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Abstract Hard carbons are emerging as the most viable anodes to support the commercialization of sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries due to their competitive performance. However, the hard carbon anode suffers from low initial Coulombic efficiency (ICE), and the ambiguous Na-ion (Na+) storage mechanism and interfacial chemistry fail to give a reasonable interpretation. Here, we have identified the time-dependent ion pre-desolvation on the nanopore of hard carbons, which significantly affects the Na+ storage efficiency by altering the solvation structure of electrolytes. Consummating the pre-desolvation by extending the aging time, generates a highly aggregated electrolyte configuration inside the nanopore, resulting in negligible reductive decomposition of electrolytes. When applying the above insights, the hard carbon anodes achieve a high average ICE of 98.21% in the absence of any Na supplementation techniques. Therefore, the negative-to-positive capacity ratio can be reduced to 1.02 for full cells, which enables an improved energy density. The insight into hard carbons and related interphases may be extended to other battery systems and support the continued development of battery technology.

To realize large device density and high complexity in future on-chip microwave photonic system, a waveguide crossing with low loss, crosstalk and reflection is designed on the silicon nitride waveguide platform, which is compatible for on-chip microwave photonic processor. Furthermore, a multi-channel microwave photonic signal processing chip is fabricated based on the proposed waveguide crossings, and the performance of the chip is evaluated. In simulation, the proposed waveguide crossing maintains an insertion loss of ∼0.08 dB per crossing in the wavelength range of 1500 nm – 1600 nm, while the experiment result is 0.086 dB per crossing. As the wavelength changes, the measured variation of insertion loss per crossing is less than 0.02 dB. The crossings on the signal processing chip induce an extra insertion loss of 1.2 dB to each channel. Meanwhile, the measured crosstalk and reflection are both below −44 dB. Furthermore, the proposed waveguide crossing shows significant robustness for fabrication. With the advantages of ultra-low loss, crosstalk and reflection, the proposed waveguide crossing may support the establishment for future complicated on-chip microwave photonic systems.

IntroductionPhysical and mental health problems among pilots affect their working state and impact flight safety. Although pilots’ physical and mental health problems have become increasingly prominent, their health has not been taken seriously. This study aimed to clarify challenges and support needs related to psychological and physical health among pilots to inform development of a more scientific and comprehensive physical and mental health system for civil aviation pilots.MethodsThis qualitative study recruited pilots from nine civil aviation companies. Focus group interviews via an online conference platform were conducted in August 2022. Colaizzi analysis was used to derive themes from the data and explore pilots’ experiences, challenges, and support needs.ResultsThe main sub-themes capturing pilots’ psychological and physical health challenges were: (1) imbalance between family life and work; (2) pressure from assessment and physical examination eligibility requirements; (3) pressure from worries about being infected with COVID-19; (4) nutrition deficiency during working hours; (5) changes in eating habits because of the COVID-19 pandemic; (6) sleep deprivation; (7) occupational diseases; (8) lack of support from the company in coping with stress; (9) pilots’ yearly examination standards; (10) support with sports equipment; (11) respecting planned rest time; and (12) isolation periods.DiscussionThe interviewed pilots experienced major psychological pressure from various sources, and their physical health condition was concerning. We offer several suggestions that could be addressed to improve pilots’ physical and mental health. However, more research is needed to compare standard health measures for pilots around the world in order to improve their physical and mental health and contribute to overall aviation safety.

Abstract Background To report the ocular characteristics and management of three cases of retinitis pigmentosa (RP) concurrent primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG). Case presentation Three middle-aged patients presenting with diminished vision, high intraocular pressure (IOP), and typical fundus manifestations of RP were clinically evaluated. The individualized treatment was based on the ocular conditions of each case. A novel genetic alteration in ZNF408 was identified in one patient. Two patients with short-axial eyes received unilateral combined trabeculectomy, cataract surgery, and Irido-zonulo-hyaloid-vitrectomy. One of them had a subluxated lens, managed with a capsular tension ring implantation. Their contralateral eyes, respectively, underwent laser peripheral iridotomy (LPI) and transscleral cyclophotocoagulation. The third patient underwent bilaterally combined laser peripheral iridoplasty, LPI, and medication. Ultimately, all patients achieved the target IOP during a two-year follow-up. Conclusion Young patients with RP may have a risk of developing angle closure glaucoma, and conversely, patients with angle closure glaucoma at younger age should be aware of the presence of RP. Therefore, routine gonioscopy and IOP monitoring are required for RP patients, and detailed fundus examinations are warranted for young PACG patients.

