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This article introduces a multifunctional wireless power transfer (WPT) system, uniquely capable of self-sustaining power generation and automatic directional charging. This system integrates a retrodirective array (RDA), loaded with active radio frequency (RF) circuits, with solar cells (SCs), thus enabling the RDA to function as a transmitter in the WPT system independently, without reliance on external power sources. This integration facilitates direct solar-to-RF energy conversion while simultaneously achieving self-tracking and targeted RF energy transmission to the device requiring recharging. The proposed system comprises three primary components: the transmitter represented by solar antenna with retrodirective capability, the receiver at the terminal comprising a rectenna, and the power management circuit (PMC) designed for harvesting solar energy and energizing the RF active circuits. The feasibility of the proposed WPT system is substantiated through simulations, assemblies, and measurement processes. Both monostatic and bistatic radar cross section (RCS) measurements were conducted. The outcomes of these measurements demonstrate the WPT system’s proficiency in far-field tracking, facilitating both signal reception and transmission across a significant angular range of −40° to 40°. Furthermore, the rectifier antenna consistently maintains an optimal output voltage within this angular range. The system’s SC exhibits remarkable efficiency, fully charging a 70-mF supercapacitor within 30 s via the PMC. The proposed work holds the effective merge for multienergy synergy and interaction systems, opening up an ingenious pathway to the utilization of solar and RF energy in WPT systems.

Four papers on linguistics include: "The Teacher-Research Relationship: Multiple Perspectives and Possibilities" (Teresa Pica), on the research relationships of researchers and language teachers; "Politeness in the Speech of Korean ESL Learners" (Nancy Bell), focusing on the speech acts of disagreeing, requesting, and making suggestions; "Openings and Closings in Telephone Conversations between Native Spanish Speakers" (Serafin M. Coronel-Molina), examining Hispanic cultural patterns of conduct for telephone use; and "A Study on the Learning and Teaching of Hanzi-Chinese Characters" (Shu-han C. Wang), a study of how hanzi was taught and learned at an American university, with attention to the relationship between teacher beliefs and practices and students' learning strategies. (MSE)

Bouncing dynamics of a trailing drop off-center impacting a leading drop with varying time intervals and Weber numbers are investigated experimentally. Whether the trailing drop impacts during the spreading or receding process of the leading drop is determined by the time interval. For a short time interval of 0.15 ≤ Δt* ≤ 0.66, the trailing drop impacts during the spreading of the leading drop, and the drops completely coalesce and rebound; for a large time interval of 0.66 < Δt* ≤ 2.21, the trailing drop impacts during the receding process, and the drops partially coalesce and rebound. Whether the trailing drop directly impacts the surface or the liquid film of the leading drop is determined by the Weber number. The trailing drop impacts the surface directly at moderate Weber numbers of 16.22 ≤ We≤ 45.42, while it impacts the liquid film at large Weber numbers of 45.42 < We≤ 64.88. Intriguingly, when the trailing drop impacts the surface directly or the receding liquid film, the contact time increases linearly with the time interval but independent of the Weber number; when the trailing drop impacts the spreading liquid film, the contact time suddenly increases, showing that the force of the liquid film of the leading drop inhibits the receding of the trailing drop. Finally, a theoretical model of the contact time for the drops is established, which is suitable for different impact scenarios of the successive off-center impact. This study provides a quantitative relationship to calculate the contact time of drops successively impacting a superhydrophobic surface, facilitating the design of anti-icing surfaces.

Objective: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disorder characterized by the gradual degradation of joint cartilage and local inflammation. This study aimed to investigate the anti-OA effect of scutellarein (SCU), a single-unit flavonoid compound obtained from Scutellaria barbataD. Don, in rats. Methods: The extracted rat chondrocytes were treated with SCU and IL-1β. The chondrocytes were divided into control group, IL-1β group, IL-1β+SCU 50 µmol/L group, and IL-1β+SCU 100 µmol/L group. Morphology of rat chondrocytes was observed by toluidine blue and safranin O staining. CCK-8 method was used to detect the cytotoxicity of SCU. ELISA, qRT-PCR, Western blotting, immunofluorescence, SAβ-gal staining, flow cytometry, and bioinformatics analysis were applied to evaluate the effect of SCU on rat chondrocytes under IL-1β intervention. Additionally, anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACL-T) was used to establish a rat OA model. Histological changes were detected by safranin O/fast green, hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining, and immunohistochemistry. Results: SCU protected cartilage and exhibited anti-inflammatory effects via multiple mechanisms. Specifically, it could enhance the synthesis of extracellular matrix in cartilage cells and inhibit its degradation. In addition, SCU partially inhibited the nuclear factor kappa-B/mitogen-activated protein kinase (NF-κB/MAPK) pathway, thereby reducing inflammatory cytokine production in the joint cartilage. Furthermore, SCU significantly reduced IL-1β-induced apoptosis and senescence in rat chondrocytes, further highlighting its potential role in OA treatment. In vivoexperiments revealed that SCU (at a dose of 50 mg/kg) administered for 2 months could significantly delay the progression of cartilage damage, which was reflected in a lower Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) score, and reduced expression of matrix metalloproteinase 13 (MMP13) in cartilage. Conclusion: SCU is effective in the therapeutic management of OA and could serve as a potential candidate for future clinical drug therapy for OA.

