film formation while validating the availability of the numerical models. Further numerical analysis reveals that in the case of oil and ball heating, the temperature gradient induced by differences in solid body temperatures plays a more significant role in film formation compared to the conventional thermal-viscosity wedge effect caused by EHL film shear. This effect is further amplified at large sliding–rolling ratios and in steel–steel contacts. The overall film formation is primarily governed by the oil inlet temperature, whereas local film formation characterized by a dimple shape is influenced by both thermal gradient effects and thermal-viscosity wedge effects. This study provides valuable insights for selecting appropriate heating methods in experiments as well as understanding how temperature differences affect film formation in practical engineering.

Abstract Giant magnetostrictive injector using giant magnetostrictive material acting an electronic controlled injector may be one new promising injector to acquire adjustable injection rates while maintaining large injection quantity. An electronic controlled injector driven by a giant magnetostrictive actuator was designed through combining the driving requirement and output characteristics of the material. To promote responding speed of the coil current, the driving voltage with open-hold-fall type waveform was employed just like using in an electromagnetic injector. Simulation model for the injection characteristic of the injector was established using AMEsim software and verified using experimental results collected by the single injection meter. From simulation and experimental results, designed giant magnetostrictive injector showed good performances as maximum spray rate of 4.5 L/min and minimum spray pulse width of 0.21 ms, and realized the boot shape injection when generated by the designed voltage wave. Furthermore, duration time and amplitude of the pilot spray part in a boot shape injection were respectively adjusted through changing the dwell time and opening time. The boot shape injection reached by the giant magnetostrictive injector can reach quite accurate control of fuel injection and then promote fuel efficiency effectively.

Phased array over-the-horizon (OTH) radar usually needs to detect sea target and airborne target in different directions. Conventionally, the sea target and airborne target are detected sequentially with the coherent integration completely accomplished for each of them. However, the long coherent integration time (CIT) required by the sea target makes the time interval between two airborne target detections too long, which is not conducive to tracking airborne target. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a new timeframe multiplexing scheme, in which several short-time detections of airborne target are inserted into a long CIT of sea target detection. The proposed scheme seeks to improve the detection frequency of airborne target while ensuring the detection performance of two types of target. However, due to the insertion of airborne target detection, the echo from sea surface is received discontinuously which means that the coherent integration of sea target is incomplete. To tackle it, a recovery algorithm based on the Hankel structured matrix is introduced, which recovers the slow-time domain signal of each range bin and thereby guarantees the detection performance of sea target not damaged. Numerical simulations prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for signal recovery, and also verify that the proposed operating scheme has a shorter time interval for airborne target detection, while the detection performance of two targets are well guaranteed.

This article designs waveform in fast-time domain to optimise high-frequency radar performances embedded in the co-channel interference and coloured noise. Considering the whitening filter is applied for fast-time processing, a novel objective function accounting for both signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) and integrated range sidelobe level (IRSL) is introduced and the constant modulus constraint is forced on the probing waveform. An iterative algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers is presented, resolving such non-convex quartic optimisation problem with a polynomial-time computational complexity. In each iteration, two quadratic problems are presented, with the closed-form solutions given. Finally, the authors evaluate the effectiveness of the designed waveform in terms of the range-Doppler processing result, SINR, IRSL and power spectrum.

In order to solve the disadvantage of conventional structuring element (CSE) where amplitude does not change in accordance with the analyzed signal, the quantum theory is combined and a nonlinear quantum-inspired weighting structuring element (NQWSE) is proposed. The NQWSE which is utilized to extract the bearing impulse response signal can adjust its amplitude according to the mechanical signal. Firstly, after constructing the multiple quantum bits system for signals, the mapping method which is employed to map the quantum space to the real space is presented and the parameters of the mapping method are set. The nonlinear amplitude probability is calculated based on the stochastic characteristics of the bearing signals, while the dynamic amplitude is calculated based on the local feature of the bearing signals in a subwindow. Then the mathematical formula of NQWSE is derived by incorporating the mathematical expectation into the quantum theory and the mapping method. Finally, the NQWSE is applied to extract the fault information of a failure bearing. The results reveal that NQWSE can extract the bearing impulse response signals exactly.

