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Exploring a universal approach to enhancing the performance of metasurfaces by quantifying the influence of mutual coupling between unit cells is an appealing topic for many researchers, yet achieving it within the scope of conventional methods is extremely challenging. In this article, we present a versatile neural network model for analyzing the actual electromagnetic (EM) responses of unit cells including their transmission amplitude, phase, and near-field radiation pattern, with the aim of improving the efficiencies of metasurfaces. By incorporating prior knowledge into deep neural networks (DNNs) through physics-driven neural networks, an ultra-small dataset is sufficient to train the model with faster convergence speed and lower computational costs. With the assistance of optimization algorithm, this framework empowers the researchers to accurately shape wavefronts of metasurfaces by taking into account the coupling effects in both near-field and far-field regions. Finally, two far-field multiple beam metasurfaces and two near-field holographic metasurfaces, as examples, are employed to demonstrate the efficiency improvement achieved in various metasurfaces design.

This letter presents a millimeter-wave dual-polarized quasi-three-bit reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) for a 6G wireless communication relay with a large beam-scanning angle range. The RIS unit consists of two stacked patches and a pair of orthogonal aperture-coupled microstrip lines. A positive-intrinsic-negative diode is loaded on the end of each microstrip line for controlling the reflection phases for realizing one-bit phase quantization. Furthermore, by adjusting the length of the microstrip lines, four one-bit reconfigurable units with different initial reflection phases were designed, which achieves a quasi-three-bit phase quantization for the RIS aperture with the phase step of 45°. The genetic algorithm is used to optimize the placement of the four units in the array to improve the beam-scanning performance. To validate the proposed RIS, a 10 × 10 array is designed, fabricated, and measured. The measured results show that the developed RIS has a beam scanning range of ±60° from 26.5 GHz to 28.5 GHz.

The key mutations, such as the Gly-4891-Glu substitution and the Ile-4734 multiple substitutions within the ryanodine receptors (RyR), are linked to diamide resistance in fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda. In this study, we found that FAW remained sensitive to cyantraniliprole and chlorantraniliprole, while its sensitivity to flubendiamide was reduced. Moreover, a low level of heterozygous mutation at I4743 was observed. To facilitate the detection procedure of these mutations, a simple and efficient loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) protocol was developed for operation. The reaction for detecting the G4891E and I4743 single or multiple mutations was carried out at 68 °C for 85 min and 68 °C for 85 min or 68 °C for 65 min, respectively. These LAMP reactions can be easily observed via visualization of the color change from pink to yellow. This assay provides a simple, convenient, and effective means of detecting mutations in the RyR of FAW for pest management purposes.

Distributed fiber optic sensing has been used for monitoring land subsidence, and accurate measurement of soil deformation relies on the coordination between the optical fiber and soil, also known as the deformation coordination between the optical fiber and soil (DCf–s). To investigate this issue, three types of optical cables with different sheath structures were embedded in triaxial specimens made of standard sand. The fiber strain was measured by optical frequency domain reflectometry. The axial deformation of the specimen was measured by a linear variable displacement transducer sensor. Each specimen was subjected to 12 loading and unloading cycles under varying axial stresses, confining pressures, and dry or wet conditions during the triaxial tests. Results shows that the Φ3 mm loose-tube optical cable has poor DCf–swith the strain not exceeding 15 με. Under a confining pressure of 200 kPa, 400 kPa, and 500 kPa, the DCf–scoefficients between the Φ3 mm tight-buffered optical cable and wet sand during loading are 0.266, 0.366, and 0.496, respectively. The DCf–scoefficients of the Φ5 mm tight-buffered optical cable under identical conditions are 0.186, 0.226, and 0.249. Overall, the Φ3 mm tight-buffered optical cable exhibits superior DCf–scompared with both the Φ5 mm tight-buffered optical cable and Φ3 mm loose-tube optical cable, indicating that the sheath structure is a crucial factor in determining the DCf–s. In addition, the DCf–sis also influenced by several other factors, including the number of loading–unloading cycles and the confining pressure in the soil.

Technology merger and acquisition (M&A) is an important way for companies to enhance their innovation capabilities, and it is important to clarify the factors that affect the innovation performance of technology M&A. Existing studies only focus on the association between individual factors and technology M&A innovation performance, lack comparative analysis of different dimensions. Additionally, most studies discuss within-sample prediction results, whose findings may not apply to the full sample. Based on ensemble learning approaches in machine learning, we discuss the differences in the predictive power of multidimensional influence factors on the technology M&A innovation performance and then identify the main factors and the variables with the strongest predictive power. It is found that: (i) the M&A motivation of the acquirer is the most significant factor affecting the innovation performance of technology M&A; (ii) AdaBoost has the strongest explanatory power and the highest predictive accuracy among traditional machine learning approaches; (iii) among the multidimensional feature variables, the total asset turnover, overhead rate, executive compensation ratio, industry-wide misvaluation, average R&D investment ratio, average R&D staff number ratio, corporate risk-taking level, analyst attention, and media attention have the best predictive effect on technology M&A innovation performance. Ensemble learning approaches have a better out-of-sample generalization and can identify key influencing factors by comparing multiple dimensions in the performance of technology M&A innovation prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon Neutrality goals and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as new requirements for global development at this stage, have raised higher requirements for achieving the coordination of economic efficiency and ecological development of transportation infrastructure, especially highways. To promote the achievement of Carbon neutrality goals and SDGs, this research intends to study the effect of highways on the efficiency of carbon unlocking in each province. In this paper, we take China as an example, use the data of 18 listed highway companies and their provinces from 2010–2021 to conduct the study, measure the static carbon unlocking efficiency by using the super-efficiency SBM model with undesirable outputs, combine with the Malmquist index model for the decomposition of the efficiency and the dynamic analysis, and use the Tobit regression model to analyze the factors affecting the carbon unlocking efficiency. The results show that (1) From a static perspective, the carbon unlocking efficiency shows a steady upward trend, and the carbon unlocking efficiency has been in a state of low efficiency in general, with obvious regional differences. (2) From a dynamic perspective, carbon unlocking efficiency changes are relatively flat, and the carbon unlocking efficiency change index is in the rising stage, relying on technical efficiency can effectively improve the level of carbon unlocking efficiency. (3) The regional economic level, industrial structure, and urbanization level have a significant positive correlation with carbon unlocking efficiency, while the level of scientific and technological development and the level of opening up have a negative effect.

