Search

A series of Sr3LiSbO6: Mn4+ and Sr3LiSbO6: Mn4+, Sm3+ red phosphors were synthesized using the high-temperature solid-state method. The phase, luminescence properties, and thermal stability of these phosphors were thoroughly investigated. The Sr3LiSbO6: Mn4+ phosphors exhibited a strong far-red emission band ranging from 650 to 750 nm centered at 693 nm, which is attributed to the 4E2g → 4A2g transition of Mn4+. To further broaden the emission spectra of the Sr3LiSbO6: Mn4+ phosphors, doping with Sm3+ ions as a co-activator was performed. The Sr3LiSbO6: Mn4+, Sm3+ phosphors exhibited two emission bands located at 601 nm and 693 nm (red and far red), which are well-matched with the absorption bands of phytochromes Red (PR) and phytochromes Far-Red (PFR). Additionally, the emission intensity and thermal stability of the phosphors were improved. Sr3LiSbO6: Mn4+ emits far-red light in the range of 650 nm-750 nm, while Sr3LiSbO6: Mn4+, Sm3+ emits red light in the range of 500 nm-750 nm. In the context of Sr3LiSbO6: Mn4+, Sm3+, we designed a LED lamp for plant growth and carried out experiments on plant seed germination. The findings from these experiments demonstrate the positive impact of red LEDs on plant growth and development. Additionally, our results suggest the potential application of red phosphors with Sr3LiSbO6: Mn4+, Sm3+ in plant growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic characteristics of different airflows on micro-scales have been explored from many perspectives since the late 1970s. On the one hand, most analytical tools and research subjects in previous contributions vary significantly: some only focus on fluctuant velocity features, while others pay attention to directional features. On the other hand, despite the wide variety of existing analytical methods, they are not systematically classified and organized. This paper aims to establish a system including state-of-the-art tools for airflow analysis and to further design a holistic toolkit named Airflow Analytical Toolkit (AAT). The AAT contains two tools, responsible for analyzing the velocity and direction characteristics of airflows, each of which is integrated with multiple analytical modules. To assess the performance of the developed toolkit, we further take typical natural and mechanical winds as cases to show its excellent analytical capability. With the help of this toolkit, the great differences in velocity and directional characteristics among different airflows are identified. The comparative results reveal that not only is the velocity of natural wind more fluctuating than that of mechanical wind, but its incoming flow direction is also more varying. The AAT, serving as a powerful and user-friendly instrument, will hopefully offer great convenience in data analysis and guidance for a deeper understanding of the dynamic characteristics of airflows, and further remedy the gap in airflow analytical tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile telemedicine systems based on the next-generation communication will significantly enhance deep fusion of network automation and federated learning (FL), but data privacy is a paramount issue in sectors like healthcare. This work hence considers FL augments 5G-and-beyond networks by training deep learning (DL) models without the need to exchange raw data. The substantial communication loads imposed on by extensive parameters involved in DL models are managed through adaptive scheduling mechanisms effectively. To address the opaque nature of DL models and to improve the interpretability of FL models, we introduce a convolutional fuzzy rough neural network specifically designed for medical image processing. We also develop a multiobjective memetic evolutionary algorithm to streamline and optimize the neural network architectures. Our comprehensive FL framework integrates smart scheduling, interpretable fuzzy rough logic, and neuroevolution. This framework is shown to improve communication efficiency, increase interpretability of diagnosis with protected privacy, and generate low-complexity neural architectures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Basidiomycota is one of the major phyla in the fungal tree of life. The outline of Basidiomycota provides essential taxonomic information for researchers and workers in mycology. In this study, we present a time-framed phylogenomic tree with 487 species of Basidiomycota from 127 families, 47 orders, 14 classes and four subphyla; we update the outline of Basidiomycota based on the phylogenomic relationships and the taxonomic studies since 2019; and we provide notes for each order and discuss the history, defining characteristics, evolution, justification of orders, problems, significance, and plates. Our phylogenomic analysis suggests that the subphyla diverged in a time range of 443–490 Myr (million years), classes in a time range of 312–412 Myr, and orders in a time range of 102–361 Myr. Families diverged in a time range of 50–289 Myr, 76–224 Myr, and 62–156 Myr in Agaricomycotina, Pucciniomycotina, and Ustilaginomycotina, respectively. Based on the phylogenomic relationships and divergence times, we propose a new suborder Mycenineae in Agaricales to accommodate Mycenaceae. In the current outline of Basidiomycota, there are four subphyla, 20 classes, 77 orders, 297 families, and 2134 genera accepted. When building a robust taxonomy of Basidiomycota in the genomic era, the generation of molecular phylogenetic data has become relatively easier. Finding phenotypical characters, especially those that can be applied for identification and classification, however, has become increasingly challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We conducted a monocentric retrospective study using the latest definitions to compare the demographic, clinical, and biological characteristics of influenza-associated pulmonary aspergillosis (IAPA) and COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis (CAPA). Methods: The study retrospectively enrolled 180 patients, including 70 influenza/IPA patients (with positive influenza A/B and Aspergillus) and 110 COVID-19/IPA patients (with positive SARS-CoV-2 and Aspergillus). Among them, 42 (60%) and 30 (27.3%) patients fulfilled the definitions of IAPA and CAPA, respectively. Results: The CAPA patients had significantly higher in-hospital mortality (13/31, 41.9%) than IAPA patients (8/42, 19%) with a P-value of 0.033. Kaplan–Meier survival curve also showed significantly higher 30-day mortality for CAPA patients (P = 0.025). Additionally, the CAPA patients were older, though insignificantly, than IAPA patients (70 (60–80) vs. 62 (52–72), P = 0.075). A lower percentage of chronic pulmonary disease (12.9 vs. 40.5%, P = 0.01) but higher corticosteroids use 7 days before and after ICU admission (22.6% vs. 0%, P = 0.002) were found in CAPA patients. Notably, there were no significant differences in the percentage of ICU admission or ICU mortality between the two groups. In addition, the time from observation to Aspergillus diagnosis was significantly longer in CAPA patients than in IAPA patients (7 (2–13) vs. 0 (0–4.5), P = 0.048). Conclusion: Patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 and Aspergillus during the concentrated outbreak of COVID-19 in China had generally higher in-hospital mortality but a lower percentage of chronic pulmonary disease than those infected with influenza and Aspergillus. For influenza-infected patients who require hospitalization, close attention should be paid to the risk of invasive aspergillosis upfront. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerating the discovery of advanced materials is crucial for modern industries, aerospace, biomedicine, and energy. Nevertheless, only a small fraction of materials are currently under experimental investigation within the vast chemical space. Materials scientists are plagued by time-consuming and labor-intensive experiments due to lacking efficient material discovery strategies. Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a promising instrument to bridge this gap. Although numerous AI toolkits or platforms for material science have been developed, they suffer from many shortcomings. These include primarily focusing on material property prediction and being unfriendly to material scientists lacking programming experience, especially performing poorly with limited data. Here, we developed MLMD, an AI platform for materials design. It is capable of effectively discovering novel materials with high-potential advanced properties end-to-end, utilizing model inference, surrogate optimization, and even working in situations of data scarcity based on active learning. Additionally, it integrates data analysis, descriptor refactoring, hyper-parameters auto-optimizing, and properties prediction. It also provides a web-based friendly interface without need programming and can be used anywhere, anytime. MLMD is dedicated to the integration of material experiment/computation and design, and accelerate the new material discovery with desired one or multiple properties. It demonstrates the strong power to direct experiments on various materials (perovskites, steel, high-entropy alloy, etc). MLMD will be an essential tool for materials scientists and facilitate the advancement of materials informatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) is a common complication after surgical anesthesia, mainly manifested as memory impairment, decreased attention, and cognitive function with mood and personality changes. Activated microglia (M1-type microglia) have been demonstrated to release inflammatory substances (IL-1β, TNF-α, etc.) that cause neuronal degeneration and death by activating the NF-κB signaling pathway and upregulating Caspase-3 and Bax. However, the pathogenesis of POCD is still not fully understood and needs further research. In the present study, we investigated the effect of M1-type microglia-derived extracellular