Search

Owing to its wear resistance and mechanical performance, glass-ceramics are often favoured in dental applications. However, prolonged immersion can cause material degradation and reduced strength. Typically, adding fluoride is believed to improve their properties. Hence, this work prepared fluoride-free and fluoride glassceramics via the melt-quenching technique. The samples were assessed after soaking PBS solution for 14 days. The fluoride sample exhibited a higher hardness of HV = 653 ± 2.80 and toughness of 3.37 ± 0.01 MPa⋅m1/2. This experimental results were compared to the human dentine (HV = 61.2), human enamel (HV = 510) and commercial dental glass-ceramics (HV = 408–663). The fluoride samples showed higher bioactivity, evident from the crystal formation in micrographs. Therefore, the prepared samples exhibit a promising potential as new materials for dental crown applications.

Terrestrial production and export of dissolved organic and inorganic carbon (DOC and DIC) to streams depends on water flow and biogeochemical processes in and beneath soils. Yet, understanding of these processes in a rapidly changing climate is limited. Using the watershed-scale reactive-transport model BioRT-HBV and stream data from a snow-dominated catchment in the Rockies, we show deeper groundwater flow averaged about 20% of annual discharge, rising to ∼35% in drier years. DOC and DIC production and export peaked during snowmelt and wet years, driven more by hydrology than temperature. DOC was primarily produced in shallow soils (1.94 ± 1.45 gC/m2/year), stored via sorption, and flushed out during snowmelt. Some DOC was recharged to and further consumed in the deeper subsurface via respiration (−0.27 ± 0.02 gC/m2/year), therefore reducing concentrations in deeper groundwater and stream DOC concentrations at low discharge. Consequently, DOC was primarily exported from the shallow zone (1.62 ± 0.96 gC/m2/year, compared to 0.12 ± 0.02 gC/m2/year from the deeper zone). DIC was produced in both zones but at higher rates in shallow soils (1.34 ± 1.00 gC/m2/year) than in the deep subsurface (0.36 ± 0.02 gC/m2/year). Deep respiration elevated DIC concentrations in the deep zone and stream DIC concentrations at low discharge. In other words, deep respiration is responsible for the commonly-observed increasing DOC concentrations (flushing) and decreasing DIC concentrations (dilution) with increasing discharge. DIC export from the shallow zone was ~66% of annual export but can drop to ∼53% in drier years. Numerical experiments suggest lower carbon production and export in a warmer, drier future, and a higher proportion from deeper flow and respiration processes. These results underscore the often-overlooked but growing importance of deeper processes in a warming climate.

Yu-Xian Tang,1,* Zhi-Wei Fan,1,* Jing Li,2,* Hao-Dong Pan,3 Wen-Xin Su,1 Yusanjan Matniyaz,2 Hai-Tao Zhang,4 Yuan-Xi Luo,4 Zhi-Kang Lv,2 Wen-Zhe Wang,2 Ya-Xuan Gao,2 Tuo Pan,2,4 Wan-Zi Xu,1,2 Dong-Jin Wang1– 4 1Department of Cardiac Surgery, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Clinical College, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Cardiac Surgery, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Clinical Medicine, Norman Bethune Health Science Center of Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Cardiac Surgery, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Peking Union Medical College & Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Graduate School of Peking Union Medical College, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Dong-Jin Wang; Wan-Zi Xu, Department of Cardiac surgery, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, No. 321 Zhongshan Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210008, People’s Republic of China, Email dongjin_wang@126.com; 582321957@qq.comBackground: Sivelestat, a neutrophil elastase inhibitor, is specifically developed to mitigate the occurrence of acute lung injury (ALI) in individuals who are undergoing cardiovascular surgery. However, its impact on patients who are at a heightened risk of developing ALI after scheduled cardiac surgery has yet to be determined. In order to address this knowledge gap, we undertook a study to assess the efficacy of sivelestat in protecting the lungs of these patients.Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study involving 718 patients who were at high risk of developing postoperative acute lung injury (ALI) and underwent scheduled cardiac surgery between April 25th, 2022, and September 7th, 2023. Among them, 52 patients received sivelestat (administered at a dosage of 0.2m

This study focuses on zinc-boro-soda-lime-silica (ZnO − B2O3 − SLS) glasses produced through fast-cooling melt-quenching. The influence of Eu3+ ions on glass properties is explored. As Eu3+ concentration rises, bulk density and molar volume increase from 3.423 to 3.484 g/cm3 and 21.760 to 23.768 cm3/mol, respectively. X-ray diffraction indicates amorphous phase dominance supported by glassy surface morphology. Ultrasonic measurements show the increasing and decreasing trend for ultrasonic velocities and elastic moduli with increasing Eu3+ concentration. Poisson’s ratio of the samples signifies their low cross-link density behavior. Moreover, the ZBS-3Eu presents the highest microhardness value of 4.776 GPa. The sample’s fractal bond connectivity varies from 1.814 to 2.051, suggesting a 2D structure. Likewise, the ZBS-3Eu glass sample exhibits the most rigidity attributed to its highest fg value of 0.075. These findings suggest that ZBS-3Eu has the potential for applications requiring high-strength glass.

