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A new type of graphene electric heating solid wood composite floor and its heat transfer model were designed to enable users to have a higher-quality and safe living experience. A heat transfer mathematical model was developed. The structural entity of the composite graphene heating floor was drawn using Solidworks software. The floor structure was abstracted as a two-dimensional model using MATLAB software to obtain the temperature rise curves and corresponding time of each group. Then, six groups of the best data were selected from the experimental data to simulate the heat storage capacity of graphene floors. The optimal group of the model was verified via experiments. According to the simulation, the comprehensive performance was optimal when the overall thickness of the floor was 18 mm, the thickness of the floor surface was 4 mm, and the thickness of the heat-accumulating layer was 2 mm. The experimental results showed a maximum difference between the measured and calculated data of only 3.2%, which shows the scientific validity, accuracy, and advancement of the model. The composite graphene electric heating energy storage floor designed in this study can be regarded as safe, reliable, environmentally friendly, and healthy.

Passive surface-wave methods are appealing tools for their ability to noninvasively obtain shear-wave velocity with high accuracy and low costs. A linear array of stations is widely adopted in urban areas for its convenient deployments and efficient utilization of ambient noise energy from stationary-phase zones (SPZs), which contributes the most to surface-wave retrieval. However, noise sources in nonstationary-phase zones may threaten the reliability of velocity estimation when they possess strong energy. To obtain reliable phase-velocity estimation of high-frequency surface waves (>1 Hz), we enhance the contribution of noise sources in SPZs by using the multichannel-coherency-weighted stack (MCWS) method for the stacking of noise crosscorrelation functions and dispersion spectra. We model a nonuniform source distribution with strong offline sources. The seismic interferometry (SI) and passive multichannel analysis of surface waves (PMASW) methods overestimate velocities at lower frequencies (

Cyclization of proteins using SpyTag/SpyCatcher is a novel approach to increase their thermal stability. In this paper, we test this approach on two β-galactosidases from Bacillus circulans, BgaB and BgaC, and find that BgaB was stabilized while BgaC was not. Wild-type BgaB precipitated completely upon heating above 70 °C, but after SpyRing cyclization, it remained soluble after heating to 90 °C. Similarly, wild-type BgaB retained only 50 % activity after heating at 60 °C for 10 min, but this increased to 80 % after SpyRing cyclization. In contrast, cyclization decreased the stability of BgaC. After SpyRing cyclization, BgaC only retained 2 % activity after 20-min incubation at 55 °C, whereas the wild-type BgaC retained 25 % activity. One reason for the different effect of cyclization may the shorter distance between the N- and C-termini in BgaB (20.2 Å) as compared to BgaC (43.7 Å). The intrinsic fluorescence and circular dichroism spectra suggested that SpyRing cyclization of BgaB did not significantly change its conformation or secondary structure. SpyRing cyclized BgaB yielded similar amounts and compositions of galacto-oligosaccharides using a high initial lactose concentration (40 %, w/v), but a slightly higher amount at low initial lactose concentration (5 %, w/v) suggesting increased transgalactosylation activity.

User privacy can be compromised by matching user data traces to records of their previous behavior. The matching of the statistical characteristics of traces to prior user behavior has been widely studied. However, an adversary can also identify a user deterministically by searching data traces for a pattern that is unique to that user. Our goal is to thwart such an adversary by applying small artificial distortions to data traces such that each potentially identifying pattern is shared by a large number of users. Importantly, in contrast to statistical approaches, we develop data-independent algorithms that require no assumptions on the model by which the traces are generated. By relating the problem to a set of combinatorial questions on sequence construction, we are able to provide provable guarantees for our proposed constructions. We also introduce data-dependent approaches for the same problem. The algorithms are evaluated on synthetic data traces and on the Reality Mining Dataset to demonstrate their utility.

