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Considering the high computational cost of the optimisation process of complex transportation equipment, an efficient structural optimisation method for transportation equipment based on the multi-criteria sample updating and management strategy of the approximation model is proposed. First, the approximation models of the objective function and constraints are established based on the radial basis function, and the intergeneration projection genetic algorithm is applied to find the optimal solution. According to error evaluation of the optimal solution, second, the function fluctuation index is used to adopt the local sample points. Meanwhile, the global sample points are solved by the inherited Latin hypercube design to ensure the distribution uniformity of samples in the whole design space. Furthermore, the weighted Euclidean distance criterion is applied to evaluate the rationality between the samples. Then, the qualified samples are added to the sample space to update the approximation models of the transportation equipment. Based on the above multi-criteria sample updating and management strategy, more accurate optimisation results could be obtained. Finally, the effectiveness of the method and its applicability in practical application of transportation equipment are investigated by one numerical test and one engineering example.

Traditional support vector regression dedicates to obtaining a regression function through a tube, which contains as many as precise observations. However, the data sometimes cannot be imprecisely observed, which implies that traditional support vector regression is not applicable. Motivated by this, in this paper, we employ uncertain variables to describe imprecise observations and build an optimization model, i.e., the uncertain support vector regression model. We further derive the crisp equivalent form of the model when inverse uncertainty distributions are known. Finally, we illustrate the application of the model by numerical examples.

2-Mercaptoethanol (2-ME) is often used as an antioxidant to optimize culture systems for in vitro oocyte maturation in livestock. However, the relationship between 2-ME and autophagy has not yet been elucidated. In this study, we hypothesized that 2-ME can promote porcine oocyte maturation in vitro by maintaining autophagy homeostasis. To test this hypothesis, we explored the effects of 2-ME on the maturation of porcine oocytes exposed to an autophagy activator (rapamycin) or an autophagy inhibitor (3-methyladenine, i.e., 3-MA) in vitro. Rapamycin-induced autophagy over-activation significantly increased autophagy- and apoptosis-related gene expression, oxidative stress, apoptosis rates, abnormal mitochondrial redistribution, and significantly decreased oocyte first polar body extrusion (PBE) rates, spindle/chromosome integrity and developmental competence. 3-MA-mediated autophagy inhibition exerted similar effects on all these parameters except the expression of genes that promote autophagy and inhibit apoptosis. Importantly, 2-ME supplementation significantly attenuated the detrimental effects of rapamycin and 3-MA. Interestingly, we observed that 44 h of coincubation with rapamycin/3-MA and 2-ME restored autophagy homeostasis in vitro. In conclusion, our study confirmed that 2-ME promotes porcine oocyte maturation and embryo development in vitro by maintaining autophagy homeostasis and lays a foundation for further research on the underlying mechanism.

Three novel strains, SCSIO 12582T, SCSIO 12638 and SCSIO 12817, were isolated from tissue of the coral Pocillopora damicornis collected from Hainan province, PR China. The results of phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA genes revealed that these three isolates showed nearly identical 16S rRNA gene sequences (99.86 %−99.93 %), forming a separate monophyletic cluster within the genus Alkalimarinus and closely related to Alkalimarinus sediminis FA028T. The average nucleotide identity (ANI) and digital DNA–DNA hybridization (dDDH) relatedness values among the three strains were 99.94 %−99.96 % and 100 %, respectively, indicating that these three isolates were affiliated with the same species. Analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that SCSIO 12582T (representative of the novel isolates) exhibited 98.49 % sequence similarity to A. sediminis FA028T. The ANI and dDDH values between SCSIO 12582T and A. sediminis FA028T were 74.81 % and 18.90 % respectively. These three isolates were facultatively anaerobic, Gram-stain-negative, rod shaped and catalase- and oxidase-positive. The DNA G+C content of SCSIO 12582T was 45.82 %. The major respiratory quinone was Q-9. The main cellular fatty acids were C16 : 0, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c/C16 : 1ω6c) and C16 : 1ω9c. The polar lipids present were phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and diphosphatidylglycerol. On the basis of the results of the phylogenetic, chemotaxonomic, phenotypic and genomic analysis, it was evident that isolates SCSIO 12582T, SCSIO 12638 and SCSIO 12817 represent a novel species of the genus Alkalimarinus , for which the name Alkalimarinus coralli sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is SCSIO 12582T (=JCM35228T=GDMCC1.3061T).