One of the major challenges during the development of low-permeability sandstone reservoirs is the interaction between the oil and rock, which makes it difficult to displace the oil in the nanoscale pores of the formation rock. This study investigates the interaction between typical crude oil components, such as chain alkyl, sulfonic acid group, and carboxyl group, and representative sandstone monominerals, including quartz, albite, and potassium feldspar in the aqueous phase with different salinities by using the nanomechanical method. The maximum adhesion strength measured in this study is 768.75 nN μm–2, which is the adhesion strength between the carboxyl group and quartz in simulated formation water, and it is 9.2 times higher than that of the sulfonic acid group and albite in deionized water. Experimental results show that the high concentration of cations in the formation water enhances the adhesion strength between the polar components of crude oil and sandstone monominerals, resulting in strong attractive forces. Furthermore, it is found that the dominant components responsible for this strong interaction are the carboxyl group and quartz. In addition, the results show that the intensity and range of adhesion strength caused by the high-valent cations, such as Mg2+, Ca2+, and Al3+, are larger than those of the low-valent cations, such as Na+and K+, and increase with increasing ion concentration. By accurately quantifying the interaction between typical components of crude oil and sandstone monominerals, this study reveals the adhesion mechanism of crude oil in low-permeability sandstone reservoirs, which provides a theoretical basis for the efficient displacement of oil.

Emerging on-demand service platforms (OSPs) have recently embraced teamwork as a strategy for stimulating workers’ productivity and mediating temporal supply and demand imbalances. This research investigates the team contest scheme design problem considering work schedules. Introducing teams on OSPs creates a hierarchical single-leader multi-follower game. The leader (platform) establishes rewards and intrateam revenue-sharing rules for distributing workers’ payoffs. Each follower (team) competes with others by coordinating the schedules of its team members to maximize the total expected utility. The concurrence of interteam competition and intrateam coordination causes dual effects, which are captured by an equilibrium analysis of the followers’ game. To align the platform’s interest with workers’ heterogeneous working-time preferences, we propose a profit-maximizing contest scheme consisting of a winner’s reward and time-varying payments. A novel algorithm that combines Bayesian optimization, duality, and a penalty method solves the optimal scheme in the nonconvex equilibrium-constrained problem. Our results indicate that teamwork is a useful strategy with limitations. Under the proposed scheme, team contest always benefits workers. Intrateam coordination helps teams strategically mitigate the negative externalities caused by overcompetition among workers. For the platform, the optimal scheme can direct teams’ schedules toward more profitable market equilibria when workers have inaccurate perceptions of the market.History:This paper has been accepted for the Service ScienceSpecial Issue on Innovation in Transportation-Enabled Urban Services.Funding:This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [Grant FW-HTF-P 2222806].Supplemental Material:The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/serv.2023.0320.

Spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP)-based antenna and array by exciting both even- and odd-mode resonances are developed and investigated in this article. Different from others’ work and for the first time, we use the separated corrugated grooves to achieve consistent fundamental even- and odd-mode resonances on the same SSPP aperture. In this way, the even- and odd-mode resonances can be operated in the same frequency band. Also for the first time, we introduce the SSPPs into an orthogonal-mode-resonated antenna pursuing high-isolated radiation. New challenges including the feed methods and impedance matching of two different resonant modes are overcome by introducing the capacitive patch and triangular cuts on the SSPPs. Finally, the SSPP antenna and array were tested for performance investigation. It is found that in addition to the obtained wide overlapped impedance bandwidth of 14.8%, a very high isolation of 29 dB is achieved in the developed compact antenna element. The couplings between other antenna elements, radiation patterns, gains, and efficiencies of the array are also investigated. Both the measured and simulated results show that SSPPs and the developed antenna can be very appealing in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) applications owing to their orthogonal even–odd modes and compact structures.

Hypergraphs are applicable to various domains such as social contagion, online groups, and protein structures due to their effective modeling of multivariate relationships. However, the increasing size of hypergraphs has led to high computation costs, necessitating efficient acceleration strategies. Existing approaches often require consideration of algorithm-specific issues, making them difficult to directly apply to arbitrary hypergraph processing tasks. In this paper, we propose a compression-array acceleration strategy involving hypergraph reordering to improve memory access efficiency, which can be applied to various hypergraph processing tasks without considering the algorithm itself. We introduce a new metric called closeness to optimize the ordering of vertices and hyperedges in the one-dimensional array representation. Moreover, we present an $\frac{1}{2w}$12w-approximation algorithm to obtain the optimal ordering of vertices and hyperedges. We also develop an efficient update mechanism for dynamic hypergraphs. Our extensive experiments demonstrate significant improvements in hypergraph processing performance, reduced cache misses, and reduced memory footprint. Furthermore, our method can be integrated into existing hypergraph processing frameworks, such as Hygra, to enhance their performance.

The establishment of a general charge separation model is crucial for the design of high-performance photocatalytic materials. Based on charge separation between polar surfaces, herein, we synthesized atomically thick CdS nanosheets with exposed {001} polar facets though a reflux method. The photocatalytic H2evolution performance of ultrathin CdS nanosheets was remarkably enhanced by getting rid of O–H groups and Cl−and (NH2CH2CH2)2N−ions on the Cd-(001) polar surface by hydrogenation. A CdS-H170 ultrathin nanosheet shows an excellent photocatalytic H2production rate (26.5 mmol g−1h−1), which is significantly higher than that of all pure CdS photocatalysts reported so far. Based on the CdS {001} polar structure, it was found that the exposed {001} surfaces of the CdS nanosheets are polar facets, and a spontaneous electric field (Es) exists between {001} polar planes. The main reason for the excellent photocatalytic H2evolution activity of hydrogenated ultrathin CdS nanoplates is an increase in the Es in CdS after the surface adsorbed ions or hydroxyl groups are removed by hydrogenation. Thus, the Es between Cd-(001) and S-(001) polar surfaces play an important role in the separation of photogenerated electrons and holes. Based on the concept of the Es in a polar structure, the mechanism of photocatalytic hydrogen production was proposed. This mechanism of improving photocatalytic performance by Es-driven charge separation should be a universal mechanism of photocatalytic hydrogen production. Thus, charge separation will be helpful in understanding the influence of crystal morphology and surface on photocatalytic activity and in designing and directing the synthesis of other high-performance photocatalysts.

Methylation quantitative trait loci (mQTLs) are essential for understanding the role of DNA methylation changes in genetic predisposition, yet they have not been fully characterized in East Asians (EAs). Here we identified mQTLs in whole blood from 3,523 Chinese individuals and replicated them in additional 1,858 Chinese individuals from two cohorts. Over 9% of mQTLs displayed specificity to EAs, facilitating the fine-mapping of EA-specific genetic associations, as shown for variants associated with height. Trans-mQTL hotspots revealed biological pathways contributing to EA-specific genetic associations, including an ERG-mediated 233 trans-mCpG network, implicated in hematopoietic cell differentiation, which likely reflects binding efficiency modulation of the ERG protein complex. More than 90% of mQTLs were shared between different blood cell lineages, with a smaller fraction of lineage-specific mQTLs displaying preferential hypomethylation in the respective lineages. Our study provides new insights into the mQTL landscape across genetic ancestries and their downstream effects on cellular processes and diseases/traits.