In order to optimize the nutritional quality of infant supplementary food, purple rice, the raw material used in this paper, was fermented by Rhizopus oryzae and Lactobacillus plantarum in the way of mixed fermentation, and subsequently extruded before it was produced as an instant infant purple rice flour. Based on reducing sugar content, anthocyanin content, sensory evaluation and titratable acidity, the conditions of the purple rice flour mixed fermentation process were optimized. Results showed that, the optimum technological parameters of mixed fermentation of purple rice noodles were 8:1 g/mL inoculation proportion (Rhizopus oryzae:Lactobacillus plantarum), 0.8% inoculation dose, 1:0.8 g/mL solid-liquid ratio, 12 h fermentation time, and 31 ℃ fermentation temperature. Compared with the unfermented purple rice flour as a control, the starch digestibility in vitro of the fermented flour increased from 50.27% to 62.37%, the free phenol content increased from 204.46 mg GAE/100 g DW to 231.44 mg GAE/100 g DW, and phytic acid degraded 25.64%. After fermentation and extruded, the starch digestibility in vitro of the infant purple rice flour reached 84.39%, the free phenol content was 192.73 mg GAE/100 g DW, and the phytic acid degradation rate was 35.58%. The results indicated that fermentation significantly optimized the starch digestibility and phenolic composition of the purple rice flour, and reduced the content of anti-nutrition factor. In summary, the present study provides technical reference for the development of purple rice infant supplementary food with high nutritional value.

Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) employs passive beamforming to control the wireless propagation channel, which benefits the wireless communication capacity and the received energy efficiency of wireless power transfer (WPT) systems. Such beamforming schemes are classified as discrete and non-convex integer programming problems. In this paper, we propose a Monte-Carlo (MC) based random energy passive beamforming of RIS to achieve the maximum received power of electromagnetic (EM) WPT systems. Generally, the Gibbs sampling and re-sampling methods are employed to generate phase shift vector samples. And the sample with the maximum received power is considered the optimal solution. In order to adapt to the application scenarios, we develop two types of passive beamforming algorithms based on such MC sampling methods. The first passive beamforming uses an approximation of the integer programming as the initial sample, which is calculated based on the channel information. And the second one is a purely randomized algorithm with the only total received power feedback. The proposed methods present several advantages for RIS control, e.g., fast convergence, easy implementation, robustness to the channel noise, and limited feedback requirement, and they are applicable even if the channel information is unknown. According to the simulation results, our proposed methods outperform other approximation and genetic algorithms. With our methods, the WPT system even significantly improves the power efficiency in the nonline-of-sight (NLOS) environment.

To meet the requirement of radio frequency signal processing tasks among various frequency bands, here we have demonstrated a reconfigurable microwave photonic bandpass filter by flipping the optical notch spectrum of a cascaded microring resonator (MRR) filter pool chip through phase modulation. We experimentally characterize the cascaded MRR filter pool chip on the Si3N4 platform and evaluate the system performance of the established microwave photonic filter (MPF). In the demonstrated microwave photonic filter system, the center frequency can be tuned within 5.8--18.2 GHz and the bandwidth can be tuned within 2.1--3.5 GHz. In particular, the MPF system features a response with a shape factor of ∼2.2. With the advantages of reconfigurability and good shape factor, the demonstrated reconfigurable RF bandpass filter shows a potential application in future software-defined RF frontends.