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the common attributes of brick-and-mortar retail shops liked by young adults in the digitalized retail context. The 7Ps of the marketing mix were used as a framework to shed insights for marketing strategies. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative study using personal interviews was designed. A convenience sample of 24 young adults from 20 to 22 years of age was asked to take photos, showing the exterior and interior of their favorite shop in Hong Kong. They were interviewed face to face to explain why they like these shops. Other information about the shopping context, including frequency of visits and whether shopping alone or with friends, was collected. Findings The favorite shops of young adults are clothing retailers and stores for snacks. Attributes of favorite shops include stylish product design, variety of choices, cozy physical environment, technology-assisted shopping process and customer-friendly return policy. Young adults seek taste and artistic presentation in consumption. Self-expression and social communication of consumption play a major role in retail brand love. Research limitations/implications The sample size of this study was small and may not be generalizable to populations of different socioeconomic status. A quantitative survey can be conducted to further examine the topic. Practical implications This study deepens the understanding of how young adults perceive product, store and process attributes of shops that are related to retail brand love. Tangible qualities such as product and physical space played a more important role than intangible attributes such as friendly frontline or sales staff. The results imply that retailers need to pay attention to a shop’s product offering, interior design, as well as develop a seamless integration of online and offline shopping processes to engage customers. Originality/value There are very few studies of young consumers and retail brand love using qualitative methods. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of young consumers’ perception of the retail stores that they love in the digitalized retail landscape.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), the main virulence factor of gram-negative bacteria, severely impairs the function of the female reproductive system. It has especially harmful effects on oocytes and subsequent embryonic development. The use of active plant substances to ameliorate the damage caused by LPS exposure is a strategy worthy of attention. In this study, porcine oocytes were used to investigate the protective effects and underlying mechanisms of allicin, an extract derived from garlic, on LPS-exposed oocytes in vitro. Our data indicated that supplementation with 1 μM allicin significantly attenuated the LPS-mediated reductions in the first polar body extrusion rate and the subsequent blastocyst formation rate. Allicin also mitigated the abnormalities in spindle assembly, chromosome alignment, actin polymerization, and cortical granule distribution caused by LPS exposure. Furthermore, allicin restored reactive oxygen species (ROS), early apoptosis and autophagy to normal physiological levels in LPS-exposed oocytes. In conclusion, our findings confirm that allicin can protect oocytes against LPS-induced damage. The results of this study will help promote the application of plant-derived bioactive substances to ameliorate oocyte maturation defects.

As apple fruits (Malus domestica) mature, they accumulate anthocyanins concomitantly with losing chlorophyll (Chl); however, the molecular pathways and events that coordinate Chl degradation and fruit coloration have not been elucidated. We showed previously that the transcription factor ETHYLENE RESPONSE FACTOR17 (MdERF17) modulates Chl degradation in apple fruit peels and that variation in the pattern of MdERF17 serine (Ser) residues is responsible for differences in its transcriptional regulatory activity. Here, we report that MdERF17 interacts with and is phosphorylated by MAP KINASE4 (MdMPK4-14G). Phosphorylation of MdERF17 at residue Thr67 by MdMPK4-14G is necessary for its transcriptional regulatory activity and its regulation of Chl degradation. We also show that MdERF17 mutants with different numbers of Ser repeat insertions exhibit altered phosphorylation profiles, with more repeats increasing its interaction with MdMPK4. MdMPK4-14G can be activated by exposure to darkness and is involved in the dark-induced degreening of fruit peels. We also demonstrate that greater phosphorylation of MdERF17 by MdMPK4-14G is responsible for the regulation of Chl degradation during light/dark transitions. Overall, our findings reveal the mechanism by which MdMPK4 controls fruit peel coloration.