We propose a novel class of Dark Matter (DM) candidates in the form of a heavy composite Axion-Like Particle (ALP) with highly suppressed electromagnetic interactions, being stable even for masses exceeding the GeV scale. We argue that such a composite ALP emerges as a bound state -- the dark glueball -- due to confinement in a pure Yang-Mills dark sector. In a minimal ultraviolet complete QCD-like model, cosmological production of dark gluons as well as photons occurs via heavy fermion annihilation which effectively reheats both the dark and visible sectors setting up their temperature scales. Furthermore, effective interactions between glueballs and photons, resembling those of standard ALPs, are radiatively generated by heavy fermion loops. Consequently, DM glueballs interacting with photons are dubbed `Glueball ALPs' (GALPs). We uncover novel phenomenology of GALPs focusing on their unique astrophysical and cosmological signatures., Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure

We examine the most realistic class of models among the 33 candidates in the complete landscape of supersymmetric Pati-Salam models arising from intersecting D6-branes on a $\mathbb{T}^6/(\mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}_2)$ orientifold in type IIA string theory. The class is characterized by twelve Higgs from the $\mathcal{N}=2$ sector that precisely account for the Standard Model fermion masses and mixings without Wilson fluxes. Notably, there is a natural prediction of Dirac neutrino-masses with normal ordering $(50.4,~10.5,~6.1)$~meV consistent with both experimental constraints and swampland bounds., Comment: 5 pages + appendix

TRopIcal DEep-sea Neutrino Telescope (TRIDENT) plans to incorporate silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) with superior time resolution in addition to photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) into its detection units, namely hybrid Optical Digital Modules (hDOMs), to improve its angular resolution. However, the time resolution significantly degrades for large-area SiPMs due to the increased parasitic capacitance, posing significant challenges for the readout electronics of SiPMs in hDOM. We designed the front-end readout electronics for large-area SiPM arrays dedicated to high-precision time measurements, which consists of a high-speed pre-amplifier based on transformers (MABA-007159) and radio frequency (RF) amplifiers (BGA2803), a series-parallel combination SiPM array with reduced capacitance, and an analog multi-channel summing circuit. We measured the single photon time resolution (SPTR) of a $4\times4$ SiPM (Hamamatsu S13360-3050PE) array ($12\times12~\mathrm{mm}^2$) of approximately 300 ps FWHM with a power consumption of less than 100 mW. This front-end readout design enables the large-area SiPM array to achieve high-precision SPTR with low power consumption., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures. Prepared for submission to JINST

In the past two decades, a plethora of hadronic states beyond the conventional quark model of $q\bar{q}$ mesons and $qqq$ baryons have been observed experimentally, which motivated extensive studies to understand their nature and the non-perturbative strong interaction. Since most of these exotic states are near the mass thresholds of a pair of conventional hadrons, the prevailing picture is that they are primarily hadronic molecules. In principle, one can verify the molecular nature of these states by thoroughly comparing their masses, decay widths, and production rates in a particular picture with experimental data. However, this is difficult or impossible. First, quantum mechanics allows for the mixing of configurations allowed by symmetries and quantum numbers. Second, data are relatively scarce because of their small production rates and the many difficulties in the experimental measurements. As a result, other alternatives need to be explored. This review summarizes three such approaches that can help disentangle the nature of the many exotic hadrons discovered. In the first approach, based on the molecular interpretations for some exotic states, we study the likely existence of multiplets of hadronic molecules related by various symmetries, such as isospin symmetry, SU(3)-flavor symmetry, heavy quark spin/flavor symmetry, and heavy antiquark diquark symmetry. In the second approach, starting from some hadronic molecular candidates, one can derive the underlying hadron-hadron interactions. With these interactions, one can study related three-body systems and check whether three-body bound states/resonances exist. In the third approach, one can turn to the femtoscopy technique to derive the hadron-hadron interactions, hence inaccessible. This technique provided an unprecedented opportunity to understand the interactions between unstable hadrons., Comment: 140 pages, 40 figures; any comments are appreciated!

There have been extended and heated discussions on the nature of the two exotic states, $Z_c(3900)$ and $Z_{cs}(3985)$, particularly whether they are resonances or virtual states. We demonstrate for the first time that the femtoscopic technique can be used to unambiguously distinguish between such two scenarios. More concretely, we show that the $D^0D^{*-}$/$D^0D_s^{*-}$ correlation functions are significantly different in the high-momentum region, especially in small collision systems of the order of 1 fm, as produced in pp collisions at the LHC, which can unambiguously tell whether $Z_c(3900)$/$Z_{cs}(3985)$ is a resonant or a virtual state. For the $Z_{cs}(3985)$, the $D^0D_s^{*-}$ results at zero momentum are significantly different in the two scenarios. We hope all these discoveries can stimulate further experimental studies and help clarify the nature of the many exotic states discovered., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Comments are welcome

In this paper, a series of [Sm2O3]x[(ZnO)0.5 (B2O3)0.1 (SLS)0.4]1-x, where × = 0, 0.01, 0.02, and 0.03 in weight fraction was fabricated via melt-quenching method. The influence of the samarium ion (Sm3+) concentration on the structural and optical properties was investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) confirmed the samples’ glassy (amorphous) behavior. The optical absorption intensity enhanced as the dopant increased, whereas the optical band gap reduced with the progression of Sm3+ concentration. The sample’s refractive index and Urbach energy range from 2.145 to 2.203 and 0.682 eV to 0.713 eV, respectively. From the photoluminescence studies, 3 wt% Sm3+-doped samples indicate the most intense emission in the orange-reddish region among the other samples. The calculated CIE coordinates for Sm3+ doped ZnO–B2O3–SLS glasses are approximate (0.57, 0.43), near the Amber LED NSPAR 70BS produced by Nichia Corporation. In addition, the CCT of the Sm3+-doped samples at about ~ 1750 K reveals prepared glass samples have bright orange-reddish emission. These findings indicate that Sm3+-doped in ZnO-B2O3-SLS has enhanced its orange-reddish emission and potential as an orange-reddish glass phosphor material in optoelectronic devices such as glass phosphor for LEDs.