Changes in thyroid hormone levels are commonly recognized characters among the elderly, which were reported to potentially influence incident frailty. Therefore, we examined the cross-sectional associations of thyroid hormones (THs) with frailty as well as the five components characterizing frailty (fatigue, resistance, ambulation, number of illnesses, and loss of weight) among the oldest-old.Four hundred and eighty-seven community-dwelling oldest-old from a local community in Haidian District, Beijing, participated in our recruitment campaign between April 2019 and May 2020. The primary outcomes were a definitive diagnosis of frailty according to the FRAIL scale (Fatigue, Resistance, Ambulation, Illnesses, Loss of weight) and a positive score for each frailty subdomain. Demographic information (age, sex, marital status, and educational status), comorbidities, and details on the participants' lifestyles were recorded. Serum THs including free triiodothyronin (fT3), triiodothyronine (T3), free thyroxine (fT4), and thyroxine (T4) and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) levels were also measured at the beginning of our study. Logistic regressions were conducted to screen for potential risk factors for frailty and its subdomains.Among the total 487 subjects at enrollment, 60 (12.23%) of them were diagnosed with subclinical hypothyroidism and 110 (22.59%) of the total population scored positive for frailty. Logistic regression analyses adjusted for all potential confounders, showed that frailty was significantly associated with the serum TSH concentration (odds ratio [OR]: 1.06), fT3 concentration (OR: 0.54), and subclinical hypothyroidism score (OR: 2.18). The association between fT4 and frailty was absent in our observational study. The fT3/fT4 ratio characterizing peripheral hormone conversion was also tested to be correlated with frailty.Subclinical hypothyroidism, higher TSH level, lower fT3 level, and decreased fT3/fT4 ratio were all associated with frailty assessed by the FRAIL scale among the community-dwelling oldest-old, suggesting a relevant role of thyroid function in aging. Future longitudinal studies are warranted to determine the casual relationship between thyroid dysfunction and frailty in the oldest-old.

The thermal stability and mechanical properties of a gradient-nanograined structure (GNS) CoCrNi medium entropy alloy (MEA) processed by ultrasonic surface rolling were studied by using isothermal/isochronal annealing tests combined with quasi-in-situ electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) characterization and Vickers micro-hardness (HV) measurements. A layer by layer high-throughput investigation method was used to quantitatively study the grain growth kinetics and grain boundary evolution with different initial grain sizes, which could effectively save specimen and time costs. The grain nucleation and growth, as well as shrink and disappearance process through Σ3 coincidence site lattice boundary migration with slightly lattice rotation during annealing were directly revealed. The layer by layer grain growth kinetics and calculated activation energy indicate that the thermal stability of nano-grained top surface layer is relatively higher than that of nano-twined subsurface layer for the gradient CoCrNi MEA processed by ultrasonic surface rolling. Further analysis show that the grain boundary relaxation and dynamic recrystallization of the topmost nano-grains led to the decrease of grain boundary energy, thus improving their thermal stability. The present work provided theoretical basis for the application of CoCrNi MEA at high temperatures. Moreover, the high-throughput method on the investigation of grain stability by using gradient structure can be easily extended to other materials and it is of great significance for understanding the microstructural evolution of gradient materials.

Hall–Petch slope (k), an important parameter in Hall–Petch relation, describes the efficiency of strengthening effect by grain boundaries. Previously, a highly texture dependent k for Mg alloys is frequently reported, but, in the present study, we report a weak texture dependence of k in a rare-earth containing Mg-2Zn-1Gd plate with two peaks of (0002) poles inclining approximately ± 30° away from the ND toward the TD. Although there is a strong mechanical anisotropy between tension along the TD and RD, the k for TD-tension (280 MPa μm1/2) is quite similar to that for RD-tension (276 MPa μm1/2). Here, RD, TD and ND refer to the rolling direction, transverse direction and normal direction of the plate, respectively. The weak texture dependence of k is well predicted by the compound use of the activation stress difference between neighboring grains (ΔStress) and the geometric compatibility factor ( m ′ ). By analyzing how the texture affects the values for ΔStress and m ′ , the mechanism for this texture independence of k is ascribed to the activation of a high fraction of additional deformation mode, besides the predominant one for both RD-tension and TD-tension, namely, prismatic slip accompanied by a high fraction of basal slip for RD-tension and basal slip accompanied by a high fraction of prismatic slip for TD-tension. This will lead to multiple deformation transfer modes and, consequently, the effect of texture on the ease of deformation transfer across grain boundaries is weakened. As a result, there is a similar k for TD-tension and RD-tension.