Design of the catalyst for efficient water dissociation and hydrogen recombination is paramount in enhancement of the alkaline water electrolysis kinetics. Herein, we reported a delicate hierarchical (VO)2P2O7-Ni2P@NF (VPO-Ni2P@NF) hybrid catalyst that operated efficiently in alkaline media. The VPO and Ni2P respectively act as the water dissociation promoter and the hydrogen recombination center, which synergistically propel water adsorption/dissociation and H intermediates recombination. The resulting synergistic interfaces between VPO and Ni2P are verified to afford the catalyst an outstanding performance for hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline media with an overpotential of 154 mV at 10 mA cm−2, Tafel slope of 65 mV dec−1, and remarkable durability. Furthermore, the catalyst presents the potential for overall water splitting. This work may shed fresh light on the high-performance electrocatalyst design and the application of VPO on water electrolysis.

With the vigorous development of mobile Internet technology and the popularization of smart devices, while the amount of multimedia data has exploded, its forms have become more and more diversified. People’s demand for information is no longer satisfied with single-modal data retrieval, and cross-modal retrieval has become a research hotspot in recent years. Due to the strong feature learning ability of deep learning, cross-modal deep hashing has been extensively studied. However, the similarity of different modalities is difficult to measure directly because of the different distribution and representation of cross-modal. Therefore, it is urgent to eliminate the modal gap and improve retrieval accuracy. Some previous research work has introduced GANs in cross-modal hashing to reduce semantic differences between different modalities. However, most of the existing GAN-based cross-modal hashing methods have some issues such as network training is unstable and gradient disappears, which affect the elimination of modal differences. To solve this issue, this paper proposed a novel Semantic-guided Autoencoder Adversarial Hashing method for cross-modal retrieval (SAAH). First of all, two kinds of adversarial autoencoder networks, under the guidance of semantic multi-labels, maximize the semantic relevance of instances and maintain the immutability of cross-modal. Secondly, under the supervision of semantics, the adversarial module guides the feature learning process and maintains the modality relations. In addition, to maintain the inter-modal correlation of all similar pairs, this paper use two types of loss functions to maintain the similarity. To verify the effectiveness of our proposed method, sufficient experiments were conducted on three widely used cross-modal datasets (MIRFLICKR, NUS-WIDE and MS COCO), and compared with several representatives advanced cross-modal retrieval methods, SAAH achieved leading retrieval performance.

In order to avoid the energy consumption of dewatering and dust pollution in the preparation of non-sintered lightweight aggregates from dredged sediment, a new low-dust process of preparing non-sintered extruded wrap-shell aggregates (TH-WSLAs-W) by extrusion granulation is proposed and applied to produce TH-WSLAs-W baking-free bricks (TH-WSLAB-W). The basic physical properties (cylinder compressive strength, bulk density and water absorption) and microstructure of TH-WSLAs-W was explored. It shows that the curing agent will form a hydrophobic gel film around the sediment particles and form a network structure, which enhances the cylinder compressive strength (6.7 MPa) and frost resistance of TH-WSLAs-W. In addition, the interfacial transition zone among TH-WSLAB-Ws was studied by scanning electron microscope. It found that the micropore structure endow the TH-WSLAs-W with excellent water absorption and drainage property, promoting the hydration of cement, promising the integration of aggregate and cement, and its compressive strength reaches 20.5 MPa.

Follicular atresia triggered by granulosa cell (GC) apoptosis severely reduces female fertility and accelerates reproductive aging. GC apoptosis is a complex process regulated by multiple factors, regulatory axes, and signaling pathways. Here, we report a novel, small regulatory network involved in GC apoptosis and follicular atresia. miR-187, a miRNA down-regulated during follicular atresia in sows, maintains TGFBR2 mRNA stability in sow GCs by directly binding to its 5’-UTR. miR-187 activates the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling pathway and suppresses GC apoptosis via TGFBR2 activation. NORHA, a pro-apoptotic lncRNA expressed in sow GCs, inhibits TGFBR2-mediated activation of the TGF-β signaling pathway by sponging miR-187. In contrast, NORFA, a functional lncRNA associated with sow follicular atresia and GC apoptosis, enhances miR-187 and TGFBR2 expression by inhibiting NORHA and activating NFIX. Our findings define a simple regulatory network that controls GC apoptosis and follicular atresia, providing new insights into the mechanisms of GC apoptosis, follicular atresia, and female fertility.