In this paper, a series of [Sm2O3]x[(ZnO)0.5 (B2O3)0.1 (SLS)0.4]1-x, where × = 0, 0.01, 0.02, and 0.03 in weight fraction was fabricated via melt-quenching method. The influence of the samarium ion (Sm3+) concentration on the structural and optical properties was investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) confirmed the samples’ glassy (amorphous) behavior. The optical absorption intensity enhanced as the dopant increased, whereas the optical band gap reduced with the progression of Sm3+ concentration. The sample’s refractive index and Urbach energy range from 2.145 to 2.203 and 0.682 eV to 0.713 eV, respectively. From the photoluminescence studies, 3 wt% Sm3+-doped samples indicate the most intense emission in the orange-reddish region among the other samples. The calculated CIE coordinates for Sm3+ doped ZnO–B2O3–SLS glasses are approximate (0.57, 0.43), near the Amber LED NSPAR 70BS produced by Nichia Corporation. In addition, the CCT of the Sm3+-doped samples at about ~ 1750 K reveals prepared glass samples have bright orange-reddish emission. These findings indicate that Sm3+-doped in ZnO-B2O3-SLS has enhanced its orange-reddish emission and potential as an orange-reddish glass phosphor material in optoelectronic devicessuch as glass phosphor for LEDs.

In this work, Eu3+/Sm3+ co-doped zinc borosilicate glass was prepared by modified melt-quenching method. The effect of Eu3+/Sm3+ to the structural and optical properties was investigated. The optical band gaps increased from 5.023 to 5.179 eV, and 3.832 to 3.986 eV for both for direct/indirect transition. Urbach energy decreases from 0.713 to 0.697 eV, while refractive index also decreases from 2.203 to 2.173 with the progress of doping concentration. The photoluminescence measurement reveals the simultaneous amplification of Sm3+ and Eu3+ emission for the co-doping sample, suggesting a synergistic energy transfer between the two ions. The 1EuSmZBS glass samples show the highest emission intensity. The CIE chromaticity coordinates, CCT, and color purity of the glass sample present high intensity of reddish-orange emission color. In conclusion, Eu3+/Sm3+ co-doped zinc borosilicate glass can lead to enhanced and tunable luminescence properties, and potentially use as a glass host phosphor in optoelectronic applications.

The ultimate dream of unification models consists in combining both gauge and Yukawa couplings into one unified coupling. This is achieved by using a supersymmetric exceptional ${\rm E}_6$ gauge symmetry together with asymptotic unification in compact five-dimensional space-time. The ultraviolet fixed point requires exactly three fermion generations: one in the bulk, and the two light ones localised on the ${\rm SO}(10)$ boundary in order to cancel gauge anomalies. A second option allows to preserve baryon number and to lower the compactification scale down to the typical scales of the intermediate Pati-Salam gauge theory., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, supplementary material appended to the main file

The $DK$ interaction in isospin zero is known to be attractive to such an extent that a bound state can be generated, which can be associated with the mysterious $D_{s0}^*(2317)$. In this work, we calculate the $DK$ femtoscopic correlation function in the coupled-channel framework for different source sizes that can directly probe the strongly attractive $DK$ interaction, which is otherwise inaccessible due to the unstable nature of $D$ and $K$ mesons, and therefore can help elucidate the nature of $D_{s0}^*(2317)$. We further generalize the study of source size dependence to various interactions, ranging from repulsive, weakly attractive, moderately attractive, and strongly attractive, in a square-well model. We hope that our study can motivate future experimental measurements of the $DK$ correlation function and other interactions relevant to the understanding of the nature of the many exotic hadrons discovered so far., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; clarifications added and discussions refined, to appear in Physical Review D

We delve deeper into the potential composition of dark matter as stable scalar glueballs from a confining dark $SU(N)$ gauge theory, focusing on $N=\{3,4,5\}$. To predict the relic abundance of glueballs for the various gauge groups and scenarios of thermalization of the dark gluon gas, we employ a thermal effective theory that accounts for the strong-coupling dynamics in agreement with lattice simulations. We compare our methodology with previous works and find that our approach is more comprehensive and reliable. The results are encouraging and show that glueballs can account for the totality of dark matter in many unconstrained scenarios with a phase transition scale $20~{\rm MeV}\lesssim\Lambda\lesssim10^{10}~{\rm GeV}$, thus opening the possibility of exciting future studies., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures; update and generalization of arXiv:2207.13716

The spins of the pentaquark states $P_c(4440)$ and $P_c(4457)$ play a decisive role in unraveling their nature, but remain undetermined experimentally. Assuming that they are $\Sigma_c\bar{D}^{*}$ bound states, we demonstrate how one can determine their spins by measuring the $\Sigma_c^+\bar{D}^{(*)0}$ correlation functions. We show that one can use the $\Sigma_c^+\bar{D}^0$ correlation function to fix the size of the Gaussian source and then determine the strength of the $\Sigma_c^+\bar{D}^{*0}$ interaction of spin $1/2$ and $3/2$ and therefore the spins of the $P_c(4440)$ and $P_c(4457)$ states. The method proposed can be applied to decipher the nature of other hadronic molecules and thus deepen our understanding of the nonperturbative strong interaction., Comment: to appear in Physical Review D as a letter

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have been transforming the way we perform scientific research in recent years.1–4 This themed collection aims to showcase the implementation of AI and ML in energy storage and conversion research, including that on batteries, supercapacitors, electrocatalysis, and photocatalysis. The works covered range from materials, to devices, to systems, with an emphasis on how AI and ML have accelerated research and development in these fields.