The development of highly catalytic hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks (HOFs) is of great importance, but remains challenging. Herein, we demonstrate the fabrication of a periodically nanoporous HOF for high performance photocatalysis. Compared with the conventional microporous HOFs, the nanoporous HOF architecture has a larger number of free carboxyl groups on the surface and presents greatly improved photoelectrochemical properties. It exhibits high catalytic activity for the photo-oxidative coupling of amines under mild conditions such as air atmosphere and room temperature and without any co-catalysts, sacrificial reagents or photosensitizers. The relationship between the structure, properties and catalytic performance of the nanoporous HOF was studied by experimental and theoretical investigations. It shows that such a HOF structure facilitates reactant adsorption and O

Conducting organic metal chalcogenides (OMCs) have attracted considerable interest for their superior electrical properties and fascinating functions. However, the electronic structural and functional regulation of OMCs are typically limited to the combination of monometallic nodes and graphene-like ligands. Here, we report a family of bimetallic OMCs ([CuAgx(C6S6)]n, x = 4 or 2) synthesized via selective metal metathesis and oxidation transformation. Both OMCs have alternatively stacked one-dimensional (1D) copper-dithiolene chains and 2D Ag-S networks, which can synergistically serve as charge transport pathways, rendering these bimetallic materials highly conductive. The incorporation of heterometallic nodes turned nonmagnetic [Ag5(C6S6)]n into paramagnetic metallic [CuAg4(C6S6)]n, which exhibited a coherence-incoherence crossover in magnetic susceptibility measurements and an unusually large Sommerfeld coefficient, reminiscent of the characteristics of Kondo lattice. This work opens up an avenue for tailoring the electronic structures of OMCs and provides a platform for studying the dichotomy between electronic localization and itinerancy.

The microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of ultrafine-grained (UFG) CP-Ti after an innovative large-volume equal channel angular pressing (L-ECAP) and multi-directional forging (MDF) were systematically examined using monotonic tensile tests combined with transmission electron microscope (TEM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) techniques. Substantially refined and homogeneous microstructures were achieved after L-ECAP (8-pass and 12-pass) and MDF (2-cycle and 3-cycle), respectively, where the grain size distribution conformed to lognormal distribution. The grain refinement of 450 °C L-ECAP is dominated by dynamic recrystallization (DRX) and dynamic recovery (DRV), while that of MDF is dominated by DRX. The iron impurities promote recrystallization by pinning-induced dislocation accumulation so that DRX is prone to occur at iron segregation regions during L-ECAP. The monotonic tensile results show that the strain hardening rate of CP-Ti increases with the decrease of grain size, while the continuous strain hardening ability decreases. The relationship between the average grain size and yield strength is in accordance with Hall-Petch relationship. Meanwhile, the individual strengthening mechanisms were quantitatively examined by the modified model. The results indicate that the strengthening contribution of dislocation accumulation to yield strength is greater than that of grain refinement.

We are concerned with the tensor equations whose coefficient tensors are M-tensors. We first propose a Newton method for solving the equation with a positive constant term and establish its global and quadratic convergence. Then we extend the method to solve the equation with a nonnegative constant term and establish its convergence. At last, we do numerical experiments to test the proposed methods. The results show that the proposed methods are quite efficient.

With the increasing popularity of shared bikes, the indiscriminate parking of bicycles in cities has increasingly become a difficulty in urban management. The tidal phenomenon of large numbers of urban residents during rush hour is the root cause of the indiscriminate parking of bicycles in many subway stations and commercial areas. Optimizing the scheduling strategy of shared bikes is one of the effective solutions to solve the problem of random parking and reduce the scheduling cost. The cycle is a short - distance vehicle, and its circulation law is in line with the characteristics of the small world of urban traffic. That is, most of the bikes flow within the small world region, while only a small part of the bikes flow between the small world regions. With the massive accumulation of bike-sharing borrow and return data, the method of clustering the borrow and return stations and dividing regions according to the clustering results has attracted the attention of industry experts and researchers. it is effectively to apply in intelligent scheduling related industries. Although there have been some studies on the station clustering in the current literature, because these studies are basically based on the fixed features of the site (site location, pile number, etc.), the results cannot find an effective small world region of bicycles. In order to find out the effective small world region of bicycles, we introduced the idea of SimRank (that is, the similarity of a station is due to the similarity of its bicycle source station and destination station), and assigned weights to association relationships (the number of times of borrowing and returning) to define the similarity algorithm w-SimRank of stations. Then, the station clustering was done in line with skyline thinking. Finally, in order to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm, we implemented the station clustering based on SimRank algorithm, and compared the clustering effect with the W-SimRank algorithm proposed in this paper to verify the effectiveness of the W-SimRank algorithm, and analyzed the influence of the key parameters of the algorithm on the algorithm. And then