Deep-sea cold seeps are one of the most productive ecosystems that sustained by hydrocarbons carried by the fluid. Once the seep fluid ceases, the thriving autotrophic communities die out, terming as the extinct seep. But heterotrophic fauna can still survive even for thousands of years. The critical role of prokaryotes in active seeps are well defined, but their functions in extinct seeps are poorly understood to date. Here, we clarified the diversity, taxonomic specificity, interspecies correlation, and metabolic profiles of sediment prokaryotes at an extinct seep site of Haima cold seep, South China Sea. Alpha diversity of archaea significantly increased, while that of bacteria remained unchanged in extinct seep compared to active seep. However, archaea composition did not differ significantly at extinct seep from active or nonseep sites based on weighted-unifrac dissimilarity, while bacteria composition exhibited significant difference. Distribution of archaea and bacteria showed clear specificity to extinct seeps, indicating the unique life strategies here. Prokaryotes might live chemolithoautotrophically on cycling of inorganic carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen, or chemoorganotrophically on recycling of hydrocarbons. Notably, many of the extinct seep specific species and networked keystone lineages are classified as Proteobacteria. Regarding the functional diversity and metabolic flexibility of this clade, Proteobacteria is supposed to integrate the geochemical cycles and play a critical role in energy and resource supplement for microbiome in extinct seep. Collectively, our findings shed lights on the microbial ecology and functional diversity in extinct seeps, providing new understanding of biogeochemical cycling after fluid cessation.

The seismic vulnerability of interaction system of saturated soft soil and subway station structures is explored in this paper. The coupled nonlinear numerical models of interaction system are established using the u-p formulation of Biot′s theory to describe the saturated two-phase media. A refined finite element model of interaction system is developed to study its nonlinear seismic responses and seismic disaster mechanism. In this study, the multi-yield elastoplastic constitutive model was adopted for the soil, and the fiber section elastoplastic constitutive model was used for the structure. The seismic response of structure was calculated by inputting the artificial seismic wave obtained from the power spectrum-triangular series method. The maximum inter-story drift angle was taken as the structural performance parameter for the subway station structure. The structural demand cloud was obtained under random ground motion sequences. Based on the probabilistic seismic demand model analysis method, the seismic vulnerability curve of the subway station structure was plotted, and the seismic vulnerability curve was analyzed based on the vulnerability of performance parameters. With the increase of soil strength, the vulnerability index of subway station structure under different peak acceleration ground motion decreased correspondingly. Based on the above vulnerability theory and analysis methods, it can be found from the above vulnerability theory and analysis methods that the subway station structure with established buried depth in saturated soft soil site exhibits a certain degree of safety and reliability, and can meet the seismic fortification goal of "no damage in small earthquakes, repairable in medium earthquakes and no collapse in large earthquakes". The results of vulnerability analysis are in line with the actual seismic survey, and the vulnerability analysis method proposed in this paper can be applied to the vulnerability analysis of underground structures on saturated soft soil foundation.

Polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) are potential pollutants emitted from the petrochemical industry, whereas their occurrence and sources in petrochemical regions are still poorly known. The present study revealed the spatial variations, compositional profiles, sources and contributions, and health risks of PM-bound PACs in two large-scale petrochemical bases (GDPB and HNBP) in South China. The concentrations of parent polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were 7.14 ± 3.16 ng/m3 for ∑18PAHs and 0.608 ± 0.294 ng/m3 for the PAHs with molecular weight of 302 amu (MW302 PAHs) in the GDPB base and 2.55 ± 1.26 ng/m3 and 0.189 ± 0.088 ng/m3 in the HNPB base. Oxygenated PAHs (OPAHs) showed comparable concentrations to the parent PAHs in both the bases and nitrated PAHs (NPAHs) had the lowest mean levels (260 pg/m3 and 59.4 pg/m3 in the two regions). Coronene, 2,8-dinitrodibenzothiophene, and dibenzo[a,e]fluoranthene showed remarkably higher contributions to the PAC and can be PAC markers of the petrochemical industry source. Five sources of PACs were identified respectively in both petrochemical bases by the positive matrix factorization (PMF) model. The vehicle (and ship) traffic exhaust was the primary source of PACs (contributed 33% to the ∑PACs), and the sources related to the coking of coal and heavy petroleum and refinery exhaust were identified in both bases, with contributions of 10−20%. PACs in GDPB also contributed from secondary atmospheric reactions (17.3%) and the usage of sulfur-containing fuels (20.9%), while the aromatics industry made a significant contribution (20.1%) to the PACs in the HNPB region. The cumulative incremental lifetime cancer risks (ILCRs) induced by inhalation of PM-bound PACs in both petrochemical bases were low (10− 8-10− 6). For the sources related to the petrochemical industry, coking activities and the aromatic industry were the significant contributors to the ∑ILCRs in GDPB and HNPB, respectively.