vesicles (EVsM1−Microglia) in the pathological process of POCD. The levels of NF-κB phosphorylation and IL-1β protein expression in hippocampal neurons were significantly increased in the Surgery group, while PSD95 and MAP2 were significantly decreased. Surgery induced microglia activation, synapse-associated protein decrease, and neuronal degeneration in hippocampus. And the amount of spine and mushroom spine significantly decreased in surgical mice, which was reverted in the presence of IL-1R1 siRNA. In addition, EVsM1−Microglia promoted synaptic loss and neuron degeneration independent of surgery and microglia activation. Furthermore, EVsM1−Microglia promoted memory defects in surgical mice. We demonstrated that EVsM1−Microglia with high expression of IL-1R1 promote POCD development by regulating neuronal inflammation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Rare Metals is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Ischemia–reperfusion injury (IRI) leads to acute kidney injury (AKI), which poses serious threat to public health and society. Many clinical studies were conducted to evaluate several biomarkers in AKI, among which Cofilin-1 remains to be a very promising one. To explore the potential mechanism of Cofilin-1 in AKI, we established an oxygen-glucose-deprivation (OGD)-induced AKI cell model. The overexpression and knock-down Cofilin-1 were used for gain- and loss-of-function. Pharmacological inhibitors were employed to study the related pathways. The results showed that Cofilin-1 was significantly upregulated in AKI cells, knocking down Cofilin-1 protected cells against the effect of OGD treatment and alleviated AKI phenotypes. Overexpression of Cofilin-1 might induce AKI by triggering ferroptosis, inhibiting NF-κB signaling or ER stress pathway attenuated Cofilin-1 induced lipid peroxidation and AKI. We also validated our findings in IRI-induced AKI mouse models in vivo. Our work elucidated that Cofilin-1 might induce AKI via promoting ER stress-mediated ferroptosis and argues it as a biomarker for early diagnosis of AKI. We also expect to offer novel insights on future therapeutic interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attainment of both high strength and high ductility is always the goal for structure materials, because the two properties generally are mutually competing, called strength-ductility trade-off. Nowadays, the data-driven paradigm combined with expert domain knowledge provides the state-of-the-art methodology to design and discovery for structure materials with high strength and high ductility. To enhance both strength and ductility, a joint feature is proposed here to be the product of strength multiplying ductility. The strategy of "divide and conquer" is developed to solve the contradictory problem, that material experimental data of mechanical behaviors are, in general, small in size and big in noise, while the design space is huge, by a newly developed data preprocessing algorithm, named the Tree-Classifier for Gaussian Process Regression (TCGPR). The TCGPR effectively divides an original dataset in a huge design space into three appropriate sub-domains and then three Machine Learning (ML) models conquer the three sub-domains, achieving significantly improved prediction accuracy and generality. After that the Bayesian sampling is applied to design next experiments by balancing exploitation and exploration. Finally, the experiment results confirm the ML predictions, exhibiting novel lead-free solder alloys with high strength high ductility. Various material characterizations were also conducted to explore the mechanism of high strength and high ductility of the alloys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heating and cooling in buildings accounts for over 20% of total energy consumption in China. Therefore, it is essential to understand the thermal requirements of building occupants when establishing building energy codes that would save energy while maintaining occupants' thermal comfort. This paper introduces the Chinese thermal comfort dataset, established by seven participating institutions under the leadership of Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology. The dataset comprises 41,977 sets of data collected from 49 cities across five climate zones in China over the past two decades. The raw data underwent careful quality control procedure, including systematic organization, to ensure its reliability. Each dataset contains environmental parameters, occupants' subjective responses, building information, and personal information. The dataset has been instrumental in the development of indoor thermal environment evaluation standards and energy codes in China. It can also have broader applications, such as contributing to the international thermal comfort dataset, modeling thermal comfort and adaptive behaviors, investigating regional differences in indoor thermal conditions, and examining occupants' thermal comfort responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a pull assembly supply chain consisting of an assembler and its multiple upstream component suppliers/subsidiaries, in which the former buys complementary components from these upstream component suppliers, assembles them into a final product, and sells the final product competing against another assembly firm (rival). The assembler decides the retail price competing with its rival and with the upstream component suppliers can freely decide whether or not to cooperate with another, which can eliminate horizontal and vertical inefficiencies within supply chain members. Using a stylized duopoly model, we study the optimal retail prices of the assembler and the optimal wholesale prices of these component suppliers under different alliance structures and analyze the coalition stability and profit allocation scheme via a proper transfer price for the assembly supply chain. We show that when the upstream suppliers are not allowed to form coalitions, the increase in the number of the upstream component suppliers trading with their assembler are a good thing for the two assemblers. In addition, increasing the intensity of price competition in the market induces the two assemblers to decline the retail prices and the upstream subsidiaries to cut down the wholesale prices; however, all the parties' profits are not necessarily monotonic in this intensity. In environments in which the upstream subsidiaries can freely form coalitions, the above two results remain unchanged. We also find that the cooperation between the assembler and its upstream subsidiaries can always bring more profit and eliminate inefficiencies for the assembly supply chain. Importantly, we show that the constructed cooperative game has a non-empty core and can design a profit allocation scheme for the grand coalition based on the Shapley value. We identify the transfer prices of the assembler to the upstream subsidiaries to realize the profit allocation scheme that is fair and show that increasing the intensity of price competition can reduce the proposed Shapley values of the upstream suppliers and transfer prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An improved prediction algorithm of the hidden semi-markov model (HSMM) is proposed to predict the remaining useful life (RUL) of aluminum reduction cells (ARC). First, the degradation process of the ARC is analyzed, and the parameters that could characterize its degradation process are determined. Second, to facilitate the prediction of HSMM, exponential distribution, in which form the dwell time in the traditional HSMM is distributed, is replaced with the Erlang distribution based on the queuing theory. Third, an improved forward recursion algorithm that introduced dwell time has not only simplified the calculation of useful life predictions but also further facilitated HSMM in the prediction of the RUL. Finally, verification is carried out using the actual data of an aluminum electrolytic industry, and the results showed that the improved HSMM performed better in the prediction and is more accurate than the existing prediction method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The microstructure and mechanical properties of the TB8 titanium alloy were controlled by a secondary processing technology of solution-equal channel angular pressing (ECAP)-aging treatment, which combined strong plastic deformation with heat treatment. The effects of ECAP and heat treatment on the microstructure and properties of the titanium alloy were systematically investigated by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), hardness tests, and tensile property analysis. The results indicate that the metallographic structure without ECAP treatment is mainly equiaxed β-phase, while that after ECAP treatment is equiaxed β-phase with grain fragmentation, slip bands, and new small grains. After 850 °C solution-ECAP-520 °C aging treatment, the titanium alloy has the smallest grain size, while the directionality of tissue growth along the ECAP direction is the most apparent. Under the same solution-aging conditions, the hardness of the titanium alloy increases from 431.5 to 531.2 HV compared to that without ECAP treatment, i e, increases by 23.11%, and the tensile strength increases from 1 045.30 to 1 176.25 MPa, i e, increases by 12.