We have conducted a model independent analysis of the $K^+ \bar{K}^0$ pair correlation function obtained from ultra high energy $pp$ collisions, with the aim of extracting the information encoded in it related to the $K\bar{K}$ interaction and the coupled channel $\pi^+ \eta$. With the present large errors at small relative $K^+\bar{K}^0$ momenta, we find that the information obtained about the scattering matrix suffers from large uncertainties. Even then, we are able to show that the data imply the existence of the $a_0$ resonance, $a_0(980)$, showing as a strong cusp close to the $K\bar{K}$ threshold. We also mention that the measurement of the $\pi^+ \eta$ correlation function will be essential in order to constrain more the information on $K\bar{K}$ dynamics that can be obtained from correlation functions., Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures

Xiu-Ni Zhang,1 Cui-Yi Wu,2 Zhi-Wei Wu,1 Li-Xian Xu,3 Feng-Ting Jiang,1 Han-Wei Chen4 1Department of Trauma Orthopedics, Panyu Central Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 511400, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Outpatient, Panyu Central Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 511400, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Endocrinology, Panyu Central Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 511400, People’s Republic of China; 4Administrative Office, Panyu District Health Management Center, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 511400, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xiu-Ni Zhang, Email zxn18926220698@163.comObjective: Microorganisms have been the main cause of refractory and high recurrence of diabetic foot ulcer (DFU). This study attempted to observe the skin bacterial colony in healthy skin, diabetic skin and DFU skin.Methods: Forty-eight diabetes patients were recruited at Panyu Central Hospital from March 2021 to March 2022 and divided into DFU group (T group, n = 22), diabetes without foot ulcer group (TW group, n = 26). Besides, a healthy control group (H group, n = 10) was recruited at the same time. The swab samples of foot skin in the same position in the three groups were collected. The microorganisms obtained from the skin were analyzed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The composition of the skin microorganisms was determined, and the species diversity of the skin microbiota was analyzed by α and β diversity. The species differences in the skin microbiota and the relative abundance of different operational taxonomic units (OUTs) with the most significant abundance were analyzed by linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe).Results: Significant changes were found in the composition of the skin microbiota in the T and TW groups relative to the H group. However, the species diversity of the skin microbiota was significantly reduced in the T and TW groups, with the lowest one in the T group. The composition of microbial diversity in the T group was significant

We study under which conditions a first-order phase transition in a composite dark sector can yield an observable stochastic gravitational-wave signal. To this end, we employ the Linear-Sigma model featuring $N_f=3,4,5$ flavours and perform a Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis computation also accounting for the effects of the Polyakov loop. The model allows us to investigate the chiral phase transition in regimes that can mimic QCD-like theories incorporating in addition composite dynamics associated with the effects of confinement-deconfinement phase transition. A further benefit of this approach is that it allows to study the limit in which the effective interactions are weak. We show that strong first-order phase transitions occur for weak effective couplings of the composite sector leading to gravitational-wave signals potentially detectable at future experimental facilities., Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures

Dennis Sciama argued that the existence of life depended on many quantities, the fundamental constants, so in a random universe life should be highly unlikely. However, without full knowledge of these constants, his argument implies a universe that would appear to be `intelligently designed.', Comment: Publication in Nature Astronomy (2023). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2109.10241

The gamma-ray detectors (GRDs) of GECAM-C onborad SATech-01 satellite is designed to monitor gamma-ray transients all over the sky from 6 keV to 6 MeV. The energy response matrix is the key to do spectral measurements of bursts, which is usually generated from GEANT4 simulation and partially verified by the ground calibration. In this work, energy response matrix of GECAM-C GRD is cross-calibrated with Fermi/GBM and Swift/BAT using a sample of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) and Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters (SGRs). The calibration results show there is a good agreement between GECAM-C and other reasonably well calibrated instrument (i.e. Fermi/GBM and Swift/BAT). We also find that different GRD detectors of GECAM-C also show consistency with each other. All these results indicate that GECAM-C GRD can provide reliable spectral measurements., Comment: preliminary version, will be updated soon

GRB 221009A is the brightest gamma-ray burst ever detected since the discovery of this kind of energetic explosions. However, an accurate measurement of the prompt emission properties of this burst is very challenging due to its exceptional brightness. With joint observations of \textit{Insight}-HXMT and GECAM-C, we made an unprecedentedly accurate measurement of the emission during the first $\sim$1800 s of GRB 221009A, including its precursor, main emission (ME, which dominates the burst in flux), flaring emission and early afterglow, in the hard X-ray to soft gamma-ray band from $\sim$ 10 keV to $\sim$ 6 MeV. Based on the GECAM-C unsaturated data of the ME, we measure a record-breaking isotropic equivalent energy ($E_{\rm iso}$) of $\bf \sim 1.5 \times 10^{55}$ erg, which is about eight times the total rest-mass energy of the Sun. The early afterglow data require a significant jet break between 650 s and 1100 s, most likely at $\sim950$ s from the afterglow starting time $T_{AG}$, which corresponds to a jet opening angle of $\sim {0.7^\circ} \ (\eta_\gamma n)^{1/8}$, where $n$ is the ambient medium density in units of $\rm cm^{-3}$ and $\eta_\gamma$ is the ratio between $\gamma$-ray energy and afterglow kinetic energy. The beaming-corrected total $\gamma$-ray energy $E_{\gamma}$ is $\sim 1.15 \times10^{51} \ (\eta_\gamma n)^{1/4}$ erg, which is typical for long GRBs. These results suggest that this GRB may have a special central engine, which could launch and collimate a very narrowly beamed jet with an ordinary energy budget, leading to exceptionally luminous gamma-ray radiation per unit solid angle. Alternatively, more GRBs might have such a narrow and bright beam, which are missed by an unfavorable viewing angle or have been detected without distance measurement., Comment: Submitted to National Science Review. This paper is under press embargo, contact the corresponding author for details