Abstract Objective The effects of Otubain-2 (OTUB2) on the proliferation, invasion, and migration of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) were investigated by interfering with OTUB2 expression. Methods Bioinformatics analysis was used to analyze OTUB2 expression in esophageal carcinoma and interactions between OTUB2 and YAP1/TAZ. Paraffin-embedded ESCC tissues (n = 183) were selected for immunohistochemical staining to detect OTUB2, YAP1, TAZ, CTGF and their relationship with clinicopathological parameters, then the survival prognosis of ESCC patients was analyzed. Immunofluorescence, western blotting, and qRT-PCR were used to evaluate OTUB2 in ESCC cell lines. Cell lines with the highest expression of OTUB2 were transfected with lentivirus to knockdown OTUB2 levels. Changes in KYSE150 cell proliferation, migration, and invasion were measured using CCK-8, wound healing, and clone formation assays. The Transwell test and flow cytometry identified OTUB2 targets and explored roles and mechanisms involved in ESCC. Effects of OTUB2 on YAP1/TAZ signaling were also observed. Results Bioinformatics analysis revealed OTUB2 was highly expressed in esophageal cancer and was associated with YAP1/TAZ. Immunohistochemistry showed that OTUB2 expression was increased in ESCC samples compared to parcancerous tissue. YAP1 and TAZ were higher expression in ESCC tissues, mainly localized in the nucleus. Compared with controls, the proliferation, migration, and invasion ability of KYSE150 cells after OTUB2 knockdown were significantly reduced (P

ABSTRACT Glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchoring of proteins is a conserved posttranslational modification in eukaryotes. GPI-anchored proteins are widely distributed in fungal plant pathogens, but the specific roles of the GPI-anchored proteins in the pathogenicity of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, a devastating necrotrophic plant pathogen with a worldwide distribution, remain largely unknown. This research addresses SsGSR1, which encodes an S. sclerotiorum glycine- and serine-rich protein named SsGsr1 with an N-terminal secretory signal and a C-terminal GPI-anchor signal. SsGsr1 is located at the cell wall of hyphae, and deletion of SsGSR1 leads to abnormal cell wall architecture and impaired cell wall integrity of hyphae. The transcription levels of SsGSR1 were maximal in the initial stage of infection, and SsGSR1-deletion strains showed impaired virulence in multiple hosts, indicating that SsGSR1 is critical for the pathogenicity. Interestingly, SsGsr1 targeted the apoplast of host plants to induce cell death that relies on the glycine-rich 11-amino-acid repeats arranged in tandem. The homologs of SsGsr1 in Sclerotinia, Botrytis, and Monilinia species contain fewer repeat units and have lost their cell death activity. Moreover, allelic variants of SsGSR1 exist in field isolates of S. sclerotiorum from rapeseed, and one of the variants lacking one repeat unit results in a protein that exhibits loss of function relative to the cell death-inducing activity and the virulence of S. sclerotiorum. Taken together, our results demonstrate that a variation in tandem repeats provides the functional diversity of GPI-anchored cell wall protein that, in S. sclerotiorum and other necrotrophic pathogens, allows successful colonization of the host plants. IMPORTANCE Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is an economically important necrotrophic plant pathogen and mainly applies cell wall-degrading enzymes and oxalic acid to kill plant cells before colonization. In this research, we characterized a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored cell wall protein named SsGsr1, which is critical for the cell wall architecture and the pathogenicity of S. sclerotiorum. Additionally, SsGsr1 induces rapid cell death of host plants that is dependent on glycine-rich tandem repeats. Interestingly, the number of repeat units varies among homologs and alleles of SsGsr1, and such a variation creates alterations in the cell death-inducing activity and the role in pathogenicity. This work advances our understanding of the variation of tandem repeats in accelerating the evolution of a GPI-anchored cell wall protein associated with the pathogenicity of necrotrophic fungal pathogens and prepares the way toward a fuller understanding of the interaction between S. sclerotiorum and host plants.