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, biodegradable porous Zn-based scaffolds employed as bone tissue engineering scaffolds to treat large bone defects have attracted attention of many researchers. Although porous Zn-based scaffolds have acceptable biocompatibility in vivo and more reasonable degradation rates than degradable Mg-based and Fe-based scaffolds, there is still a certain distance between the porous Zn-based scaffolds that have been developed and the ideal bone tissue engineering scaffolds. In this paper, the methods that had been used to prepare porous Zn-based scaffolds were summarized, and the advantages and disadvantages of each method were analysed. The mechanical properties of porous Zn-based scaffolds were reviewed, and the compressive, tensile, and fatigue behaviors of the scaffolds were also discussed. The degradation properties of porous Zn-based scaffolds in vitro were summarized, and the degradation rules were found. Comparing the degradation properties of bulk Zn-based materials and porous Zn-based scaffolds, the degradations of porous Zn-based scaffolds were more deeply understood. In addition, the degradation behaviors of porous Zn-based scaffolds in vivo were also reviewed. The antibacterial properties of porous Zn-based scaffolds were summarized. Reviewing the experimental results of the biocompatibility of porous Zn-based scaffolds in vitro and in vivo, the main factor affecting the biocompatibility was identified, and the reasons for the large gap between the biocompatibility results in vivo and in vitro were discussed. At last, the problems faced by the current porous Zn-based scaffolds used as bone tissue engineering scaffolds were proposed, and the potential solutions to these problems were also suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of wireless networks and multimedia computing generates a large number of texts, which makes text classification become an important task. However, due to the complex semantic information of the text, traditional text classification that aims to predict the most possible label among all labels may not predict the correct label for the text. Thus, we hope the classifier could "recommend" k labels for each text, as long as the ground truth label is included, we call this top-k text classification. Recent work of top-k classification focuses on constructing a top-k classification loss function without considering the position of the ground truth label. In this paper, we propose T k TC : a framework for top-k text classification, where a novel loss function that considers the position of ground truth label and the number of prediction simultaneously. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments on different datasets, and the experimental results show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art baselines in most cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjective value is foundational to decision-making processes and people's sense of happiness. To better represent decision-makers' psychological characteristics when subjective value is formed, we establish an attention-and-reference-dependent subjective value model by simultaneously considering the absolute subjective value, relative subjective value, and attention distribution. Our model provides researchers with a theoretical tool for explaining, predicting, and adjusting decision behaviors. Additionally, to maximize the total experienced subjective value brought by multiple events, we compare hedonic editing strategies and demonstrate that the optimal hedonic editing strategy is sensitive to the stimulus intensity. This stimulus-intensity-sensitive strategy is contrary to the hedonic editing strategy inferred from the prospect theory value function when stimulus intensity is relatively small. The results of this study enrich transaction utility theory and expectation-disconfirmation theory and can guide decision-makers in enhancing happiness by rationally dealing with gains and losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Process recommendation is an essential technique to help process modeler effectively and efficiently model a manufacturing process from scratch. However, the current process recommendation methods suffer from the following problems: (1) To extract all the execution paths from a manufacturing process, the behavior-based methods may occur a state space explosion problem when unfolding a process with multiple parallel patterns, resulting in low efficiency. (2) Current structure-based methods are inefficient since too many expensive computations of the graph edit distance are involved. (3) Most of the existing methods manually design their process similarity metrics with several features, which can only be applied in specific situations. (4) Few works provide visualization tools for process modeling assistance. To resolve these problems, this paper proposes a context-aware recommendation system for improving manufacturing process modeling. First, the independent paths and P,Q-grams are efficiently extracted from the manufacturing processes in the repository to represent their typical behavior and structure. Then, the process recommendation problem is transformed into the word prediction problem in natural language processing, where the serialization of an independent path/P,Q-gram and a node in it are separately regarded as a sentence and a word. The Word2vec model is introduced to automatically learn the relationships among nodes from independent paths and P,Q-grams and generate the vectors with hundreds of context-aware features for nodes in the repository. After that, the top-k similar nodes are recommended for the target node in the process fragment under construction based on the k-nearest neighbors algorithm. Finally, a visualization tool is provided for process modelers to efficiently design a new manufacturing process. Experimental evaluations show that the proposed method can perform similar or even better than the baseline methods in terms of recommending quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thermal environment is an essential factor that affects sleep quality. In many circumstances, the bed microenvironment is more important than the ambient environment because of the large covered area of the human body and the close contact between the bedding system and the human body. The main objective of this research is to establish an effective method to determine bedding system insulation. A thermal manikin was used in the measurement of bedding system insulation. Three different types of quilts, which were filled with cotton, polyester and duvet respectively, were chosen to be tested. In total ten different quilts with different materials and weights were involved in the test. Four regular arrangements of covers were chosen with coverage rates of 94.1%, 85.9%, 70.6%, and 54.4% to test. A total of 64 bedding systems were tested to build an effective method to determine the bedding system insulation. On the basis of test data, the change of bedding system insulation with coverage was found to be nonlinear. Exponential fitting was applied to establish an insulation evaluation method for bedding system insulation. In addition, the effects of quilt cover and sleepwear on bedding system insulation were discussed and thermal insulation increment caused by quilt cover and sleepwear were estimated. The relationships between neutral indoor temperature and weight per unit area of the quilt for different coverage rates have been quantified based on existing subject experiments. This research provides an effective method to determine bedding system insulation, which can be widely used in thermal comfort research and HVAC system design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children are the future of the world, but their health and future are facing great uncertainty because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In order to improve the management of children with COVID-19, an international, multidisciplinary panel of experts developed a rapid advice guideline at the beginning of the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020. After publishing the first version of the rapid advice guideline, the panel has updated the guideline by including additional stakeholders in the panel and a comprehensive search of the latest evidence. All recommendations were supported by systematic reviews and graded using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system. Expert judgment was used to develop good practice statements supplementary to the graded evidence-based recommendations. The updated guideline comprises nine recommendations and one good practice statement. It focuses on the key recommendations pertinent to the following issues: identification of prognostic factors for death or pediatric intensive care unit admission; the use of remdesivir, systemic glucocorticoids and antipyretics, intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, and high-flow oxygen by nasal cannula or non-invasive ventilation for acute hypoxemic respiratory failure; breastfeeding; vaccination; and the management of pediatric mental health. Conclusion: This updated evidence-based guideline intends to provide clinicians, pediatricians, patients and other stakeholders with evidence-based recommendations for the prevention and management of COVID-19 in children and adolescents. Larger studies with longer follow-up to determine the effectiveness and safety of systemic glucocorticoids, IVIG, noninvasive ventilation, and the vaccines for COVID-19 in children and adolescents are encouraged. What is Known: • Several clinical practice guidelines for children with COVID-19 have been developed, but only few of them have been recently updated. • We developed an evidence-based guideline at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak and have now updated it based on the results of a comprehensive search of the latest evidence. What is New: • The updated guideline provides key recommendations pertinent to the following issues: identification of prognostic factors for death or pediatric intensive care unit admission; the use of remdesivir, systemic glucocorticoids and antipyretics, intravenous immunoglobulin for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, and high-flow oxygen by nasal cannula or non-invasive ventilation for acute hypoxemic respiratory failure; breastfeeding; vaccination; and the management of pediatric mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The methyltransferase like 3 (METTL3) has been generally recognized as a nuclear protein bearing