Liposomes, a nanoscale carrier, plays an important role in the delivery of drug, affects the in vivo efficacy of drugs. In this paper, silymarin(SM)-loaded liposomes was optimized using the response surface method (RSM), with entrapment efficiency (EE%) as an index. The formulation was optimized as follow: lecithin (7.8mg/mL), SM/lecithin (1/26) and lecithin/cholesterol (10/1). The optimized SM liposomes had a high EE (96.58±3.06%), with a particle size of 290.3±10.5nm and a zeta potential of +22.98±1.73mV. In vitro release tests revealed that SM was released in a sustained-release manner, primarily via diffusion mechanism. In vitro cytotoxicity studies demonstrated that the prepared SM liposomes had stronger inhibitory effects than the model drug. Overall, these results indicate that this liposome system is suitable for intravenous delivery to enhance the antitumor effects of SM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the joint design of transmit waveform and receive filter for multiple-input multiple-output radar in the presence of signal-dependent interference, subject to a peak-to-average-power ratio constraint as well as a waveform similarity constraint. Owing to this kind of signal dependence and constraints, the formulated optimization problem of the output signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) maximization is NPhard. To this end, an auxiliary variable is first introduced to modify the original problem, and then a primal-dual algorithm based on the block successive upper-bound minimization method of multipliers (BSUM-M) is developed to deal with the resulting problem. Moreover, an active set method is exploited to solve the quadratic programming problem involved in each update procedure of the proposed BSUM-M algorithm. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm over state-of-the-art methods in terms of the output SINR, beampattern, computational complexity, pulse compression, and ambiguity properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geothermal energy, as a typical low-temperature heat source, has been exploited for decades to generate electricity. Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system has a high energy conversion efficiency due to the good performance of organic fluids under the geothermal water temperature. In this study, a double-pressure organic Rankine cycle system driven by geothermal heat source is used to generate electricity. The double-pressure ORC system achieves the cascaded utilization of energy, which can improve the efficiency of energy conversion. Mathematical model is established based on thermodynamic laws, and the overall system performance has been evaluated. A parametric analysis is conducted to examine the effects of some key thermodynamic parameters, namely turbine high-level inlet pressure, turbine low-level inlet pressure, turbine high-level inlet temperature, on the system performance. Parametric optimization is conducted by means of genetic algorithm (GA) to find the maximum system performance. At the same time, the performances of three organic working fluids are examined. Results indicate that R245fa has a better performance among the three organic fluids. The exergy efficiency of overall system exceeds 5.8% under the supply water of 120℃, and it produce more than 800kW electricity with the geothermal water at the mass flow rate of 250t/h. It is also found that the exergy efficiency has peak value under the effect of turbine high-level inlet pressure and turbine low-level inlet pressure. In addition, increasing turbine high-level inlet temperature brings a positive effect to the system performance. Exergy analysis is also conducted and the result shows that the main exergy loss occurs in high-pressure evaporator. By system optimization, the double-pressure organic Rankine cycle has a better performance in utilizing geothermal energy than single-pressure system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Letter, the problem of waveform design for MIMO radar with good transmit beampattern performance is investigated. The binary transmit waveforms are designed via minimising the beampattern integrated sidelobe to mainlobe ratio. Since the resulting binary combination optimisation problem is NP-hard, a generalised likelihood ascent search algorithm is proposed to deal with it. Besides, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated via simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A robust transmit beampattern matching synthesis approach is described for a multiple-input and multiple-output radar with manifold vectors perturbation. This synthesis technique minimises the worst-case matching performance between the transmit beampattern and the desired beampattern (in a least absolute deviations sense), through designing the waveform covariance matrix. Also, the resulting minimax problem can be translated into a convex problem is showed. Finally, simulation results verify good performance of the proposed robust transmit beampattern synthesis approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]