The bacterium Gordonia sp. SCSIO19801, which could effectively utilize phenanthrene as the sole carbon source, was isolated from the seawater of the South China Sea. Its biodegradation characteristics, whole genome sequence, and biodegradation pathway were investigated. The phenanthrene biodegradation process of Gordonia sp. SCSIO19801 was estimated to be a first-order kinetic model with a k value of 0.26/day. Based on the identification of metabolites, utilization of probable intermediates, and genomics analysis of related genes, the degradation of phenanthrene by Gordonia sp. SCSIO19801 was proposed to occur via the salicylate metabolic pathway. This is the first report of a phenanthrene degradation pathway in Gordonia species. In addition, the Gordonia sp. SCSIO19801 could use other aromatic compounds as the sole source of carbon and energy. These characteristics indicate that Gordonia sp. SCSIO19801 can be utilized for developing effective methods for the biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in marine environments.

The study of the particle movement in cyclone has been expanded from revolution to high-speed self-rotation, and produced a series of new technologies and new applications. However, the spatial rules and regulation methods of particle high-speed self-rotation in cyclones are yet to be studied. In this study, four kinds of inlet particle pre-self-rotation cyclones were designed, and the effect of the pre-self-rotation on the flow field as well as the particle revolution and high-speed self-rotation were studied. It was observed that adding the particle pre-rotator had a significant effect on the particle revolution and self-rotation in cyclones. Parallel positive rotation cyclone (PPR-C) exhibited the best performance as the particle self-rotation speed reached up to 10,851 rad/s, which was 1.89 times that in common cyclone (CM-C). This study can provide theoretical fundamental for the regulation of particle self-rotation in cyclones and pollutant cyclone separation enhancement by particle high-speed self-rotation

As emerging energy storage systems, lithium-sulfur (Li–S) batteries have engaged extensive attention owing to the ideal energy density. The bottleneck of achieving the practical application on Li–S batteries is the shuttle effects of lithium polysulfide (LiPS) and the sluggish electrochemical conversion kinetics. Here, a flexible SnS2-hollow carbon nanofibers (SnS2@HCNF) membrane is designed as an interlayer to catalyze the conversion of LiPS. Hollow carbon nanofibers (HCNF) provide an electron passageway to accelerate the redox reaction of LiPS, while SnS2 achieves rapid Li ions transport and an efficient catalytic route, promoting the decomposition of Li2S. Owing to the synergistic effect of HCNF and SnS2, the SnS2@HCNF endow the Li–S batteries with high rate performance (694 mAh g−1 at 3C) and low capacity fading rate (0.056 % per cycle during 500 cycles at 1C). The material and design strategy manifested in this work can pave a new way towards developing shuttle suppression interlayers.