oncogenic properties. We find predominantly cytoplasmic METTL3 expression inversely correlates with node metastasis in human cancers. It remains unclear if nuclear METTL3 is functionally distinct from cytosolic METTL3 in driving tumorigenesis and, if any, how tumor cells sense oncogenic insults to coordinate METTL3 functions within these intracellular compartments. Here, we report an acetylation-dependent regulation of METTL3 localization that impacts on metastatic dissemination. We identify an IL-6-dependent positive feedback axis to facilitate nuclear METTL3 functions, eliciting breast cancer metastasis. IL-6, whose mRNA transcript is subjected to METTL3-mediated m6A modification, promotes METTL3 deacetylation and nuclear translocation, thereby inducing global m6A abundance. This deacetylation-mediated nuclear shift of METTL3 can be counterbalanced by SIRT1 inhibition, a process that is further enforced by aspirin treatment, leading to ablated lung metastasis via impaired m6A methylation. Intriguingly, acetylation-mimetic METTL3 mutant reconstitution results in enhanced translation and compromised metastatic potential. Our study identifies an acetylation-dependent regulatory mechanism determining the subcellular localization of METTL3, which may provide mechanistic clues for developing therapeutic strategies to combat breast cancer metastasis. METTL3 catalyzes mRNA m6A deposition. The authors identify an acetylation-mediated regulation of METTL3 subcellular localization and compartment-specific functions, a process that is fine-tuned by anti-inflammatory and pro-inflammatory signals, which ultimately determine breast cancer metastasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In mobile communications, plenty of textual messages need to be transmitted and processed rapidly. However, messages usually contain noise, which will affect the performance of related applications. Thus, we investigate grammatical error correction (GEC) to correct errors in messages. Unlike recent works, we focus on improving the efficiency of GEC because low time delay is significant in mobile communications. We propose a novel multi-task learning approach to GEC by detecting errors first and then making corrections. Two classifiers are used to serially detect sentence-level and token-level errors, so the correct content can be free from correction operations. We adapt a non-autoregressive decoder to parallelly generate corrected tokens, making the correction stage efficient. Experiments show that our approach is ten times faster than the traditional approach and can achieve a comparable GEC performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the efficiency of activated carbon (AC) synthesized from the shrimp shell plus cellulose (SS@C) was optimized toward Bisphenol A (BPA) adsorption. Low-cost, renewable, and non-toxic shrimp shells mixed with cellulose were carbonized, followed by activation via CO2 and NaHCO3 to produce SS@C-AC. The results revealed that SS@C-AC samples were a porous composite with mesoporous structures comprising a relatively high specific surface area (935.20 m2/g) with a mean pore size of around 3.8 nm and mesoporous volume of 1.83E−02 cm3/g. The influences of initial concentrations, pH values, and adsorption on BPA were investigated systematically. Isotherm model and kinetics study of the adsorption of BPA on SS@C-AC exhibited that the obtained data were in agreement with the Langmuir adsorption isotherm model while there is no difference between PFO and PSO kinetic results for BPA concentrations in the range 25–100 mg/L. The impregnation ratio of 1.5 NaHCO3 and an activation time of 90 min at 800°C were the optimum conditions under which BPA removal of 81.78% was obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computational time and solution precision are two major concerns in evolutionary computation (EC). Although high-performance computing techniques have been applied to reduce the computational time of meta-heuristic algorithms, it does not mean that they can assist meta-heuristic algorithms in finding a high-quality solution. Moreover, most of meta-heuristic algorithms may belong to the "depth-first" search method, thus achieving a tradeoff between the broad search and the deep search is a crucial objective in the EC. To alleviate the above problems, a parallel zoning search (PZS) strategy is proposed in the current study. In the PZS, the entire search space is divided into many small search spaces for improving the broad search capability of algorithms and reducing the problem complexity. Subsequently, selected meta-heuristic algorithms considered as deep search algorithms are employed to find a satisfactory solution in each search region. The effectiveness of the PZS integrated into six differential evolution (DE) variants is demonstrated on two commonly used test suites, i.e., IEEE CEC2014 and BBOB2012. Results suggest that the PZS is a highly competitive approach to solve different types of optimization problems, especially on complex optimization problems. Finally, the PZS incorporated into six DE variants is used to estimate parameters of a heavy oil thermal cracking model. Results indicate that the PZS is an effective and efficient tool to help selected algorithms solve actual industrial optimization problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impacts of vegetation restoration on the soil erosion have been widely elucidated in the semi-arid regions. However, the magnitude of soil erosion on abandoned sloping farmland still remained unclear and their responses to vegetation succession were rarely addressed. The main objective of this study is to determine the magnitude of soil erosion along vegetation succession and explore the impact of vegetation succession on soil erosion from abandoned sloping farmland. Field observations were employed to monitor the rainfall, runoff, and soil erosion of seven sloping farmland plots with different abandoned ages and bare land from 2015 to 2019. The results indicated that the annual runoff depth and soil erosion modulus of vegetation types were in the range of 0.46 to 5.49 mm·a−1 and 1.3 to 24.5 t·km−2·a−1, respectively. The vegetation effectively reduced the annual surface runoff and soil erosion with reduction of 73.8% to 97.8% and 98.0% to 99.9% as opposed to bare land. However, there were no significant differences in runoff and soil erosion for different vegetation types along succession. The largest event of vegetation types contributed to 38.7%–44.1% of the annual runoff and 42.5%–66.3% of the annual soil erosion, respectively. Vegetation restoration considerably alleviated the contribution of largest erosive event to annual soil erosion. The relationships between soil erosion, runoff and rainfall factors could be fitted well by linear functions, and the performances of regression models in predicting runoff were more satisfactory compared to predicting soil erosion. The Artemisia gmelinii (Agm) + Stipa bungeana (Sb) optimized the trade-off between sediment reduction and runoff maintenance, which should be selected as the suitable vegetation types to achieve the sustainability of socio-ecological systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Central South University is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Few studies have described the key features and prognostic roles of lung microbiota in patients with severe community-acquired pneumonia (SCAP). We prospectively enrolled consecutive SCAP patients admitted to ICU. Bronchoscopy was performed at bedside within 48 h of ICU admission, and 16S rRNA gene sequencing was applied to the collected bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. The primary outcome was clinical improvements defined as a decrease of 2 categories and above on a 7-category ordinal scale within 14 days following bronchoscopy. Sixty-seven patients were included. Multivariable permutational multivariate analysis of variance found that positive bacteria lab test results had the strongest independent association with lung microbiota (R2 = 0.033; P = 0.018), followed by acute kidney injury (AKI; R2 = 0.032; P = 0.011) and plasma MIP-1β level (R2 = 0.027; P = 0.044). Random forest identified that the families Prevotellaceae, Moraxellaceae, and Staphylococcaceae were the biomarkers related to the positive bacteria lab test results. Multivariable Cox regression showed that the increase in α-diversity and the abundance of the families Prevotellaceae and Actinomycetaceae were associated with clinical improvements. The positive bacteria lab test results, AKI, and plasma MIP-1β level were associated with patients' lung microbiota composition on ICU admission. The families Prevotellaceae and Actinomycetaceae on admission predicted clinical improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic load in thick coal seam often results in roadway cracking and large deformation. Grouting support is an effective measure to reinforce the broken surrounding rock. This study presents a case of repairing shaft inset with pretensioned grouting support. The mine shock intensity of Yili No. 1 Coal Mine did not reach the level of percussive ground pressure, but such impact occurred several times after excavation, resulting in large deformation of roadway. After mining tremors, the concrete sprayed on the shaft inset cracked. In this paper, the repair technology of fractured roadway is explored. Firstly, the characteristics of impact failure are analyzed based on site monitoring data. Regional factors, roadway layout, and impact disturbance are the main causes of surrounding rock failure. In order to obtain the yield range of surrounding rock, dynamic analysis is carried out by Flac3D. Under dynamic load, the stress of surrounding rock near the surface of inset soon strides the compressive strength, reaching tensile yield state. And a wider range of shear yield is generated in the inner zone of surrounding rock. Corresponding grouting