HER2-positive (HER2+) metastatic breast cancer (mBC) is highly aggressive and a major threat to human health. Despite the significant improvement in patients’ prognosis given the drug development efforts during the past several decades, many clinical questions still remain to be addressed such as efficacy when combining different therapeutic modalities, best treatment sequences, interindividual variability as well as resistance and potential coping strategies. To better answer these questions, we developed a mechanistic quantitative systems pharmacology model of the pathophysiology of HER2+mBC that was extensively calibrated and validated against multiscale data to quantitatively predict and characterize the signal transduction and preclinical tumor growth kinetics under different therapeutic interventions. Focusing on the second-line treatment for HER2+mBC, e.g., antibody-drug conjugates (ADC), small molecule inhibitors/TKI and chemotherapy, the model accurately predicted the efficacy of various drug combinations and dosing regimens at the in vitro and in vivo levels. Sensitivity analyses and subsequent heterogeneous phenotype simulations revealed important insights into the design of new drug combinations to effectively overcome various resistance scenarios in HER2+mBC treatments. In addition, the model predicted a better efficacy of the new TKI plus ADC combination which can potentially reduce drug dosage and toxicity, while it also shed light on the optimal treatment ordering of ADC versus TKI plus capecitabine regimens, and these findings were validated by new in vivo experiments. Our model is the first that mechanistically integrates multiple key drug modalities in HER2+mBC research and it can serve as a high-throughput computational platform to guide future model-informed drug development and clinical translation.

Soil nitrogen (N) leaching varies substantially in amounts and rates depending on soil type and N form, but the underlying mechanisms for this variation are largely unknown. We used six soils collected from the south, east, central, and west regions of China to examine the leaching of nitrate and ammonium in these soils through a soil column experiment during eight days. Large amounts of nitrate were leached in the starting three days, but only small amounts of ammonium were leached during the eight days. After eight-day leaching, most of applied ammonium was retained in soils, but nitrate residue in soils was very low. The cumulative nitrate leaching amounts were ordered as follows: the two acid soils from South China > the two neutral soils from South and East China > the two alkaline soils from Central and West China. The neutral and alkaline soils had fewer clay, more sand and organic matter, and higher denitrification potential compared with the acid soils. Nitrate leaching amount was negatively correlated with denitrification potential in different soils, suggesting that fewer nitrate leaching and residual in the neutral and alkaline soils may be attributed to their stronger denitrification relative to the acid soils. Nitrate is rapidly lost through leaching in the present acid soils and through denitrification in the neutral and alkaline soils, whereas ammonium is mostly remained in all soils with little leaching. Soil denitrification potential may be responsible for the difference in nitrate leaching among the six soils.

We study a multi-objective optimization model of a stochastic multimodal transportation network considering key impact factors such as transit cost, time, and transport mode schedule while minimizing total transportation cost and transportation time. In this study, we apply the Monte Carlo simulation to deal with the stochastic transportation time in the network and propose a data-driven approach that combines historical data and the dataset generated by the data mining algorithm to accelerate the search for the nondominated solution in the simulation. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed Data-Driven Multi-Objective Simulation Ant Colony (DD-MSAC) algorithm, we compare the optimum-seeking performance and the running time consumption of the Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II) and the Multi-Objective Simulation Ant Colony (MSAC) algorithm. Then, the MSAC algorithm is adopted as the benchmark for the comparison study on the solving performance of the proposed DD-MSAC algorithm. We conducted 30 times simulation run under different network scales in our numerical examples to show that the DD-MSAC algorithm can be equally effective as the non-data-driven MSAC algorithm in finding a nondominated solution as the average error does not exceed 5%. Meanwhile, we analyze the impact of different data-driven approaches, including data pool and support vector machine, on the solution quality and the running time. Finally, we use an example of China’s Belt Road Initiative to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Kupffer cells, the liver tissue resident macrophages, are critical in the detection and clearance of cancer cells. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying their detection and phagocytosis of cancer cells are still unclear. Using in vivo genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 knockout screening, we found that the cell-surface transmembrane protein ERMAP expressed on various cancer cells signaled to activate phagocytosis in Kupffer cells and to control of liver metastasis. ERMAP interacted with β-galactoside binding lectin galectin-9 expressed on the surface of Kupffer cells in a manner dependent on glycosylation. Galectin-9 formed a bridging complex with ERMAP and the transmembrane receptor dectin-2, expressed on Kupffer cells, to induce the detection and phagocytosis of cancer cells by Kupffer cells. Patients with low expression of ERMAP on tumors had more liver metastases. Thus, our study identified the ERMAP–galectin–9-dectin-2 axis as an ‘eat me’ signal for Kupffer cells.