Objectives: The technique of guided bone regeneration (GBR) has been widely used in the field of reconstructive dentistry to address hard tissue deficiency. The objective of this research was to manufacture a novel bi-layered asymmetric membrane that incorporates demineralized dentin matrix (DDM), a bioactive bone replacement derived from dentin, in order to achieve both soft tissue isolation and hard tissue regeneration simultaneously. Methods: DDM particles were harvested from healthy, caries-free permanent teeth. The electrospinning technique was utilized to synthesize bi-layered DDM-loaded PLGA/PLA (DPP) membranes. We analyzed the DPP bilayer membranes’ surface topography, physicochemical properties and degradation ability. Rat skull critical size defects (CSDs) were constructed to investigate in vivobone regeneration. Results: The synthesized DPP bilayer membranes possessed suitable surface characteristics, acceptable mechanical properties, good hydrophilicity, favorable apatite forming ability and suitable degradability. Micro-computed tomography (CT) showed significantly more new bone formation in the rat skull defects implanted with the DPP bilayer membranes. Histological evaluation further revealed that the bone was more mature with denser bone trabeculae. In addition, the DPP bilayer membrane significantly promoted the expression of the OCN matrix protein in vivo. Conclusions: The DPP bilayer membranes exhibited remarkable biological safety and osteogenic activity in vivoand showed potential as a prospective candidate for GBR applications in the future.

A wideband transmitarray (TA) antenna using compact 2-bit filtering unit cells is presented with the center frequency designed at 10 GHz. The presented TA antenna features wide bandwidth with a compact aperture size, filtering radiation performance, and low cross-polarization levels. A novel compact 2-bit phasing scheme is first proposed and illustrated by utilizing the resonating characteristics of resonators. The charging and discharging principle of a resonator is utilized to realize a 180° phase shift, while J-invertor originating from the coupling between resonators is utilized to realize a 90° phase shift. Based on the proposed phasing scheme, novel 2-bit compact filtering unit cells are designed with a compact four-copper-layer configuration. Finally, a high-gain TA antenna was designed, fabricated, and measured for radiation performance verification. Due to the elaborately designed unit cells and the cutoff effect of the feed horn, a filtering radiation performance with flat in-band gain and high out-of-band suppressions is obtained. Measured results show that a flat 3-dB gain bandwidth of 21.3% is achieved with a thin thickness of $0.11\lambda _{0}$ . High suppressions of 34.3 and 30.1 dB are measured over the lower and upper out-of-bands. In addition, a low cross-polarization level of −38.5 dB is obtained for high-quality wireless communications.

Searching for $k$k-cliques in graphs has been an important problem in graph analysis due to its large number of applications. Previously, finding $k$k-cliques in weighted graphs aimed at finding cliques with the largest sum of weight (with no distinction between the edge or the vertex weights), usually called the sum model. However, the algorithms under the sum model may result in solutions consisting of low-weight vertices or edges (outliers). To address this issue, we propose a new model named maximal $(S, C, K)$(S,C,K)-clique in weighted graphs and study the problem of maximal ($S, C, K$S,C,K)-clique search (MCS). We first propose an enumeration-based algorithm MCSE, which checks every $k$k-clique to identify the maximal ($S, C, K$S,C,K)-clique. To improve the efficiency, we further propose two improved algorithms MCSP and MCSC. Instead of checking every possible $k$k-clique, MCSP focuses on ($S, C$S,C) values that cannot be dominated and obtains the maximal $(S, C, K)$(S,C,K)-cliques directly based on these values. MCSC is devised by further optimizing MCSP based on some key observations on maximal cliques and cliques’ nesting property. We also propose two index structures, BCS-Index and ICS-Index, to achieve optimal query. The former stores all maximal $(S, C, K)$(S,C,K)-cliques, while the latter uses the clique's nesting property to reduce the space cost of index construction. Extensive experiments conducted on six real graphs demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed algorithms.

Fiber orientations are constrained by boundary effects (e.g. size effect), which play a significant role in the macroscopic rigidity of fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC). However, how to quantify the size effect on the fiber orientation distribution functions (ODFs) remain to be open issues. In this work, a simple method to quantify the sectional-size impact on fiber ODFs is proposed. By disassembling the fiber rotatable range and fiber location on the cross-section into several small facets and points, respectively, we draw out the fiber ODFs with different sectional sizes through superposition. Then, the calculation method of the fiber orientation factor based on the ODF is proposed, and the framework of applying an ODF to calculate the stiffness matrix is given. Our results revealed the influence of the cross-section size on the elastic properties of FRC, which can provide a sound guidance for the design and optimization of fiber-based cement composites.Highlights1. A practical method for discretizing the cross-section of fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) into a point set is proposed.2. A quantitative interplay between boundary constraints and size effects on fiber ODFs is developed.3. The calculation framework of the fiber orientation factor and elastic modulus of the FRC based on the ODF is established.4. The difference between the effective elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio of FRCs with different boundary constraints is discussed.

The experimental observation of pressure-induced structural changes is crucial for establishing the correct piezoelectric mechanism. Here, we show the in-plane anisotropic piezoelectric generation behavior on a ZnO non-polar (101̅0) crystal plane. The piezoelectric and rectification effects are found in the [0001] polar direction on the (101̅0) crystal facet. Neither effect was observed in the [12̅10] non-polar direction perpendicular to the [0001] direction. The piezoelectric generation and rectification properties can be reduced and vanished under pressure in the [0001] direction. The spontaneous polarization in the [0001] direction is evidenced to be the origin of piezoelectric effect. Pressure-induced structural change of ZnO is observed for the first time. In the piezoelectric effect, the applied stress causes the polar structure of ZnO to change into a non-polar structure, and the piezoelectric current is generated. This novel piezoelectric model will overturn the existing piezoelectric theory and piezoelectric generation mechanism and contribute to comprehending the crystal orientation-dependent piezoelectric properties and the development of new high-performance piezoelectric materials and devices.

Low oil production and rapid production decline epitomize the challenges of unconventional reservoir development. Rocks in the formation with micro-/nanoscale pore-throat units possess an immense surface area. Consequently, the wettability of rocks plays a crucial role in the relative permeability of oil/water, the injection pressure, the distribution and morphology of residual oil, and hence the ultimate oil recovery. Contact angle, as a frequently used method to evaluate wettability, is susceptible to oil-water saturation, imbibition, and surface roughness of rock slices. In addition, the measurement scale (droplet of several millimeters) does not match the flow scale (pore units in micro- or nanoscale). Therefore, this paper established a new wettability evaluation method based on oil–rock interaction. Molecular dynamics simulation results demonstrated that the interaction energy between the oil molecule and walls with different wettabilities shows a distinct discrepancy. Accordingly, nanomechanics by AFM was utilized to measure the oil molecule–pore wall interaction force. It was found that the interaction force increases with the augmented hydrophobicity of the pore wall due to hydrophobic force. In addition, the reservoir rock wettability index was defined using the oil–rock interaction force in the nanoscale. The wettability index has an excellent linear correlation with the intrinsic contact angle. The wettability evaluation method based on the oil–rock interaction force is more direct, facile, and rapid and overcomes the limitation of the traditional contact angle method.