restoration scheme is designed according to the stress state. The shaft inset is reinforced with pretensioned anchor grouting support and the effect is tested by borehole observation. The results show that the pretensioned anchor grouting support has application value in the repair and reinforcement of roadway with impact damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the metastable β titanium alloy TB8 (Ti-12.76Mo-2.13Nb-2.73Al-0.16Si) was used as the starting material, and the secondary processing method combining equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) and heat treatment was adopted. Moreover, the effects of different processes (800 °C/850 °C solid solution-520 °C aging, ECAP-800 °C/850 °C solid solution-520 °C aging and 800 °C/850 °C solid solution-ECAP-520 °C aging) on the high temperature oxidation resistance of the material were studied with the help of scanning electron microscope (SEM), optical microscope (OM) and X-ray diffractometer (XRD). It was found that the phase composition of the samples after cyclic oxidation at a high temperature of 850 °C for 50 h is similar mainly TiO2, Al2O3, SiO2, MoO3 and Nb2O5. The grains of the TB8 titanium alloy treated with 850 °C solid solution-ECAP-520 °C aging treatment are obviously refined, and the surface microstructure is the most smooth and compact, forming a continuous Al2O3 protective film. The thickness of the oxide layer is the smallest (55.0 μm), which is only 28.45 %-39.29 % of that of other secondary processing titanium alloys. In addition, the average oxidation rate and parabolic rate constant of titanium alloy treated by 850 °C solid solution-ECAP-520 °C aging are the lowest, which are 0.0036 mg·cm-2·h-1 and 45.30 mg2·cm-4·h-1, respectively. The results show that the TB8 titanium alloy has the best high temperature oxidation resistance after 850 °C solid solution-ECAP-520 °C aging treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Comprehensive evaluation of lower-extremity varicose veins (VVs) in patients with diabetes is crucial for treatment strategizing. The study aims to assess the feasibility of using ferumoxytol-enhanced MR venography (FE-MRV) for lower-extremity venous mapping and the detection of VVs in patients with diabetes.As part of a phase II clinical trial of a generic brand of ferumoxytol, documented patients with diabetes were enrolled and underwent FE-MRV on a 3-Τ MRI system. Two observers assessed FE-MRV images for image quality, signal intensity ratio (SIR), perforator (PV) diameter, and luminal signal uniformity in deep-to-superficial venous networks with the assessment of intra- and inter-rater reliability. FE-MRV was used to detect lower-extremity VVs.Eleven patients underwent FE-MRV without adverse events. The average image quality, as scored by the two observers who assessed 275 venous segments, was 3.4 ± 0.6. Two observers strongly agreed on image quality (κ = 0.90) and SIR measurements (interclass correlation coefficient [ICC]: 0.72) and had good agreement on PV diameter (ICC: 0.64). FE-MRV revealed uniform luminal signals in deep and saphenous venous networks (0.13 ± 0.05 vs 0.08 ± 0.03). Below-knee segments exhibited a significantly higher heterogeneity index than above-knee (p = 0.039) segments. Superficial VVs were observed in 55% (12/22) of legs in 64% (7/11) of patients. Calf muscle VVs were present in 64% (14/22) of legs in 9 patients.FE-MRV safely and robustly mapped entire lower-extremity venous networks, enabling the detection and pre-treatment evaluation of both superficial, and deep VVs in patients with diabetes.Ferumoxytol-enhanced magnetic resonance venography offers a “one-stop” imaging strategy for the detection and pre-operative evaluation of both superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease.Materials and methods: Comprehensive evaluation of lower-extremity varicose veins (VVs) in patients with diabetes is crucial for treatment strategizing. The study aims to assess the feasibility of using ferumoxytol-enhanced MR venography (FE-MRV) for lower-extremity venous mapping and the detection of VVs in patients with diabetes.As part of a phase II clinical trial of a generic brand of ferumoxytol, documented patients with diabetes were enrolled and underwent FE-MRV on a 3-Τ MRI system. Two observers assessed FE-MRV images for image quality, signal intensity ratio (SIR), perforator (PV) diameter, and luminal signal uniformity in deep-to-superficial venous networks with the assessment of intra- and inter-rater reliability. FE-MRV was used to detect lower-extremity VVs.Eleven patients underwent FE-MRV without adverse events. The average image quality, as scored by the two observers who assessed 275 venous segments, was 3.4 ± 0.6. Two observers strongly agreed on image quality (κ = 0.90) and SIR measurements (interclass correlation coefficient [ICC]: 0.72) and had good agreement on PV diameter (ICC: 0.64). FE-MRV revealed uniform luminal signals in deep and saphenous venous networks (0.13 ± 0.05 vs 0.08 ± 0.03). Below-knee segments exhibited a significantly higher heterogeneity index than above-knee (p = 0.039) segments. Superficial VVs were observed in 55% (12/22) of legs in 64% (7/11) of patients. Calf muscle VVs were present in 64% (14/22) of legs in 9 patients.FE-MRV safely and robustly mapped entire lower-extremity venous networks, enabling the detection and pre-treatment evaluation of both superficial, and deep VVs in patients with diabetes.Ferumoxytol-enhanced magnetic resonance venography offers a “one-stop” imaging strategy for the detection and pre-operative evaluation of both superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease.Results: Comprehensive evaluation of lower-extremity varicose veins (VVs) in patients with diabetes is crucial for treatment strategizing. The study aims to assess the feasibility of using ferumoxytol-enhanced MR venography (FE-MRV) for lower-extremity venous mapping and the detection of VVs in patients with diabetes.As part of a phase II clinical trial of a generic brand of ferumoxytol, documented patients with diabetes were enrolled and underwent FE-MRV on a 3-Τ MRI system. Two observers assessed FE-MRV images for image quality, signal intensity ratio (SIR), perforator (PV) diameter, and luminal signal uniformity in deep-to-superficial venous networks with the assessment of intra- and inter-rater reliability. FE-MRV was used to detect lower-extremity VVs.Eleven patients underwent FE-MRV without adverse events. The average image quality, as scored by the two observers who assessed 275 venous segments, was 3.4 ± 0.6. Two observers strongly agreed on image quality (κ = 0.90) and SIR measurements (interclass correlation coefficient [ICC]: 0.72) and had good agreement on PV diameter (ICC: 0.64). FE-MRV revealed uniform luminal signals in deep and saphenous venous networks (0.13 ± 0.05 vs 0.08 ± 0.03). Below-knee segments exhibited a significantly higher heterogeneity index than above-knee (p = 0.039) segments. Superficial VVs were observed in 55% (12/22) of legs in 64% (7/11) of patients. Calf muscle VVs were present in 64% (14/22) of legs in 9 patients.FE-MRV safely and robustly mapped entire lower-extremity venous networks, enabling the detection and pre-treatment evaluation of both superficial, and deep VVs in patients with diabetes.Ferumoxytol-enhanced magnetic resonance venography offers a “one-stop” imaging strategy for the detection and pre-operative evaluation of both superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease.Conclusion: Comprehensive evaluation of lower-extremity varicose veins (VVs) in patients with diabetes is crucial for treatment strategizing. The study aims to assess the feasibility of using ferumoxytol-enhanced MR venography (FE-MRV) for lower-extremity venous mapping and the detection of VVs in patients with diabetes.As part of a phase II clinical trial of a generic brand of ferumoxytol, documented patients with diabetes were enrolled and underwent FE-MRV on a 3-Τ MRI system. Two observers assessed FE-MRV images for image quality, signal intensity ratio (SIR), perforator (PV) diameter, and luminal signal uniformity in deep-to-superficial venous networks with the assessment of intra- and inter-rater reliability. FE-MRV was used to detect lower-extremity VVs.Eleven patients underwent FE-MRV without adverse events. The average image quality, as scored by the two observers who assessed 275 venous segments, was 3.4 ± 0.6. Two observers strongly agreed on image quality (κ = 0.90) and SIR measurements (interclass correlation coefficient [ICC]: 0.72) and had good agreement on PV diameter (ICC: 0.64). FE-MRV revealed uniform luminal signals in deep and saphenous venous networks (0.13 ± 0.05 vs 0.08 ± 0.03). Below-knee segments exhibited a significantly higher heterogeneity index than above-knee (p = 0.039) segments. Superficial VVs were observed in 55% (12/22) of legs in 64% (7/11) of patients. Calf muscle VVs were present in 64% (14/22) of legs in 9 patients.FE-MRV safely and robustly mapped entire lower-extremity venous networks, enabling the detection and pre-treatment evaluation of both superficial, and deep VVs in patients with diabetes.Ferumoxytol-enhanced magnetic resonance venography offers a “one-stop” imaging strategy for the detection and pre-operative evaluation of both superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease.Clinical relevance statement: Comprehensive evaluation of lower-extremity varicose veins (VVs) in patients with diabetes is crucial for treatment strategizing. The study aims to assess the feasibility of using ferumoxytol-enhanced MR venography (FE-MRV) for lower-extremity venous mapping and the detection of VVs in patients with diabetes.As part of a phase II clinical trial of a generic brand of ferumoxytol, documented patients with diabetes were enrolled and underwent FE-MRV on a 3-Τ MRI system. Two observers assessed FE-MRV images for image quality, signal intensity ratio (SIR), perforator (PV) diameter, and