A deep eutectic solvent (DES) is a promising electrolyte choice for lithium metal batteries. However, the DES liquid electrolyte causes safety concerns and side reactions with the lithium anode. Therefore, it is necessary to solidify the DES-based electrolyte and enhance its electrochemical stability. Herein, we present a novel DES-based rapid self-healing gel electrolyte, which is able to self-smooth its surface cracks in only 30 min. The electrolyte exhibits noncombustibility (SET = 4 s g

Background Peripheral atherosclerosis is a common macrovascular complication of diabetes, but the treatment is limited. Chinese herbal medicine is the complementary and alternative therapy to delay the progression of atherosclerosis and reduce blood glucose and lipids. Shen-Qi Xiao-Tan (SQXT) formula is one of the prescriptions commonly used to treat diabetic peripheral atherosclerosis, but there is still a lack of high-quality evidence-based evidence. Methods This is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled add-on trial that is expected to enroll 114 diabetic patients with peripheral atherosclerosis. After a 2-week run-in period, participants will been randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio and receive 12 weeks of usual treatment and SQXT formula (treatment group) or usual treatment and placebo (control group). The primary outcome is the change in carotid intima-media thickness from baseline to endpoint. The secondary outcomes are the structure and function of peripheral arteries, blood glucose and lipids, traditional Chinese medicine syndrome score, and quality of life, and safety and endpoint events are evaluated. To explore the therapeutic mechanism through oxidative stress, inflammation, and advanced glycation end products, and lipidomics will be used to screen for biomarkers for diagnosis and efficacy evaluation. Discussion The objective of this trial is to evaluate the efficacy, safety and therapeutic mechanism of SQXT formula in the treatment of diabetic peripheral atherosclerosis. It will obtain high-quality evidence-based evidence and promote the treatment of diabetic macroangiopathy and the research and development of new drugs. Trial registration This trial is registered on Chinese Clinical Trials.gov with number ChiCTR2100047189 on 10 Jun 2021, and has been approved by the Ethical Review Committee of Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine with number 2020KL-080.

Traditional support vector machines (SVMs) play an important role in the classification of precise data. However, due to various reasons, available data are sometimes imprecise. In this paper, uncertain variables are adopted to describe the imprecise data, and an uncertain support vector machine (USVM) is built for linearly

As the use of electric self-balancing scooters (ESSs) increases, so does the number of related traffic accidents. Because of the special control method, mechanical structure and driving posture, ESSs are prone to various single-vehicle accidents, such as collisions with fixed obstacles and falls due to mechanical failures. In various ESS accident scenarios, the rider's head injury is the most frequent injury type. In this study, several typical single-ESS accident scenarios are reconstructed via computational methods, and the risk of riders' head/brain injury is assessed in depth using various injury criteria. Results showed that two types of ESSs (solo- and two-wheeler) do not have clear differences in head kinematics and head injury risks; the head kinematics (or falling posture) and ESS accident scenario exhibit a distinct effect on the head injury responses; half of the analysed ESS riders have a 50% probability of skull fracture, a few riders have a 50% risk of abbreviated injury scale (AIS) 4+ brain injury, and none has a diffuse axonal injury; the ESS speed plays an important role in producing the head/brain injury in ESS riders, and generally, higher ESS speed generates higher level of predicted head injury parameters. These findings will provide theoretical support for preventing head injury among ESS riders and data support for developing and legislating ESSs.

Cross-modal hashing encodes heterogeneous multimedia data into compact binary code to achieve fast and flexible retrieval across different modalities. Due to its low storage cost and high retrieval efficiency, it has received widespread attention. Supervised deep hashing significantly improves search performance and usually yields more accurate results, but requires a lot of manual annotation of the data. In contrast, unsupervised deep hashing is difficult to achieve satisfactory performance due to the lack of reliable supervisory information. To solve this problem, inspired by knowledge distillation, we propose a novel unsupervised knowledge distillation cross-modal hashing method based on semantic alignment (SAKDH), which can reconstruct the similarity matrix using the hidden correlation information of the pretrained unsupervised teacher model, and the reconstructed similarity matrix can be used to guide the supervised student model. Specifically, firstly, the teacher model adopted an unsupervised semantic alignment hashing method, which can construct a modal fusion similarity matrix. Secondly, under the supervision of teacher model distillation information, the student model can generate more discriminative hash codes. Experimental results on two extensive benchmark datasets (MIRFLICKR-25K and NUS-WIDE) show that compared to several representative unsupervised cross-modal hashing methods, the mean average precision (MAP) of our proposed method has achieved a significant improvement. It fully reflects its effectiveness in large-scale cross-modal data retrieval.