Searching for X-ray and gamma-ray bursts, including Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters (SGRs) and high energy transients associated with Gravitational wave (GW) events or Fast radio bursts (FRBs), is of great importance in the multi-messenger and multi-wavelength era. Although a coherent search based on the likelihood ratio and Gaussian statistics has been established and utilized in many studies, this Gaussian-based method could be problematic for weak and short bursts which usually have very few counts. To deal with all bursts including weak ones, here we propose the coherent search in Poisson statistics. We studied the difference between Poisson-based and Gaussian-based search methods by Monte Carlo simulations, and find that the Poisson-based search method has advantages compared to the Gaussian case especially for weak bursts. Our results show that, for very weak bursts with very low number of counts, the Poisson-based search can provide higher significance than the Gaussian-based search, and its likelihood ratio (for background fluctuation) still generally follows the chi2 distribution, making the significance estimation of searched bursts very convenient. Thus, we suggest that the coherent search based on Poisson likelihood ratio is more appropriate in the search for generic transients including very weak ones., Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures

The performance of a large-scale water Cherenkov neutrino telescope relies heavily on the transparency of the surrounding water, quantified by its level of light absorption and scattering. A pathfinder experiment was carried out to measure the optical properties of deep seawater in South China Sea with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as light sources, photon multiplier tubes (PMTs) and cameras as photon sensors. Here, we present an optical simulation program employing the Geant4 toolkit to understand the absorption and scattering processes in the deep seawater, which helps to extract the underlying optical properties from the experimental data. The simulation results are compared with the experimental data and show good agreements. We also verify the analysis methods that utilize various observables of the PMTs and the cameras with this simulation program, which can be easily adapted by other neutrino telescope pathfinder experiments and future large-scale detectors., Comment: 27 pages, 11 figures

This paper studies the distributed multi-agent resilient optimization problem under the f-total Byzantine attacks. Compared with the previous work on Byzantineresilient multi-agent exact optimization problems, we do not require the communication topology to be fully connected. Under the redundancy of cost functions, we propose the distributed comparative gradient elimination resilient optimization algorithm based on the traditional assumptions on strongly convex global costs and Lipschitz continuous gradients. Under this algorithm, we successfully prove that if the number of inneighbors of each normal agent is greater than some constant and the parameter f satisfies certain conditions, all normal agents' local estimations of the global variable will finally reach consensus and converge to the optimized solution. Finally, the numerical experiments successfully verify the correctness of the results., Comment: There are some errors in the provement of this paper

Su Yuan,1,2 Biao Zuo,2,3 Si-Cong Zhou,1,2 Meng Wang,2,3 Kai-Yue Tan,2,3 Zhi-Wei Chen,2,3 Wen-Fu Cao1– 3 1Department of Combination of Chinese and Western Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China; 2Chongqing Key Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Medicine for Prevention and Cure of Metabolic Diseases, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China; 3College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Wen-Fu Cao, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, No. 1, Youyi Road, Yuanjiagang, Yuzhong District, Chongqing, 400016, People’s Republic of China, Email caowenfu20220401@163.comPurpose: Our study aims to reveal the pharmacological mechanism of Astragaloside IV in the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis(PF) through network pharmacology and experimental validation.Methods: We first determined the in vivo anti-pulmonary fibrosis effect of Astragaloside IV by HE, MASSON staining, and lung coefficients, then used network pharmacology to predict the signaling pathways and molecularly docked key pathway proteins, and finally validated the results by in vivo and in vitro experiments.Results: In in vivo experiments, we found that Astragaloside IV improved body weight (P < 0.05), increased lung coefficients (P < 0.05), and reduced lung inflammation and collagen deposition in mice with pulmonary fibrosis. The network pharmacology results showed that Astragaloside IV had 104 cross-targets with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and the results of KEGG enrichment analysis indicated that cellular senescence could be an important pathway for Astragaloside IV in the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis. Astragaloside IV also bound well to senescence-associated proteins, according to molecular docking results. The results of both in vivo and in vitro experiments showed that Astragaloside IV significantly inhibited senescence prote

We consider the problem of maximizing a monotone nondecreasing set function under multiple constraints, where the constraints are also characterized by monotone nondecreasing set functions. We propose two greedy algorithms to solve the problem with provable approximation guarantees. The first algorithm exploits the structure of a special class of the general problem instance to obtain a better time complexity. The second algorithm is suitable for the general problem. We characterize the approximation guarantees of the two algorithms, leveraging the notions of submodularity ratio and curvature introduced for set functions. We then discuss particular applications of the general problem formulation to problems that have been considered in the literature. We validate our theoretical results using numerical examples.

AbstractMagnesium, the lightest structural metal, usually exhibits limited ambient plasticity when compressed along its crystallographic c-axis (the “hard” orientation of magnesium). Here we report large plasticity in c-axis compression of submicron magnesium single crystal achieved by a dual-stage deformation. We show that when the plastic flow gradually strain-hardens the magnesium crystal to gigapascal level, at which point dislocation mediated plasticity is nearly exhausted, the sample instantly pancakes without fracture, accompanying a conversion of the initial single crystal into multiple grains that roughly share a common rotation axis. Atomic-scale characterization, crystallographic analyses and molecular dynamics simulations indicate that the new grains can form via transformation of pyramidal to basal planes. We categorize this grain formation as “deformation graining”. The formation of new grains rejuvenates massive dislocation slip and deformation twinning to enable large plastic strains.