luminal signal uniformity in deep-to-superficial venous networks with the assessment of intra- and inter-rater reliability. FE-MRV was used to detect lower-extremity VVs.Eleven patients underwent FE-MRV without adverse events. The average image quality, as scored by the two observers who assessed 275 venous segments, was 3.4 ± 0.6. Two observers strongly agreed on image quality (κ = 0.90) and SIR measurements (interclass correlation coefficient [ICC]: 0.72) and had good agreement on PV diameter (ICC: 0.64). FE-MRV revealed uniform luminal signals in deep and saphenous venous networks (0.13 ± 0.05 vs 0.08 ± 0.03). Below-knee segments exhibited a significantly higher heterogeneity index than above-knee (p = 0.039) segments. Superficial VVs were observed in 55% (12/22) of legs in 64% (7/11) of patients. Calf muscle VVs were present in 64% (14/22) of legs in 9 patients.FE-MRV safely and robustly mapped entire lower-extremity venous networks, enabling the detection and pre-treatment evaluation of both superficial, and deep VVs in patients with diabetes.Ferumoxytol-enhanced magnetic resonance venography offers a “one-stop” imaging strategy for the detection and pre-operative evaluation of both superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease.Key Points: Comprehensive evaluation of lower-extremity varicose veins (VVs) in patients with diabetes is crucial for treatment strategizing. The study aims to assess the feasibility of using ferumoxytol-enhanced MR venography (FE-MRV) for lower-extremity venous mapping and the detection of VVs in patients with diabetes.As part of a phase II clinical trial of a generic brand of ferumoxytol, documented patients with diabetes were enrolled and underwent FE-MRV on a 3-Τ MRI system. Two observers assessed FE-MRV images for image quality, signal intensity ratio (SIR), perforator (PV) diameter, and luminal signal uniformity in deep-to-superficial venous networks with the assessment of intra- and inter-rater reliability. FE-MRV was used to detect lower-extremity VVs.Eleven patients underwent FE-MRV without adverse events. The average image quality, as scored by the two observers who assessed 275 venous segments, was 3.4 ± 0.6. Two observers strongly agreed on image quality (κ = 0.90) and SIR measurements (interclass correlation coefficient [ICC]: 0.72) and had good agreement on PV diameter (ICC: 0.64). FE-MRV revealed uniform luminal signals in deep and saphenous venous networks (0.13 ± 0.05 vs 0.08 ± 0.03). Below-knee segments exhibited a significantly higher heterogeneity index than above-knee (p = 0.039) segments. Superficial VVs were observed in 55% (12/22) of legs in 64% (7/11) of patients. Calf muscle VVs were present in 64% (14/22) of legs in 9 patients.FE-MRV safely and robustly mapped entire lower-extremity venous networks, enabling the detection and pre-treatment evaluation of both superficial, and deep VVs in patients with diabetes.Ferumoxytol-enhanced magnetic resonance venography offers a “one-stop” imaging strategy for the detection and pre-operative evaluation of both superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease.Diabetic patients with VVs are at a higher risk of ulcer-related complications.FE-MRV allowed rapid and comprehensive visualization of the lower-limb venous networks and abdominopelvic veins in diabetic patients.This technique allowed for the detection of superficial and deep VVs in diabetic patients before the development of severe peripheral artery disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to overcome the dynamic and large-scale characteristics of the plant-wide processes, this paper proposed a distributed slow feature analysis (SFA) with inter-unit dissimilarity method for process monitoring task. Firstly, to highlight the local dynamic features, the whole process is decomposed into several units according to the prior knowledge. Based on this, SFA monitoring model is built parallelly to handle the dynamic features. Considering the possible information loss caused by the process decomposition, the inter-unit dissimilarity index is carried out to monitor the variations between adjacent units. Finally, the fusion center is conducted by Bayesian inference to combine the results of SFA monitoring models and inter-unit dissimilarity statistics. The effectiveness of the proposed method is tested on the Tennessee Eastman process and an aluminum electrolysis process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: The unique 0D-2D ZnS nanodots/Ti3C2Tx MXene hybrids with strong interfacial interaction enable to achieve stable cyclability and excellent rate performance for lithium storage. The lithium storage mechanism of ZnS is clarified and new insights into phase transition mechanism are proposed. The strong interfacial interaction between ZnS nanodots and MXene nanosheets at the ZnS-MXene heterointerface exhibits high lithium adsorption capability, enhanced interfacial electron transfer, and low lithium diffusion energy barrier.ZnS has great potentials as an anode for lithium storage because of its high theoretical capacity and resource abundance; however, the large volume expansion accompanied with structural collapse and low conductivity of ZnS cause severe capacity fading and inferior rate capability during lithium storage. Herein, 0D-2D ZnS nanodots/Ti3C2Tx MXene hybrids are prepared by anchoring ZnS nanodots on Ti3C2Tx MXene nanosheets through coordination modulation between MXene and MOF precursor (ZIF-8) followed with sulfidation. The MXene substrate coupled with the ZnS nanodots can synergistically accommodate volume variation of ZnS over charge–discharge to realize stable cyclability. As revealed by XPS characterizations and DFT calculations, the strong interfacial interaction between ZnS nanodots and MXene nanosheets can boost fast electron/lithium-ion transfer to achieve excellent electrochemical activity and kinetics for lithium storage. Thereby, the as-prepared ZnS nanodots/MXene hybrid exhibits a high capacity of 726.8 mAh g−1 at 30 mA g−1, superior cyclic stability (462.8 mAh g−1 after 1000 cycles at 0.5 A g−1), and excellent rate performance. The present results provide new insights into the understanding of the lithium storage mechanism of ZnS and the revealing of the effects of interfacial interaction on lithium storage performance enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upgradation of pyrolysis oil is a key process to achieve high-quality biofuel. In this study, the effects of different Ar pressures and H2/Ar ratios in the presence and absence of catalysts on deoxygenation of pyrolysis oil were investigated by autoclaving. When the initial pressure of the reaction is 6MPa and without catalyst addition, the content of carboxylic acid decreases from 51.52 to 41.54%, whereas with the addition of catalyst (10 % Ni/C), the deoxygenation and hydrocarbon content in the product were significantly improved. Hence, 6 MPa was found to be optimum and above which failed to induce such useful changes but can lead to lower high heating value (HHV). However, the presence of hydrogen affects the content of alkanes and olefins in the product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Live cell imaging with high spatiotemporal resolution and high detection sensitivity facilitates the study of the dynamics of cellular structure and function. However, extracting high-resolution 4D (3D space plus time) information from live cells remains challenging, because current methods are slow, require high peak excitation intensities or suffer from high out-of-focus background. Here we present 3D interferometric lattice light-sheet (3D-iLLS) imaging, a technique that requires low excitation light levels and provides high background suppression and substantially improved volumetric resolution by combining 4Pi interferometry with selective plane illumination. We demonstrate that 3D-iLLS has an axial resolution and single-particle localization precision of 100 nm (FWHM) and <10 nm (1σ), respectively. We illustrate the performance of 3D-iLLS in a range of systems: single messenger RNA molecules, nanoscale assemblies of transcription regulators in the nucleus, the microtubule cytoskeleton and mitochondria organelles. The enhanced 4D resolution and increased signal-to-noise ratio of 3D-iLLS will facilitate the analysis of biological processes at the sub-cellular level. New lattice light-sheet microscopy approach improves live cell imaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ice avalanches are one of the most devastating mountain hazards, and can pose a great risk to the security of the surrounding area. Although ice avalanches have been widely observed in mountainous regions around the world, only a few ice avalanche events have been studied comprehensively, due to the lack of available data. In this study, in response to the recent catastrophic rock-ice avalanche (7 February 2021) at Chamoli in the India Himalaya, we used high-resolution satellite images and found that this event was actually a glacier-rock landslide, where the collapse of the rock-ice body was caused by the sliding of the bedrock beneath the glacier, for which the source area and volume loss were about 2.89×105 m2 and 2.46×107 m3, respectively, corresponding to an average elevation change of about -85 m. Furthermore, visual analysis of the dense time-series satellite images shows that the overall downward sliding of the collapsed rock-ice body initiated around the summer of 2017, and thereafter exhibited clear seasonality (mainly in summer). Meteorological analysis reveals a strong rainfall anomaly in the initiation period of the sliding and a remarkable winter warming anomaly in the 40 days before the collapse. Comparisons of multi-temporal digital elevation models (DEMs) further suggest that the glacier geometry in the collapsed areas was likely changing (i.e., accelerated surface thinning in the lower part of the glaciers and insignificant change in the upper part), which