ABSTRACTA new species Callicarolynia yixiekeKang & Hu, belonging to Pteromalidae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea), and also a newly recorded genus CallicarolyniaHeydon, 1989from China and Palearctic region, is described and illustrated from a depopulated alpine area, Altun mountain nature reserve (Xinjiang, China), and the morphological characters were compared with its closely related group.http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:31A02E9B-3801-4E35-9ACA-A70BB262A8C0

Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a rare histiocytic neoplasm. The clinical presentation and the disease extension are variable. LCH may involve a single site, multiple sites within a single system, or multiple systems. Gastrointestinal tract involvement is rare and most often observed in children with multisystem disease. Adult patients with gastrointestinal tract involvement are extremely rare, and only a few cases have been reported. We present a 45‐year‐old man with LCH presenting as a submucosal solitary colonic lesion.

The real-time energy flow data obtained in industrial production processes are usually of low quality. It is difficult to accurately predict the short-term energy flow profile by using these field data, which diminishes the effect of industrial big data and artificial intelligence in industrial energy system. The real-time data of blast furnace gas (BFG) generation collected in iron and steel sites are also of low quality. In order to tackle this problem, a three-stage data quality improvement strategy was proposed to predict the BFG generation. In the first stage, correlation principle was used to test the sample set. In the second stage, the original sample set was rectified and updated. In the third stage, Kalman filter was employed to eliminate the noise of the updated sample set. The method was verified by autoregressive integrated moving average model, back propagation neural network model and long short-term memory model. The results show that the prediction model based on the proposed three-stage data quality improvement method performs well. Long short-term memory model has the best prediction performance, with a mean absolute error of 17.85 m3/min, a mean absolute percentage error of 0.21%, and an Rsquared of 95.17%.

A frequency- and pattern-reconfigurable $1\times4$ array is analyzed and designed, which consists of a reconfigurable feed network, 12 rectangular parasitic patches, and four octagonal patch antennas. Characteristic mode analysis (CMA) is used to study the radiation characteristics of the proposed element antenna. By changing the ON–OFF states of 18 p-i-n diodes loaded in the feed network, different combinations of the initial current phase are obtained to realize the reconfiguration of five radiation states. By loading varactor diodes and parasitic patches, frequency reconfigurability is achieved. The measured result shows that the array pattern can be discretely switched in the directions of 0°, ±15°, ±25°, ±30°, and ±55°. The tunable overlapped −10-dB impedance bandwidth is 3.54–4.46 GHz for the five radiation patterns. The maximum gain reaches 7.67 dBi and the overlapped relative bandwidth of five radiation states is more than 22%.

In recent years, with the progress of Mars exploration, the in situ utilization of CO2 resources in the Martian atmosphere has become a widely discussed subject. Nonequilibrium plasma technology as an efficient molecular activation approach has great potential for CO2 conversion. In this study, a fluid model is established to discuss driving frequency effects on the vibrational states and conversion of CO2 in radio frequency (RF) discharges at a given power density under Martian pressure. The calculated CO2 conversion and energy efficiency depending on the specific energy input are in good agreement with the experimental measurements. The simulation results found that a considerable fraction of electron energy is transferred to the asymmetric stretching modes of CO2, and the characteristic times for electron impact vibrational excitation and vibration–vibration (VV) relaxation are small, which results in a larger density of higher vibrational levels. The density of vibrational levels of CO2 increases with the driving frequency at a constant power density, which can be explained by the enhancement of vibrational excitation and VV relaxation. The computational data also show that more CO, O, and O2 are produced as the driving frequency increases at a constant power density, and the vibration-induced dissociation with $\textrm {CO}_{2}\textrm {v}_{8}$ gradually replaces the direct dissociation to be the main reaction for the production of CO and O. In addition, the increase in driving frequency causes more electron energy to be transferred to the asymmetrical stretch modes, and the vibrational energy of these vibrational states of CO2 can reduce the activation barrier of the reaction, improving the CO2 conversion and energy efficiency. This study contributes to a deeper insight into the frequency effects on plasma chemistry in RF CO2 discharges under Martian pressure and shows the optimized ways for the decomposition of CO2 on Mars.

•radiomics and machine learning enhance the precision of clinical staging for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, thereby offering a more effective and non-invasive approach for patients.•The multilayer perceptron (MLP) demonstrates exceptional accuracy in the training set and exhibits outstanding performance in external validation.•The model also showed high accuracy for subgroup of patients (diagnosed by clinicians as cT1–2N0M0), indicating better clinical applicability.

Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) developed from late pregnancy to five months after delivery. Women with PPCM have the risk of mortality or non-recovered cardiac function. We aimed to investigate women with PPCM in Taiwan.

One multiparity women had recurrent pregnancies of skeletal dysplasia. The karyotype and array-comparative genomic hybridization were unremarkable. Thus, trio whole exome sequencings were suggested.