Summary: Background: Serous borderline ovarian tumour (SBOT) is the most common type of BOT. Fertility sparing surgery (FSS) is an option for patients with SBOT, though it may increase the risk of recurrence. The clinical and molecular features of its recurrence are important and need to be investigated in detail. Methods: An internal cohort of 319 patients with SBOT was collected from Aug 1, 2009 to July 31, 2019 from the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University in China. An external cohort of 100 patients with SBOT was collected from Aug 1, 2009 to Nov 30, 2019 from the Shandong Provincial Hospital in China. The risk factors for the recurrence were identified by multivariate cox analysis. Several computational methods were tested to establish a prediction tool for recurrence. Whole genome sequencing, RNA-seq, metabolomics and lipidomics were used to understand the molecular characteristics of the recurrence of SBOT. Findings: Five factors were significantly correlated with SBOT recurrence in a Han population: micropapillary pattern, advanced stage, FSS, microinvasion, and lymph node invasion. A random forest-based online recurrence prediction tool was established and validated using an internal cohort and an independent external cohort for patients with SBOT. The multi-omics analysis on the original SBOT samples revealed that recurrence is related to metabolic regulation of immunological suppression. Interpretation: Our study identified several important clinical and molecular features of recurrent SBOT. The prediction tool we established could help physicians to estimate the prognosis of patients with SBOT. These findings will contribute to the development of personalised and targeted therapies to improve prognosis. Funding: JL was funded by MOST 2020YFA0803600, 2018YFA0801300, NSFC 32071138, and SKLGE-2118 to Jin Li; JY was funded by the Initial Project for Young and Middle-aged Medical Talents of Wuhan City, Hubei Province ([2014] 41); HH was funded by MOST 2019YFA0801900 and 2020YF1402600 to He Huang; JS was funded by NSFC 22,104,080; CG was funded by Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai 20ZR1408800 and NSFC82171633; BL was funded by Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai 19ZR1406800.

Heredity and variation are inherent characteristics of species and are mainly reflected in the stability and variation of the genome; the former is relative, while the latter is continuous. However, whether life has both stable genomes and extremely diverse genomes at the same time is unknown. In this study, we isolated Sclerotinia sclerotiorum strains from sclerotium samples in Quincy, Washington State, USA, and found that four single-sclerotium-isolation strains (PB4, PB273, PB615, and PB623) had almost identical genomes to the reference strain 1980 isolated in the west of Nebraska 40 years ago. The genome of strain PB4 sequenced by the next-generation sequencing (NGS) and Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) sequencing carried only 135 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 18 structural variations (SVs) compared with the genome of strain 1980 and 48 SNPs were distributed on Contig_20. Based on data generated by NGS, three other strains, PB273, PB615, and PB623, had 256, 275, and 262 SNPs, respectively, against strain 1980, which were much less than in strain PB4 (532 SNPs) and none of them occurred on Contig_20, suggesting much closer genomes to strain 1980 than to strain PB4. All other strains from America and China are rich in SNPs with a range of 34,391–77,618 when compared with strain 1980. We also found that there were 39–79 SNPs between strain PB4 and its sexual offspring, 53.1% of which also occurred on Contig_20. Our discoveries show that there are two types of genomes in S. sclerotiorum, one is very stable and the other tends to change constantly. Investigating the mechanism of such genome stability will enhance our understanding of heredity and variation.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) have been encouraged to penetrate deeper in the vehicle market for the green transportation system. One of the key issues to promote EV industry is to deploy Battery Swapping Stations (BSSs) that can satisfy the electricity demand of EV users. Since large scale data of vehicles such as GPS locations and electricity requests can be collected, the data-driven approach can be a cost-effective and useful method to select the locations of BSSs. In this paper, we propose a data-driven framework to solve the BSS location selection problem based on a large scale of GPS data of taxies in metropolitan area. The proposed solution consists of three main steps: Hidden Markov Model (HMM) based map matching and trajectory extraction, electricity consumption rate model based battery swapping demand estimation and clustering strategy based BSS location determination. Compared to the state-of-art deployment baseline, our proposed scheme is more easily to implement in reality and the mean distance error between the location that battery swapping demand is generated and the nearest BSS is reduced by 52.5% and 62.7%, which will definitely reduce the range anxiety of EV users and help improve the will of using EVs.

Objective This study was performed to assess the feasibility of conservative treatment for stage II or III serous borderline ovarian tumors (BOTs). Methods Twenty-one patients were treated conservatively for advanced serous BOTs from 2006 to 2017. Two patients were lost to follow-up. The patients’ clinical status, surgical results, fertility results, and oncological outcomes were collected. Results The patients’ median age at surgery was 28 years (range, 22–37 years). The median follow-up interval was 74 months (range, 16–214 months). Among the 19 patients who were followed up, 8 had stage II tumors and 11 had stage III tumors. Sixteen patients had noninvasive peritoneal implants. Two patients developed tumor metastasis to the fallopian tubes and one developed metastasis to the pelvic lymph nodes and omentum. The total recurrence rate was 26.3%. Seventeen (89.5%) patients were nulliparous. Four of 10 patients who wished to preserve their fertility obtained natural pregnancy. No patients died of their disease. Conclusions This study supports the efficacy of conservative treatment for advanced BOTs with respect to its favorable fertility result. The overall prognosis is not changed by conservative treatment.