Pinggu Peach Orchard is one of the largest orchards in Beijing, China, providing consumers with high-quality peaches. However, a large number of discarded peach branch waste was produced along with the peach production every year, which can cause environmental pollution and have potential safety hazards since they can only be burned or stacked on the roadside or in the field. Therefore, it is important and urgent to develop recycling techniques of discarded peach branches. In this study, peach branches-cellulose nanofiber (PB-CNF) was prepared by high-pressure homogeneous (HPH) from discarded peach branches and used as a reinforcing agent to enhance mechanical performance and adsorption capacity of the gelatin hydrogel. The variations on morphological, physic-chemical, and thermal characteristics of the PB-CNF were closely related to the cycles of HPH. Rheological properties of gelatin and PB-CNF were studied to understand the viscoelastic properties as well as gelling and melting temperature of the hydrogel. The results suggested that the HPH treatment was applied to produce PB-CNF with 5 nm in diameter, low crystallinity, and uniform dispersion. PB-CNF under HPH mixed with gelatin in an appropriate ratio of 1/4 can easily obtain a stable hydrogel system, which contributed to improving the mechanical performance and adsorption capacity of the hydrogel. Therefore, the waste peach wood can be used as raw material to extract and prepare a reinforcing agent (PB-CNF).

This paper proposes a constitutive model of fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) composites under uniaxial tensile load considering fiber bridging effect, and the corresponding numerical algorithm is given. Due to the linear simplification on plain concrete’s constitutive model, and adoption of the explicit modified Euler integral algorithm, the solving process of this numerical model is greatly simplified. In addition, the numerical implementation algorithm of the model in ABAQUS through user-defined subroutine (UMAT) is given. The finite element calculation results and the experimental results under uniaxial tensile load are in good agreement, which proves that the model has good accuracy in predicting the peak stress of FRC under different fiber content. The simplification method proposed and the solution algorithm induced in this paper can ensure the stability and accuracy of the results, which provide a feasible development direction for FRC calculation in large-scale structures.

The study of graph kernels has been an important area of graph analysis, which is widely used to solve the similarity problems between graphs. Most of the existing graph kernels consider either local or global properties of the graph, and there are few studies on multiscale graph kernels. In this article, the authors propose a framework for graph kernels based on truss decomposition, which allows multiple graph kernels and even any graph comparison algorithms to compare graphs at different scales. The authors utilize this framework to derive variants of five graph kernels and compare them with the corresponding basic graph kernels on graph classification tasks. Experiments on a large number of benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed framework.

Graphs are widely employed in complex system modeling, VLSI design, and social analysis. Mining cohesive subgraphs is a fundamental problem in graph analysis, while implementing cohesive subgraphs requires analysts to not only ensure cohesiveness but also consider the computational intractability. Among a variety of diverse cohesive structures, $k$k-truss exhibits a perfect trade-off between structure tightness and computational efficiency. In a $k$k-truss, each edge is present in at least $k-2$k-2 triangles. This study aims to contribute to this growing area of truss maintenance in fully dynamic graphs by avoiding expensive re-computation. Specifically, we consider the challenging scenario of batch processing of edge and vertex insertion/deletion and propose efficient algorithms that can maintain the trusses by only searching a very small range of affected edges. Also, our algorithms allow parallel implementations to further improve the efficiency of maintenance. Extensive experiments on both real-world static and temporal graphs illustrate the efficiency and scalability of our algorithms.

A wideband circularly polarized (CP) reflectarray (RA) antenna using rotational symmetrical crossed dipoles is presented. This is the first time investigating coupled crossed dipoles as the unit cell for wideband reflection bandwidth in the CP RA design. Equivalent circuit analysis shows that when a CP wave impinges on the designed unit cell, two series resonances, and two parallel resonances are simultaneously excited on the crossed dipoles. Owing to these four different resonances, the CP reflection bandwidth is greatly improved and elaborately adjusted by controlling the coupling between the crossed dipoles. The CP reflection bandwidth ratio of the unit cell is enhanced up to 2:1 for $S_{x} &lt; -15$ dB with a thin thickness of $0.12 \lambda _{0}$ . Based on this unit cell, a wideband -20° collimated CP RA antenna with a circular aperture of 316 unit cells was designed, fabricated, and measured for final performance verification. The measured results show that a wide CP bandwidth of 7.6–15.9 GHz is achieved with the axial ratio (AR) < 3 dB. In addition, the measured 3 dB gain bandwidth is better than 43.7% with a peak realized gain of 26.3 dBic and maximum aperture efficiency (AE) of 58.3%.

This communication proposes a wideband 3-D-printed transmit-reflect-array (TRA) antenna. The transmission and reflection functions of this TRA antenna are determined by the polarization of the incident electromagnetic wave. The proposed TRA element is composed of a dielectric post and three copper wires, which can be realized by the low-cost 3-D printing. Attributed to the independent control of transmission and reflection phase shift of the proposed element within a wide bandwidth, the proposed TRA antenna can generate two independent transmission and reflection beams over a wide bandwidth. A $12\times12$ TRA is designed, fabricated, and measured to verify the design concept. The measured results show that a peak gain of 24.4 dBi with a bandwidth of 46.8% (18–29 GHz) for the transmitarray (TA) function and a peak gain of 22.9 dBi with a bandwidth of 52.2% (17–29 GHz) for the reflectarray (RA) function are achieved simultaneously by the 3-D-printed TRA antenna. The wide bandwidth, high gain, independent beam control capability, combined TA/RA functions, and low fabrication cost make the proposed antenna appealing for various wireless applications.

Thin-walled workpieces frequently appear to chatter during milling, causing the creation of vibration patterns on the surface of the workpiece, which affects the machining quality and workpiece performance. Identification of online chatter is important for thin-walled parts. The vibration signal associated with chatter changes dynamically throughout the milling process due to changes in tool position, removal of workpiece material, and transmission-related vibration signal attenuation characteristics, making reliable chatter identification difficult. This research proposes a unique online chatter identification approach for the machining of thin-walled parts based on improved multisensor signal fusion and multiscale entropy. In order to acquire the fused vibration signals, the vibration signals produced during the machining of thin-walled parts are first acquired by sensors at various test sites and adaptively given weight coefficients by the improved Hausdorff distance and distance factor. Second, using the multiscale sample entropy (MSSE) and multiscale weighted permutation entropy (MSWPE), the eigenvalues of the fused vibration signals are obtained. Finally, the trained logistic regression (LR) classification model is used to determine the vibration status of thin-walled parts. The analysis’s results demonstrated that the technique can properly identify the vibration state of thin-walled parts and that the fusion signal can reflect the vibration state at the tool contact site more accurately.