This study aimed to investigate the long-term biocompatibility, safety, and degradation of the ultrathin nitrided iron bioresorbable scaffold (BRS) in vivo, encompassing the whole process of bioresorption in porcine coronary arteries. Fifty-two nitrided iron scaffolds (strut thickness of 70 μm) and 28 Vision Co–Cr stents were randomly implanted into coronary arteries of healthy mini-swine. The efficacy and safety of the nitrided iron scaffold were comparable with those of the Vision stentwithin 52 weeks after implantation. In addition, the long-term biocompatibility, safety, and bioresorption of the nitrided iron scaffold were evaluated by coronary angiography, optical coherence tomography, micro-computed tomography, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectrometry and histopathological evaluations at 4, 12, 26, 52 weeks and even at 7 years after implantation. In particular, a large number of struts were almost completely absorbed in situ at 7 years follow-up, which were first illustrated in this study. The lymphatic drainage pathway might serve as the potential clearance way of iron and its corrosion products.

In recent years, pulse-modulation is introduced in atmospheric radio frequency (RF) discharges to further control the discharge operation. In this article, a comparing study is performed by a 1-D fluid model to investigate the formation of large discharge currents (LDCs) in the first RF cycle during the power-on phase in an atmospheric pulse-modulated RF discharge controlled by dielectric barriers. The current–voltage characteristics and helium metastable (He*) distributions show the enhancement of a pulsed voltage on the ignition of RF discharge, which agrees well with the experimental observation. On the other hand, in a dielectric barrier discharge driven by a sinusoidal voltage of 500 MHz, double LDCs are observed in the positive and negative half-cycles, respectively, and the large pulse rise rate of applied voltage essentially influences the distribution of charged particles in the first cycle during the power-on phase. In this study, according to computational data the reverse electric field near the anode contributes greatly to the generation of LDCs in both types of discharge, and the appropriate discharge conditions are suggested to optimize the pulse-modulated RF discharges in applications.

The rapid development of vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) has brought great convenience to intelligent transportation, and the secure transmission of information in VANETs has become a serious problem. In addition, the protection of private information of vehicles is also a key issue. Aiming at the problem of how to guarantee the secure transmission of information in VANETs under the condition of satisfying security and privacy, we propose a lattice-based conditional privacy-preserving certificateless aggregate signature scheme (LB-CLAS) for VANETs. Instead of using Number Theory Research Unit (NTRU) lattices and discrete Gaussian sampling, the proposed LB-CLAS scheme is based on algebraic lattice. In addition, based on the module version of Small Integer Solution (MSIS) and module version of Learning With Error (MLWE) hard problems, we prove that the LB-CLAS scheme is existential unforgeability under adaptively chosen message attacks (EUF-CMA). Our LB-CLAS scheme employs individual signature verification in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) mode, while utilizing aggregate signatures and batch verification in vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) mode, with slightly differing transmission parameters between the two modes. Based on Dilithium, our LB-CLAS scheme solves the problem of high storage overhead and computational cost of existing schemes. The performance analysis shows that our LB-CLAS scheme is more efficient in terms of computation cost, storage overhead, and power consumption compared to existing schemes. Compared with existing schemes, our LB-CLAS scheme reduces the signature and verification overheads by more than 17.6% and 43.4%, respectively. Our LB-CLAS program also has significant advantages in batch verification. As the number of vehicles increases, our batch certification time cost is reduced by more than 90%. In addition, our LB-CLAS scheme has the smallest signature length, with a signature size that is 1X smaller than the most efficient existing scheme for the same level of security.

Amid rising concerns about campus safety in Taiwan, particularly with the global trend towards smart cities, integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) into institutional security frameworks has become pivotal. The paper discusses the implementation of using iBeacons and Long Range (LoRa) technology to locating the student position and ensure his safety in the school campus. It uses Internet of Things (IoT) approach in real time to monitor and locate the student presence in the school compound. This paper unveils an innovative design for a campus security system that harnesses the LoRa technology. In the system, the students are equipped with devices containing Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons to capture and transmit real-time location data. The system response time to locating student in abnormal locations such as cornered and concealed areas is about one second. By extending this system to cover all individuals on campus, a closely monitored environment and areas is enabled that significantly bolstering the security measures. This not only furnishes a dynamic protective layer for educational institutions but also serves as a proactive deterrent against potential security breaches. Ultimately, this research underscores the transformative potential of merging IoT with campus security to ushering in a new era of student safety. LoRa technology offers advantages in battery life, cost-effectiveness, deployment flexibility, and network coverage etc. Therefore, this paper ultimately provides a method of how to utilize the LoRa technology to develop a campus security system. Unlike artificial intelligence (AI)-based image recognition, which raises concerns about privacy and human rights; the features of LoRa’s long-range communication and low power consumption make it a more suitable choice.