is consistent with the region-wide climate warming. Finally, by combining the above findings and a geomorphic analysis, we conclude that the rock-ice avalanche event was mainly caused by the joint effects of climate and weather changes acting on a steeply sloping and fracture-prone geological condition. The findings of this study provide new and valuable evidence for the study of slope/glacier instability at high altitudes. This study also highlights that, for the Himalaya and other high mountain ranges, there is an urgent need to identify the glaciers that have a high risk of ice avalanches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid diagnosis of microorganisms and antibiotic resistance is vital for the appropriate treatment of patients with lower respiratory infections, especially for patients in Intensive Care Unit. We conducted a multicenter prospective study to evaluate the ability of the Unyvero pneumonia system for rapid detection from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) in China. Eighty-four patients with lower respiratory infections were enrolled, and their BALF samples were collected, and Unyvero, a rapid molecular diagnostic sample-to-answer solution based on multiple PCRs, was applied to detect 21 types of pathogens and 19 types of resistance markers, compared to a routine bacterial culture method. The overall concordance of Unyvero and routine culture was 69/84 (82.1%). Unyvero detected more microorganisms than routine culture (38.1% vs 27.4%, P<0.05) and reported multi-pathogens in more patients than routine culture (10.7% vs 2.4%, P=0.01). The overall sensitivity and specificity of Unyvero for bacteria detection were 84.0% and 98.0%. Besides, Unyvero showed a good performance for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, except Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The concordance was 87.5–100% for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and carbapenem-resistant isolates but was only 20–33.3% for Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The high-level semi-quantitative signal intensity of microorganisms detected positive by Unyvero correlates well with positive bacterial cultures. For specimens that were exposed to antibiotic treatment, the Unyvero pneumonia system showed a high concordance with routine bacterial culture and performs well for the detection of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, especially, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae. It shows promise in guiding the clinical use of antibiotics, such as ceftazidime/avibactam. However, the system needs improvement in detecting resistance markers of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of customer service management, classifying service dialogues to different business labels is beneficial for managers to improve their service quality. However, the size of labeled service dialogue dataset in real scenarios is usually small due to the expensive labeling cost, which makes it difficult to fully train the supervised classification models. Moreover, the service dialogue usually contains chitchat which can be regarded as the noise affecting the classification performance. Existing text classification methods fail to address above two issues simultaneously. Hence, in this paper, we propose a dialogue classification algorithm that strengthens the influence of the business-related utterances in the dialogue and use them as the key utterances to improve the classification. Firstly, we propose key utterance labels that can indicate which utterances in the dialogue are key utterances. Then, we propose the dialogue classification model that is based on the key utterance labels and logistic regression, namely KU-LR. The KU-LR can learn the key utterance patterns and increase the importance of key utterances in the dialogue, and then the KU-LR makes more accurate decisions for dialogue classification. The experimental results on real-world dataset show that the KU-LR method outperforms other baselines when the training dataset is small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Species delimitation is one of the most fundamental processes in biology. Biodiversity undertakings, for instance, require explicit species concepts and criteria for species delimitation in order to be relevant and translatable. However, a perfect species concept does not exist for Fungi. Here, we review the species concepts commonly used in Basidiomycota, the second largest phylum of Fungi that contains some of the best known species of mushrooms, rusts, smuts, and jelly fungi. In general, best practice is to delimitate species, publish new taxa, and conduct taxonomic revisions based on as many independent lines of evidence as possible, that is, by applying a so-called unifying (or integrative) conceptual framework. However, the types of data used vary considerably from group to group. For this reason we discuss the different classes of Basidiomycota, and for each provide: (i) a general introduction with difficulties faced in species recognition, (ii) species concepts and methods for species delimitation, and (iii) community recommendations and conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/purpose: Overt hepatic encephalopathy (HE) risk should be preoperatively predicted to identify patients suitable for curative transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) instead of palliative treatments. Methods: A total of 185 patients who underwent TIPS procedure were randomised (130 in the training dataset and 55 in the validation dataset). Clinical factors and imaging characteristics were assessed. Three different models were established by logistic regression analyses based on clinical factors (ModelC), imaging characteristics (ModelI), and a combination of both (ModelCI). Their discrimination, calibration, and decision curves were compared, to identify the best model. Subgroup analysis was performed for the best model. Results: ModelCI, which contained two clinical factors and two imaging characteristics, was identified as the best model. The areas under the curve of ModelC, ModelI, and ModelCI were 0.870, 0.963, and 0.978 for the training dataset and 0.831, 0.971, and 0.969 for the validation dataset. The combined model outperformed the clinical and imaging models in terms of calibration and decision curves. The performance of ModelCI was not influenced by total bilirubin, Child–Pugh stages, model of end-stage liver disease score, or ammonia. The subgroup with a risk score ≥ 0.88 exhibited a higher proportion of overt HE (training dataset: 13.3% vs. 97.4%, p < 0.001; validation dataset: 0.0% vs. 87.5%, p < 0.001). Conclusion: Our combination model can successfully predict the risk of overt HE post-TIPS. For the low-risk subgroup, TIPS can be performed safely; however, for the high-risk subgroup, it should be considered more carefully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TB8 (Ti-13.58Mo-2.15Nb-3.27A1-0.21Si) is a metastable β titanium alloy with excellent mechanical properties. In this paper, TiC/TB8 and TiC + TiB/TB8 titanium matrix composites (TMCs) were prepared by spark plasma sintering (SPS). In addition, the cyclic oxidation interval measurement method was used to compare the high-temperature oxidation behavior of TB8 titanium alloys with different volume fractions of TiC and TiC + TiB reinforced TB8 composites. Studies have shown that after cyclic oxidation at 800 °C for 100 h, the oxidation law of TB8 is a mixture of linear and parabolic, while TMC1 (2.5 vol.% TiC), TMC3 (5 vol.% TiC) and TMC4 (3.5 vol.% TiC + 3.5 vol.% TiB) oxidation mainly follows the parabolic law. Moreover, the oxidation weight gain of TB8 after oxidation is as high as 9.83 mg/cm2, while the oxidation weight gain of TMC1, TMC3 and TMC4 is only 5.95 mg/cm2, 6.81 mg/cm2 and 2.83 mg/cm2. It shows that during the entire oxidation process, the order of excellent high-temperature oxidation resistance is TMC4 > TMC1 > TMC3 > TB8. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drying shrinkage of soil contaminated by alkaline solutions in ecologically fragile areas is a key issue that affects the strength, stability, and permeability of contaminated soil. Reinforcement with polypropylene fibers is a common physical treatment method. This paper presents experimental investigations of the shear strength, permeability, formation, and development of desiccation cracks in sodic soil with four different contents of polypropylene fibers: 0%, 2%, 4%, and 8%. The shear strength and permeability coefficient were tested by the SLB-1 triaxial shear permeability tester. Meanwhile, a series of crack images and water content evolution were obtained during free desiccation tests with self-designed monitoring equipment. The dynamic changes in the cracks are then quantitatively analyzed by using digital image processing and geographic information system (GIS) analysis. The experimental results show that shear strength increases and permeability coefficient decreases with the increase of fiber content. The evaporation process with different polypropylene fiber contents has three stages, namely, Stages I, II, and III that are in accordance with the slope of the evaporation curve. However, the polypropylene fiber content has little effect on the total duration of crack development. The crack development process has three stages. The crack ratio, fractal dimension, and average width decrease as the polypropylene fiber content increases. The fractal dimension gradually and linearly increases with time. The fractal dimensions of the cracks are reduced with increased polypropylene fiber content, which indicates that polypropylene fibers can inhibit the development of soil cracking. Because the elastic modulus of the fibers is very high, it is difficult for the fibers to be pulled out from the soil during cracking. Therefore, friction is produced at the interface between the fibers and soil particles, which can inevitably inhibit the relative sliding of the fibers and share the tensile stress caused by the structural shrinkage in the soil. Therefore, polypropylene fibers can dramatically improve the stability and integrity of soil, similar to a "bridge." In conclusion, these research results provide an important explanation for dealing with alkali-contaminated foundations and soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) is a significant nosocomial infection; data on the distribution and antimicrobial resistance profiles of HAP in China are limited. We included 2827 adult patients with HAP from the Chinese Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance of Nosocomial Infections network admitted in 15 Chinese teaching hospitals between 2007 and 2016. Clinical data and antimicrobial susceptibility of isolated pathogens were obtained from the medical records and central laboratory, respectively. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to determine the risk factors for mortality and multidrug resistance (MDR). A total of 386 (13.7%) patients died in the hospital, while 1181 (41.8%) developed ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). Active immunosuppressant therapy (OR 1.915 (95% CI 1.475–2.487)), solid tumor (OR 1.860 (95% CI 1.410–2.452)), coma (OR 1.783 (95% CI 1.364–2.333)), clinical pulmonary infection score ≥7 (OR 1.743 (95% CI 1.373–2.212)), intensive care unit stay (OR 1.652 (95% CI 1.292–2.111)), age ≥65 years (OR 1.621 (95% CI 1.282–2.049)), and tracheal cannula insertion (OR 1.613 (95% CI 1.169–2.224)) were independent risk factors for in-hospital mortality. Liver cirrhosis (OR 3.120 (95% CI 1.436–6.780)) and six other variables were independent predictors of MDR. Acinetobacter baumannii (25.6%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (20.1%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (15.4%), and Staphylococcus aureus (12.6%) were the most common pathogens (MDR prevalence 64.9%). Isolates from VAP patients showed more A. baumannii and less K. pneumoniae and E. coli strains (p < 0.001, respectively) than those from patients without VAP. The proportion of methicillin-resistant S. aureus strains decreased; that of carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii and Enterobacterales strains increased. There had been changes in the antibiotic resistance profiles of HAP pathogens in China. Risk factors for mortality and MDR are important for the selection of antimicrobials for HAP in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the utilization efficiency of coal by microorganisms and increase gas production, ultrasound assisted hydrogen peroxide oxidation of lignite was studied. The changes of accumulated gas, methane content, carbon dioxide content, and fluorescence characteristics of intermediate products in lignite and oxidized lignite system were studied by drainage gas gathering method, gas chromatography (GC) and fluorescence spectrophotometer. It was found that the cumulative gas could be divided into three stages: rapid gas production, slow gas production, and basic stable stage. The methane production rate of raw coal and lignite treated by ultrasound assisted hydrogen peroxide reached 987.23 μmol/g and 1290.22 μmol/g, respectively. The methane yield for oxidized lignite was 30.69% higher than that of raw lignite. The ultrasonic-assisted hydrogen peroxide pretreatment for lignite could effectively increase methane production. The analysis results of the fluorescence characteristics of the intermediates indicated that the total fluorescence intensity (FI) integral of intermediates decreased with the increase of time. The fluorescence peak positions mainly changed in tyrosine aromatic proteins and soluble microbial metabolites. Ultrasound-assisted hydrogen peroxide pretreatment lignite changed the amount of tyrosine-based aromatic proteins, hydrophobic organic acid fulvic acid, humic acids, and soluble microbial metabolites in the slow and stable stages of lignite biogas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rationale for the antibiotic treatment of viral community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in adults was analyzed to develop a clinical reference standard for this condition. Clinical data from 166 patients diagnosed with viral pneumonia across 14 hospitals in Beijing from November 2010 to December 2017 were collected. The indications for medications were evaluated, and the rationale for the use of antibiotics was analyzed. A total of 163 (98.3%) patients with viral pneumonia were treated with antibiotics. A combination of C-reactive protein (CRP) and procalcitonin (PCT) was used as markers to analyze the possible indications for antibiotic use. With threshold levels set at 0.25 µg/L for PCT and 20 mg/L for CRP, the rate of unreasonable use of antibiotics was 55.2%. By contrast, at a CRP level threshold of 60 mg/L, the rate of antibiotic misuse was 77.3%. A total of 39 of the 163 (23.9%) patients did not meet the guidelines for drug selection for viral CAP in adults. The unreasonable use of antibacterial drugs for the treatment of viral CAP in adults is a serious concern. Clinicians must reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) are associated with increased thrombotic events. Our previous case–control study showed low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) was an independent predictor of ischemic stroke in AF patients. To investigate the risks of thrombosis in relation to LDL-C among AF patients at different stroke risks by long-time follow-up. Atrial fibrillation patients without history of thrombosis enrolled from five hospitals were classified into low-risk (LR) and high-risk (HR) group according to CHA2DS2VASc score and followed up with a median period of 26 months. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed in each group. The best cut-off value calculated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to divide patients into low LDL-C (L-LDL) and high LDL-C (H-LDL) subgroups. Propensity score matching (PSM) and inverse probability of treatment weighted (IPTW) were utilized in both subgroups, after which Kaplan–Meier curves for thrombosis were performed. Univariate and multivariate analysis showed LDL-C was significantly related to thrombosis in LR, but less significantly in HR group. The best cut-off value was 2.155 mmol/L in LR and 2.795 mmol/L in HR group. Lower LDL-C was associated with decreased thrombosis in both groups by PSM and IPTW. Kaplan–Meier curves displayed that H-LDL subgroup was at higher thrombosis risk with significant difference at 24th month in LR patients. LDL-C independently predicts thrombosis with different cut-off values in AF patients at different risks. A stricter control of LDL-C level is necessary for thrombosis reduction in patients with lower score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its significant economic and environmental impact, sharing the ride among a number of drivers (i.e., car pooling) has recently gained significant interest from industry and academia. Hence, a number of ride sharing services have appeared along with various algorithms on how to match a rider request to a driver who can provide the ride sharing service. However, existing techniques have several limitations that affect the quality of the ride sharing service, and hence hinder its wide applicability. This paper proposes SHAREK*; a scalable and efficient ride sharing service that overcomes the limitations of existing approaches. SHAREK* allows riders requesting the ride sharing service to indicate the maximum price they are willing to pay for the service, the maximum waiting time before being picked up and the maximum arrival time for arriving the destination. In the mean time, SHAREK* computes the price of the service based on the distance of the rider trip and the detour that the driver will make to offer the service. Then, SHAREK* returns a set of drivers that can make it to the rider within its price and temporal constraints. Since there could be many of such drivers, SHAREK* internally prunes those drivers that are dominated by others, i.e., they provide higher price and higher waiting time (or arrival time) than other drivers. To realize its efficiency and scalability, SHAREK* employs a set of early pruning techniques that minimize the need for any actual shortest path computations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possible effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) or angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) on COVID-19 disease severity have generated considerable debate. We performed a single-center, retrospective analysis of hospitalized adult COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China, who had definite clinical outcome (dead or discharged) by February 15, 2020. Patients on anti-hypertensive treatment with or without ACEI/ARB were compared on their clinical characteristics and outcomes. The medical records from 702 patients were screened. Among the 101 patients with a history of hypertension and taking at least one anti-hypertensive medication, 40 patients were receiving ACEI/ARB as part of their regimen, and 61 patients were on antihypertensive medication other than ACEI/ARB. We observed no statistically significant differences in percentages of in-hospital mortality (28% vs. 34%, P = 0.46), ICU admission (20% vs. 28%, P = 0.37) or invasive mechanical ventilation (18% vs. 26%, P = 0.31) between patients with or without ACEI/ARB treatment. Further multivariable adjustment of age and gender did not provide evidence for a significant association between ACEI/ARB treatment and severe COVID-19 outcomes. Our findings confirm the lack of an association between chronic receipt of renin-angiotensin system antagonists and severe outcomes of COVID-19. Patients should continue previous anti-hypertensive therapy until further evidence is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]