This paper is concerned with the privacy-preserving distributed optimization problem for a class of cooperative-competitive multi-agent systems. Each agent only knows its own local objective function and interacts the state information with neighbors through a communication network. By means of the signed graph theory, the antagonistic interactions among agents are considered to characterize both the cooperative and the competitive relationships. With the help of the gauge transformation technique, a structurally balanced undirected signed graph is firstly transformed into a standard undirected graph. Then, the distributed optimization problem subject to signed network is converted into the traditional distributed optimization problem. Subsequently, a novel privacy-preserving distributed optimization algorithm is put forward to 1) minimize the sum of local objective functions; 2) achieve the bipartite consensus for all agents; and 3) avoid the information leakage caused by message exchange among agents, simultaneously. Finally, a simulation example is given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed optimization algorithm.

A shallow spherical shell is a typical weak-stiffness aerospace structure, which is always expected to have less or no deformation in machining. To control the shell deformation, magnetorheological fluid (MRF) is introduced to support a shallow spherical shell since it has high controllability with the help of external magnetic field. To minimize shell deformation, adopted MRF support should be determined according to the varying loads, but the optimal MRF support has not been designed and modeled. In this paper, to generate magnetic field with controllable strength/region, an array-type MRF support device is parametrically designed first. To characterize the shell deformation process in array-type MRF support device, a sequential MRF support model is established. Based on the sequential MRF support model, the optimal magnetic field layout is modeled and furtherly calculated on FE platform. At last, shell deformation under optimal magnetic field layout was experimentally compared with other support conditions. Experiment results indicate that optimized array-type MRF support can effectively control the shell deformation within a tight tolerance range.

An interleaved shared-aperture dual-band dual-polarized base station array antenna is proposed in this article. The lower-band (LB) element is realized by using a multiple folded-dipole antenna (MFDA) and four parasitic loops. To interpret the working principle of the MFDA, a double folded-dipole antenna (DFDA) is firstly analyzed by using the transmission line (TL) model. Then, by combining two bended DFDAs and introducing four parasitic loops, a low cross-band scattering LB element with a high out-of-band rejection level of 16 dB is obtained to cover 2.3–2.7 GHz. The higher-band (HB) element with a wide impedance bandwidth of 42.5% (3.0–4.6 GHz), a high roll-off rate (RoR) of 249.2 dB/GHz, and a high out-of-band rejection level of 17 dB is obtained by introducing a meander line loop (MLL), a rectangular loop (RL), and V-shaped strips (VSS) near the dipole arms. By combining the proposed low-scattering low-pass LB element and the high- RoR high-pass HB element, a novel interleaved shared-aperture dual-band dual-polarized array antenna with a small frequency ratio of 1.46 and a high cross-band isolation level of 25 dB is realized. Due to the low-scattering characteristic and filtering response of the LB element, the radiation patterns of the wideband HB sub-arrays are almost unaffected.

ABSTRACTThe autophagic-lysosomal pathway of microglia plays a key role in myelin debris removal in white matter damage. As the lipid-rich myelin debris are engulfed by microglia, the cellular autophagic level increases, accompanied by lysosomal dysfunction. However, several issues such as how to regulate this pathway to ensure the effective degradation of myelin debris, and maintain the balance of lipid metabolism are still to be elucidated. Recently, we have demonstrated that the excessive activation of macroautophagy/autophagy leads to lipid overload in lysosomes and lipid droplets accumulation, which could be the initiator of microglial dysfunction and secondary inflammatory white matter damage. Interestingly, staged suppression of autophagic activation in the acute phase of demyelination could benefit microglia allowing them to regain the lipid metabolism balance, and reduce the excessive accumulation of lipids, thus promoting the removal of myelin debris. The neuroprotective effects of microglial autophagy regulation may be related to intracellular linoleic acid (LA) production and PPARG pathway activation.

Aspertaichunol A (1), a polyketide with a novel scaffold, was isolated from the medicinal insect (Periplaneta americana)-derived endophytic Aspergillus taichungensisSMU01. Its structure was assigned on the basis of spectroscopic data and quantum chemical computational methods. Notably, 1possesses an uncommon tricyclo[6.2.0.02,6]decane motif and an unusual bridgehead double bond (anti-Bredt system). A plausible biosynthetic pathway, involving a key intramolecular [2+2] cycloaddition and a reductive cyclization, is postulated. Finally, the immunomodulatory activity of 1at 20 nM was evaluated by promoting Th9 cell differentiation from naive CD4+CD62L+T cells.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is a commonly diagnosed malignancy in men. The transcription factor p53, a well-known cancer suppressor, has been extensively analyzed in the progression of many tumor types, but its involvement in PCa remains not fully understood. Hence, this study aims to explore the possible molecular mechanism underlying p53 in the growth and metastasis of PCa. Based on bioinformatics analysis findings of GEPIA and starBase databases, p53 was demonstrated to be involved in the development of PCa by transcriptionally activating microRNA-519d-3p (miR-519d-3p) expression to suppress the expression of E2F transcription factor 1 (E2F1) and CD147. In order to verify this finding, clinically-obtained PCa tumor tissues were enrolled and commercially-purchased PCa cell lines were used to detect the cell viability, cycle, and apoptosis, as well as invasion and migration by CCK-8, flow cytometry, and Transwell assays respectively. The results of clinical tissue experiments and in vitro cell experiments showed that miR-519d-3p and p53 were poorly-expressed in PCa tissues and cell lines, while E2F1 was highly-expressed. Overexpression of miR-519d-3p led to inhibited PCa cell proliferation, invasion and migration, and p53 overexpression was found to promote miR-519d-3p expression to suppress the malignant characteristics of PCa cells, while the additional E2F1 overexpression restored the malignant traits. Moreover, ChIP analysis and dual-luciferase reporter assay confirmed the interactions among p53, miR-519d-3p, and E2F1. Mechanistically, it was found that p53 transcriptionally activated miR-519d-3p to suppress E2F1 expression. Finally, the in vitro results were further validated by in vivo experiments, which showed that miR-519d-3p prevents tumorigenesis and lymph node metastasis of PCa in nude mice via negatively regulation of E2F1 and CD147. Taken together, the findings uncover that the transcription factor p53 could upregulate miR-519d-3p expression to directly suppress the expression of E2F1, thus inhibiting PCa growth and metastasis. It highlights a novel therapeutic strategy against PCa based on the p53/miR-519d-3p/E2F1 regulatory pathway.