Solar energy, coupled with innovative technologies, holds the promise of propelling buildings towards net-zero and carbon neutrality. In this regard, this review explores the integration of solar technologies, heat pumps, and thermal energy storage systems to reduce building energy demand. It thoroughly examines various types of solar thermal collectors (STCs), including both concentrating devices like compound parabolic concentrators and parabolic troughs, as well as non-concentrating designs such as flat plate and evacuated tube collectors. It examines innovative strategies for enhancing STC performance, such as alternative profiles for compound parabolic concentrators and the insertion of thermal fins in absorber tubes. Furthermore, the review categorizes solar-assisted heat pumps (SAHPs) into indirect expansion (IDX) and direct expansion (DX) systems, describing their advantages and limitations. It performs a comparison between IDX-SAHPs and DX-SAHPs, explaining their effectiveness and applicability. Eventually, the review explores thermal energy storage materials, categorizing them into sensible heat storage, latent heat storage, and thermochemical heat storage (TCHS). It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each category, as well as notable materials within them. A comparative examination between open and closed systems for TCHS further enriches the discussion. Throughout the review, recent advancements and key findings from relevant studies are summarized in separate tables, offering valuable information into practical strategies for sustainable building energy systems. Regarding the provided sections, this review plays a crucial role in introducing scholars to practical methods employed in recent years to integrate the STCs with heat pumps and thermal energy storage systems.

Energy-only electricity markets, such as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), rely on the decentralized investment decisions of market participants to lead to a resource mix providing an efficient level of reliability. During an exceptionally cold winter storm in February 2021, ERCOT experienced shortfalls on an unprecedented scale, with nearly half of the generation fleet experiencing outages at the peak. The depth of the resulting blackouts invites questions regarding the ability of systems relying on decentralized planning to appropriately prepare for and withstand rare events. Based on two mild assumptions, risk aversion among investors and incomplete risk trading, this paper provides an explanation for why decentralized markets are prone to underinvestment in resilience. We describe the nature of the incomplete risk trading that arises in the context of electricity markets and discuss potential remedies, including mandatory contracting obligations for retailers and compensation to end users for unserved energy.

Precursor reactivity is crucial for the synthesis of Ag2Te quantum dots (QDs), which is helpful to obtain QDs with satisfactory properties. However, because of the inadequate understanding of the structure of Ag precursors, it is difficult to effectively regulate their reactivity. In this work, the Ag precursor reactivity can be regulated by modifying its structure with tertiary phosphines. Therefore, it is effective and convenient to precisely regulate the synthesis of Ag2Te QDs by changing the structure and amount of tertiary phosphine. The exciton absorption peak of Ag2Te QDs can be tuned in the range of 900–1150 nm, with the absolute photoluminescence quantum yield reaching 14.7%, and the full width at half-maximum of the photoluminescence peak being only 180 nm. This work provides a new insight into the regulation of precursor reactivity by altering its structure, which is conducive to the synthesis of high-quality nanocrystals.

ABSTRACTCAP messages are the standard ways for the government to broadcast emergency messages, which are represented in the XML format to meet the open data initiatives. However, such formats are hard for ordinary people to understand, and the current user interface in the official website has only limited functionality. In this research, we focus on the type of CAP messages indicating a closed road and study how to support more advanced querying facilities. Particularly, we allow users to issue a specific address or a particular period of time, and wish to return the closed-road events which satisfy the given constraints efficiently. To meet the above need, we integrate the CAP messages and another set of open data, i.e., the road mileage map, and construct the spatial index and the temporal index on them. The proposed approaches were implemented and extensive empirical studies were conducted by using real open data retrieved from the governmental website. Experimental results have shown their efficiency and good performance.

Background: The impact of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) on subsequent cardiovascular events in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) remains inconclusive.Aim: Our aim was to systematically assess the relationship between preexisting OSA and adverse cardiovascular events in patients with newly diagnosed ACS by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis.Methods: We systematically searched PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane library for studies published up to May 1, 2020, that reported any association between OSA and cardiovascular events in patients with newly diagnosed ACS. The main outcomes were a composite of all-cause or cardiovascular death, recurrent myocardial infarction, stroke, repeat revascularization, or heart failure. We conducted a pooled analysis using the random-effects model. We also performed subgroup, sensitivity, heterogeneity analysis, and the assessment of publication bias.Results: We identified 10 studies encompassing 3350 participants. The presence of OSA was associated with increased risk of adverse cardiovascular events in newly prognosed ACS (risk ratio [RR] 2.18, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.45-3.26, P< .001, I2= 64%). Between-study heterogeneity was partially explained by a multicenter study (9 single-center studies, RR 2.33 95% CI 1.69-3.19, I2=18%), and I2remarkably decreased from 64% to 18%. Moreover, OSA significantly increased the incidence of repeat revascularization (8 studies) and heart failure (6 studies) in patients with newly diagnosed ACS.Conclusion: Patients with preexisting OSA are at greater risk of subsequent cardiovascular events after onset of ACS. Further studies should investigate the treatment of OSA in patient with ACS.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has unique properties including highsensitivity, simple operation and non-destructiveness in trace detection; and the substrate will cast adirect impact upon the SERS signal. An everlasting topic has been focused on the preparation ofSERS substrates with controllable morphologies and hotspots. Herein, we reported a SERS substratewith alloyed Au-Ag nanospheres prepared via a reduction method of two-step seed growth method inliquid phase. TEM, SEM, Raman and UV-vis characterization have been employed to investigatemicro-morphology, composition, and SERS effects. Moreover, a quantitative detection model isestablished, and the R2 of fitting reaches as high as 0.982. Finally, the effect of different nAu/nAg molarratios on the SERS effect is investigated, with results showing that Raman enhancement has a goodrise at the very first beginning, but a drop later appears along with the decreasing nAu/nAg. The limit ofdetection (LOD) of R6G on Au-Ag nanosphere substrates has an initial increase, and a decreasefollows with the decreasing nAu/nAg ratios; the mechanism is also fully investigated. The preparationof particle-sized controllable Au-Ag nanomaterials helps provide a new highly enhanced SERSsubstrate.