Phragmites australis is highly adaptable with high competitive ability and is widely distributed in the coastal wetland of the Yellow River Delta. However, allelopathic effects of P. australis on the growth of neighboring plants, such as Suaeda salsa, are poorly understood. In this study, germination responses of S. salsa seeds collected from two different habitats (intertidal zone and inland brackish wetland) to the extracts from different part of P. australis were compared. Potential allelopathic effects on germination percentage, germination rate, radicle length, and seedling biomass were analyzed. The germination of S. salsa was effectively inhibited by P. australis extract. Extract organ, extract concentration, and salt concentration showed different effects, the inhibitory rates were highest with belowground extract of P. australis between the four different parts. Germination percentage and germination rate were significantly decreased by the interactive effect of salt stress and extract concentration in S. salsa from a brackish wetland but not in S. salsa from the intertidal zone. The impact of different extracts of P. australis on radicle length and seedling biomass of S. salsa showed significant but inconsistent variation. The response index results showed that the higher concentration of extract solution (50 g·L−1) of P. australis had stronger inhibitory effect on the seed germination and seedling growth of S. salsa while the belowground extract had the strongest negative effect. Our results indicated that allelopathy is an important ecological adaptation mechanism for P. australis to maintain a high interspecific competitive advantage in the species’ natural habitat.

Background The relationship between triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index, an emerging marker of insulin resistance, and the risk of incident heart failure (HF) was unclear. This study thus aimed to investigate this relationship. Methods Subjects without prevalent cardiovascular diseases from the prospective Kailuan cohort (recruited during 2006–2007) and a retrospective cohort of family medicine patients from Hong Kong (recruited during 2000–2003) were followed up until December 31st, 2019 for the outcome of incident HF. Separate adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) summarizing the relationship between TyG index and HF risk in the two cohorts were combined using a random-effect meta-analysis. Additionally, a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) of published genome-wide association study data was performed to assess the causality of observed associations. Results In total, 95,996 and 19,345 subjects from the Kailuan and Hong Kong cohorts were analyzed, respectively, with 2,726 cases of incident HF in the former and 1,709 in the latter. Subjects in the highest quartile of TyG index had the highest risk of incident HF in both cohorts (Kailuan: aHR 1.23 (95% confidence interval: 1.09–1.39), PTrend PTrend =0.007; both compared with the lowest quartile). Meta-analysis showed similar results (highest versus lowest quartile: HR 1.22 (1.11–1.34), P P Conclusion A higher TyG index is an independent and causal risk factor for incident HF in the general population. Clinical Trial Registration URL: https://www.chictr.org.cn; Unique identifier: ChiCTR-TNRC-11,001,489.

Recovery of noble metals and

Ferroptosis, an iron-dependent regulated cell death process driven by excessive lipid peroxides, can enhance cancer vulnerability to chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy. As an essential upstream process for ferroptosis activation, lipid peroxidation of biological membranes is expected to be primarily induced by intrabilayer reactive oxygen species (ROS), indicating a promising strategy to initiate peroxidation by improving the local content of diffusion-limited ROS in the lipid bilayer. Herein, liposomes embedded with PEG-coated 3 nm γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles in the bilayer (abbreviated as Lp-IO) were constructed to promote the intrabilayer generation of hydroxyl radicals (•OH) from hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and the integration of amphiphilic PEG moieties with liposomal bilayer improved lipid membrane permeability to H2O2 and •OH, resulting in efficient initiation of lipid peroxidation and thus ferroptosis in cancer cells. Additionally, Lp-IO enabled traceable magnetic resonance imaging and pH/ROS dual-responsive drug delivery. Synergistic antineoplastic effects of chemotherapy and ferroptosis, and alleviated chemotherapeutic toxicity, were achieved by delivering doxorubicin (capable of xCT and glutathione peroxidase inhibition) with Lp-IO. This work provides an efficient alternative for triggering therapeutic lipid peroxidation and a ferroptosis-activating drug delivery vehicle for combination cancer therapies.