3D printed concrete (3DPC) is an essential technology for achieving efficient, precise, and sustainable construction. Nevertheless, due to limitations in materials and processes, 3DPC is prone to insufficient green strength and weakness in the interlayer area, which can result in print collapse and diminish its interlayer adhesion strength. Therefore, understanding green strength and interlayer adhesion strength of 3DPC is crucial for ensuring its structural safety. Superabsorbent polymer (SAP) serves as a novel type of concrete admixture, demonstrating the potential to promote green strength development and augment interlayer adhesion properties by facilitating the hydration process through water absorption and release. This study presents the first investigation into the effects of two commercially available SAPs on green strength and interlayer adhesion of 3D printed concrete. The role of SAP in improving interlayer adhesion performance in 3DPC is further elucidated through X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results indicate that, compared to the control group, in the absence of added compensated water to SA1, the compressive strength at 15 min and splitting tensile strength of the printed specimen at 28 d increased by 282 % and 24.9 %, respectively, whereas SA2 demonstrates a relatively weaker enhancement effect. This study demonstrates that SAP promotes structural accumulation during the 3DPC printing stage, thereby presenting itself as a favorable material choice for applications involving 3DPC.

Excavated rock from underground tunneling activities constitutes a significant portion of the overall construction and demolition (C&D) waste, yet its efficient reuse is challenging. Here we propose an integrated approach combining the utilization of the excavated rock and the production of an eco-friendly ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC). As the first steps to assess the feasibility of the approach, the workability, mechanical properties, fracture toughness test, phase stability and shrinkage of the UHPC were comprehensively studied. The results show that increasing excavated rock content in UHPC leads to a reduction in flowability but improves flexural performance with the enhancement of phase stability. However, this enhancement effect diminishes with larger excavated rock sizes. The compressive strength of the mixture with 400 kg/m³ dosage and 5–10 mm size range achieve 104.1 MPa, which is better than the reference UHPC. Meanwhile, elevated excavated rock content obviously reduces UHPC shrinkage, notably within size 5–10 mm. In addition, an overall assessment was performed to evaluate the UHPC from both environmental and economic perspectives. The results indicate that incorporating excavated rock as aggregates into UHPC can result in cost savings of up to 9.5%, an 11% reduction in embodied energy, and a 15.5% decrease in embodied carbon. Additionally, this integration can yield superior properties compared to reference UHPC. This approach also reduces dependence on natural aggregates, promoting sustainability.

Neutralization slag (NS) of copper smelting is a waste residue mainly composed of calcium sulfate, which is produced during the process of metal smelting. The large accumulation and storage of NS poses a significant threat to the environment. Therefore, it is imperative to explore a new economically and environmentally friendly approach for recycling NS. This study proposes a method for preparing a new eco-friendly geopolymer material by utilizing NS. A geopolymer with satisfactory mechanical properties was created by employing a hybrid solid activator consisting of CaO-Na2SiO3. The effects of hybrid solid alkali activators calcium oxide (CaO)/sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) ratio on the hydration properties of the NS-based geopolymer were studied, and its curing mechanism was discussed. The results show that, when the hybrid solid activator CaO/Na2SiO3ratio was 3:1, the maximum 28 d compressive strength of the geopolymer reached 27.8 MPa. The solid activator at a suitable ratio can accelerate the hydration reaction, form higher amounts of C-A-S-H gel and ettringite, reduce the proportion of harmful macropores in the geopolymer, and improve the microstructure of the geopolymer. Toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) test confirmed that the NS-based geopolymer had a solidification effect on heavy metals. The leaching concentration of elemental Pb from the neutralised slag feedstock was 7.241 mg/L, while the lowest concentration was 0.286 mg/L in the NS based geopolymer. As a green cementitious material, the NS-based geopolymer is expected to be applied in engineering practice.

Embedded memory, which heavily relies on the manufacturing process, has been widely adopted in various industrial applications. As the field of embedded memory continues to evolve, innovative strategies are emerging to enhance performance. Among them, resistive random access memory (RRAM) has gained significant attention due to its numerous advantages over traditional memory devices, including high speed (<1 ns), high density (4 F2·n−1), high scalability (∼nm), and low power consumption (∼pJ). This review focuses on the recent progress of embedded RRAM in industrial manufacturing and its potential applications. It provides a brief introduction to the concepts and advantages of RRAM, discusses the key factors that impact its industrial manufacturing, and presents the commercial progress driven by cutting-edge nanotechnology, which has been pursued by many semiconductor giants. Additionally, it highlights the adoption of embedded RRAM in emerging applications within the realm of the Internet of Things and future intelligent computing, with a particular emphasis on its role in neuromorphic computing. Finally, the review discusses the current challenges and provides insights into the prospects of embedded RRAM in the era of big data and artificial intelligence.

Li-rich micas are crucial in the exploration for and exploitation of Li resources. The determination of Li in mica using classical bulk chemical methods or in situ microanalytical techniques is expensive and time-consuming and has stringent requirements for the quality of micas and reference materials. Although simple linear and nonlinear empirical equations have been proposed, they are inconsistent with the complex physicochemical mechanisms of Li incorporation and commonly lead to large errors. In this study, we introduce a refined method of multivariate polynomial regression using a machine learning algorithm to estimate Li from multiple major oxide abundances. The performance of our regression model is evaluated using the coefficient of determination (R2) and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) of the independent test sets. The best-performed models show R2of 0.95 and a RMSE of 0.35 wt% for the test set of data set 1 (all compiled data, n = 2124) and R2of 0.96 and a RMSE of 0.22 wt% for the test set of data set 2 (only data obtained using in situ techniques, n = 1386). Our results indicate that integration of electron probe microanalysis and multivariate polynomial regression (based on data set 1) presents a robust and convenient approach to quantify Li contents in micas. The application of the proposed approach to micas from central Inner Mongolia, NE China, suggests that in addition to the Weilasituo ore bodies, the Jiabusi granite and greisen and the Shihuiyao metamorphic sediment formation have good potential for Li exploration. Our study also provides preliminary constraints on the genesis of Li deposits.

Global fish consumption is increasing in tandem with population growth, resulting in the dilemma of overfishing. Overfished high-value fish are often replaced with other fish in markets. Therefore, the accurate identification of fish products in the market is important. In this study, full-DNA and mini-DNA barcoding were used to detect fish product fraud in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, People's Republic of China. The molecular results revealed that 39 (20.42%) of the 191 samples were inconsistent with the labels. The percentages of mislabeling of fresh, frozen, cooked, and canned fish products were 11.70, 20.00, 34.09, and 50.00%, respectively. The average Kimura two-parameter distances of mini-DNA barcoding within species and within genera were 0.56 and 6.42%, respectively, and those of full-DNA barcoding were 0.53 and 7.25%, respectively. Commercial fraud was evident in this study; most high-priced fish were replaced with low-priced fish with similar features. Our findings indicate that DNA barcoding is an effective tool for identifying fish products and could be used to enhance transparency and fair trade in domestic fisheries.

Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitor as an attractive drug target with promising antitumor effects has been widely investigated. High quality clinical trial has been conducted in liver transplant (LT) recipients in Western countries. However, the pertinent studies in Eastern world are paucity. Therefore, we designed a clinical trial to test whether sirolimus can improve recurrence-free survival (RFS) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients beyond the Milan criteria after LT. This is an open-labeled, single-arm, prospective, multicenter, and real-world study aiming to evaluate the clinical outcomes of early switch to sirolimus-based regimens in HCC patients after LT. Patients with a histologically proven HCC and beyond the Milan criteria will be enrolled. The initial immunosuppressant regimens are center-specific for the first 4-6 weeks. The following regimens integrated sirolimus into the regimens as a combination therapy with reduced calcineurin inhibitors based on the condition of patients and centers. The study is planned for 4 years in total with a 2-year enrollment period and a 2-year follow-up. We predict that sirolimus conversion regimen will provide survival benefits for patients particular in the key indicator RFS as well as better quality of life. If the trial is conducted successfully, we will have a continued monitoring over a longer follow-up time to estimate indicator of overall survival. We hope that the outcome will provide better evidence for clinical decision-making and revising treatment guidelines based on Chinese population data.

The past decade exposed the importance of many homeostasis and metabolism related proteins in autoimmunity disease and inflammation. Solute carriers (SLCs) are a group of membrane channels that can transport amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, nutrients, and neurotransmitters. This review summarizes the role of SLCs amino acid transporters in inflammation and autoimmunity disease. In detail, the importance of Glutamate transporters SLC1A1, SLC1A2, and SLC1A3, mainly expressed in the brain where they help prevent glutamate excitotoxicity, is discussed in the context of central nervous system disorders such as multiple sclerosis. Similarly, the cationic amino acid transporter SLC7A1 (CAT1), which is an important arginine transporter for T cells, and SLC7A2 (CAT2), essential for innate immunity. SLC3 family proteins, which bind with light chains from the SLC7 family (SLC7A5, SLC7A7, and SLC7A11) to form heteromeric amino acid transporters, are also explored to describe their roles in T cells, Natural Killer (NK) cells, macrophages, and tumor immunotherapies. Altogether, the link between SLC amino acid transporters with inflammation and autoimmunity may contribute to a better understanding of underlying mechanism of disease and provide novel potential therapeutic avenues.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTIn this review, we summarize the link between SLC amino acid transporters and inflammation and immune responses, especially SLC1 family members and SLC7 members. Studying the link may contribute to a better understanding of related diseases and provide potential therapeutic targets useful to the researchers who have interest in the involvement of amino acids in immunity.

Background: The ability of endoscopists to identify gastric lesions is uneven. Even experienced endoscopists may miss or misdiagnose lesions due to heavy workload or fatigue or subtle changes in lesions under white-light endoscopy (WLE). This study aimed to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) system that could diagnose six common gastric lesions under WLEand to explore its role in assisting endoscopists in diagnosis. Methods: Images of early gastric cancer, advanced gastric cancer, submucosal tumor, polyp, peptic ulcer, erosion, and lesion-free gastric mucosa were retrospectively collected to train and test the system. The performance of the system was compared with that of 12 endoscopists. The performance of endoscopists with or without referring to the system was also evaluated. Results: A total of 29,809 images from 8947 patients and 1579 images from 496 patients were used to train and test the system, respectively. For per-lesion analysis, the overall accuracy of the system was 85.7%, which was comparable to that of senior endoscopists (85.1%, P= 0.729) and significantly higher than that of junior endoscopists (78.8%, P&lt; 0.001). With system assistance, the overall accuracies of senior and junior endoscopists increased to 89.3% (4.2%, P&lt; 0.001) and 86.2% (7.4%, P&lt; 0.001), respectively. Senior and junior endoscopists achieved varying degrees of improvement in the diagnostic performance of other types of lesions except for polyp. The diagnostic times of senior (3.8 vs 3.2 s per image, P= 0.500) and junior endoscopists (6.2 vs 4.6 s per image, P= 0.144) assisted by the system were both slightly shortened, despite no significant differences. Conclusions: The proposed AI system could be applied as an auxiliary tool to reduce the workload of endoscopists and improve the diagnostic accuracy of gastric lesions.

A novel polycarboxylate superplasticizer (PCE) with energy saving preparation was elaborately designed and synthesized by using acrylic acid (AA), hydroxypropyl acrylate (HPA) and isopentenyl polyethylene glycol (IPEG) as monomers. To investigate the effects of the preparation method on the effectiveness of PCE, the PCEs were prepared from energy-saving method and common method respectively, and the hydration heat evolutions of the cement pastes containing these PCEs were comparatively probed. Furthermore, the working mechanisms of the PCEs by different preparations were identified via adsorption behavior, adsorption kinetic and Zeta potential of the PCE on cement surfaces. The results showed that, this novel PCE prepared in an energy saving manner can significantly prolong the hydration process and present a stronger adsorption capacity. In addition, the adsorption of this PCE on cement surface exhibited a characteristic of pseudo first order kinetic equation model. The evaluation in energy conservation showed that, this energy saving preparation can save 1.548×104 kJ per 10 ton production. The aim of this study is to provide a new avenue to synthesize a PCE with economical method which achieves energy-saving preparation. Due to the indispensable application in construction industry, the innovations from this study contribute to the low energy-consumption production and high eco-effectiveness of the novel PCE, which has potential applications in low-emission building materials.

In this letter, a low-complexity selected mapping (SLM) algorithm without phase sequence index information, e.g., side information (SI), is proposed. Different from the SLM algorithm without SI using maximum likelihood (ML), the proposed algorithm uses cyclic redundancy check (CRC) to terminate the decoding calculation in advance. Meanwhile, a small amount of known information is adopeted to assist CRC and a simpler phase sequence set is applied to the SLM. The calculation complexity and bit error rate (BER) of typical algorithms are compared with different phase sequence groups under several different channel conditions. As a result, lower computation complexity is obtained with the same peak to average power ratio (PAPR) suppression effect and no BER increase.

Background: As a known keyphrase extraction algorithm, TextRank is an analog of thePageRank algorithm, which relies heavily on the statistics of term frequency in the manner of cooccurrenceanalysis. Objective: The frequency-based characteristic made it a bottleneck for performance enhancement,and various improved TextRank algorithms were proposed in recent years. Most of the improvementsincorporated semantic information into the keyphrase extraction algorithm and achieved improvement. Method: In this research, taking both syntactic and semantic information into consideration, we integratedsyntactic tree algorithm and word embedding and put forward an algorithm of Word Embeddingand Syntactic Information Algorithm (WESIA), which improved the accuracy of the TextRankalgorithm. Results: By applying our method on a self-made test set and a public test set, the result implied thatthe proposed unsupervised keyphrase extraction algorithm outperformed the other algorithms tosome extent.