A series of zinc borosilicate glass doped with dysprosium oxide (Dy-ZBS) has been successfully fabricated through the conventional melt-quench technique with the incorporation of bio-silica source from rice husk ash. The physical, structural, luminescence, and optical properties of the fabricated glass have been studied utilizing the bulk density, x-ray diffraction pattern, photoluminescence emission spectra, chromaticity coordinates, absorption spectra, and optical band gap. The bulk density improved from 3.468 gcm− 3 to 3.635 gcm− 3 as the dopant concentration increased due to the compactness of the network structure. The amorphous nature of the glass has been justified by using an X-ray diffraction pattern. Whereas the photoluminescence emission spectra have been confirmed the presence of blue and yellow colors and were intensified as the Dy3+ increases. The CCT values from chromaticity diagram of the best white light-reaching coordinates are (0.3028, 0.3334) and classified as cool white. The optical absorbance was found to be enhanced as the Dy2O3 raised from 0 wt% to 3 wt%. Meanwhile, both the direct and indirect optical band gaps were decreased consecutively. Thus, this fabricated glass is suggested to be future solid-state light materials as a white light-emitting diode (WLED) light source.

We study the baryon-baryon interactions with strangeness $S = -2$ and corresponding momentum correlation functions in leading order covariant chiral effective field theory. The relevant low energy constants are determined by fitting to the latest HAL QCD simulations, taking into account all the coupled channels. Extrapolating the so-obtained strong interactions to the physical point and considering both quantum statistical effects and the Coulomb interaction, we calculate the $\Lambda\Lambda$ and $\Xi^-p$ correlation functions with a spherical Gaussian source and compare them with the recent experimental data. We find a remarkable agreement between our predictions and the experimental measurements by using the source radius determined in $p$-$p$ correlations, which demonstrates the consistency between theory, experiment, and lattice QCD simulations. Finally, we predict the $\Sigma^+\Sigma^+$, $\Sigma^+\Lambda$, and $\Sigma^+\Sigma^-$ interactions and corresponding momentum correlation functions. Future experimental measurement of the predicted momentum correlation functions will provide a non-trivial test of not only SU(3) flavor symmetry and its breaking but also the baryon-baryon interactions derived in covariant chiral effective field theory., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures; predictions for the $\Sigma^+\Lambda$ and $\Sigma^+\Sigma^-$ momentum correlation functions added

Generation of arbitrarily spin polarized muon pairs is investigated via polarized $e^-e^+$ collision. We calculate the fully spin-resolved cross section ${\rm d}\sigma_{e^-e^+\rightarrow \mu^-\mu^+}$ and utilize the Monte Carlo method of binary collision to describe the production and polarization processes of muon pairs. We find that, due to the dependence of mixed helicities on the scattering angle, arbitrarily polarized muon pairs with both of the longitudinal and transverse spin components can be produced. The collision of tightly collimated electron and positron beams with highly longitudinal polarization and nC charge can generate about $40\%$ muon pairs with longitudinal polarization and about $60\%$ muon pairs with transverse polarization. The compact high-flux $e^-e^+\rightarrow\mu^-\mu^+$ muon source could be implemented through the next-generation laser-plasma linear collider, and would be essential to facilitate the investigation of fundamental physics and the measurement technology in broad areas.

We discuss the stochastic gravitational-wave spectrum from dark confinement and chiral phase transitions in the early Universe. Specifically, we look at pure Yang-Mills theory for an arbitrary number of colours as well as SU(3) with quarks in different representations. We utilise thermodynamic lattice data and map it to effective models, such as the Polyakov-loop and the PNJL model. This allows us to compute gravitational-wave parameters and the corresponding gravitational-wave signal. We compare the signal to future gravitational-wave observatories such as the Big Bang Observer and DECIGO., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, contribution to the proceedings of the XVth Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum conference at the University of Stavanger

We revisit the possibility that Dark Matter is composed of stable scalar glueballs of a confining dark ${\rm SU}(3)$ gauge theory coupled only to gravity. The relic abundance of dark glueballs is studied for the first time in a thermal effective theory accounting for strong-coupling dynamics. An important ingredient of our analysis is the use of an effective potential for glueballs that is fitted by lattice simulations. We predict the relic abundance to be in the range $0.12\zeta_{T}^{-3}\Lambda/(137.9 {\rm eV}) \lesssim \Omega h^{2}\lesssim 0.12\zeta_{T}^{-3}\Lambda/(82.7 {\rm eV})$, with $\Lambda$ being the confinement scale, $\zeta_{T}$ the visible-to-dark sector temperature ratio and the uncertainty is coming from the fit to lattice data. This prediction is an order of magnitude smaller than the existing glueball abundance results in the literature. Our framework can be easily generalised to different gauge groups and modified cosmological histories paving the way towards consistent exploration of strongly-coupled dark sectors and their cosmological implications., Comment: v2: 7 pages, 2 figures

Black holes are conjectured to be the fastest quantum scramblers in nature, with the stretched horizon being the scrambling boundary. Under this assumption, we show that any infalling body must couple to virtually the entire black hole Hilbert space even prior to the Page time in order for there to be any hope of preserving the often-cited claim of the equivalence principle that such bodies should experience `no drama' as they pass a black hole's horizon. Further, under the scrambling assumption, we recover the usual firewall result at the black hole's Page time for an initially pure-state black hole without the need for any complexity or computational assumptions. For a black hole that is initially impure, we find that the onset of the firewall is advanced to times prior to the standard Page time. Finally, if black holes really do efficiently scramble quantum information, this suggests that, in order to preserve this claim of the equivalence principle even prior to the onset of a full-blown firewall, the quantum state of a black hole interior must be a Bose-Einstein condensate., Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures

By aiming to understand the importance of the ongoing effects of COVID-19 on several economies, this study attempts to highlight the impact of COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths occurring in the most affected countries of the world such as China and the USA, especially in the context of their respective currencies. For this purpose, the daily data from January 22, 2020, till May 7, 2021, has been taken into account, and then has been analyzed to examine the linear relationship between the currency and proxies of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the (autoregressive distributed lag) ARDL model has been employed in order to fulfil the research objective with numerous statistical diagnostic measures, so as to validate the model. The results indicate that the exchange rate is affected negatively due to the effect of COVID-19 cases and deaths in particular countries. Moreover, the effect of the pandemic is not limited to the short run only, but also in the long run, as it is hurting the financial backbone of China and the USA.