The durability of sows would be affected by their leg soundness. Problems of leg or lameness is the second reason for culling especially in the first three parities. Observing the leg structure during the growth period of pigs is necessary in selection programs because traits related to leg structure have intermediate to low heritability. However, long-term tracking of changes in feet and leg structure of pigs using quantitative measuring methods has not been conducted. Such measuring methods have not yet been applied on farms so far. Thus, this study aimed to use stride length data from pressure mat to evaluate leg soundness in growing gilts. A pressure mat system was used in this study to collect stride length (SL) data and ground reaction force (GRF) data of 23 purebred gilts at 4.5, 6.0, and 7.5 months of age. The SL data obtained in each pig was used to calculate the symmetry index with the SL records of the left and right legs for both front and rear. Similarly, the GRF data enabled the calculation of GRF symmetry index of the left and right leg of a pig for both front and rear. The confusion matrix was applied to compute the accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity by comparing visual inspection of gilt culling or the SL symmetry index to the GRF symmetry index as the standard. The accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of visual inspection of gilt culling versus GRF symmetry index at 7.5 months of age were 80%, 31%, and 100%, respectively. Meanwhile, the accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of the SL symmetry index versus GRF symmetry index at 7.5 months of age were 96%, 85%, and 100%, respectively. At 6.0 months of age, such accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of the SL were 89%, 67%, and 97%, respectively. But, at 4.5 months of age, such accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of the SL were 87%, 50%, and 97%, respectively. These findings suggest that visual inspection for leg soundness of gilt has limited capability to identify pigs with an asymmetry gait which might cause current and future leg problems. But the SL symmetric index shows better potential for that purpose that it will be a suitable objective measure to replace visual inspection for leg soundness in pigs.

Mapping highly complicated disulfide linkages and free thiols via liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS2) is challenging because of the difficulties in optimizing sample preparation to acquire critical MS data and detecting mispairings. Herein, we report a highly efficient and comprehensive workflow using an on-line UV-induced precolumn reduction tandem mass spectrometry (UV-LC–MS2) coupled with two-stage data analysis and spiked control. UV-LC–MS2features a gradient run of acetonitrile containing a tunable percentage of photoinitiators (acetone/alcohol) that drives the sample to the MS through a UV-flow cell and reverse phase column to separate UV-induced products for subsequent fragmentation via low energy collision-induced dissociation. This allowed the alkylated thiol-containing and UV-reduced cysteine-containing peptides to be identified by a nontargeted database search. Expected or unexpected disulfide/thiol mapping was then carried out based on the search results, and data were derived from partially reduced species by photochemical reaction. Complete assignments of native and scrambled disulfide linkages of insulin, α-lactalbumin, and bovine serum albumin (BSA) as well as the free C34-BSA were demonstrated using none or single enzyme digestion. This workflow was applied to characterize unknown disulfide/thiol patterns of the recombinant cyclophilin 1 monomer (rTvCyP1 mono) from the human pathogen Trichomonas vaginalis. α-Lactalbumin was judiciously chosen as a spiked control to minimize mispairings due to sample preparation. rTvCyP1 was determined to contain a high percentage of thiol (>80%). The rest of rTvCyP1 mono were identified to contain two disulfide/thiol patterns, of which C41–C169 linkage was confirmed to exist as C53–C181 in rTvCyP2, a homologue of rTvCyP1. This platform identifies heterogeneous protein disulfide/thiol patterns in a de-novofashion with artifact control, opening up an opportunity to characterize crude proteins for many applications.

Plasmonic random lasers have been demonstrated in combining dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystals (DD-CLCs) and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The DD-CLC laser reveals the lowest threshold and highest slope efficiency through the localized surface plasmon resonance of AgNPs with the best coupling of the emission spectrum of lasing dye and resonance of electron oscillation on the metal surface. Thermal control of the DD-CLC lasers has been achieved to simultaneously shift the long- and short-edge lasing peaks. By the α-stable analysis, the DD-CLC random laser (RL) reveals heavy tail distribution with relatively low α∼1.06 to show the Lévy behavior. Owing to its low spatial coherence, the DD-CLC RL has been demonstrated to produce a speckle-reduced image with a lower contrast of about 0.04.