We derive a priori 2nd-order estimates for fully nonlinear elliptic equations that depend on the gradients of solutions on compact Hermitian manifolds, which is a crucial step in solving the equations. We introduce the concept of rank of the tangent cones at infinity to level hypersurfaces of the defining function of the equation to overcome difficulties caused by presence of the gradient terms. We were motivated by the fact that there had been increasing interests in fully nonlinear PDEs from complex geometry and aimed to develop general methods to cover a wide class of equations.

The soils from four typical natural wetlands, namely, Phragmites australis, Tamarix chinensis, Suaeda salsa, and tidal flat, as well as reclaimed wetland, were selected to evaluate the soil quality in the Yellow River Delta. Fourteen soil physicochemical property indexes were employed to build a minimum data set (MDS). Combined with vegetation type and soil depth, the soil quality index (SQI) was conducted. A fuzzy logic model was applied for data normalization. The contrast test was conducted to verify the accuracy of the MDS. The results showed that the MDS consists of TOC, NO3--N, soil salinity, TS, TP, Mg, C/N and pH. The soil quality decreased from the inland to the coastline and from reclaimed wetland to tidal flat with the change of vegetation type. The soil quality of 0–10 cm soil depth was better than that of 20–30 cm soil depth. The soil qualities of reclaimed land were significantly better than those of natural wetlands at the same soil depth. Correlation analysis results showed that agricultural reclamation has become an important factor of soil quality change in the study area. Comparative results of two methods of MDS and the total data set (TDS) testified that the method of MDS was credible and accurate for soil quality assessment of the study area. Our results indicated that wetland protection and agricultural reclamation in coastal areas should keep a rational balance.

Background: Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and inflammatory markers are reported to have association with cardiovascular disease. However, no previous study has assessed the value of SOD and inflammatory markers as predictive indicator of heart failure in patients with diabetes and acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in the same study. Objective: The objective of this study is to compare the predictive implications of SOD activity, C-reactive protein (CRP) and fibrinogen for reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in patients with diabetes and ACS. Method: The study included 2377 inpatients with type 2 diabetes who had an ACS admitted to the Shandong Provincial Hospital affiliated to Shandong First Medical University from January 2016 to January 2021. Result: Despite taking the lowest quartile as reference (OR 0.368, 95% CI 0.493–0.825, P = 0.001) or examining 1 normalized unit increase (OR 0.651, 95% CI 0.482–0.880, P = 0.005), the SOD activity was exhibited to be the strongest predictive indicator of reduced LVEF, independent of confounding factors. The SOD activity showed the most powerful predictor value for reduced LVEF with the highest area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.658. Conclusions: SOD activity is a stronger predictor of reduced LVEF than CRP and fibrinogen in patients with diabetes and ACS.

Li+-conductive ceramic oxide electrolytes, such as garnet-structured Li7La3Zr2O12, have been considered as promising candidates for realizing the next-generation solid-state Li-metal batteries with high energy density. Practically, the ceramic pellets sintered at elevated temperatures are often provided with high stiffness yet low fracture toughness, making them too brittle for the manufacture of thin-film electrolytes and strain-involved operation of solid-state batteries. The ceramic powder, though provided with ductility, does not yield satisfactorily high Li+ conductivity due to poor ion conduction at the boundaries of ceramic particles. Here we show, with solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance, that a uniform conjugated polymer nanocoating formed on the surface of ceramic oxide particles builds pathways for Li+ conduction between adjacent particles in the unsintered ceramics. A tape-casted thin-film electrolyte (thickness