This paper outlines the fabrication of bioactive glass derived from waste eggshells as a source of calcium via the melt and water quenching method. The influence of the CaF2/P2O5 ratio on the physical, structural and mechanical properties of bioglass samples was investigated. XRD confirmed the amorphous structure, while the presence of Si–O–Si, P–O, and C–O indicated the formation of bioglass samples. It was found that increasing CaF2 content with appropriate P2O5 content could improve the mechanical properties of the bioglass. The increase in density can significantly impact the bioglass samples’ compressive strength and vickers microhardness. The bioglass with CaF2/P2O5 ratio of 6/4 possessed better properties, showing the optimal compressive strength (48.98 ± 0.11 MPa) and vickers microhardness (3.09 ± 0.07 GPa), which is compatible with the human enamel and commercial bioglass. Thus, the findings seem to contribute to a prospective cost-effective waste-derived bioglass system used in dental applications.

Samarium (III) oxide doped zinc-borosilicate glasses were successfully fabricated using the melt-quenching method by using SLS glass as a source of SiO2. With the progression of Sm3+ concentration, the density of the sample improved from 3.423 g/cm3 to 3.495 g/cm3, while the molar volume raised from 21.760 cm3/mol to 23.665 cm3/mol. The XRD analysis verified the samples’ amorphous nature. Besides, the longitudinal and shear velocity range between 5265.15 and 5706.244 m/s and 2900.247–3039.522 m/s, respectively. The elastic moduli for longitudinal, shear, bulk, and Young’s modulus range between 96.389–111.457 GPa, 29.247–31.624 GPa, 56.493–69.292 GPa, and 75.000–82.345, respectively. Furthermore, with the increment of Sm3+ concentration, the sample’s Poisson’s ratio reduces from 0.302 to 0.270, indicating a progressive rise in cross-link density due to increased glass ionicity. Moreover, the fractal bond connectivity and fugacity rise from 1.826 to 2.170 and 0.060 to 0.083, respectively, with the progression of Sm3+ concentration. The findings imply that the Sm3+ dopant acts as a glass modifier, impacting the elastic performance of the zinc-borosilicate glasses.

TRK fusions are rare but targetable mutations which occur across a wide variety of cancer types. We report the prevalence of approximately 0.7% for NTRK-positive colorectal cancer (CRC) by genetically profiling 2519 colonic and rectal tumors. The aberrations of APC and TP53 frequently co-occurred with NTRK gene fusions, whereas RAS/BRAF oncogenic alterations and NTRK fusions were almost always mutually exclusive. NTRK-driven colorectal cancer patients demonstrated increased TMB (median = 53 mut/MB, 95% CI: 36.8-68.0 mut/MB), high microsatellite instability, and an enrichment for POLE/POLD1 mutations when compared to molecularly unstratified colorectal cancer population. These data shed light on possible future approach of multimodality treatment regimen including TRK-targeted therapy and immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy in NTRK-positive CRCs.

Zhen-Hua Tu,1,&ast; Ping-Bo Jin,1,&ast; Di-Yu Chen,1 Zhi-Yun Chen,1 Zhi-Wei Li,1 Jie Wu,2 Bin Lou,3 Bao-Shan Zhang,4 Lin Zhang,1 Wei Zhang,1 Ting-Bo Liang1,5– 7 1Department of Surgery, Division of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310003, People’s Republic of China; 2State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Hangzhou, 310003, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Laboratory Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310003, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Nursing, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310003, People’s Republic of China; 5Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Pancreatic Disease, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310003, People’s Republic of China; 6Zhejiang Province Innovation Center for the Study of Pancreatic Diseases, Hangzhou, 310003, People’s Republic of China; 7Zhejiang University Cancer Center, Hangzhou, 310003, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Ting-Bo Liang, Department of Surgery, Division of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310003, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 571 8723 6601, Fax +86 571 8707 2577, Email liangtingbo@zju.edu.cnPurpose: To evaluate the response and safety of an inactivated vaccine (Sinovac Life Sciences Co., Ltd., Beijing, China) for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in liver transplant (LTx) recipients from China.Patients and Methods: Thirty-five recipients post LTx from the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine who received inactivated vaccine from June to October 2021 were screened. Information regarding vaccine side effects and clinical data were c

This paper reports on developing low-cost fluoride-containing glass–ceramics derived from eggshells waste as a source of calcium via the conventional melt-quenching method. The physical, structural, and mechanical properties of the samples before and after sintering is highlighted in this study. XRD and FTIR analysis confirmed the presence of fluorapatite, wollastonite, and cuspidine phases. It is worth noting that adding fluoride to the glass system would lead to the improvement of the mechanical properties of the final product. Among all, the sample sintered at 700 °C achieved the highest density and mechanical properties. It obtained a density value of 2.626 g/cm3, a microhardness result of 6.72 GPa, and fracture toughness of 3.55 MPa·m1/2. These results are better than commercial 45S5 bioglass (0.148 GPa–0.375 GPa) and comparable to the properties of human enamel (2.00 GPa–6.00 GPa). These findings would be believed to contribute to a low-cost waste-derived fluoride-containing glass–ceramics system in the dental application.

Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is a critical global challenge; it demands advances at the levels of materials, devices, and systems for the efficient harvesting, storage, conversion, and management of renewable energy. Researchers globally have begun incorporating machine learning (ML) techniques with the aim of accelerating these advances. ML technologies leverage statistical trends in data to build models for prediction of material properties, generation of candidate structures, optimization of processes, among other uses; as a result, they can be incorporated into discovery and development pipelines to accelerate progress. Here we review recent advances in ML-driven energy research, outline current and future challenges, and describe what is required moving forward to best lever ML techniques. To start, we give an overview of key ML concepts. We then introduce a set of key performance indicators to help compare the benefits of different ML-accelerated workflows for energy research. We discuss and evaluate the latest advances in applying ML to the development of energy harvesting (photovoltaics), storage (batteries), conversion (electrocatalysis), and management (smart grids). Finally, we offer an outlook of potential research areas in the energy field that stand to further benefit from the application of ML.

This article targets at addressing the robust prescribed-time coordination control (PTCC) problems for single-integrator cooperative-antagonistic networks (CANs) with external disturbances under arbitrary fixed signed digraphs without any structural constraints. Toward this end, the PTCC problems for nominal single-integrator CANs without disturbances are first investigated and a fully distributed control protocol with a time-varying gain, which grows to infinity as the time approaches the settling time, is proposed utilizing the relative states of neighboring agents. Then, based on the proposed control protocol for the nominal single-integrator CANs, a new second-order prescribed-time sliding mode control protocol is constructed to achieve accurate PTCC for single-integrator CANs in the presence of external disturbances. Using Lyapunov based analysis, sufficient conditions to guarantee the prescribed-time stability, bipartite consensus, interval bipartite consensus, and bipartite containment of single-integrator CANs without or with disturbances are, respectively, derived. In the end, numerical simulations are given to confirm the derived results., Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures

In this paper, we study the numerical solutions of the multi-dimensional spatial fractional Allen-Cahn equations. After semi-discretization for the spatial fractional Riesz derivative, a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations with Toeplitz structure is obtained. For the sake of reducing the computational complexity, a two-level Strang splitting method is proposed, where the Toeplitz matrix in the system is split into the sum of a circulant matrix and a skew-circulant matrix. Therefore, the proposed method can be quickly implemented by the fast Fourier transform, substituting to calculate the expensive Toeplitz matrix exponential. Theoretically, the discrete maximum principle of our method is unconditionally preserved. Moreover, the analysis of error in the infinite norm with second-order accuracy is conducted in both time and space. Finally, numerical tests are given to corroborate our theoretical conclusions and the efficiency of the proposed method.

This paper studies the state-of-charge (SoC) balancing and the total charging/discharging power tracking issues for battery energy storage systems (BESSs) with multiple distributed heterogeneous battery units. Different from the traditional cooperative control strategies based on the asymptotical or finite-time distributed observers, two distributed prespecified-time observers are proposed to estimate average battery units state and average desired power, respectively, which can be determined in advance and independent of initial states or control parameters. Finally, two simulation examples are given to verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control strategy.

Various striking nonlinear dynamics have been obtained from an ultrafast fiber laser. Herein, we first numerically demonstrate the self-parametric amplification of the bound-state dissipative soliton induced by the spectral filtering effect in the negative dispersion regime. The self-parametric amplification in our work manifests itself as optical spectrum intensity enhancement in the absence of extra pump light injection, which is resulted by the energy flowing within the laser field. Comparing the ultrafast fiber laser system without bandwidth filter and those with 8-nm or 10-nm bandwidth filters respectively, a stable spectrum and two spectral periodic evolutions can be observed, which demonstrates that the spectral filtering effect plays a key role in the self-parametric amplification process. These findings can provide new insights into the complex nonlinear behavior of bound-state dissipative solitons in the ultrafast fiber lasers.

We study the simultaneous actuator selection and controller design problem for linear quadratic regulation with Gaussian noise over a finite horizon of length $T$ and unknown system model. We consider both episodic and non-episodic settings of the problem and propose online algorithms that specify both the sets of actuators to be utilized under a cardinality constraint and the controls corresponding to the sets of selected actuators. In the episodic setting, the interaction with the system breaks into $N$ episodes, each of which restarts from a given initial condition and has length $T$. In the non-episodic setting, the interaction goes on continuously. Our online algorithms leverage a multiarmed bandit algorithm to select the sets of actuators and a certainty equivalence approach to design the corresponding controls. We show that our online algorithms yield $\sqrt{N}$-regret for the episodic setting and $T^{2/3}$-regret for the non-episodic setting. We extend our algorithm design and analysis to show scalability with respect to both the total number of candidate actuators and the cardinality constraint. We numerically validate our theoretical results.

Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) is a pair of microsatellites (i.e. GECAM-A and GECAM-B) dedicated to monitoring gamma-ray transients including gravitational waves high-energy electromagnetic counterparts, Gamma-ray Bursts, Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters, Solar Flares and Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes. Since launch in December 2020, GECAM-B has detected hundreds of astronomical and terrestrial events. For these bursts, localization is the key for burst identification and classification as well as follow-up observations in multi-wavelength. Here, we propose a Bayesian localization method with Poisson data with Gaussian background profile likelihood to localize GECAM bursts based on the burst counts distribution in detectors with different orientations. We demonstrate that this method can work well for all kinds of bursts, especially for extremely short ones. In addition, we propose a new method to estimate the systematic error of localization based on a confidence level test, which can overcome some problems of the existing method in literature. We validate this method by Monte Carlo simulations, and then apply it to a burst sample with accurate location and find that the mean value of the systematic error of GECAM-B localization is $\sim 2.5^{\circ}$. By considering this systematic error, we can obtain a reliable localization probability map for GECAM bursts. Our methods can be applied to other gamma-ray monitors., Comment: The paper has been accepted by Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series