Time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) has been used for gaining insights into perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, the importance of selecting ion beam parameters to eliminate artifacts in the resulting depth profile is often overlooked. In this work, significant artifacts were identified with commonly applied sputter sources, i.e., an O2+beam and an Ar-gas cluster ion beam (Ar-GCIB), which could lead to misinterpretation of the PSC structure. On the other hand, polyatomic C60+and Ar+ion beams were found to be able to produce depth profiles that properly reflect the distribution of the components. On the basis of this validated method, differences in component distribution, depending on the fabrication processes, were identified and discussed. The solvent-engineering process yielded a homogeneous film with higher device performance, but sequential deposition led to a perovskite layer sandwiched by methylammonium-deficient layers that impeded the performance. For device degradation, it was found that most components remained intact at their original position except for iodide. This result unambiguously indicated that iodide diffusion was one of the key factors governing the device lifetime. With the validated parameters provided, ToF-SIMS was demonstrated as a powerful tool to unveil the structure variation amid device performance and during degradation, which are crucial for the future development of PSCs.

This paper presents a control redesign approach to improve the performance of a certain class of dynamical systems. Motivated by recent research on re-engineering cyber-physical systems, we propose a three-step control retrofit procedure. First, we reverse-engineer a dynamical system to dig out an optimization problem it actually solves. Second, we apply an augmented Lagrangian or a hat-x method to solve this optimization problem. Finally, by comparing the original and new dynamics, we obtain the implementation of the redesigned part (i.e., the extra dynamics). As a result, the convergence rate/speed or transient behavior of the given system can be improved while the system structure remains. To show the effectiveness of the proposed approach and its potential applications, we present two practical examples including Internet congestion control and distributed proportional-integral (PI) control.

To assess the effects of colchicine, which has been shown to reduce the risks of coronary artery disease but scarcely studied in peripheral artery disease (PAD), on major adverse limb events (MALE) in patients with PAD.

Deep learning is one of the most powerful machine learning algorithms at present. The convolutional neural network model has the ability to automatically learn features, and has a greater performance advantage than other deep learning models in the field of image processing. Based on deep learning, the effects of platelet-rich plasma injection of betamethasone on shoulder pain and function in patients with partial rotator cuff injury were investigated. Eighty patients with tendinosis or a partial tear (<1.0 cm) were recruited between 2021 and 2022. Mixed injection of 1 mL betamethasone and 5 mL lidocaine, following 5 mL PRP injected in 7-day intervals, were infiltrated directly into the lesion of supraspinatus interstitial RCT under ultrasound control. The patients were assessed by the SPADI, CMS and ASES before and 1, 3, 6, 9 months after injection. MRI was also performed before and 6 months after injection. All patients had significant better ASES, SST, CMS score and improvement of motion and pain relief after PRP injection, compared with the baseline before injection (p< 0.05). In the MRI data, statistical pre- and post-comparisons revealed significant differences between location of partial rupture and grade of tendinopathy. There were no mortality and major complications observed during follow-up. Under the background of deep learning, ultrasound-guided injection of PRP with betamethasone can progressively relieve shoulder joint pain and improve motor function in patients with partial rotator cuff injury. Ultrasound-guided injection of PRP with betamethasone is safe and useful for rotator cuff disease.

AbstractIn order to comprehensively elucidate the chemical biosynthesis in Perillla(commonly used in traditional herbal medicine), an untargeted analysis based on Gas chromatography-Mass spectrometry was done to reveal the metabolites from 168 different species of Perilla, with 73 components were identified. The results based on the 168 samples, which can be classified into five chemotypes, reveals that different genetic background have a significant influence on the metabolic synthesis of Perilla. The results of heat map for the components of different species and the principal component analysis are implying that the Perillachemotypes are clustered for characteristic compounds. This study, which used optimized solid-phase microextraction conditions to investigate volatile oil composition, expanded our knowledge of metabolic pathways in Perilla. The differences between chemotypes provide a scientific basis for distinguishing between Perillaspecies, which not only can improve the testing standards for essential oils from Perillaherbs, but also can be beneficial to Perillabreeding.

A series of silver coordination polymers (CPs) have been synthesized through self-assembly of three pyridinecarboxylic acid hydrazide (p-, m-, o-position) ligands with silver clusters (named Ag1-iah, Ag2-iah, and Ag3-iah). These silver CPs show different one- and two-dimensional topologies including cross-helical chains, planar network, and parallel helical chains for Ag1-iah, Ag2-iah, and Ag3-iah, respectively. The combination of experimental and computational results reveals the critical role in the space distribution of the coordination site of silver clusters and ligands in controlling the silver CPs’ dimensionality and packing arrangement and modulating the optical properties and stability. Luminescent investigations reveal that Ag3-iah can selectively detect dichloromethane or trichloromethane in tetrachloromethane. These silver CPs provide a good model to study the influence of the space distribution of the coordination site of ligands on their packing arrangement and properties.

Prenatal diagnosis of de novosegmental amplification or deletion by microarray-based comparative genomic hybridization (array CGH) is uncommon. The study aimed to know about the incidence, abnormal ultrasound findings, and pregnancy outcomes of prenatally diagnosed de novosegmental amplification or deletion by array CGH.

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text.