Changing lanes while driving requires coordinating the lateral and longitudinal controls of a vehicle, considering its running state and the surrounding environment. Although the existing rule-based automated lane-changing method is simple, it is unsuitable for unpredictable scenarios encountered in practice. Therefore, using a deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) algorithm, we propose an end-to-end method for automated lane changing based on lidar data. The distance state information of the lane boundary and the surrounding vehicles obtained by the agent in a simulation environment is denoted as the state space for an automated lane-change problem based on reinforcement learning. The steering wheel angle and longitudinal acceleration are used as the action space, and both the state and action spaces are continuous. In terms of the reward function, avoiding collision and setting different expected lane-changing distances that represent different driving styles are considered for security, and the angular velocity of the steering wheel and jerk are considered for comfort. The minimum speed limit for lane changing and the control of the agent for a quick lane change are considered for efficiency. For a one-way two-lane road, a visual simulation environment scene is constructed using Pyglet. By comparing the lane-changing process tracks of two driving styles in a simplified traffic flow scene, we study the influence of driving style on the lane-changing process and lane-changing time. Through the training and adjustment of the combined lateral and longitudinal control of autonomous vehicles with different driving styles in complex traffic scenes, the vehicles could complete a series of driving tasks while considering driving-style differences. The experimental results show that autonomous vehicles can reflect the differences in the driving styles at the time of lane change at the same speed. Under the combined lateral and longitudinal control, the autonomous vehicles exhibit good robustness to different speeds and traffic density in different road sections. Thus, autonomous vehicles trained using the proposed method can learn an automated lane-changing policy while considering safety, comfort, and efficiency.

TiO2/Ag bilayer films sputtered onto a 2D polystyrene (PS) bead array in a magnetron sputtering system were found to form a nanocap-shaped nanostructure composed of a TiO2-Ag composite on each PS bead, in which the Ag nanoparticles were trapped partially or fully in the TiO2 matrix, depending on the TiO2 thickness. X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) results showed the opposite shifts of binding energy for Ti 2p and Ag 3d, indicating the transfer of electrons from metallic Ag to TiO2 owing to the Ag-O-TiO2 composite formation. UV-Vis absorption spectra showed the blue shifts of the surface plasma resonance peaks, and the maximum absorption peak intensity was obtained for TiO2 at 30 nm. The surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) peak intensity first increased and then decreased when the TiO2 thickness changed. The observations of SERS, XPS, and UV-Vis absorption spectra were explained by the dependency of the charge-transfer process on TiO2 thickness, which was ascribed to the changing dielectric properties in the metal/semiconductor system.

In this work, we report the enhanced catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol driven by Fe3O4-Au magnetic nanocomposite interface engineering. A facile solvothermal method is employed for Fe3O4 hollow microspheres and Fe3O4-Au magnetic nanocomposite synthesis via a seed deposition process. Complementary structural, chemical composition and valence state studies validate that the as-obtained samples are formed in a pure magnetite phase. A series of characterizations including conventional scanning/transmission electron microscopy (SEM/TEM), Mössbauer spectroscopy, magnetic testing and elemental mapping is conducted to unveil the structural and physical characteristics of the developed Fe3O4-Au magnetic nanocomposites. By adjusting the quantity of Au seeds coating on the polyethyleneimine-dithiocarbamates (PEI-DTC)-modified surfaces of Fe3O4 hollow microspheres, the correlation between the amount of Au seeds and the catalytic ability of Fe3O4-Au magnetic nanocomposites for 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) is investigated systematically. Importantly, bearing remarkable recyclable features, our developed Fe3O4-Au magnetic nanocomposites can be readily separated with a magnet. Such Fe3O4-Au magnetic nanocomposites shine the light on highly efficient catalysts for 4-NP reduction at the mass production level.