Lithium-rich manganese-based oxides have the advantages of high discharge specific capacity, so they are potential candidates for advanced lithium battery cathode materials. However, they also have drawbacks to be solved such as serious irreversible loss of capacity and voltage decay in the cycling process. Surface coating method was used in this paper to modify the lithium-rich manganese-based oxide (LRMO, Li1.2Mn0.54Ni0.13Co0.13O2) to improve its electrochemical properties. Zirconium-based compounds coated LRMO materials (ZBC@LRMO) were obtained via the reaction of lithium hydroxide with zirconium n-butanol and subsequent thermal treatment at different temperatures. The results of X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy confirm that the crystal structure and composition of the ZBC coating layer vary with the calcination temperature. The coating layer obtained at 600 ℃ is composed of tetragonal ZrO2and Li2ZrO3. The ZBC@LRMO sample with tetragonal ZrO2and Li2ZrO3composite exhibits the best electrochemical performance: the discharge capacity of ZBC@LRMO can reach 296 mAh g−1at 0.1 C and 120 mAh g−1at high rate of 5 C.

Hypoxia is a hostile hallmark of most solid tumors, which often leads to multidrug resistance (MDR) and causes the failure of chemotherapy. Hypoxia also promotes epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), leading to acceleration of tumor metastasis. Many chemotherapeutic drugs can further exacerbate hypoxia and thus promote metastasis. Therefore, relieving hypoxia is necessary for chemotherapy to inhibit both MDR and EMT. Herein, highly stable cerasomal perfluorocarbon nanodroplets with an atomic layer of polyorganosiloxane surface and pH-sensitive tumor-targeting peptide (D-vPCs-O2) were fabricated to co-deliver oxygen and therapeutic drug, doxorubicin. High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) was utilized to trigger the co-release of doxorubicin and oxygen and simultaneously enhance ultrasound imaging, therefore achieving imaging-guided drug delivery. Mild-temperature HIFU (M-HIFU) not only triggered oxygen release from nanodroplets but also slightly elevated tumor temperature to accelerate tumor blood flow. The oxygen release and temperature elevation jointly relieved tumor hypoxia and alleviated MDR, which greatly enhanced the drug therapeutic efficacy as compared to clinically used doxorubicin and Doxil. Overall side effects were also largely reduced owing to the ultrastable drug loading of cerasome. The improvement of insufficient chemotherapy and the relief of tumor hypoxia corporately down-regulated TGF-β1, leading to the alleviation of EMT, and therefore significantly inhibited tumor metastasis. When “D-vPCs-O2+ M-HIFU” was utilized as a neoadjuvant chemotherapy, nanodroplets down-regulated heat shock proteins, reducing tumor relapse after the high-temperature HIFU (H-HIFU)-mediated hyperthermia ablation. The chemo-hyperthermia therapy totally eradicated tumors without any relapse or metastasis, providing a promising way to treat the triple-negative breast cancer, which is highly malignant, easily metastatic, and lacks effective treatments.

Microvascular invasion (MVI) of is generally considered to be an important prognostic factor for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after operation, An accurate prediction of MVI before operation is helpful for clinical decision-making before operation.

Due to its computational efficiency and geometrical flexibility, the Method of Characteristics (MOC) has been widely used for light water reactor lattice physics analysis. Usually acceleration methods are necessary for MOC to achieve acceptable convergence on practical reactor physics problems. Among them, Coarse Mesh Finite Difference (CMFD) is very popular and can drastically reduce the number of transport iterations. In OpenMOC, CMFD acceleration was implemented but had the limitation of supporting only a uniform CMFD mesh, which would often lead to splitting MOC source regions, thus creating an unnecessary increase in computation and memory use. In this study, CMFD acceleration with a non-uniform Cartesian mesh is implemented into OpenMOC. We also propose a quadratic fit based CMFD prolongation method in the axial direction to further improve the acceleration when multiple MOC source regions are contained in one CMFD coarse mesh. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the improvement of the CMFD acceleration capability in OpenMOC in terms of both efficiency and stability.

Human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2)-enriched breast cancer is characterized by strong invasiveness, high recurrence rate, and poor prognosis. HER2-specific imaging can help screening right patients for appropriate HER2-targeted therapies. Previously, we have developed a 99mTc-labeled HER2-targeted H6 peptide for SPECT imaging of breast cancer. However, the poor metabolic stability and high gallbladder uptake hamper its clinical application. In this study, a retro-inverso D-peptide of H6 (RDH6) was designed to increase the metabolic stability. PEGylation was used to improve its water solubility and in vivo pharmacokinetics. The results showed that the D-amino acids in 99mTc-PEG4-RDH6 brought better metabolic stability than 99mTc-PEG4-H6, thus achieving higher tumor uptake. As the length of the PEG chain increases, the hydrophilicity of the probes gradually increased, which may also be the main cause for the decreased liver uptake. Compared with radiotracers modified by PEG4and PEG12, 99mTc-PEG24-RDH6 had a comparable tumor uptake and the lowest liver radioactivity. The SPECT imaging demonstrated that 99mTc-PEG24-RDH6 could specifically distinguish HER2-positive tumors from HER2-negative tumors with better imaging contrast, which thus has the potential for clinical screening of HER2-positive breast patients.

The CsI detectors of the High Energy X-ray Telescope of the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope(HXMT/CsI) can be used for gamma-ray all sky monitoring and searching for the electromagnetic counterpart of gravitational wave source. The instrumental responses are mainly obtained by Monte Carlo simulation with the Geant4 tool and the mass model of both the satellite and all the payloads, which is updated and tested with the Crab pulse emission in various incident directions. Both the Energy-Channel relationship and the energy resolution are calibrated in two working modes (Normal-Gain mode & Low-Gain Mode) with the different detection energy ranges. The simulative spectral analyses show that HXMT/CsI can constrain the spectral parameters much better in the high energy band than that in the low energy band. The joint spectral analyses are performed to ten bright GRBs observed simultaneously with HXMT/CsI and other instruments (Fermi/GBM, Swift/BAT, Konus-Wind), and the results show that the GRB flux given by HXMT/CsI is systematically higher by 7.0±8.8%than those given by the other instruments. The HXMT/CsI-Fermi/GBM joint fittings also show that the high energy spectral parameter can be constrained much better as the HXMT/CsI data are used in the joint fittings.

Recently, the system parameters of Cygnus X-1, i.e., the black hole mass M, the orbital inclination iand the source distance D, have been updated. As the input constraints of the continuum-fitting method, it is necessary to refine the spin with these new parameters. The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope(HXMT, also named Insight) was successfully launched on June 15th, 2017 in China. In this work, we analyzed spectra obtained by the Insight-HXMT during 2017-2018 and re-estimated the spin via the continuum-fitting method. We first re-estimated the spin using old parameters and found the dimensionless spin parameter to be a⁎>0.934(3σ), which is consistent with previous measurements both from the continuum-fitting and iron-line fitting methods (Gou et al. 2011, Gou et al. 2014; Fabian et al. 2012, Walton et al. 2016, Tomsick et al. 2018). Then, when the new parameters were applied, we obtained an increased spin: a⁎>0.967(3σ), which is also consistent with the recent measurement (Zhao et al. 2020, submitted to ApJ) and also confirms an extreme Kerr black hole lying in this system.