Oncofetal genes are genes that express abundantly in both fetal and tumor tissues yet downregulated or undetected in adult tissues, and can be used as tumor markers for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Meanwhile, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are known to play crucial roles in the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), including tumor growth, proliferation, metastasis, invasion, and recurrence. We performed a genome-wide screening using microarrays to detect the lncRNA expression profiles in fetal livers, adult livers, and liver cancer tissues from mice to identify oncofetal lncRNAs in HCC. From the microarray data analysis, we identified lncRNA Ptn-dt as a possible oncofetal gene. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments results confirmed that overexpression of Ptn-dt significantly promoted the proliferation of mouse HCC cells. RNA pulldown assay showed that Ptn-dt could interact with the HuR protein. Interestingly, miR-96 binds with HuR to maintain its stability as well. Overexpression of lncRNA Ptn-dt led to the downregulation of miR-96, which might be due to the interaction between Ptn-dt and HuR. Meanwhile, previous studies have reported that Ptn can promote tumor growth and vascular abnormalization via anaplastic lymphoma kinase (Alk) signaling. In our study, we found that overexpression of Ptn-dt could promote the expression of Alk through repressing miR-96 via interacting with HuR, thus enhancing the biologic function of Ptn. In summary, a new oncofetal lncRNA Ptn-dt is identified, and it can promote the proliferation of HCC cells by regulating the HuR/miR-96/Alk pathway and Ptn-Alk axis.

The advances in science and technology have benefited many industries. In recent years, we have witnessed the rapid development of financial technology. All of them worked hard in this area, such as Amazon, UPS, and Wal-Mart International. In China, leading e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba and Tencent actively provided services to SMEs in their ecosystems; Taiwan also make efforts to develop it. The emergence of networking account scientific and technological AMIS provides various payment companies, lending platform, financial robots. Although Taiwan’s innovation industry faces many restrictions on its development, it will still go through it. Therefore, Taiwan has continued to update laws and regulations related to financial technology. The latest rule “Financial Science and Technology Development and Innovation Experiments Regulations” regards the development of Taiwan’s financial technology. FinTech has gradually replaced the traditional financial service model. Through mobile payments, cloud platforms, and artificial intelligence, the technology industry has gradually penetrated into the financial industry. We are willing to make more progress in Taiwan’s financial technology to deepen the understanding of FinTech as a study.

To explore the tenderness response at the acupoints on the medial crus in the patients of pelvic inflammatory disease.

Amorphous powder cores based on spherical (Fe0.76Si0.09B0.1P0.05)99Nb1amorphous powder and their SiO2layer prepared by in situ coating insulation process were investigated in detail. These cores were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction analyses, and the results revealed that the surface layer of the amorphous powder was composed of SiO2with uniform surface coverage. The thickness of the SiO2insulating layer could be controlled by adjusting the tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) content. By cold-pressing with epoxy resin under a pressure of 1800 MPa, a ring powder core with an outer diameter of 20.3 mm, inner diameter of 12.7 mm, and height of 5.3 mm was prepared. The FeSiBPNb composite core showed its best properties when the TEOS content was 2 mL/g (the volume of TEOS for each gram of (Fe0.76Si0.09B0.1P0.05)99Nb1amorphous powder, mL/g), which showed good relative permeability in the high-frequency range of up to 10 MHz and a low core loss of 320 W/kg under the maximum magnetic flux density of 0.1 T and frequency of 100 kHz.

To study the maternal and fetal outcomes and assess the risk factors in patients with rupture at the lower-segment or non-lower-segment scarred, or unscarred gravid uterus.

Gnetophytes are an enigmatic gymnosperm lineage comprising three genera, Gnetum, Welwitschiaand Ephedra, which are morphologically distinct from all other seed plants. Their distinctiveness has triggered much debate as to their origin, evolution and phylogenetic placement among seed plants. To increase our understanding of the evolution of gnetophytes, and their relation to other seed plants, we report here a high-quality draft genome sequence for Gnetum montanum, the first for any gnetophyte. By using a novel genome assembly strategy to deal with high levels of heterozygosity, we assembled >4 Gb of sequence encoding 27,491 protein-coding genes. Comparative analysis of the G. montanumgenome with other gymnosperm genomes unveiled some remarkable and distinctive genomic features, such as a diverse assemblage of retrotransposons with evidence for elevated frequencies of elimination rather than accumulation, considerable differences in intron architecture, including both length distribution and proportions of (retro) transposon elements, and distinctive patterns of proliferation of functional protein domains. Furthermore, a few gene families showed Gnetum-specific copy number expansions (for example, cellulose synthase) or contractions (for example, Late Embryogenesis Abundant protein), which could be connected with Gnetum’s distinctive morphological innovations associated with their adaptation to warm, mesic environments. Overall, the G. montanumgenome enables a better resolution of ancestral genomic features within seed plants, and the identification of genomic characters that distinguish Gnetumfrom other gymnosperms. The evolution and phylogenetic placement of gnetophytes have remained elusive. The draft genome for a gnetophyte, Gnetum montanum, is now reported. Comparative analyses identify genomic features distinguishing gnetophytes from other gymnosperms.